Increasingly, we are being asked how to fully integrate digital channels into a PR campaign. When we start the briefing process and look at what’s going on behind the scenes, it is clear there are common areas to address that we thought useful to share.
1. You’re on social, but you don’t have a plan
• Treating social media as ‘one size fits all’ when what’s right for Facebook isn’t right for Instagram, for example.
• You’re on the wrong social channels for your brand, or you’re on the right channels but with the wrong strategy (i.e. you’re on Snapchat because it’s cool and the latest thing but your audience doesn’t want you to be there, you’re on Facebook to try to reach 18-21 year olds but they’re not there, you’re creating great but 3-minute long videos on Facebook)
• You aren’t able to react quickly – social media lives in the moment and you need to be able to create an image, short video or clever post immediately. If you’ve already agreed a tone of voice/style/guidelines and can jump on it quickly with quick approval turnaround, you can join the conversation around newsworthy or topical things
• Always think about the why and how – why are you on that channel? Who are you trying to reach? Why are you trying to reach them? How can you cut through the noise?
2. You’re creating great content, but no one can see it
• You’re not supporting social posts with advertising spend or targeting specific audiences – it’s no longer possible to reach the audiences you did in the past without advertising AND the advertising possibilities are game changes for marketers and brands
• You’re not thinking about each digital campaign holistically, with a plan for all touchpoints
• You’re creating great video content on YouTube but not thinking about how that could be supported across your website, eCRM programme, social channels and online advertising
3. You’re ignoring email as a channel
• Email is an older channel, but it's still the channel generating the highest ROI for marketers, more than TV, radio, social, paid search or affiliate – latest stats reveal average $38 ROI for every $1 spent (from VentureBeat, cited here: http://www.campaignmonitor.com/resources/guides/email-marketing-new-rule...)
• Always look for opportunities to capture customer data - use lead generation ads on Facebook and Twitter, create competitions, promote sign ups on your website and offer a discount for joining
• What if you have great data, but you don’t use it? A good database full of opted-in customer data from people who want to hear more about you/your products is invaluable! Remember that it’s not just about building up the numbers in a database – your customers will expect to receive useful, worthwhile and valuable information or offers from you so you need to hold up to your end of the bargain. Don’t just send promotions, send good content too – newsletters can be great ways of rounding up the last week or month’s updates, but keep it interesting and keep content succinct - link to blog posts with more details, create gifs in the email that link to longer videos on YouTube.
4. You’re complacent – you’re not constantly testing, analysing and improving your strategy
• Analyse – it’s no good doing the same thing over and over. At the very least, you should be doing regular monthly reviews of paid, social or email activity, along with more in depth quarterly reviews to analyse successes, identify areas for improvement and plan the next quarter. Monitor your A/B tests and implement the changes that work well
• Test – don’t do the same thing for months on end. Test multiple digital ads at the same time, spilt test subject lines, personalisation and content with your eCRM database
• Learn and improve – make sure you’re implementing the changes you’re learning from your testing
5. You’re falling behind
• You’re ignoring video – Not using video in your content strategies, website, social channels or email programmes? You should. Video is the fastest growing content platform and recent Facebook and Instagram updates have placed even more significance on the value of video content. Think about consumers scrolling through Facebook on a mobile without sound and you realise you have about 2 seconds (max) to grab their attention with a video and make them want to keep watching!
• Not thinking mobile first – this isn’t new, but it’s amazing how many businesses are yet to build their digital strategy around mobile. There’s no point in creating a website – or even a landing page – these days if it’s not responsive. But don’t just design something that looks nice on a mobile. Think about the experience – are the buttons big enough to press on a smaller smartphone? Is the text legible? Think about when your audience is using their mobiles and what else they’re doing at the same time – how can you cut through the distractions and reach them at the right time? How do you use your own mobile to view content?
• Keep up to date. The digital world changes weekly, daily, even more frequently, and it can be hard to keep up, but some of these changes will affect your social, advertising and email strategy. Platform updates might also signify changes in your data reporting and mean you need to tweak your strategy to reach your audience, so it’s crucial to keep on top of it.
To conclude, a digital communications strategy needs to be treated in partnership with a content strategy, rather than as a separate piece of the puzzle. Thinking of digital in a silo can lead to too much emphasis on data and measurement and not enough on the content story, and means that differing priorities and KPIs may overshadow the ultimate objective.
Similarly, while insights and measurement are undoubtedly essential to the ultimate success of a campaign, the overall focus should be on telling interesting stories and creating compelling, shareable content – and what's better placed to do that than PR?
PR should lead the coordination of effective, integrated content and digital strategies that identify how, when and where to amplify content to reach the right audience.