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Join #PRStudChat on March 22nd for a Chat on How to Build Relationships Through Content

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Content gets your audience’s attention. Through content you communicate, engage people and start conversations with them.

Content is also the starting point in building relationships with your different publics, whether they are your customers, influencers, journalists, analysts, or other stakeholders.

On Wednesday, March 22nd, at 8:30 p.m. ET, the #PRStudChat community will gather to discuss how storytelling and content help to build relationships with your community. Joining us as our special guests and co-hosts will be Nicole Rodrigues, CEO, and founder of NRPR Group, Sandra Fathi, President, Affect, and Corina Manea, Chief Community Officer at Spin Sucks and founder of NutsPR.

Several of the topics and questions answered by our special guests and our community members on the 22nd will include:

  1. How much time/attention do you give to the content you share and why?
  1. Do you have a content strategy in place? Discuss your approach to content?
  1. What role does content play in building relationships and a community around your brand?
  1. How do you know the best type of content to share to support your storytelling?
  1. What types of content help you to build the strongest relationships?
  1. What are the best ways to find out the content your customers and constituents want?
  1. How do you know your content is resonating with your audience?
  1. What are the different ways you’re engaging your customers in communities today?
  1. How much importance do you place on Earned media (the “E” in the PESO model)?
  1. What are the best tactics you used in building relationships through content?

And much more!

Here’s a little more information on our special guests and co-hosts on the 22nd:

Nicole Rodrigues_1Nicole Rodrigues is the CEO and founder of NRPR Group. She’s a seasoned publicist and social media marketing pro with 17 years of experience under her belt. She’s developed and executed strategic campaigns for some of the biggest names in business such as Yahoo!, Dolby, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Sony PlayStation, Hulu, M-GO, Toon Hero, Demand Media, MobiTV, and the Oakland Raiders.

Nicole is the host of PRfect Pitch, a PR-focused radio show that’s geared towards helping PR, marketing, and media professionals step up their game by incorporating best practices and developing better relationships. Nicole is a contributor to Forbes and The HYPE Magazine, and her tips and insights have been published on popular websites and blogs such as PR Daily, PR News, Adweek’s PR Newser, SpinSucks.com, Rescue A CEO, The PR Closet, NutsPR, The Neon Notebook, and more. She’s also been a guest on Jus My Style Radio, Gridiron Beauties, Women Entrepreneurs Radio, Today in Marketing, and Business Rockstars Radio as an expert in publicity and social media marketing.

Nicole is a member of the Forbes Agency Council, an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. She is one of eight hand-selected board members for The Organization of American Women in Public Relations (Women in PR USA) and is also a board member for Fremont College.

Nicole takes great pride in being a former NFL cheerleader, spending many years cheering for the famed Oakland Raiders. She continues to cheer on her “new team” at NRPR and is a graduate of San Jose State University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations.

 

Sandra Fathi, Affect An ardent entrepreneur, Sandra Fathi has spent the last 20 years helping technology, healthcare, and professional services companies achieve their goals. As President and Founder of Affect, a public relations, marketing and social media agency, Sandra has successfully led the company with consistent growth since the agency’s inception in 2002.

Sandra started her career as a reporter for a division of Ziff Davis and IDG Tech Network. She went on to work at a number of leading technology firms and one of the top global PR agencies. Her clients have included Apple, EDS, Ericsson, Nokia and Microsoft, as well as innovative start-ups.

Sandra is also active in the communications industry and professional community. She is a current board member of the PR Council and has served as Chair of PRSA’s Tri-State District, President of PRSA-NY and President of the PRSA Technology Section. She is a sought-after speaker for conferences and events and her expert commentary has appeared in business and industry outlets such as CNN, Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., Huffington Post and U.S. News & World Report.  Adding to her accolades, Sandra has been recognized as one of PRNews’ Top Women in PR, a PRNews PR Professional of the Year finalist, and a Bulldog PR Agency Professional of the Year.

