The 411 on Social Media Best Practices in 2016

By Kara DeMent, Communications Coordinator

With more than two billion active social media users today, having a presence on social media is a must for brands that want to get noticed. With “best practices” and social media platforms evolving and ever-changing, it can be tough navigating the social media landscape to create effective campaigns.  If you want to be a savvy social media communicator in 2016, here are five ways you can stay on top of the game.

1. Inspiring Visuals

Use strong visuals that leave a lasting impression. Content paired with a great picture creates 650% more engagement according to recent studies. Recently, WOC helped hospitality client partner, Delaware North, secure the win for Best Use of Visuals from PR Daily – a great example of how creating captivating visuals can help your social media presence stand out.

2. Consistency is Key

Content says everything about your brand. And if you’re not consistent with creating and producing your own content, your brand will feel it. Continuously producing good original content gives you a better chance of being seen by your audience. The more you produce, the more love you’ll receive from your audience – although this depends on what your brands/clients’ needs are, you don’t want to over produce or under produce, so always keep this in mind.

3. Follow the Golden Rule

Whether it’s a fun visual, new product launch or exciting announcement; share, like and comment on content that other brands and influencers of interest to your audience produce. This exposes you to others who in return, may also share your content and help increase your followers and help your engagement. Give and you shall receive.

4. Engage Your Audience

Those of us who are social media pros don’t post content for the fun of it. We post for the opportunity to help our clients raise awareness, drive interest and build relationships. In order to make that opportunity a reality, that means we engage with our target audience by answering questions, commenting, sharing and liking content. The more you engage on social media, the closer you’re to achieving your client’s business goals.

5. Measuring Success

Measuring your social media results only helps you better your social media strategy. It shows you what’s working and what isn’t working. It gives you the leisure to experiment with what works for your brand. If you’re not sure how best to measure your results, the “Big 4” from Buffer is a great guide to follow.

If you’re still stuck on breaking through social media, our team at WOC can get you on the right track. Give us a call or find out more about our capabilities here.

Write Your PR for Robots AND Humans

By Kat Beaulieu, Communications Strategist

Whether you call it a press, news or media release or a press statement, it’s all the same thing—it’s the communication piece aimed at hooking the media onto your story. Far from being a relic relegated to our past, the press release lives on as an important tool in a PR professional’s toolkit. But in this age of media overload, getting your press release noticed is no simple feat. Plus, nowadays it’s equally important to ensure your press release appeals to robots and humans alike.

Read on for some best practices for ensuring your press release is seen by robots and humans and not getting lost in the shuffle.

The Writing Phase

Writing a press release for robots

Start writing your press release with an audience in mind. In this case, let’s begin with our robot audience. When I say ‘robots,’ I’m not talking about The Terminator, or Autobots & Decepticons, or cute heartstring-pulling characters like WALL-E. I’m talking about those web-crawling spiders that do all the grunt work of indexing the internet so that when we do a Google search on “press release,” it only takes 0.84 seconds to return 272,000,000 results (take THAT, human!)

Writing a press release for robots, or more specifically, writing an SEO optimized press release, follows certain protocols which are largely determined by the current algorithms of the top search engines you want to place prominently on. Basically you need to follow the same rules for your press release as you would for a web page. Fundamentally, this comes down to:

1. figuring out your key search terms

2. making sure those terms are peppered as naturally as possible throughout your press release.

Robots don’t care about varying your language to keep things interesting, using creative, emotional hooks to encourage them to read more, or even grammar and typos (unless they’re your key search terms, of course.) The robots will read to the end of your release no matter what and then efficiently and mathematically rank your press release among the 272,000,000 other ones out there.

Writing a press release for humans

Humans, on the other hand, care about all of those things. If there’s nothing compelling about your headline, they won’t bother reading more. If the release reads like a boring SEO-peppered document with no WIIFM (what’s in it for me, or my audience), they won’t bother remembering it. And if your release has grammatical mistakes or typos, it will also upset most humans in editor, journalist (and many) blogger roles and they’ll stop reading it. So after investing time creating an SEO optimized press release, edit it for human consumption. This means spending the time to:

1. Create a catchy headline for your press release that piques a human’s curiosity

2. Elaborate on the press release headline with supporting detail in the sub-head

3. Embed WIIFM detail throughout the body of the press release, preferably with an emotional connection—make it instantly clear why this topic is relevant, interesting, funny, sad, irritating, inspiring, joyful and most importantly, worth sharing. Give it the Facebook share test—is the info cool enough that you’d share it on Facebook given the right audience?

