PR company in Peterborough | Media Matters PR Blog | Marketing company

Improve your online marketing with a content plan

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Tue, 07 May 2013 12:04:00 +0000

“Content marketing” is everywhere and if you’ve been paying attention you’ve probably heard the phrase in the same sentence as SEO (search engine optimisation).

Businesses are now also recruiting “content strategists”, “content creators” and “content managers” and several other variations on the job description theme.

Content marketing is not new; it’s what we do in PR all the time – creating readable, multi-platform content that will raise your profile.

Whilst that sounds simple, where do you start? We’ve found that a content plan is the best way to (a) decide on what content you will produce and (b) force you to decide which marketing channels you’ll use to promote it.

It’s better if you can identify a campaign or theme first for each set of content. You might want a summer campaign for example and another campaign later in the year, which focuses on a particular set of topic relevant to your audience. This really does focus the activity.

Here’s a useful guide to get started:

Decide on the theme, target audience and what period this content will cover. It’s quite useful to review a content plan in quarters for example, or every 3 months
What will the content be? Try to think of useful information that adds value to your audience (See further down for ideas)
Which channels will you use to disseminate the content and what will the angle be for each of these? It’s important that we tailor messages according to the type of media and its target audience.
Who will make it happen?

Theme: Summer campaign 2013 – summer holidays
Target audience: Age 24 – 34, existing customers
Date: May – July 2013

What content	Channels	Angle/message	Who will do it

Types of content could include:

Blog
e-book
An email marketing message
New pages on your website
Case studies
Surveys
White papers
News/press releases

Online content is perfect for SEO because people link to it if it’s good, a natural way to build you profile online. But of course off-line content is just as good – providing your customers with extra information for free helps to build loyalty and encourage recommendations too.

Karen McNulty

What is the value of print advertising to your business?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 09:08:00 +0000

As the migration online continues across all areas of comms it’s easy to get carried away and ditch your print advertising schedule in favour of a more sexy pay per click campaign.

It’s true, print media doesn’t attract such compelling circulation figures these days - http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/table/2012/oct/12/abcs-national-newspapers

But before you throw the baby out with the bath water and convert to Google Ads, just double check what is truly the most cost-effective and successful option for your business.

For some businesses, display ads remain a legitimate and cost-effective route to market. But how often do you check your paid for space is really doing it’s job? When is the last time you considered doing any of the following:

Renegotiate rates – is there a better deal to secure, given the changing media landscape? Don’t accept the first quote, look to do a deal.

Reconsider placement – is your ad having to fight against other ads or starting to look like wallpaper? Think about new positioning and talk to your media buyer and ad designer about a change of shape or size to create fresh interest.

How often do you change the message or design? Subject to budget, look to refresh things on a regular basis. Think about seasonal changes or trends that run in line with your business and tweak, without losing your brand identity.

Stand out from the crowd – the simplest ideas are usually the best and catch attention. Less is usually regarded as more in ad design so revisit your material and strip out any unnecessary detail that prevents the customer seeing the real message.

Is the ‘call to action’ obvious enough. Ads raise profile but ultimately they serve a purpose, to encourage customers to get in touch, find out more about your business, buy from you. Ensure your incentive or ‘call to action’ is clear and contact details are prominent.

And if you’re reviewing ad schedules, spread your net wider. As news titles look to run tighter copy templates, lifestyle and community magazines, even parish newsletters, are coming into their own. If you’re trying to target specific audiences, these will often provide an affordable option.

And what about measurement? Every inquiry needs to be asked the same question – ‘where did you hear about us’, ‘what made you get in touch’. It might seem tiresome but so is wasting hard-earned ad budget.

Monitoring source of inquiries and sales conversions will soon prove if display ads are paying their way. If they’re no longer doing so, then it’s time to consider a change.

Dawn Strange

Light at the end of the Penguin tunnel with Google’s disavow tool

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 15:02:00 +0000

In October Google announced the introduction of its disavow tool to finally address the issue of bad links pointing to a website. It’s a contentious issue to start with because as we’ve said before, building unnatural links (like paying for them for example) to help raise rankings has always been wrong.

Far better to get those links naturally because you’ve got great content and that’s what Penguin and Panda have been mostly about, not rewarding bad links.

However, you can’t control who links to your website and you can be an unfortunate victim of a malware attack such as the well publicised “pharma hack” earlier this year. This can result in a large number of undesirable links pointing to your website and you may not even be aware of it until Google’s webmaster tools leaves you a nice message.

You do have to demonstrate that you’ve tried to remove the links yourself and actually getting links to be disavowed is entirely at Google’s discretion, so the more work you can do to ensure it (a) doesn’t happen and (b) that you’re working hard to stop it happening, the better.

To disavow links, you have to upload a text file, with one URL per line of links that you want Google to ignore. These are the links pointing to your website that you’re telling Google that you don’t trust. To do this you need to login into webmaster tools and select the website that is in question, and if you’ve a spare 10 minutes Matt Cutts from Google tells you all about it: http://youtu.be/393nmCYFRtA

Google says: A typical use case for this tool is if you’ve done link building that violates our quality guidelines. Google has sent you a warning about unnatural links, and despite your best efforts, there are some links that you still can’t get taken down.

Here is the link to get to the right page in Webmaster tools: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main

You can read the full detail on Google’s blog:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/a-new-tool-to-disavow-links.html

Karen McNulty

Ofcom report on children’s online activity is a warning for us all

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 12:13:00 +0000

Children spend as much time surfing the Internet as they do watching TV, according to a new report this week from Ofcom.

These are the businesspeople, opinion makers and communication leaders of the future and their upbringing within the digital era will have a profound effect on communications over the next generation.

The Ofcom stats show a huge spike in iPad, smartphone and Internet use in the space of just 12 months. The growth in social networking, even among children as young as five, is astounding. That’s in one year - imagine what that means over a generation.