In addition to her professional pursuits, Sandra is a wife and mother of two children and one demanding dog. She is passionate about philanthropic work and serves on the board of directors of HavServe, a nonprofit organization focused on community-led development in Haiti.

Corina ManeaCorina Manea is the chief community officer at Spin Sucks and Arment Dietrich. She also leads student relations for Spin Sucks, and is the founder of NutsPR. She loves bringing people together and connecting them. Corina fell in love with PR in college and she did not look back ever since.

When not working, you can find her reading books, lots of them, hiking, or playing with pets of all kinds and forms 🙂

Her favorite social platform is Twitter, connect with her there.

We hope you’ll join us for a dynamic session on Building Relationships through Content on March 22nd. As always, we welcome your questions before or during the chat session. You can tweet @PRStudChat, @ValerieSimon, @dbreakenridge, @NicoleRPR, @sandrafathi and @corinamanea with your questions. Be sure to also visit our LinkedIn Group to share your ideas.

“See” you on the 22nd!

A Little More About PRStudChat … It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow-up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals … A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more

 

 

Zeit

What Ephemeral #Content Means For Our #Relationships

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The following article originally appeared on the AirPR blog. 

A Guest Post By Rebekah Iliff, Chief Strategy Officer, AirPR

ZeitA Shutterfly study revealed that although Americans are snapping more photos than ever, they’re failing to share and look back at them. Based on the study, Americans now take more than 10 billion photos every month, but only one in two of the survey respondents have looked back at a picture more than ten years old within the last month.

If ephemeral (AKA “fleeting content”) is on the rise – and it is – what does it mean for our relationships, from romantic partners to friends and colleagues?

Snapchat turns moments into one-time secrets, Vine has evolved videos into mini versions of themselves, and Periscope (Twitter’s live video-streaming platform that lets you view “transmissions” for up to 24 hours after the live broadcast) all help to facilitate a digital conversation that’s meant to fade with time. The opportunities for marketers to leverage these platforms are plentiful and quite exciting when it comes down to it. But for the sake of human reflection (and Valentine’s Day), let’s look at how ephemeral content is changing the way we manage our real relationships.

We stare at our Smartphone screens in bed.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever pawed your partner’s phone down in bed only to start a mini-argument about them having lost their place in the article they found via their iPhone’s News app. I see many hands.

We judge romantic prospects in a matter of seconds.

Social/dating apps like Tinder encourage us to judge prospective mates immediately based on a photo and mobile-short bio. What and who are we overlooking because of technology? Do the benefits of being able to quickly preview prospects outweigh the cons?

Treasured photos go unprinted.

RIP scrapbooks and framed family photos – hello, minimalist apartments equipped with cloud technologies. Flipagrams posted on Instagram just may be our new photo albums…

FOMO continues with full force.

Now that we’ve replaced printing photos of fun times with live broadcasting, we’re continually contributing to the FOMO issues of others. Let’s go straight to the source for this one and ask a college student. Syracuse University Digital Journalism major Jane Hong comments, “If you and I were hanging out and I posted a Snap of us to my story, a third party could be hurt or jealous they weren’t invited.” What Jane said.

New ways to engage are born.

From sharing videos of special moments like getting engaged so your whole family can see it the second it happens to reconnecting with old flames via social platforms, we’re also reaping some pretty cool benefits from today’s ephemeral content platforms. You can’t deny that.

So there you have it. The future is indeed here, it’s okay to be in love with software, and we will surely see many more exciting shifts in social sharing that will make us feel torn between whether our real lives or digital lives are better.

What do you think? Is ephemeral content a sign of evolution or does it make you feel nostalgic for old-world ways? Let us know in the comments below!

