Social Media FAQ

As a company, we recently gathered and combined all of the frequently asked questions about new media PR and social media we are commonly asked and composed the answers.

We have found there is a lot of confusion among companies on the use of social media, what the ROI is and how a company can effectively leverage these tools as a strategy to improve their bottom-line.

Here are the answers to the questions - http://www.richter10point2.com/faq/

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how we can help develop a new media PR strategy for your company, please get in touch anytime.

Now is the time to step up the attention your company is getting and attract interest to build reach and sales. A comprehensive new media PR strategy that is well coordinated and executed will out-perform any other option out there. We look forward to hearing from you.

 

-Richter10.2 Media Group

The Fundamental Change

Currently the marketing, PR and advertising world is experiencing one of the most dramatic evolutions over the past 100 – 200 years in what traditionally were “tried and true” methods.

I am not sure too many people and professionals fully understand this. I deal with many companies, CEO’s and CMO’s on a daily basis and across the board there seems to be some level of awkwardness and discomfort with the rapid changes.

Over the past 100 to 200 years there have been very workable and fundamental ideas related to how marketing, PR and advertising basically worked and reached a specific audience. There were specific rules and methods to execute strategies that had workable formulas such as positioning, how to write ad copy, how to grab attention via posters, billboards and TV commercials etc. Basic marketing fundamentals like what the typical percent of response will be from a marketing campaign via direct mail, etc.

While all these methodologies worked extremely well all the way up to close to now, unbelievably…. they no longer do. These methods and ideas have run their course and have essentially gone through the stages of infancy from the beginning idea to maturity to dated and now obsolete. It’s incredible to even think about and seasoned professionals clearly seem uncomfortable about it. Speaking to an experienced CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) who wants to still work off of, and hang on to, these old ideas can be rather frustrating as they try to apply something that is obsolete to a new way of thinking.

So what is relevant?

With New Media (social media, etc.) the way to communicate and engage an audience is different. It’s a conversation. It’s on-going and most of how the audience wants to be reached or is receptive to is being decided by the audience – not the marketing, advertising or PR firm. This is a very authentic and transparent approach. We aren’t trying to “spin” a story, we aren’t trying to scream a message and button at the audience to get a response and we aren’t trying to have the audience see a message 7-9 times so they will “act” So what are we trying to do?

We are focused on using new media tools (social media) as a platform to communicate with a specific target audience geared toward your company and use PR to build relations (relationships) with that target audience in order to spark conversations, increase word of mouth, generate buzz and result in interest and reach for the companies’ products or services via acceptance from that target audience.

We are authentically reaching out to get involved with the audience and make a company known to them to build awareness, brand loyalty and stay on the target audiences radar to in turn increase the sales and revenue.

I am sure you would agree that people are more inclined to do business with companies they:

1. Know
2. Like
3. Feel Comfortable With
4. Trust
5. Have a Relationship

Think this through for a second; think of a company you do business with or a person you do business with and then think about why? I am betting it’s because you know them or have a relationship with them or you personally like them or trust them. These ideas are the very essence of why new media (social media) is so powerful. It aligns with the basic way people buy and how sales typically occur.

Now I am not at all talking about spamming people on social media sites or being the “salesperson” that annoys everyone on Facebook! The idea here is to make it natural and in a PR way encompasses engagement, conversations, building new connections, making yourself known and ultimately building real relationships from a given target audience that is desirable to your company that will result in interest in reach for the company and therefore sales and revenue.

It’s not easy. It takes time and knowhow, but, when done correctly, it’s the most effective strategy you, or your company, could possibly apply in today’s market – just ask the audience!

Which Social Media Sites Should I be On?

This is absolutely a personal decision and will vary depending on who you are and who you are trying to reach. For instance, a band and a stock broker could equally benefit from Social Media, but would use different sites and methods to do so.

The first key point in choosing which sites to use is deciding exactly what you want to share and who you want to share it with.

Next, you should think with comprehensive profiles and the four main types of content you will be sharing: video, photo, status messages and blog posts. Ideally, you would incorporate each of these regularly into your Social Media presence and plan to have a presence on at least one site that specializes in each. Following this, a simple yet extremely effective strategy would be to have a Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and Twitter account, as well as a blog, in your Social Media Campaign.

