Category: Social Media + Influencer Engagement

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 27

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Raleigh PR Agency, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , ,

Late Thursday night Twitter’s Personalization and Recommender Systems Chief, Pankaj Gupta, tweeted, “Search & discovery in @twitter set to change forever after tmrw.” What were these big changes for Twitter that Gupta was referring? According to Mashable, these changes can fall into three categories:

1. Twitter’s slow and primitive search feature has finally been updated to work a lot closer to Google’s instant-like guessing. The new search autocomplete will guess the most likely terms for your entry as you type, and let you select one of the choices from a drop-down menu before you finish typing. How does this help us PR people? Well, besides making our lives easier, it’s especially helpful for trying to follow the hashtag for an event or conversation, according to engineer Frost Li on the Twitter blog. In addition, search autocomplete will also now correct your spelling for common search terms with similar letters.

2. What’s more? Twitter is now more useful when searching for terms, hashtags and accounts. Again, this is a benefit for PR people trying to follow a trend, conversation or hashtag for a client. Now, if you search for a hashtag, which may also be associated with multiple different terms, the search “will provide relevant suggestions for terms where the majority of that conversation is happening on Twitter,” said Li.

3. Lastly, instead of being forced to scroll through irrelevant accounts and tweets to find what you are searching for, the new search function allows you to narrow it down to “click on tweets from people you follow.” In other words, if you want to, this function now allows you to search only among your direct group of connections on Twitter.

Is anyone else thinking, “Well, about time!” Until now, Twitter’s search function was so poor, I often turned to Google to search for accounts and topics on Twitter! Hopefully after these changes, I will stop having to leave Twitter to search for something on Twitter, just to go back to Twitter once I have found it. Sound convoluted? It was! Let’s hope these changes make our lives easier!

 

 

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 25

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Public Relations, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , ,

You’ve seen me write about it before, and you’ll see me write about it again – Pinterest. I love it and can’t get enough of it. While this site has been invaluable to me in finding delicious recipes for food that I really shouldn’t eat, shopping for clothing that I never can afford and planning for a wedding that definitely does not exist, I’m obliged to acknowledge that Pinterest has many, many other uses as well – mainly the still raw potential for Pinterest for businesses.

If you read my blog last week (or if you are an avid pinner), then you too know the ever-growing power of Pinterest. Here’s a little recap:

  • It was launched 25 months ago
  • There are now 10 million people pinning
  • There are roughly four million unique visits to the site each day
  • In February, Pinterest secured 10 million unique monthly visits faster than any other social network…ever. (Yes, that means Facebook too.)

Those are impressive statistics, especially when you start thinking about how to tap into this resource to benefit your brand. With Pinterest projected to account for 40 percent of all social media driven purchases, this site is especially beneficial for online retailers. And that’s exactly why we’ve been in discussions with several of our clients recently about incorporating Pinterest into an overall communications strategy. Just today our team brainstormed ideas about how to encourage a client’s customers to use Pinterest to help them become better educated shoppers while showcasing the company’s products.

Wondering if Pinterest is a viable social media channel for your brand? Check out Dana’s recent post How Pinterest Should Influence Your Marketing Spend: 3 Tips, and let us know if you have questions, We’d be happy to help!

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Days 23 and 24

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , , 1 Comment on My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Days 23 and 24

When managing a brand’s Facebook page, it’s an ever-constant battle to try and secure the most likes, comments, shares, clicks and overall engagement. We craft our posts with cute and witty writing and riddle the copy with calls-to-action in an attempt to win our fans’ attention. But, a new study by a social media measuring tool called Sotrender has found that calls-to-action like “watch”, “like”, “look” and “click” are not significantly helping us win the war with fan engagement. Analysts studied 111 UK Facebook pages with more than 2,800 different posts from four different industries – food and beverage, clothing, automotive and cosmetics and hygiene. Here’s what they found:

We are “desensitized” to calls-to-action words. Fans see words like “watch”, “like”, “look” and “click” so often in wall posts that they barely notice, let alone abide by them. In fact, words even like “win” barely increase engagement or buzz among fans anymore. (Only in the cosmetics and hygiene category of the analyzed pages did the analysts see the words “win”, “get” or “on sale” boost any significant fan interaction.)

Even posts with words like “win” don’t secure the most fan engagement.

It’s ok – spill your feelings. Facebook pages of food and beverage brands garner the most fan interaction when their posts refer to emotions. Words like “love”, “like”, “good”, “favorite” and “happy” earned the highest rates of user engagement, while clothing brand pages gained the most interaction from trends-related words like “fashion”, “style”, and “collection.”

Skip the link. This stuffy found that posts containing links brought fan engagement below average. Try to avoid the “www”, “http”, “.com” or “blog” words.

Photos > Words. Witty prose and insightful questions won’t cut it when it comes to engaging fans. Posts with photos garner more fan comments than posts simply asking a question. Follow the example of clothing store Topshop. In this study, only the brand’s 25th most popular post even contained words.

A picture is worth a thousand words…or at least worth 57 percent more likes and seven times more comments!

Any of this information come as a shock to you? We’d love to hear your feedback on how to secure the most fan interaction!