Rebekah Iliff headshot HIGH RESRebekah Iliff is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for AirPR, a technology platform to increase PR performance. Previously, she was the CEO of talkTECH Communications, one of the fastest growing, launch-only PR firms in the US. Additionally, she is a columnist for Inc., and Forbes, and a contributing writer for Mashable, Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post.

Jacqueline Jensen, Community Evangelist, Piktochart

Join #PRStudChat on Feb. 16th for a Discussion on #Creative #Content to Excite Your Community

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PRSTUDCHATToday, creating and distributing content goes far beyond just sharing your own messages and company news. Your content must be relevant, meaningful and useful to capture your audience’s attention. According to a Marketwired survey in November 2015, PR and marketing professionals plan to increase their content marketing programs by 64% in 2016. According to the same survey, 79% of these professionals have a content marketing plan in place. Content marketing has become an important part of your communication program, and your storytelling requires a strategic and creative approach.

Piktochart LogoOn Tuesday, February 16th, at 8:30 p.m. ET, the #PRStudChat community will gather to discuss Creative Content to Excite your Community. Joining us that night will be special guest and co-moderator, Jacqueline Jensen, who is the Community Evangelist at Piktochart.  Jacqueline will lead the discussion on content marketing topics, which will include:

  • Creating visual content with a more hands on approach.
  • Discovering new design techniques for content creation.
  • Raising levels of engagement with interactive content in different communities.
  • Approaching content development strategically and more cost effectively.

JJA Little More About Jacqueline Jensen … Jacqueline is the Community Evangelist for Piktochart, a former venture-backed startup founder, and a natural born doer. She thrives at the intersection of content and community, and has been a relationship builder, podcast producer, event planner, problem solver, social marketer, project manager, and TEDx speaker.

A Little More About Piktochart … Piktochart was founded in 2011 by Ai Ching Goh and Andrea Zaggia when they realized Infographics were quickly growing in popularity. They created Piktochart so anyone interested in content strategy and visually attractive communication would be able to easily design professional-looking graphics.

A Little More About PRStudChat … It began with a simple question asked by Angela Hernandez, then President of PRSSA at Central Michigan University (CMU). “Is PR Right for me?” A follow up blog post by PR 2.0 expert Deirdre Breakenridge inspired a series of direct messages on Twitter between Breakenridge and fellow PR industry pro, Valerie Simon. This was an important question and one that should be explored beyond one student or one blog post. Why not build a community to help students across the country, and even the globe, learn from the experience and perspective of industry professionals … A community where everyone can learn and grow together. Read more

 

 

 

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How Will #PR & Marketing Pros Approach #Content in 2016? A Q&A With Lisa Davis, Marketwired

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LDavis-professional-pic-Dec2015Content marketing will be more than just a trend to watch in 2016. Creating and distributing consistent and relevant content is considered a proven strategic marketing approach that attracts and retains an audience and drives customers to action. In November 2015, Marketwired, a news distribution and social communications company, created a survey, “Are You A #ContentMachine?” to find out exactly how PR and marketing professionals felt about their content efforts in 2015, and to also see how they plan to approach content marketing in 2016.

Here is my Q&A with Lisa Davis, Director, Marketing, at Marketwired. In the spirit of transparency, Marketwired is a client of my company, Pure Performance Communications. In the interview, Lisa shares her insights on content marketing and discusses some of the interesting findings from the Marketwired survey results.

Why did you choose the topic, “Are You a #ContentMachine”?  

Content is playing an increasingly important part in PR, marketing and corporate communications, and a lot of our customers ask us what kind of content they should create, and how they can do more with what they already have (multimedia, news releases, blog posts, etc.) to boost awareness for their company, attract new customers, drive engagement in campaigns, etc. The #ContentMachine survey was our chance to better understand what practitioners are doing with content today, and what their plans are for 2016. We hosted a terrific session with Michael Brito, Rebekah Iliff and Lee Odden on the same topic during this year’s PRSA International Conference (“You Can Be a #ContentMachine”) and it was clear from the discussion that PR pros want to empower themselves using content, and not be overwhelmed by it.  They want to find opportunities to build better campaigns, foster stronger relationships with influencers, improve customer satisfaction and generate leads, and we want to help them uncover those opportunities.