Lastly, you have to know how much time you can allot to your Social Media efforts.

It is vital to plan the size of your Social Media presence according to what you can comfortably maintain. It is exponentially better to have some key sites always up-to-date than many that are outdated.

Although it is the case that sometimes updating your network can fall to the bottom of the to-do list, in order to be successful at all, you have to keep your profiles up-to-date. Therefore, it is a great idea to make Social Media part of your daily routine, just like checking your emails. If you can only allot 15 minutes each day, realize that 40 different profiles to update is not for you.

So, with a little research and following the three simple points above, you can choose the correct sites that will give you the greatest chance of success.

Twitter PR

The buzz around Twitter is spectacular!! Everywhere I turn I hear about it….

What have they done to accomplish this? Well here is what has not been done:

-No marketing campaign

-No advertising campaign

Twitter has one of the best PR campaigns I have ever seen…. word of mouth and buzz which has rapidly build interest, reach and users!! The real estate value of Twitter must be going through the roof by the day!

This shows how you can use social media communications and tools like Twitter to get people talking and create buzz that can be targeted to an audience and result in huge amounts of demand, interest and reach.

If used effectively, any company can benefit from this exact strategy t0 generate reach, sales and revenue. PR is what does it.

Best

-Robert Cornish

Mike Bloomberg and Social Media Strategies

Mike Bloomberg and Social Media Strategies

I recently noticed that Mike Bloomberg is using a strong social media strategy much like what Barack Obama applies to run again for Mayor of New York.

If you take a look at his new website http://mikebloomberg.com you will see that he has a very aesthetic look to it, clean and simple. There is nice use of video front and center which most people will gravitate to. Then if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and YouTube links. If you click on the links you will see they all have the same looks and feel and branding done. This is a great example of how to promote in this day and age.

It comes down to viewership and users, for example, how many people watch the superbowl each year? and how much does it cost to have a TV commercial during those hours? The value of viewership is incredible and social media is doing the same thing. There are 175 million users on Facebook alone today with 300,000 plus joining per day. That is a lot of people to get in front of making the value of viewership go up by the day.

If one were to effectively use these tools to find their target audience, make themselves known to that audience and get in front of that audience to create interest and reach, that becomes incredibly useful to any business large and small. Why do companies pay for huge billboards? or TV commercials? or full page magazine ads? Eyes on the screen or page….viewership….attention….interest….reach….sales and finally….revenue! Barack Obama realized this and look at the results, the movie industry has realized this and now all movie trailers come neatly packaged with “follow us on Twitter” “Friend us on MySpace” “Become a Fan on Facebook” “Share on Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon” etc. and now Mike Bloomberg is doing the same to forward his message, reach his target audience and stay in front of the crowd to interest and get reach as well as ignite conversation….smart.

A facebook page or any other social media page is useless…. unless you USE it fully and strategically to capture your target audience and draw them in to create interest and generate reach.

Best Robert Cornish http://whywebpr.com/robertcornish http://richter10point2.com

Recessions were scary in 1929…. but 2009?

So there has been a lot of buzz about this “recession” lately…. now if it were 1929…I might be seriously scared….but it’s not, it’s 2009 and we are a technology world. Speed is everything, communication is everything and we now have blogs, Blackberry’s to conduct business at rapid speeds, cell phones, smart phones, email, Twitter and on and on. 

Things are moving at such a pace that even a “recessionary” period will be short. What might have taken 3 years in 1929 now only takes 3 months and in the case of this “recession” I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if it was completely over in a year with the market bustling.

We are in an emerging technology market right now, social media, web 2.0 etc. Only good things lie ahead and if you are anything like me… you probably don’t have a lot of patience which means we will invent some way to quickly rebound from the “recession” and get the show on the road. 

I don’t know about you but for me, it’s business as usual and the greatest opportunity in a lifetime is happening now so I plan on expanding and taking advantage of it.

I welcome your thoughts about how you truly feel about this “recession”, has it really affected you or your business in any way? Technology has created wonders for us in which we can communicate instantaneously, do business globally and expand rapidly as well as change markets on a whim. Feel free to send me your thought on this to my email, robert@richter10point2.com

Do well in 2009…..the marketplace is wide open for you to prosper!

