Dublin City Enterprise Network For Women...June Meeting
Online Engagement and how it relates to PR, was top of the agenda at the June meeting.
Caroline Kohn of Slattery Communications (http://www.slatterycommunications.ie) explained how online engagement needs to knit into the overall marketing effort (along with PR, traditional marketing and online marketing) and how SMEs can go about it.
A Q&A with Caroline Kohn and Tara Gilleece (http://gilleececommunications.com ) followed the presentation.
Meanwhile, Andrea Giardini Collins of Lovely Charms (www.lovelycharms.net) had a resource table at which she displayed a range of the beautiful charms she will be bringing on to the Irish market.
PR's Role in Online Engagement - What's The Message?
Caroline Kohn of Slattery Communications
The new marketing landscape
Caroline started by saying that there are four different elements to your PR and Marketing activities:
? PR
? Traditional Marketing
? Online Marketing
? Online Engagement
This last one is becoming more important. Many parts of the media are now active online such as various RTE radio programmes, George Hook on Newstalk (www.twitter.com/ghook) and Sky News (videos on the website). Blogging is important but microblogging (Twitter, Facebook) is becoming more important.
We get a huge amount of information now and we choose who we want to follow and engage with. How do we talk to our customers? It is not just about sending out a press release. We need multiple layers to our communications to reach our customers. We need to integrate rich media into our marketing plans.
You need to be aware of the many skills you ideally need in this new environment (blogging, use of social media, video, audio, etc). You don’t need to have them yourself but you might need to source them. There are plenty of young people with great skills in video production, etc so don’t think this isn’t an option for you.
You don’t have to use every form of online engagement! Start off by considering your business and market – which are the right media for you?
For example:
? Linkedin very useful for communicating with businesses. You can link to your Twitter stream. Many enterprises use it to open up discussions. It can be an excellent business to business tool. For example, a software business looking for bright ideas and developers. Do avoid purely promotional discussions. Become engaged by joining groups, answering and commenting on polls, asking and answering questions, etc. Think of Linkedin as a huge network that you can reach through your own connections. You can also check who is looking at your site!
? Facebook more useful for communicating with consumers. Can also be linked to Twitter. See it as a means of microblogging. People will come to you if you’re giving something, such as useful info, away.
Online communities such as Boards.ie or Rollercoaster.ie may also be important for you.
Polls are generally great because they can give you material for press releases etc. The media love statistics!
Can anyone benefit from being active on Facebook or other media? For example, does it make sense for a bank to have a presence? It might for a particular service aimed at a particular group, such as incentives to save for younger people.
A key element of online engagement is the fact that you have to be open to discussion. Some might say that this is opening up the floodgates to complaints but you need to be prepared to talk with customers like this and genuinely engage with them. This will help your image overall.
You can get great results by linking offline marketing activities with what you’re doing online. For example, you can organise “Twestivals” organised through Twitter or “Tweetups” where prolific bloggers or Twitter users are invited to an event and encouraged to blog/tweet about it. These might not be big enough to attract attention through a press release but Tweeters will have an impact. You want people to be talking about your products/services as a result of these events.
These events take a lot of planning and you do need to be prepared for how you might answer difficult questions. Another trend is Citizen Journalism through blogs, etc.
You need to be clear about what your message is. You’re not necessarily in control of this anymore. You have to think differently about it.
The traditional Press Release isn’t dead but it is now a starting point. It is hard to get one published without a relationship with a journalist. Caroline recommends using a press release as a pitch document that you can use across different media. It is a great tool for keeping on message.
Q&A SESSION
Caroline Kohn, joined by Tara Gilleece
How often should you update?
? Blogs: at least once a week.
? Facebook: ideally once a day
? Linkedin: update it regularly. Link to your Twitter posts but only if consistent message!
Caroline recommended looking at Simply Zesty’s “Guide to Social Media”. (http://www.simplyzesty.com/free-social-media-book/)
When trying to build your profile, stories are very important. Personalise your story as much as you can. Why did you go into business? What do you love about your product/service? Show videos of your product/service. Try to get third party endorsement. This is very important now.
Overall message is don’t be afraid to engage online. Be prepared to give something away (goods/services or information) and to engage directly with customers, whatever their comments. Integrate your activities with a coherent message and planned approach to get the best results. Do one thing really well and deliver your message clearly.
There are some photos from the June event on the network’s Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/DublinCityEnterpriseNetworkforWomen