Some people within our profession still grapple to get their heads around digital marketing per se; and many, many businesses refuse to see any synergy, and therefore any reason, to enter the digital world. It can be a frustrating place to be at times.

No matter, when the ‘young people’ come of age there is comfort in knowing we will all have cut our teeth in the world of digital communication – and quite frankly, anyone that hasn’t deserves to be left behind.

Dawn Strange
Account director

The price of sponsorship to your brand – just ask Newcastle!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:45:00 +0000

Sponsorship is a key tool in the arsenal of corporate marketing. And this week it hit the headlines in the shape of Newcastle United and its marriage to loans provider Wonga.com

However we view the partnership and what it says about Newcastle – an unethical business decision putting money before responsibility or a great business deal not to be missed – nobody can deny it’s grabbed huge attention and already paying dividends for both parties in terms of increased exposure.

But at what cost?

Sponsorship is all about raising profile and spreading the word, primarily among a target audience to reaffirm the brand and then further afield, to touch a new and so far untapped potential customer of the future.

Good marketing practice would be to align your company’s brand with a like-minded sponsorship partner. Clearly in this case, the Premiership club has decided this isn’t an essential.

And its decision has produced some extremely negative conversation: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/newcastle-united/9596416/Newcastle-Uniteds-Wonga-sponsorship-speaks-volumes-about-football-and-Mike-Ashley.html

The Telegraph quotes the fact that if a Newcastle supporter took out a Wonga loan to pay for a £49.99 home shirt it would cost £71.92 in 30 days time. If it were possible to pay back a Wonga loans in a year, that same shirt would cost £2,107.

Newcastle hopes to ride the storm, no doubt expecting the furore around this week’s sponsorship announcement to die down eventually and leave them with a lucrative sponsorship deal to use to their advantage.

But time will tell whether the public, and namely all the club’s fans in the northeast, will be quite as forgiving. Financial hardship is growing by the second right across the UK and football fans are not immune. Aligning itself with a company of this nature does feel like a kick in the teeth for people who find themselves facing deprivation and debt.

Time will tell whether this partnership has a long-term future or not.

Dawn Strange

LinkedIn’s changes - are you up to speed?

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 08:00:00 +0000

At our recent online marketing seminar LinkedIn dominated the session. Covering this business-to-business social network was long overdue not least because it’s undergone some radical changes in the last 12 months but also because some of them are quite exciting!

We’d thought we’d use our blog this week to post a quick summary of what’s new and how to benefit from LinkedIn’s updates.

The number of professionals now using it makes this business social network more significant than ever. In September LinkedIn announced its 10 millionth member in the UK. making 4 out of 5 British professionals with an account.

So what’s new? These are the main changes that we think will have an impact:

1. Targeted updates

Company pages can now target updates to specific groups of followers which helps to reduce the number of irrelevant posts followers receive and make updates they do see more valuable.

You will still see the company update if you visit the company page, regardless of who was targeted in the first instance but it does mean that followers will receive this information in a timely manner.

2. Follower statistics

LinkedIn’s insights now provide details for:

Follower demographics
Engagement levels
Update impressions
Total following
Recent followers
Number of new followers from month-to-month.

3. Commenting and liking

Individuals can now comment and like updates made by individuals and companies. This allows an increased level of interaction and engagement as well as creating a dialogue with those following a company.

This information combines with the ‘trending in your network’ feature, which shows posts popular with those in your network.

4. Redesigned profile pages

You may have noticed recently that your LinkedIn profile looks different. The new design is being rolled out gradually.

LinkedIn says that the changes aim to make, “it easier for LinkedIn members to get more value out of the services we offer by creating simpler, more relevant, more social experiences. This new look and feel to the profile is the first step of many more exciting changes to come to the LinkedIn profile later this year”.

The jury’s out on whether that’s the case, especially with so many other social media being adopted by businesses. These are the areas where you’ll see a difference now:

Your image is much larger than before – a good quality, professional photo is more important than ever. A poor profile photograph is one of the main mistakes made by LinkedIn users.
The ‘Summary’ content is now more prominent so good writing skills are more of a necessity than before – tell a story and make people want to contact you. It is also important to include keywords in this section so people can find you when they search.
Previous job titles no longer appear in the brief overview next to your image, just the names of previous employers.
Contact information is now hidden behind the ‘Contact info’ button rather than always visible but at the bottom of the page as was previously the case.

In case you still can’t see it, we did a before and after comparison:

I feel slightly lost without all that information in the main profile box I have to admit. But I’m not used to it yet so we’ll have to see if it really does help to create a “simpler, more relevant, more social experience”.

We’ll let you know!

Karen McNulty

Are you picking the right social media for the job?

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:24:00 +0000

The social media revolution is still here. As businesses we know we’ve got to do it but the abundance of media available to us, not to mention that sense of missing out makes it hard to know which channel will be the most effective.

We thought it was worth sharing some techniques to help plan social media activity as part of your overall social media plan.

Define what, who and when

First things first. It’s always easier to jot some ideas down and plan how your marketing will work before launching into it and making a mistake. Using a table, something like this, is a simple way to identify which media will work for you:

Business Example – The Widget Company

Social channel	Target audience	Objective	Who will do it	How often
Twitter - corporate account	B2C potential customers	Raise brand awareness	Tracey – comms team	5-10 times daily
Twitter – MD	Other businesses, target networking groups	Develop thought leadership, raise profile in business circles regionally.	Simon Smith (MD)	3-5 times daily
Facebook Page	Existing customers	Develop customer community and customer service channel	Technical team and marketing	Watching, posting and interacting daily
Blog
Pinterest

Ask questions

You get the idea. Seeing your social media selection in black and white often highlights practical questions. Using the example above you’re prompted to ask more questions, such as:

Have we picked the right people?
Do they have the time?
Are we agreed that those objectives are right for each channel or should we move some of those around?