4. Include a good and relevant photo that supports the story. A picture says a thousand words, and this is so much more important in today’s highly-visual media arena. Plus, providing a low-res image in your initial press release provides an excellent opportunity for you to accompany the release with a personalized note to get in touch with you for a hi-res version.

5. Proofread. Robots don’t care about typos. Humans do.

The Distribution Phase

Distributing a press release to robots

Sending your press release over a paid wire service is an almost guaranteed way of capturing the attention of the robots. In fact, paid wire services serve little other purpose. In addition to sending your press release out over the wire, you can help contextualize it by supporting it through owned media channels (like a corporate website and social media). This is another place where your good and relevant photo will come in handy as you tweet and post teasers from your press release to followers.

While you might not see any immediate results, getting the robots to index your press release will pay off in the long term. It’s called seeding the internet—consider it like good press insurance. You want lots of good stories indexed by the robots so that the good outweighs the bad. This way, when something “bad” hits the media, the search results present some of the good along with the bad.

Distributing a press release to humans

As you’re probably already aware, humans are a lot more high-maintenance than robots and as such, require more time investment. To get humans to notice your press release, it helps to keep some uniquely human behaviors in mind, like:

  • Humans are social. Fact: humans are more likely to respond to humans they already know. It’s not fair, but it’s true. An editor will more likely read an email and respond to a voicemail from someone they know and trust. Build those relationships.
  • Humans have expectations. Humans expect you to do your homework. Do your research and find out which editors specialize in the topic of your news release. If it’s not that person’s specialization, they probably won’t care about your press release. This is where an up-to-date media list and your WIIFM copy is crucial.
  • Humans have a short attention span and can forget things. Unlike a robot, who will systematically comb through each and every press release in an orderly fashion, a human will likely skim through until something catches their interest. This is where your short catchy headline is golden, and where a heads-up or follow-up call can make all the difference.
  • Humans are lazier than robots. Avoid relying on attachments that humans have to double-click to open. Put the press release and image in the body of the email where possible.

So should I write a press release for a robot or a human?

The answer is that a really good press release that gets noticed is written for both. You can start with a skeleton press release that hits all the SEO sweet spots, and then flesh it out with the strong emotional meat that hits the humans in the feelies.

Need help with your press release? Fortunately we have a full team of humans who specialize in writing captivating press releases that appeal to both robots and humans. Get in touch and we’ll respond in a humanistic way that’s refreshingly un-robotic.

Pokèmon GO and PR: Both Take Lots of Balls

By Julie Wright, President & Founder, (W)right On Communications, Inc. and Level 17 Pokémon GO Trainer

Pokémon GO has swept the world and I have not been immune. These days, I’m either hustling for my client partners or capturing Pokémon and increasing my experience points (XP). As I move up to each new level in Pokémon GO or capture another rare or high combat power (CP) critter, I can’t escape the feeling that being a Pokémon trainer is a lot like being a publicist.

1. Trainers are always hatching eggs while PR pros are always hatching ideas

As a Pokémon GO trainer, you should always be incubating at least two or three eggs, which will hatch into new Pokémon. You basically place a 2-km, 5-km or 10-km egg in an incubator and while you’re in hot pursuit of Pokémon, the app records your walking distance notifying you when your eggs are ready to hatch into a new Pokémon for your collection.

This is no different from a publicist’s continual pursuit of new ideas and angles to pitch. While you’re driving, in the shower or waiting for Pokémon GO’s servers to come back online (right?!), a good publicist is always thinking of new ideas for how to win exposure for their clients or brand.

2. Always on the hunt

alwaysonthehunt

The Pokémon hunter has to be equipped with the tools to do the job (like Pokéballs, raspberries, lures, incense and stuff). Then they go out to target-rich environments—like malls, parks, points of interest and, yes, cemeteries–looking for Pokéstops with active lures and seeking out the highest CP Pokémon they can capture.

The publicist is armed with tools too—like their media database, reading and research, relationships and storytelling skills–as they hunt out the highest value media hit they can. While the Pokémon trainer covets a Snorlax or Dragonite in their Pokédex, the publicist wants that Wall Street Journal or Today Show in their clippings report.