Were you surprised by any of the survey findings?  

Yes – that 79% of survey respondents currently have a content program in place! While we didn’t ask specifics about the programs themselves (e.g., budget and resource allocation; KPIs; etc.), it’s pretty clear that content marketing is an important part of a broader communications program. And with 64% looking to increase their efforts next year, it seems to be growing in importance.    

Based on the survey, what do you think are the most important steps for companies to move their content programs to the next level in 2016?  

I think for any company the most important step is to ask why they’re using the content they’re using, and what objectives they’re trying to achieve with their content program. Is it brand awareness, thought-leadership, lead generation, etc.? If your content marketing objectives aren’t serving your greater business objectives, you should rethink your strategy.  

Intimately tied to ‘why’ is ‘what’ – what will you do, specifically, to achieve your objectives?  Will you blog more frequently?  Write an ebook?  Host a webinar series for customers?  When you’re thinking about all that you can do, it’s really important to think about what you’ve already done.  Take inventory of the content you have to see what you can use in new and different ways, like turning a blog series into a webinar, or customer feedback into testimonials and case studies.

Last but certainly not least…measure!  Downloads, registrations, followers, RTs, shares, comments, leads, page visits…there is so much to you can measure, quickly and simply, to show you what’s working, and what’s not.  (And if you’re not measuring, how will you know…?)  It was great to see that 77% of our survey respondents say they are currently measuring their efforts because it reinforces the need and importance of metrics-driven content marketing.

How important are influencers to your content marketing strategy?

Very important – they always have been. “Influencer marketing” might be a buzzy term, but it’s certainly not a new practice in PR.  Making connections with relevant people who will amplify your brand messages and endorse your campaign or product is critical to PR (and marketing) success.  Journalists, bloggers, analysts, customers, people who run Twitter chats and Facebook groups…influencers are everywhere and they can be powerful partners in your content marketing.  And while influencer relations might seem more difficult because influencers are everyone and everywhere, it’s actually getting easier to find them, see what they’re talking about, and find ways to connect, whether you use a simple hashtag search on Twitter or a more sophisticated solution for influencer identification and management.

News releases have changed significantly over the years, with more interactive and social features. What are the advantages of using news releases today, as part of a content marketing program?

Releases can help a company build an online brand presence, drive traffic to specific campaigns or web pages, and generate sales leads. Releases that include multimedia can tell a fulsome, interactive brand story, and those that are enabled with social sharing features can reach new audiences and communities. And while releases still reach journalists, bloggers, and investors, they have become powerful direct-to-consumer marketing vehicles.  It goes without saying that I’m an advocate for news releases, but I know how powerful they can be when used by companies within their content marketing and paid media programs.  We recently profiled our customer TrueShip in our #NewsReleases411 blog series because they are a great example of a business that is successfully generating sales leads, gaining new customers, and increasing site traffic using releases as part of their content marketing program.

What do you think will be the biggest challenges for PR and marketing professionals with their content programs in 2016?

Staying focused:  it can be difficult to stay the course with your content marketing plan because there are so many companies doing so many envy-inducing things with their content; it’s tough to not want to stop what you’re doing, and do what they’re doing.  (But remember:  you’re looking to achieve your business goals; not theirs.)

Being patient with results:  knowing that that content marketing magic doesn’t happen overnight, and that it takes weeks or months to see results from a particular effort, it can sometimes be easy to give up and try something new; that’s why it’s important to let data guide your decision-making.

Managing resources:   doing more with less… working smarter not harder…whatever catchphrase you prefer, finding enough money and people to support the kinds of content marketing programs we want to deliver is never easy, simply because there is never enough of either. 😉