For example we’ve suggested using Facebook as a customer service channel but it might be better to use Twitter for this as it’s more straightforward to direct message followers and there is potential to have multiple accounts for different areas of customer support. BT is a good example of this:

Add your agreed activity into a social media plan

Before long a strategy begins to develop and you’re instantly more in control of your social media marketing.

We usually carry out this exercise as the first phase for a social media plan. After that it’s important to look at content, followed by social media guidelines for those managing these channels.

Find out more about putting together your social media plan from our blog.

Karen McNulty

The great nudity and PR debate gets another royal airing – courtesy of Kate

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:25:00 +0000

Bauer’s French edition of Closer magazine has got us all in a stew over the Royals again – this time the unsuspecting victim is the Duchess of Cambridge.

Following hot on the heels of Prince Harry’s recent exposure in Las Vegas, the Royal brand has come in for some serious hammering this summer.

The damage done is debatable though with half the population arguing it brings the young royals into the realms of everyday, normal folk – the other half probably not giving a damn.

It is amusing to see it all unravel through the media though. As PR professionals we spend a large proportion of our working lives trying to protect brands and reinforce what they stand for.

The royals are the face of one of the world’s major brands and with that comes so much responsibility that if they read every rule in the HRH bible of do’s and don’t’s they’d never dare step foot outside the gates of Buckingham Palace again (I wonder if there’s one in there for ‘Keep your clothes on at all times’ – possibly not!).

I can think of thousands of brand breakers which will cause far more damage than a topless image – I guess it’s the principle of the matter in this case that’s getting everyone so hot under the collar.

And it goes back to the one of the oldest PR rules in the book, if you’ve not prepared for the worst possible outcome and the ‘what if?’ scenario, never put yourself in that position in the first place.

The young royals are brilliant for the brand but their advisors need to wise up, lose some naivety, and take a few crisis management lessons – or better still, not allow their precious cargo into the lion’s den in the first place.

Dawn Strange

Are networking groups worth your time and investment?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:33:00 +0000

If you can’t answer a resounding ‘yes’ to the above question then perhaps it’s time you re-assessed what your objectives are for attending in the first place.

It’s easy to register, turn up and go through the motions. But with time being so precious (not to mention the cost, if there is a registration fee) you need to maximise any networking event.

Ask yourself:

What are my objectives in networking?
Am I achieving these?
If not, can I set myself a deadline date by which to achieve these?
Or is there a smarter way of reaching these objectives?

As a PR person, face-to-face networking is worth a hundred email interactions or phone calls. Nothing can replace a personal conversation where you are guaranteed full attention, can read body language, use eye contact, gauge genuine interest, and really promote yourself and your business objective.

But many businesspeople lose sight of their networking aims and ambitions and just turn up for a complimentary breakfast and a meaningless chat with the same familiar faces before starting their working day.

If you fit into this category, why not re-assess the value of your networking groups. Are you gaining any new contacts? Are you winning any new business leads? Are you spreading your brand or business service among many more people? Ultimately, can you see any direct benefit to your business through these networking activities?

If none of these objectives (or other motives you may have for attending) are being realised it’s probably time to re-assess what you’re doing. Explore other networking groups; attend as a guest before committing longer term; use LinkedIn for local new groups that may have emerged; you may even decide to start one yourself for your particular sector if you can see real value in doing so.

Time is such a precious commodity that you really need to be using it to its full potential – assess your networking time, check it against your objectives, and make some changes if you think it could be working better for you.

Getting the right marketing mix

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 13:36:00 +0000

It’s been a rocky road for print media this week with latest reports indicating that agencies and in-house marketing departments are moving their ad spend online faster than was first anticipated.

Print media could soon be overtaken by its digital counterpart: http://www.brandrepublic.com/news/1146817/

Before we all get carried away with the wonderful world of the web and the plethora of latest digital marketing initiatives, stop and consider seriously what your specific business really needs to do to meet its marketing objectives.

Invariably, it will be a marketing mix where print media may well have its place.

Don’t allow yourself to be swept along by the ‘next big thing’ – just because people start using it, it doesn’t mean it’s right for your business.

Ironically, digital marketing, and in particular social media, suffers a bad press from businesses that take this approach and jump in with no strategy, no resource and no thought for company objectives.

The result is a very bad experience with the blame laid unfairly (in my opinion) at the door of the new comms channels.

It has to be a balance and a mix of comms and marketing tools. We advise many clients not to waste budget on social media or online advertising but there are others where it is essential to focus 99% of spend online.
Print media still has a valuable job to do and is the only route to reaching some specific target audiences.
It’s a balancing act and one that needs constant monitoring and auditing as the changing communications landscape shifts again and again.

Don’t discount print media just because it’s having a torrid time, review its return for your business and assess it alongside all other activity.

Dawn Strange

Have you thought about using webinars as a marketing tool?

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 20 Aug 2012 08:45:00 +0000

Online marketing channels have opened up some great opportunities for us to reach our target audiences and webinars are among them.

What is a webinar?

Wikipedia’s definition is:

“… a service that allows conferencing events to be shared with remote locations. In general the service is made possible by Internet technologies, particularly on TCP/IP connections.“

It’s basically holding a virtual meeting, using the Internet to connect us to other people.

To run your own, you need access to a webinar service or software and these are all good examples, many of them with free trials and free options:

They are all quite straightforward to use as they guide you through the process, this example is using the free version of Anymeeting:

Webinar applications

There are a surprising number of ways that a webinar can be used. On a practical note they are useful for:

Meetings
Training
Lectures
Presentations

They are also a good solution when you want to keep costs down, as running a webinar from a computer is considerably low in cost compared to travelling and staging a meeting or event that isn’t local.

Marketing opportunities

Apart from being a good online tool, they will help to raise your profile in several ways:

They allow people to see you in action as a “taster” to dealing with your business in other ways
They can be used as a sales tool to promote your product or service by “demoing” it
Webinars can provide value added content, either for learning purposes or to provide an extra insight for “free”

Karen McNulty

Why you need a social media plan

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 10:43:00 +0000

Social media for business will only work effectively if there is a structured plan in place. It needs to be treated as an integral part of the core PR and marketing plan.