3. Luck (kind of) plays a part

In Pokémon GO, players get a lucky egg. It’s one that you can activate and during the next 30 minutes receive twice the XP when you evolve your Pokémon or capture one. Really, a player should hold off evolving anything until a lucky egg is activated. Lucky egg is a bit of a misnomer because there’s really no luck involved—just common sense and a game plan. Well, a good publicist knows that there really is no such thing as luck in this business. Luck is just what happens when opportunity meets preparation. When you’ve got your messaging, materials and spokesperson all lined up and then you bump into the right opportunity at the right time, that’s not luck. That’s just how it’s supposed to work when you’ve done your job.

While the clock on the lucky egg is continually winding down, the publicist’s window of opportunity is always closing. Being lucky just means being ready.

4. Increasing your XP through street smarts

Pokémon GO has no user guide or playbook. If you want to advance in the game, you’ve got to figure it out for yourself. Use your street smarts, be resourceful by researching what other players have learned and grow your skills and ranking through experience. Basically, the more Pokéballs you toss out there, the better you’re going to get. Eventually, as your tosses get better and better, you’ll earn extra XP for Nice, Great and Excellent tosses. Curve balls will also get you more points and typically are better at catching rare and high CP Pokémon.

The publicist isn’t getting scored like this, but if you’re a PR pro, you’ll recognize immediately how similar the augmented reality game is to the real-world principles that apply to your professional growth. You can only learn to pitch media by doing it. You can only get better at it by doing more of it. When your pitches get good, you start scoring higher hits. (Hmm. Maybe publicists should develop “Experience Points” just like Pokémon GO to measure their expertise. Anyone?) And if you can master that curve ball – a perfect man bites dog, counter-intuitive pitch with a compelling story arc – then you’re at the top of your game.

5. Do the legwork!

Dothelegwork

Another feature of the game is that you must walk. A lot. You will find more Pokémon when you’re on the move. In addition, walking is how you incubate your eggs. Two, five and 10 kilometer walks are required to hatch new Pokémon or tools. So too does legwork define success in PR. You’ve got to seek out information on your media targets – what kinds of stories do they do, what have they covered lately, how is your client or brand’s story of interest to them and their audience, and most importantly, what’s their contact info?

If you haven’t played Pokémon GO, it’s probably hard to understand some of these comparisons.

It can be the same way with non-PR people who don’t get the legwork part. They think publicists write press releases and then just push a magic button to blast them off to an enormous list of media who are hungry to read and parse their every word. (And because of this, they’re often surprised that the results they seek will take many hours and an accompanying budget to produce.) But, here’s the thing, if you don’t do the legwork as a publicist, you’ll piss off journalists and be ineffective. Really, the entire raison d’etre of the @SmugJourno Twitter feed and Bad Pitch Blog could be attributed to the short-cutters in our field who can’t be bothered to put in the legwork.

So, my PR friends, I urge you to get out there and hatch ideas like Pokémon eggs, catch those high CP media hits while building up your XP, be prepared to get lucky and put in the legwork to do it right and make our profession look its best!

And, two more pieces of advice. First, don’t forget to restore yourself. Be sure to visit the gym so you’re ready for battle (in Pokémon GO and in real life) and make time to hit up whatever bar, or Pokéstop, stocks your preferred potion. And, second, don’t forget that both PR and Pokémon GO reward those who put their balls out there.

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Hospitality PR 101: How to Nail that TV Interview

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By Shae Geary, Senior Communications Strategist

Working with local TV stations is a great way to promote hospitality client partners. From special events to staycation specials, hotels and destinations often produce interesting fodder for morning news programs that want to share unique local personalities and fun activities with their viewers. Getting the attention of TV producers and reporters requires the right pitch, and there’s more than one way to do it. For a chance at an on-camera spotlight, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Visuals! Movement!

One of my most memorable segments involved a reporter broadcasting from a plush hotel bed on the deck of a newly opened ocean view hotel pool. It was not only quirky and fun, but also succeeded in showing off both the hotel pool and its world-famous bedding in a way that was more visually interesting than a bed in a hotel room. TV is a visual medium, so anything that plays to the camera, whether interesting, unexpected, unusual or just bright and colorful, has a better chance of nabbing a reporter’s interest. It’s equally important for segments to have movement and activity, such as a chef cooking up a signature dish or guests playing in the pool. In your pitch, offer some ideas for the types of activities that can be featured on camera. The more likely a reporter is to visualize the segment, the better your chances of securing coverage.