Best regards

Robert Cornish

whywebpr.com/robertcornish

Online Crisis Management

With the world moving in herds online to research companies and use the internet for every aspect of their lives, the importance of managing what the internet says about your company has escalated to an all new level.

Should anything negative happen regarding your company, client complaint, upset shareholders, lawsuits etc, a strong crisis management campaign executed online can control what is said about your company and furthermore reduce damage and lost profit. 

Online crisis management is a series of actions taken to build a campaign that positively promotes your company in sufficient quantity that negative information ends up being buried in the Google search. The best strategy is a proactive one which means that a campaign put in place before anything ever happens is the absolute best method to control your companies online PR and defend from any possible negative attacks.

No company regardless of size or reputation is above taking the necessary actions to see that they are in control of their online PR and they remain in control of it. 

Some of the most trusted companies in history have recently been attacked due to this financial crisis which puts them in a situation of trying to reduce the damage and re-gain their investors confidence. Many will be searching online for information about them and when one see’s results along the lines of “fraud” “lawsuit” “class action” etc these words scare the average investors which results in lost confidence and lost revenue to that company.

So the solution is to have a very strong online presence, well executed Web PR campaign and excellent management of that campaign on an on-going basis to see that companies reputation is stellar online that positively promotes that company as well as provides information that represents what you would want your target public to see.

For more information about Web PR visit www.richter10point2.com

Robert Cornish

Client Acquisition…..

There are many many ways to acquire new clients as a company, some difficult that require a lot of effort and persistence and some methods can be very effortless if done smartly and strategically.

I wanted to mention a few of the latter….

Here is a first thought, if you are trying to acquire new clients, the first step in doing so is name out who your target public actually is. In other words, who typically buys your product or service. This will be your easiest sale and most likely to buy. This is an important step if you want to make your life easier as it applies to sales. So here are few items to think about and use…

People like to do business with who they know, which means if they know you because you are neighbors or you went to high school together then the chances of them using you for a service or to buy product that they actually need are much greater. Just think about every time you purchased something, if you know a dentist and you need your teeth cleaned, chances are you are going to call the person you know. So with that said, there are ways to use this strategy online to become someone your target public “knows”. How about the many social media sites, by having your bio, picture and info about yourself etc, once you make connections, people feel they know you and will be more inclined to go to you for what they need.

Another item to think about is the fact of how many people there are in the world that most likely need your product or service but never buy from you simply on the basis that they don’t know about you and have never heard about you. There is millions of potential clients out there for your product or service yet they will never buy from you because you are unknown to them. So how can you make yourself known to this huge pool of potential buyers? Well, for starters I am guessing that every person you know has a computer and has an internet connection which means they are all online. With that said, all you have to do is figure out how to harness the vast reach of the internet to be able to make yourself known and to get in front or introduced to these people. That’s it!! Just make your product or service known to your potential public using the huge reach and easy access of the internet and drive sales through the roof.

The key objective for any company is to make relations with your target public in order to control and increase revenue growth. Don’t waste time on people who are never going to need or buy your service or product, make relations with your target public to introduce yourself and create huge amounts of sales opportunities. 

Now, you can go about it in a passive manner (ads, keywords etc) and hope that someone types in the correct keyword or clicks on your ad that hopefully caught their attention so they can land on your site and hopefully call you. Or you can take an ACTIVE approach to prospecting and go out and find your target public demographic online, make an introduction, build relations and create reaches that results in sales for your company. Go and find the business, make your product or service known and get reaches to sell. Simple. 

In order to execute the above steps, it is vitally important to use all of the tools and methods available today to broadly get attention, make yourself known and be visible online as well as actively using the tools to find your target public to make relations with. 

Go out and get the business and take an active approach to boosting your sales!

Robert Cornish

Managing Director

Richter10.2 Media Group

www.richter10point2.com

The movie promotion strategy…

I was just reading several different magazines that all had the same person in each magazine and while reading I thought about the different demographics of each magazine. I was wondering why this particular celebrity was in the magazine I was reading because it didn’t seem to relate; and then it occurred to me that the strategy is to gain the attention of every single media outlet and demographic to promote their new and upcoming movie.