Do not be tempted to test the water until you’ve thought it through completely.

Here are a few considerations before you get started:

Research – before embarking on any social media activity, start using it yourself to understand how it works, the types and style of messages, levels of participation, correct etiquette, regularity of posts, and so on. You can follow from the sidelines without joining in. This will give you an invaluable insight.

Next, choose the right channels for your audience – only select the channels where your audience or potential customer (b2b and b2c) is connected. Without generalising too much, there’s little point Tweeting if the people you need to reach are 70-plus retirees; equally, Facebook may be less relevant for b2b sectors.

Setting a tone of voice – your style of messaging (although it may only be 140 characters in the case of Twitter) needs to be consistent and reflect the brand personality. Think carefully about how you do this – there’s very little point in using social media if you go off on a complete tangent – the most common mistake is making personal comment, rather than company comment, don’t be tempted to do so.

List your objectives – what do you want to use your chosen social media channel for? Gaining new followers, fresh interest and building a customer base; driving potential customers to your website; raising your company profile; setting yourself out as an expert in your specific sector; launching new products or services; promoting exclusive incentives. Once you’ve set clear objectives, this will help drive the direction for the messages.

How regular – be realistic about how regular you will be using social media as part of your PR activity. Some channels will dictate this for you (eg: Twitter really needs several posts a day to be effective; blogging once a month isn’t sufficient). Build time into the working week to give social media a fair chance.

Content is crucial – good quality optimised content is essential; make it relevant to your brand and the strategy you are following, but also try to make it topical and current to capture wider industry and consumer issues. Linking to a theme of the day is likely to attract wider following and interest, providing you make it relevant and not contrived.

Think ahead – all the above elements need to formulate part of your plan and this needs to be constantly working ahead of real time. Consider key dates in your business calendar; seasonal periods for promotional pushes; launches; news items, and build these into an activity schedule.

Measure engagement – don’t start until you’ve set a process of measurement. Like any form of PR and marketing, it’s vital to assess if it’s working and how effective it is. Like all forms of PR, social media has to be thought through and form a disciplined part of the company’s comms strategy. Given the immediacy and viral nature of this medium, it can quickly run out of control and it’s vital that an agreed plan is consistently followed.

Next time, what happens when social media goes wrong!

Dawn Strange

Blogs and podcasts - showcasing your expertise online

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:40:00 +0000

One of the things that the Internet brought to us was the ability to self-publish. As PR and marketing people, used to having control over stories and marketing copy, this was disturbing at first. Visions of poor copywriting, negative PR and in general “user generated content” (frightening) could have sent all of us running for the hills.

Fortunately we saw this as an opportunity, and in fact the breadth and depth of written content now available to us on the web provides valuable background research, insight and expertise for our clients and us.

How can you turn this into an opportunity?

Publishing content that demonstrates knowledge and experience in your sector is an excellent way to raise the profile of your business. There are now a number of tools available to us to make this possible and there’s more than one benefit to using them. Here’s a quick overview of two, ideal for dipping your toe in the water:

Blogs

Blogging has been around for a while (since 1994 when the first online diaries, or web-logs were recognised) and even if you don’t blog you probably see them all of the time. This is because they often appear in search results, as they’re full of up-to-date, relevant content.

They’re also a fantastic way to demonstrate expertise in a subject area. Some of the most popular blogs have millions of visitors each month, such as Mashable recognised as thought leaders in social media (10 million visitors each month). In the UK blogs such XpertHR are really popular - this one sees around 11,000 visitors each month.

Use a blog to:

Broadcast information about your subject and position you/your business as experts
Optimise your website – they’re great Google food
Engage with your target audience. Blogs are social media and allow comments, follows and generally interaction
Make money. If your blog becomes really popular then it will become attractive to advertisers.

They’re easy to set up, you can use free services such as blogger.com or Wordpress.com or else you can speak to your web developer to have one added to your website. We usually recommend having your blog as part of your website so it’s branded in line with other online marketing and it gives Google an excuse to crawl your website more often.

Podcasts

A podcast is an audio file (MP3 usually) that can be downloaded onto a mobile device or listened to online. If you can record material it’s time to think about podcasting, as it’s another opportunity to demonstrate your expertise.

Like blogs, these will also be found in search, usually for people searching specifically for podcasts. They are enormously popular; according to BBC’s “Click” programme in July 2011: “More than eight million adults in the UK - around 16% of the adult population - have downloaded a podcast, with almost half listening to one at least once a week. This figure is echoed in the US.”

Good examples include a corporate podcast from the Co-operative.

And video games company ign-uk uses theirs to provide information on gaming.

Use a podcast to:

Showcase your expertise and become known in your sector
For training, especially as supplementary material or to record a session (usually best to edit it to something more concise if you do this)
Value added material for your website, visitors can learn more from your podcast
Reach a wider audience than ever before
Provide an audio alternative to your written blog (some people prefer audio to visual for example)
Stand out from the crowd – there’s an opportunity here to do something different to your competitors

Like blogs, they are most effective as a continuing series of broadcasts so that people can subscribe to them and of course they are constantly up-to-date.

They’re quite straightforward to produce too. All you need is a good quality microphone and a room with good acoustics. You will find free software on your computer to create your podcast – Audacity on PCs and Garageband on Macs will both allow you to record and edit an audio file. Once you’ve recorded it you need to host it somewhere, preferably on your website and then you can also submit it to iTunes. This is recommended if you’re serious about your podcasts being found and do need to reach a wider audience. Find more help on submitting to iTunes here: http://www.apple.com/uk/itunes/podcasts/specs.html

A word of caution when adopting either of these media -they both represent your business and are very much a part of your marketing mix. It’s essential that they are professional which includes being well written (for blogs) and carefully edited for podcasts.

Next time I’ll be talking about how you can also use webinars to raise your expert profile.