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My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 21

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , ,

It is as simple as this: “Storify helps its users tell stories by curating social media.” I just stumbled across the social media tool Storify, and at first, the concept didn’t seem too helpful. But, now the different possibilities for Storify seem pretty interesting. Here is an abridged version of how Storify explains its (free!) service:

Use Storify to introduce social stories.

  • Storify lets you curate social networks to build social stories, bringing together media scattered across the Web into a coherent narrative, creating a new media format that is interactive, dynamic and social.

Or, use Storify to create your own story.

  • Search for social media elements — In the Storify editor, you can search social media networks to find media elements about the topic you want to Storify. Look through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram and more to gather material for your stories.
  • Curate the elements — Drag and drop status updates, photos or videos to bring together the social media elements that will best illustrate your story. Your story is always editable, so you can pull in the latest from the social web.
  • Write your own narrative — A Storify story is more than just a collection of elements from social media. You can write a headline, introduction and insert text anywhere inside your story. You can add headers, hyperlinks and styled text. Build a narrative and give context to your readers.

One of the best opportunities for Storify is the ease for a story to go viral. More than just about pulling information from different social networks, Storify helps you create a story in one central place while including, quoting and linking all of the people involved, making each individual person part of something larger. Further more, these stories are easy to share and can be embedded anywhere on the web.

Check out this example of a Storify CBC News created about a Coca-Cola Hug Me vending machine. Getting a better feel for Storify now? Once you start to see the different ways to use Storify, it’s impossible to not start brainstorming different ways to use this tool for clients. CBC News did a great Storify on the Hug Me vending machine, but Storify can be just as useful for brands. Introducing a new product? Making a big announcement? Want to involve your fans and followers in a trending topic? This is the tool you need.

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What Does A PR Agency Do? Furniture Industry Social Media Campaign

Josephine ButlerAwards, Blog, Case Studies, Furniture PR, Marketing, Public Relations, Raleigh PR Agency, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on What Does A PR Agency Do? Furniture Industry Social Media Campaign

People commonly ask us what a PR agency does. We thought the best way to answer that question would be to share case studies from our work that was recently recognized at the North Carolina chapter of the Public Relations Society of America’s (NCPRSA) InSpire Awards. Clairemont won 14 InSpire Awards, and we hope that this “Award Winning Wednesday” blog series will inspire you, too!

Client: Thomasville Furniture, established in 1904 and a leading name in the home furnishings industry.

Objective:  Manage the Thomasville Facebook page. Based on our research and several meetings with Thomasville executives, the Clairemont team identified the following objectives:

  • Boost overall interactions on the Facebook page, with special emphasis on increasing interactions among 18 to 34-year-olds by 5 percent.
  • Increase the number of likes on the page by 100 percent

Execution: Research provided insights on existing customers and younger consumers, including media consumption preferences. Focus groups revealed that younger consumers often see Thomasville’s furniture as special occasion furnishings, while they seek everyday furniture (of course, we know that Thomasville is very fun and fashion-forward these days!). Clairemont also evaluated social media networks and confirmed Facebook’s significant potential as Thomasville’s primary customer engagement channel.

We focused creative content in the following areas:

  • Interior Design: To position Thomasville as the fashionable brand that we know it to be, we shared ideas from shelter magazines, such as Elle Décor and House Beautiful. We uploaded product photography featuring new collections designed for a young demographic and shared decorating tips via professionally produced videos. Our chatter posts got fans talking and sharing their own interior design ideas, too.
  • Sweepstakes: Recognizing the traffic-driving power of sweepstakes, Clairemont generated steady fan engagement with giveaways throughout the year. The Best Bridal Shower Gift Ever Giveaway targeted 18 to 34-year-olds by awarding a bedroom suite as a wedding gift to a young couple. Our Best Seat in the House Giveaway earned more than 1,900 content likes, posts and comments, as fans couldn’t resist the chance to show off photos of their beloved pets. With a prize of a new sofa, our 1 Sofa 4 Looks Giveaway increased page likes by 13,767 alone. Along with additional giveaways such as the Bright Idea; Backyard Barbeque; No Tricks, Just Treats; Thanksgiving Dinner Disasters (with many hilarious accounts of Thanksgiving dinners gone wrong); and Stocking Stuffer giveaways, the Clairemont team successfully raised the fan count and interactions on the page.
  • Customer Relations: Because it’s our policy to allow fans to have a voice, when questions or complaints were posted, we worked closely with Thomasville’s corporate customer service team to provide quick responses instead of deleting or ignoring negative posts.

Results: Thomasville’s fan base on Facebook increased from 11,249 to 31,256, approximately a 178 percent increase from 2010, and we boosted weekly interactions from 2,964 to 7,571, a 155 percent increase. Additionally, we increased the number of 18 to 34-year-old fans from 20 percent of the fan base to 30 percent, exceeding our goal of a 5 percent increase. Based on the success of 2011, Thomasville has retained Clairemont to continue to manage its page on Facebook in 2012.

What did you think of this social media case study? Was it helpful? Have questions? We’ve got answers!

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