Bring The Hotel to The Studio

In-studio TV appearances are a great alternative when a TV station can’t come to you. In your pitch, offer ideas for bringing a destination experience to the studio. We recently had success working with a local TV station to promote a romantic sunset beach picnic program. The picnic scene was recreated on the studio’s back lot and paired with a live chef’s demonstration of making an easy, aphrodisiac inspired salad. It was a pretty close second to actually doing the segment on the beach and succeeded in conveying the program’s dreamy, coastal vibe.

Exclusive Access

Viewers love to go behind the scenes, so seize the day when the opportunity arises. To generate excitement and positive community buzz for a new TV show filmed in Oceanside, (one of our destination client partners), we invited a local reporter to spend a day on-set with special access to wardrobe, props, cast trailers and show producers. The segments were a hit because the audience was able to experience the show from a perspective usually limited to cast and crew. For a hotel client, ideas for segments could include access to an exclusive Presidential Suite or over-the-top guest experience.

Partnerships

If a hospitality client partner doesn’t have a particularly compelling story to tell, all is not lost! Linking up with complementary non-profits or local businesses can be just the ticket for nabbing some airtime. A good example is the recent partnership between Cape Rey Carlsbad resort and Project Mermaid. The ocean view hotel pool was the perfect backdrop for a live TV remote that highlighted special mermaid photo sessions, where a local TV personality joined in on the fun. The project helps raise money for ocean conservation, a cause also supported by the hotel. In each segment, the hotel was identified by beautiful shots of the pool and surrounding coastal view. The TV segments drew huge interest, as did social media posts from the shoot.

If you are looking to get your business on TV, let us help! We’d love to chat, so give us a call or visit us here.

The Buzz About B Corps – Why You Should Care

Photo Credit: B Corporation https://www.bcorporation.net/
Photo Credit: B Corporation https://www.bcorporation.net/

By Kat Beaulieu, Communications Strategist

Remember when you were back in business class and it first dawned on you that the system is rigged against people who want to do good AND make money? I do. It was one of those “Wait – what?” moments where I felt another shred of my ignorance/innocence slipping away.

My big “a-ha, well-duh” moment followed this obvious nugget of truth: corporations are legally obligated to make money for their shareholders, so their decision-making is necessarily driven by profit. Non-profits on the other hand, are legally forbidden from making a profit, so they’re actually discouraged from creating wealth for their employees.

In my own selfish way, I remember thinking my choices were to either embrace a life of poverty working for a non-profit, or cobble together some financial comfort by turning a blind eye to some of my ideals and working for the big, bad corporation. I suppose I’d had enough of the starving student scene and a martyr I am not, so off to the corporate world I went.

I’m certain I wasn’t the only person faced with this decision, and fortunately there are some smarter and more committed people than me who have been working to change the system, so that now (since 2010 in Maryland and now in 30 U.S. states and the District of Columbia), there IS an alternative to choosing between non-profit or for-profit. It’s called a benefit corporation, or B Corp, and it is both shaping and shaking up how business, employee recruitment and consumer spending are going to look in the near future. Why? Because Y and Z.

Generations Y and Z, that is. Unlike prior generations, Y and Z haven’t had to sever that part of their conscience that chooses between “good” non-profit and “evil” for-profit, because they’ve grown up with companies like Patagonia, Ben & Jerry’s and Seventh Generation showing us that companies can be both for-profit and good. That’s exactly what B Corps are – they are people using business as a force for good™. They have shareholders, but they’re not exclusively tied to them—they’re also legally obligated to serve their mission, which can be anything from delivering shoes to third-world children to achieving world peace.

 

The B Corp movement is one of the most important of our lifetime, built on the simple fact that business impacts and serves more than just shareholders—it has an equal responsibility to the community and to the planet.

Rose Marcario, CEO of Patagonia

 

Y and Z can choose to give their money and their brains to “good” companies, and that’s exactly what they’re doing. What this means for traditional corporations is that in order to remain competitive for Y and Z’s brains and share of wallet, they’re going to have to start upping the ante in terms of the “good” they’re doing inside and outside of the organization. And these are the stories that need to take priority in press releases. These are the stories that are going to capture media attention, get shared on social media, and ultimately drive Y and Z’s choices.

Why (or Y) is this important? Because Ys, whom we define as those ages 18-34 in 2015, now number 75.4 million, surpassing the 74.9 million Baby Boomers (ages 51-69) in the US.