Karen McNulty

Olympic branding rules are a step too far

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 13:43:00 +0000

The Olympics – an event set to benefit the entire country – has shot itself in the foot this week, in my opinion, as nearly 300 enforcement officers from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) paid a visit to unauthorised companies using the official Games branding and wording.

It does beggar belief that words such as ‘gold’, ‘silver’, ‘bronze’ and even ‘London’ are on the banned list. And ODA enforcement officers who find companies in breach of the law can instigate court proceedings with fines of up to £20,000.

The Olympics is a great sporting event for the country and brand protection is a vital ingredient of profile building for any business, but the ODA’s action this week seems totally over the top.

At a time of relative austerity - thanks to some more timely good news on the GDP yesterday the nation needs a feel-good factor and it doesn’t get any bigger than the Olympics. The British public should be encouraged to use the Games as a springboard for activities to support their own communities and bring people together – not slapped in the face for using a logo without permission!

Last night it emerged that a village magazine, to be sold for 40p on Box Hill during the cycle races has been banned because it is not an official London 2012 sponsor. Volunteers have produced a special Olympics-themed edition to help raise money for local charities but Games’ organisers Locog insist only event sponsors can trade along the cycle route.

It’s laughable if it wasn’t so ridiculous. The public should be celebrating the fact the Olympics is on its own doorstep and everyone should be given the opportunity to ‘take part’ in their own way – even if it’s writing a village newsletter with an Olympic theme to drum up an extra bit of funding for a local charity.

While deals with the major sponsors were secured years ago, Locog should have given more consideration to a comms strategy at grassroots level, for the average man in the street, the trader, the local community group – the people who will be paying for the Games long after the last gold medal has been won.

We hear even some of the key sponsors are struggling to provide memorable campaigns due to the raft of brand rules putting a stranglehold on creative thinking.

As an Olympic supporter looking forward to my allocated ticket time of 3hrs 50mins in the stadium on August 4th, I can’t help thinking that Locog, ODA and the other Games’ ‘message police’ have been very short sighted and turned a golden opportunity to hold a countrywide celebration into an exercise in extreme brand protection!

Take advantage of the Google Places update: Google + Local

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 23 Jul 2012 16:00:00 +0000

Google+ Local Update

When we posted this blog on 23rd July, Google+ Business Pages and Google+ Local were not merging together. On 3rd August Google announced that you can now verify your Google+ Local listing on your Google+ page.

Google says:

“Verification will enable you to update your business address and hours, respond to reviews, and more -- from the same Google+ page where you currently share posts with your customers. And stay tuned -- we’re working on extending the full benefits of a verified Google+ page to more local businesses soon.”

Essentially, you log into your Google+ Page and on the “profile” tab, go to “edit profile”, then click on the link that says: “Unverified”:

You’ll have to then request a postcard to verify your address.

There are more details on verifying your local listing here: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2609871

Good luck!

Karen McNulty

At the end of May Google announced that Google Places would be rebranded to become Google+ Local. This was not unexpected as Google+ had rolled out its brand pages at the end of last year and it made no sense to keep Google Places separate. This is much like Facebook did last year by adding Facebook Places to Facebook Pages for location-based businesses.

Why Google local listings are important

Google Places (as was) has always been an excellent SEO tool to make sure Google knows where you are and can see more about your business. You probably set up a Google Places page for this reason at some point.

Local listings also often take precedence over standard search results when the user is searching using a place name in the search query, appearing at the top of the organic results.

It is therefore important to optimise your local listing for important keywords so you appear in this list. It is often easier for small local businesses to optimise a Google local listing than to spend a lot of time and money optimising their websites to appear organically.

What has changed?

The name
Google Places is now known as Google+ Local. Unfortunately at this stage this is as far as the integration between Google+ and local listings goes, Google+ Business Pages and local listings remain two separate entities. Google has stated that they will be merged, but at this point in time that’s still a work in progress. Facebook had the same problem for a while so at some point we hope this will be resolved soon.

How search results are displayed
Before Google’s latest changes this is how local search results appeared with a list of “places” next to which you’d see a “place page”:

Now, results look as follows. Following either the “Google+ Page” or “Google reviews” (if you have some) now takes you to Google+ Local page for that business:

Page layout
This is the biggest change with the switch to Google+ Local. All local business listings now laid out in a similar way to Google+ Business Page. If you already had a Google Places listing this change will have been made automatically.

What has stayed the same?

The information you upload
At present, the information you can include on your Google+ Local listing is exactly the same as when it was Google Places. This means you can include things like your contact details, website address and opening hours.

The interface for updating your listing
At present you still use the Google Places interface to update your Google+ Local listing, this means you can still update your listing even if you haven’t yet set up a Google+ account for your business.

What should you do?

Optimise your Google+ Local Page by finding it first of all, even if it’s not properly merged yet it will be at some point and it will always be a good SEO tool. Go to www.google.com/places to claim your page, following the steps to login. If you already have a Google account associated with your business this is the one to use.

If you already have a Google+ account for your business and it is different from your existing Google Places account, find your Google+ Local Page and click “manage this page”. If you previously used a different account it should switch it over.

If you’re not sure if you had a Google Place account previously, go to Google Maps and search for your business name, with location if it’s quite generic. If you have a places listing it will appear in the results. If you don’t, then go to www.google.com/places and set one up.

Tips to optimise your page:

Make sure you add photos and video if you have it:

Ask for reviews on Google+ Local from customers. We mentioned earlier that your listings will appear on Google search with “reviews” next to them if you have them and we suspect that if you have reviews you may be placed higher in the listing than those that don’t.
Add as many categories as possible so you are found in search for keywords related to you.
Copy your Google+ Local web address and use it as a hyper text link with your contact details, which will help with local optimisation again. E.g. our link is https://plus.google.com/109844285738302606527/about and we can use this when we direct people to Media Matters
Don’t be put off setting up a Google+ Business Page, just make sure you use the same account for when they finally merge.