I realize this may sound like a “no brainer” sort of speak however I hadn’t thought of it before. I am now thinking about what a brilliant strategy Hollywood applies to promote their new up and coming movies and how they seem to be absolutely recession proof. Take a look at it yourself and you can start to think about how you are currently promoting your company in comparison to how you SHOULD be promoting your company….on a Hollywood scale!!!

Let’s look at it for a minute, here are some of the strategies Hollywood applies to promote a new movie:

• An article with the lead actor in the movie in every single magazine they can be featured in
• Newspaper articles, reviews and advertisements
• Billboards
• Park Benches
• Postcards
• TV Commercials
• Internet Banners
• Websites
• MySpace
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Posters on the side of buses
• Taxi cab signs on top
• Posters in movie theaters
• Trailers on every media rich site online

Just think for a second if you didn’t think about how much this all costs but what it would mean to your company and your bottom-line. Imagine creating this level of attention and controlling all of these medias to generate interest in your company. 

This level of promotion would drive in sales and revenue on a massive scale. Now, take a second and look at what you are currently doing to promote your company, really look at it. How are you promoting? 

Now although you may not be able to afford the same strategy Hollywood applies to promoting new movies, there are ways to gain a massive amount of attention and promote your company online that serve the same purpose and cost a fraction in comparison. While the entire world is going online for everything they need both business and personal, it is absolutely vital to utilize the internet to promote your company and get the attention needed to drive in sales and boost revenue. 

Take a full Web PR strategy as an example, this can include:

• Company blogs

• Articles

• Web Video

• Press Releases

• Communication tools

• Social Media outlets

• Press Kits

• RSS Feeds

This is just to name a few, now imagine if your company had a thorough quality Web PR campaign strategy that put your company name in a huge amount of pockets online to dramatically increase attention and actively make your company known which resulted in generating interest, reaches, sales and revenue. 

What is your online strategy now? Do you have a campaign in place? 

When there are little or big dips in the economy, the safest path to surviving is to dramatically increase your promotional actions that help to increase your sales actions and steadily increase your revenue. I realize that most people start cutting back and contracting their promotion efforts but those same people typically go out of business all together. 

From recent news I have read on some of the latest movies, Iron Man ($314M Gross), Indiana Jones ($317M Gross) and Tropic Thunder ($120M Gross), it doesn’t appear that the economy has affected Hollywood in any way which leads me to the idea of promoting your company on a Hollywood scale to gain a massive amount of attention and generate interest to drive in sales and run revenue through the roof while sailing your way through the “bad economy”

By Robert Cornish

Managing Director of Richter10.2 Media Group

www.whywebpr.com

It’s time to look at how you are going about generating new clients…

More and more I have been running into clients who are running into problems with their promotional strategies to drive in new business. I spoke to a business owner last week who was spending $5000-$6000 per month of marketing, postcards and radio and is getting little to no return.

 

I can’t help but scratch my head and wonder why anyone continues to pay huge amounts of money on loss leader advertising and marketing campaigns with little to no net results.

 

The only way that I know of that any sale is made is through generating interest which is the result of being able to effectively “get in front” of a prospective client either through a phone call, referral, email or in person meeting and introduction. So the idea is, how do you get in front of your target prospects to make an introduction and gain interest in your product or service?

 

If you really look at it, the majority of all business owner and potential buyers are currently online so this accounts for a massive public to go after. The fact is that the internet is one huge networking and prospecting pool! Why bother looking elsewhere? Your prospective clients are online and the only reason they are not buying your product or service is because they don’t know about you yet!

 

By effectively using the internet in every aspect, you could have more business than you know what to do with. Your problem won’t be prospects but how to organize them and service them. 

The only two things you should be focused on when it comes to bringing in new prospects to sell are generating massive attention online to promote and gain interest and get your salespeople to sell to all of these prospects!! Simple!

 

Forget the other options and forms of “promotion”, your future clients are online, every one of them. Get their attention and interest them in what you offer and your really won’t have a “lack of business” or “lack of sales” problem.

 

Robert Cornish

www.whywebpr.com

robert@richter10point2.com