Are you panicked yet? You should be! The B Corps are coming and if your PR strategy has been focused exclusively on profits and growth, it’s time to change tactics. Talk up the great initiatives your employees have been collaborating with non-profits on, and the positive impact your organization has had on your community. Turn your eyes to measure the social good you’ve achieved each quarter, rather than earnings alone.

So whose wallet and brains is your organization targeting and what mediums are you using to get those stories out? Is it time to YZ up?

Kat Beaulieu would love to repent for some of her ideal-stomping past and help you craft a YZ targeted communications strategy that profiles the social good you’ve been up to. Get in touch.

Don’t Be Guilty of the Two Worst PR Writing Habits

By: President, Julie Wright

Twitter: @juliewright

If I read another Tweet, Facebook post or quote in a press release that starts with “We are excited…,” I’m going to shoot myself.

There’s only one person in the world who is excited by your excitement, and that’s your mom.

What I need to know is why I should care. Why is this at least interesting to me?

Call it WIFM (What’s In It For Me) or just common sense, but your communication—be it 140 characters, a 10-minute speech or an entire campaign—must meet some basic need in your target audience for it to be effective.

The only sin worse than “We are excited…” or “We are pleased…” in a press release quote is to open your release with the awesomely redundant lede, “XYZ Company announces today that…”

A press release is an announcement so it’s quite unnecessary, Captain Obvious, to tell the reader you’re announcing something. That is assumed. Seeing this laziness makes me want to put a stick in my eye.

What if every press release followed this mundane structure? Then, I beg you, put two sticks in my eyes. (I’m sure journalists who look at hundreds of press releases each day feel the same way. If you’re a journalist, I’d love to hear your press release beefs in the comments section below!)

Sadly, a search of PRWeb’s news feed showed over 20 releases with quotes containing “We are pleased…” in just one day!

These are the bane of even mediocre, let alone good, PR writing.

So fight the urge to boast.

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Add a touch of creativity to stand out.

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And avoid stating the obvious.

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How can you avoid these writing traps? First, just try harder and think before you write!

If you are stumped, an easy fix is to pay attention to the verbs. They are the most important element of speech in your communications. What is the action you are announcing? Winning an award, reporting financials, signing a major contract, acquiring a company, advancing a cure for cancer?

Replace “announce” with that action so that the lede is focused on the newsworthy action.

Here’s another essential writing tip: Always put your audience’s needs first. This is the first commandment of good communication. And when you live by it, you’ll avoid the sin of self-serving excitement—a.k.a. press release masturbation.

Put your audience’s pleasure ahead of your own if you want a loving and lasting relationship with your target market.

This is particularly helpful when you must write about events of questionable newsworthiness but great C-suite excitement. These include industry awards, new executive hires or partnerships.

Try applying these strategies:

  • Does your news meet an emotional need in your customer? Share it in a way that makes them feel good or better. “Even Grumpy Cat nearly broke a smile when he learned about our Super Duper industry award!”
  • Tweeting about a new CEO? Rather than “Our company is excited to welcome…” try engaging your followers to welcome her. “What do you want new CEO Juanita Doe to know about our products and service? #welcomejuanita.” Share responses and show your new CEO that the company’s social media network is a source of important feedback and input from customers and employees.
  • Did you win an award thanks to the support of your loyal customers or the work of your dedicated employees? Make that your message and instead of saying “we are excited,” try “we are grateful.”

Instead of a one-off post about the award on social media, plan a series of posts over a few weeks that profile an employee or a customer who contributed to your success. Create a campaign to raise awareness about the honor as well as grow your community and build goodwill with your most important stakeholders.

This could work for a tech company’s Most Innovative Product award or a resort’s success in reaching #1 on TripAdvisor. Who helped you get there?

What creative or strategic approaches have you had success with?

Sometimes the challenge is convincing decision makers at your client or company that being engaging and interesting is more important and productive than chest beating. Ask them to share the news with mothers and then with their teenage kids. Somewhere between those two extremes is the true indicator of whether anyone cares.

I will concede there are times when your audience may be just as excited about some news as you are, and it’s valid to share in that. A San Diego company might Tweet, “We’re excited that the San Diego Chargers are going to Super Bowl.” That would be legitimately exciting to people in the local market.

Just resist the urge to Tweet, post or speak like a cheerleader—particularly if you’re cheering for yourself—unless conditions really call for a cheerleader.

And never, under any circumstances, announce an announcement. Announce your news.