Frankly it’s a frustrating process at the moment, with a few bugs in the system, and we are watching to see when Google resolves the merging issue. We’ll keep you posted!

Emotion has a part to play in PR – just ask Andy Murray

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:13:00 +0000

PR opportunities comes in all kinds of guises – last weekend’s Wimbledon final being a perfect example.

Andy Murray may have lost the game but he scored a massive PR ace with his spontaneous emotional outburst at the end.

The BBC and interviewee Sue Barker couldn’t have scripted it better. The Scottish star, renowned for his usual sallow, impersonal approach took the microphone and delivered pure gold in PR terms.

His tears, his words of affection for the crowd and his fans and family, revealed an Andy Murray none of us really knew existed but one we all probably secretly hoped might be lurking there somewhere behind his hardened persona.

Our greatest tennis hopeful since the 1930s won the hearts and minds of many cynics and overturned a large swathe of public opinion in one afternoon.

The exercise demonstrates the power of emotion as a PR tool.

In business terms it also has it’s part to play and anyone who says there’s no room for empathy and feelings is wrong.

Look at some of the UK’s leading companies, they build a following based upon the personality of their brand. If consumers and fellow businesspeople resonate and empathise with your brand and your company ethos, the chances are they will hook up to you and become a loyal supporter.

Does your business have a face? If you’re looking to build loyalty and establish a following ask yourself what’s your company’s personality.

Dawn Strange

Managing your time with social media

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Fri, 29 Jun 2012 07:50:00 +0000

One of the most regular questions we get when businesses are considering social media for the first time is “how much time will it take?” For those who have already started using social media, the frustration is balancing social networking time with other work and avoiding distraction.

It’s tempting to think that you simply don’t have time for all of this social nonsense…

In May 2012 Techcrunch reported that there were now “over 1 billion users of social media worldwide”. Social media is here to stay and as businesses there’s never been a better time to engage with our target audiences. Tools like Facebook and Twitter allow us to communicate instantly with relevant up-to-date information and get immediate feedback. As marketers we’re now closer to our customers and clients than ever before.

The answer is to build social marketing into your working days and weeks so that it’s a positive activity rather than a time draining frustration. These are our tips to help you make the most of your social media time:

1. Pick the most important social media for you.
There are so many options now and it’s hard to keep up with newer media such as Pinterest and Google+ on top of established Facebook and Twitter - and that’s just scratching the surface. The trick is to think about the demographic of each of these medium’s user audiences and if your customers and contacts are likely to be in that space. If they are, start with the one that will have the most impact for you and once you’re comfortable, see if you need any more.

Another tip is to think about blogging as a starting point, because once you’ve got regular content like a blog, you’ve got something to talk about in other social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Keeping your target audience in mind will save you time in the long run.

2. Schedule your time to suit your working week.
We all have different times of day that might work for us with social media. You need to decide what will work for you. Social media needs checking more than once a day even if you’re not posting and if you think about it, it doesn’t work if you don’t do it regularly. So it’s better to spend ten minutes every day than it is to spend an hour every Thursday because the point is about building relationships and engaging with people. If you’re never there, that’s quite difficult.

3. Plan ahead
If I had to pick out one golden tip for managing social media time it would be planning. If you create a content plan for your blog or a theme for next week’s Facebook posts, not only can these be added to the diary, it really helps you to write. Sitting in front of Twitter or your blog page and wondering what to say can be such a time drainer and that’s often when you get distracted. Before you know it you’ve followed the link on that tweet, read that blog it led you to which had an interesting link to a web page and now you’re on Wikipedia and can’t remember how you got there.

There is no one simple answer as you can see, but adding a bit of structure and planning really will help I promise.

Karen McNulty

Recovering from Panda and Penguin – it’s time to get back to marketing basics

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 13:35:00 +0000

At our last two bootcamps we’ve spent time looking at Google’s recent algorithm changes: the panda update which began in May 2011 and the Penguin update in April this year.

In all the time we’ve understood what SEO means (search engine optimisation) we’ve had to try and match Google’s expectations of a “good” website. Sometimes this seems sensible, like getting a page title right so that Google knows what’s on the page or adding alt tags to describe pictures. But other times it’s been a game to build “links” as that was what Google told us we needed.

In the past Google’s only way of measuring website popularity was by looking at other websites which linked to it and estimating their quality. It’s conclusion heavily influenced where that website appeared in search results. This has been the SEO objective for at least the last 3 years.

Not surprisingly the Internet is now full of websites with abnormal numbers of links to them from odd, unrelated sites or sites with little other relevance other than an amazingly relevant keyword here and there.

Internet marketers became obsessed with building links and we almost forgot that links will come anyway if you have great content.

Panda changed the Google algorithm to focus on:

• Content that appears elsewhere (duplicate content)
• Identical product descriptions
• Borrowed content
• Poorly optimised pages
• Low quality links

Not before time, it did this to improve the quality of search results and remove poor “spam” websites from those results; hence the focus on duplicate content as many of these sites copied content from elsewhere. Over the next year this algorithm was continually updated to look at low quality links to websites too.

Penguin reinforced this, mainly focusing on penalising websites for bad links and poor quality content. You may not have noticed but there was also an update focusing on local organic search results which means that if your business is local it’s more important than ever to make sure it’s clear on your website and you have a Google Places account.

So, as a marketer I’m quite relieved that we can finally concentrate on doing things right and by that I mean:

Creating good quality, value added content on our websites and in our social media which our visitors and customers will love
Which means that we will attract genuine links through social media and online PR
Focus on staying true to your business, so use your website to say exactly what you do, if you’re local make sure your website urls clearly show your location, and your Page Titles
Build quality relationships (on and offline) with our customers and potential customers to earn their trust and do more business

I’ll finish with some words from Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team in March this year about the forthcoming (then) Penguin Update:

“… the idea is basically to try and level the playing ground a little bit. So all those people who have sort of been doing, for lack of a better word, “over optimization” or “overly” doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little bit more level.”

That feels much more like marketing to me.

Karen McNulty

What does your email marketing say about your brand?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 09:39:00 +0000

It is part of your marketing mix and so should stand the same close brand scrutiny as any other communication tool. It needs to be an integral part of your entire marketing activity.

There are a number of points to consider before you unleash your e-newsletter or e-shots on your electronic database.
Here are a few I would regard to be the most important:

- Any communication from your company should reflect the same look where possible. Your e-newsletter template can be based upon your website, for instance. Give it a similar look and layout, where build allows, and viewers will instantly recognise it’s you. If it’s familiar to them, there’s a better chance they will read it rather than bin it.

- The language used should again reflect your company marketing language. While you might use this channel for a specific end reason, you still need to build brand affinity by keeping the language similar. There’s no point using gentle, consumer-friendly speak on your website if you use a brash, shouting style on your emails. Viewers get confused and move on.

- An e-newsletter is designed to provide a vehicle to introduce news, fresh product or service initiatives, latest offers/incentives – it’s a more direct and slightly more obtrusive vehicle as it lands in the Inbox and so has to have real worth and added value to the recipient. Make it fresh and relevant to your brand. E-newsletters are two a penny, yours has to stand out from the crowd and give recipients a reason to want to read it.

- As a reputable company you want to build a good following, so abide by the
e-newsletter etiquette. Ensure you carry an unsubscribe button and use a recognised e-newsletter distributor, which uses approved, white-listed servers, eg: Constant Contact or Mailchimp.

- Finally, how did you build your e-newsletter database? For data protection the ICO says that your contacts must have opted in (given permission), or given a “soft opt-in”:

where you've obtained a person's details in the course of a sale or negotiations for a sale of a product or service;
where the messages are only marketing similar products or services; and
where the person is given a simple opportunity to refuse marketing when their details are collected, and if they don't opt out at this point, are given a simple way to do so in future messages.

Source: http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/sector_guides/marketing.aspx

Sending e-newsletters to illicit email addresses is not the way to build a sound and reputable brand.

Dawn Strange
Account Director

Optimising your Facebook Brand Page with Timeline

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 12:13:00 +0000

Have you got to grips with the new Facebook Pages timeline layout? On 31st March Facebook made the timeline format compulsory for brand pages and your old page was made to fit the new format. That’s ok, as all of your old posts and tabs still exist but without taking advantage of the new features it will not do you any justice.

So what’s new and how can you make sure you benefit from the changes?

1. Cover image
At the top of your Facebook brand page there is now the space for a large image. If you haven’t done this already you’ll simply see a button saying “add a cover”. This is designed to allow you to showcase your brand but with the following rules: No calls to action such as “get it now”, no pricing, offers or buying information, no contact information, this should be in the “about” space and no mention of any Facebook functions such as “like”

You have 815 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall of space available and it’s best to make your image the right size before uploading it, otherwise Facebook will scale it and the results are not as good. The new profile picture size is 180 x 180 pixels.

2. The about section

This now appears underneath the main cover picture. What’s displayed depends on whether you have a physical location or not. Its prominence provides a good opportunity to make your telephone number and address visible.

3. Message button
This is available to any signed in Facebook user looking at your page and regrettably is one way to begin with. A visitor can message the page but you still can’t broadcast to your fans. (A shame as that used to be a useful marketing feature.) The message button will not appear on all pages, as the page owner has to allow it. We recommend that you do, as with all social media the point is to encourage engagement. Messages are not made public but appear in your admin panel at the top of the page.

4. Apps (previously the tabs that appeared on the left of your old page)

These are now displayed below the cover image and you can see 4 at a time. You can set which ones appear except for the “photos” app, which is always first. Welcome tabs now will not work but use these apps instead to promote a campaign or offer and make sure it’s visible in the first 4 tabs.

5. Pinning and highlighting posts
Two rather good new features:

Pinning posts means you can make a particular post stay at the top of the page, great for events, offers, competitions
Highlighting posts, which you consider to be important events by “starring” them means they stretch across the whole timeline. These can work for important news pieces and announcements.

6. Milestones
Milestones are new and are meant to highlight important events in your brand history, such as product launch dates or business start dates. Use them like this to raise the profile of these occasions :

7. Scheduling posts
You can now schedule a post for a date and time in the future, a really useful feature. Go to post as usual and you’ll see a small blue clock on the bottom left of your post box. If you select it, you get to add a year, month and day for your post to appear live.

8. Managing admins
And finally, it’s possible to assign different roles to admins for your brand page. In the “edit page” menu, go to “admin roles” and you’ll see new options for each admin:

This is much better for delegating some but nor all control to teams for managing business pages, without the worry of inexperienced users posting inappropriately.

All in all, these changes are improvements and certainly provide Facebook Pages with more of a business feel. Our recommendation is to make the most of each one.

Karen McNulty

BBC Gardener’s World turns a retro marketing idea into a creative winner

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Wed, 23 May 2012 16:10:00 +0000

One of the most important buzzwords in the pr industry is creativity – without it we’re all doomed!

Coming up with a gem of an idea, whether it’s the next big campaign theme or simply a clever tag line for an ad, is what we all strive for.

And when you’re having a particularly challenging ‘creative’ moment the last thing you want reminding is ‘there’s no such thing as a new idea’.

There’s plenty of truth in this well-worn saying though and no better example than this week’s BBC Gardeners’ World mag.

While we hear almost daily reports of cumbersome and over-the-hill print titles being put out to pasture as they surrender audiences to their younger, sleeker online counterparts, it is with delight we see the print media biting back with some creative thinking – even if it has its origins in an older era.

Gardeners’ World has gone for a marketing throwback – the scratch-and-sniffedition.

It has given its bumper Spring edition a lavender-scented front cover in a bid to push sales. This far from original marketing idea is a first for a BBC mag and will attract masses of extra attention on the shelves for a publication that already enjoys a rising circulation (currently edging towards quarter of a million per edition).

Not only is this a great example of how print media is keeping fresh to maintain and enhance its customer base against the digital backdrop, it’s also evidence of how an old idea has legs if you give it a modern twist.

In Golden Jubilee year there are a multitude of retro activities swimming around, so looking backwards to go forwards is creative, to a point – making it current and relevant in today’s marketplace makes it truly a piece of creative genius.

I’m off to buy my copy of Gardeners’ World!

Dawn Strange

Account director

What’s in a brand?

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:00:00 +0000

Creating a brand is not about simply designing a clever logo. A logo design is probably the least important element of a new brand. Yes it can create a fresh, new, energetic image but it is what sits behind the brand that is far more important.

Values: Consider the values of your business – what is important to you when delivering your service/product to customers? Do ALL your staff know those values? Do they all adhere to them? Are they written down? Could your staff refer to them to refresh their memories? In essence – what do you and your product stand for?

Image: Filthy delivery vans badly driven; untidy reception areas; sloppily dressed staff; out of date websites – they all paint a picture about a business. They suggest a lack of care and attention to detail. It begs the question: Is that typical of everything this company does?

Profile: Maintain a high profile with your customer base. Keep customers and potential customers informed about your latest services. Be seen in your target media both on and offline. Ensure that your media coverage reflects your values. Be out there. Be proactive. Website/blogs/social networks/media engagement/e-shots/e-newsletters.

Customers: Don’t be fooled into thinking the only customers that matter are those who pay invoices. ‘Customers’ include suppliers, business partners, business colleagues and any other stakeholders. They all have a vested interest in our business and must be treated as highly valued customers. Never take them for granted.

Remember: Customers ultimately determine the reputation of your brand. And in this modern digital age – a negative experience can be all over every social network like wildfire within seconds. More than at any other time in commercial history has the consumer been in ultimate control of a brand’s value and reputation.

…and finally: To review your brand – re-visit your values!

Peter Corder

Managing director

Evening Telegraph goes weekly – a sad day for Peterborough

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 09:33:00 +0000

With my former journalist’s hat on, I have to say news that the Peterborough Evening Telegraph is to go weekly is very sad.

It’s sad for the bank of staff, many are stalwart newspaper people who have given their careers to the industry and their heart to delivering news coverage for the Peterborough area and have now seen their print product reduced from six to one.

It’s also very sad for the city. As we strive to get Peterborough on the map as a serious place to live, work and be entertained, to lose your ‘institutional’ evening paper is a cross in the box.

But it’s not all gloom and doom – the printed version makes way for a more modern counterpart, reflecting the way more and more people want to read their news - a superior, interactive and fast-moving website.

We watch with bated breath as the ET site becomes the consumers’ daily fix of local news, until Thursdays when the bumper print edition hits the stands. Just how ‘bumper’ it will be, how will advertisers support it, what will it cost, how will it be circulated – are all questions still to be answered.

In the meantime, hats off to the team of staff who have worked tirelessly to keep the daily ET alive and kicking. People are always quick to knock its editorial content or its particular stance on a story – I wonder how they’ll take this latest news? With no daily rag to pick up and moan about – it could make for some interesting online comment boards!

Meantime, good luck to Peterborough ET and everyone working for it. It may be the end of one era, but it’s an exciting start of the next.

Dawn Strange
Accounts Director

Lord Sugar exploits power of Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:21:00 +0000

HAVING just read Alan Sugar’s latest book it simply re-inforces how social media is changing the way we communicate.

He has clearly embraced social networks, particularly Twitter, and is now prolific with 1.8 million followers! But it is not just idle gossip or banter for Lord Sugar. He knows how powerful the new medium can be in terms of influencing and canvassing opinion.

It is clear from reading his book that he has little regard for The Daily Mail so he set out to find out which of all the national newspapers his Twitter followers least trusted. His poll attracted over one million respondents and from their responses he produced pie charts to show the results – which did not make attractive reading for The Daily Mail.

Clearly, this is not a scientific approach to marketing surveys but it does demonstrate the power of the medium.

It’s definitely worth following Lord Sugar to see just how he uses Twitter. Visit twitter.com/Lord_Sugar.

When One Direction – the X-Factor boy band – decided to engage with the American market, their new single sold 131,000 copies even before it was released – all due to social media on Twitter., You Tube and Facebook. They have become huge in America even before their plane has landed on US soil.

The secret is to know how to harness social media to influence your target audience.
And that requires a very proactive approach with a clear understanding of marketing and PR principles.

Peter Corder
Managing director

Moments of truth: Transforming a business

noreply@blogger.com (mediamatterspr) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:20:00 +0000

ALL business success is driven by the way in which companies treat their customers. We all know it is much more costly to find a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.

And that was the dilemma facing Jan Carlzon – once CEO of Scandinavian Airlines in the late 1980’s/early 1990s. He believed that the way to turn his failing business around was to focus not on profit forecasts and cost cutting and heavy ad campaigns BUT on the key contact points with customers.

He famously described them as ‘moments of truth’ – the key moments when a company comes face to face with its customers. He pinpointed those key points in the customer journey and all efforts within Scandinavian Airlines were focused on making those moments memorable for customers. Getting them right first time, every time.

From a business losing $17 million a year with a reputation for always being late he turned it into the most punctual in Europe within 12 months and by the mid 80s SAS was showing a profit of $54 million a year.

How memorable are our ‘moments of truth’ with our customers? Do they receive a warm welcome at reception? Does the person who answers the phone do it with a smile and a positive attitude? Are queries dealt with urgently and promptly? Do we do what we say we are going to do? Do we exceed our customer expectations?

Jan Carlzon once famously worked out that SAS employees had about 50,000 moments of truth every day with customers across the business – so just imagine how many opportunities that presented to get things either right or wrong! Sometimes on that detail, a business can stand or fall.

Find out more about Jan Carlzon’s amazing story of customer excellence in his book Moments of Truth.

Peter Corder
Managing Director