Evolve Communications

Why Working in PR Is Like Working in the Circus

Daniel — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:14:30 +0000

UPDATE: Thanks to the suggestion from our good friend @JamieLaceyPR, we created a poll where PR pros can vote for which circus character they are. Scroll to the bottom to take the poll!

We’ve been thinking about what makes a great PR person, and the various roles we have to play on a daily basis. More and more, we’re starting to think that working in PR is like working in the circus. And not only because it can be a chaotic experience. It’s fun, it’s exciting, and at the same time you have to be able to play a lot of different roles and do a lot of different things–all at the same time. And you’re expected to do them well.

Here are some typical roles we see at the circus…or in a PR person. It’s getting hard to tell the difference.

The Lion Tamer

Ah, the lion tamer. One of our favorite acts at the circus. Lion tamers have to be firm and fearless. They can’t flinch or show fear when they step into the ring with a number of big cats. And they need to be in command of their situation. A great PR person is like that. They’re not afraid to do what it takes to make things happen. They have an objective, and they work and work until they reach it, even when that means facing something that could maul them with a simple swipe.

The Tightrope Walker

This one’s especially true for those who work at agencies. A great PR person deftly walks the very thin line between what a client wants and what a client needs. Sometimes, clients have a specific objective in mind–like get on the front page of the New York Times. Yet, they don’t always know what’s involved (that’s why they hire us), or don’t necessarily understand why being on the front page of the nation’s newspaper of record isn’t necessarily a good thing. Great PR pros not only take the time to figure what’s really going to make an impact for a client (in a positive way), but also are deft at telling the client what they need to hear–not just what they want to hear.

The Contortionist

A great PR pro is someone who is extremely flexible. We have to be. We often spend our days with a to do list that’s a million miles long, our phones and emails are constantly buzzing, and sometimes our strategies need to turn on a dime.

The Ring Leader

A great PR pro needs to know what’s going on around him or her all the time. This is true at all levels of the industry–whether you’re just starting out or you run your own show. You need to know what’s happening in the news and your clients’ industries. You need to know what’s happening with your clients. You need to know what’s happening with your coworkers. And you need to make it look like it’s all going off without a hitch–even when you’re not sure if things will come together the way you’ve envisioned them.

The Clown

No matter how seriously we take our clients’ business, we always leave time for a little light-hearted fun. ‘Cause all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Plus, if you can’t make fun of yourself, who can you make fun of?

The Human Cannonball

This one’s simple: A great PR pro knows how to get attention. That said, a great PR pro also knows that it takes more than just gimmicks to get the job done.

Take Our Poll

Does telling people to write great content make for great content?

Daniel — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 22:10:56 +0000

If you read enough blog posts about social media, you quickly will see a common thread that runs through it. “Write great content” is a mantra in marketing circles these days.

Well, duh.

It seems like every time we turn around, someone is telling someone else to write great content. It doesn’t matter if it’s on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, blogs, or your favorite bar’s bathroom wall (really, you shouldn’t be writing on walls, though arguably a bar bathroom is fair game for marketing). No matter what the question is, the answer always seems to be “Write great content.”

Can’t we do better than that?

As professionals–i.e. people who get paid to create and promote content, ideas, messages, etc.–we need to hold ourselves to a higher standard. Yes, the internet is often an echo chamber. Yes, we borrow ideas from things we’ve read, process them, and then miraculously pass them off as original ideas that no one has ever thought of before. Sure, there’s a common consciousness we share to some degree based on the common things we share online.

So, without casting any more stones, here are own tips for creating great content, built from our own experiences.

1) Ask your audiences what interests them. A simple five-question survey will help you find out what’s interesting to your audiences. What information are they lacking that they aren’t finding elsewhere? Figure that out, and you’re destined to win some hearts, minds and eyeballs on a regular basis.

2) Find out what people’s pain points are. Along the same lines as #1, find out what bothers your audiences, and address that.

3) Get visual. With the rise of Pinterest, we’re all thinking more visually today. Yet, we’ve seen lots of posts across a variety of media that don’t have any visual (obviously, Pinterest excluded). Find something interesting to grab people’s interest!

4) Get comical. A pithy observation with a twist of dry wit can go a long way. Not only can it endear you to your audiences, but it can also help get your content shared.

5) Don’t be afraid to reach out. Find out who your most vocal advocates are, or who you want them to be, and reach out to them. Compliment them, tell them you like their stuff, respond to their tweets. The bottom line is that you need to build a relationship. Once that’s established, reach out when you have something relevant.

6) Have an opinion! When was the last time you paid attention to someone who didn’t have something interesting to say? And what made it interesting? Possibly it was their viewpoint. People pay attention for differences, and opinions stick out. Do you have to be controversial? Read number 7 to find out!

7) It’s as much about how you say it as what you say. To answer the previous question, it’s not necessarily about stirring controversy (though that doesn’t hurt sometimes). But you can state an interesting, well-thought out opinion without being controversial or brash.

Need more tips? We’re happy to help. Get in touch and we’ll talk.

Why Startups Should Hire a PR Firm

Daniel — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:34:45 +0000

Investor and startup business icon Mark Cuban recently wrote that startups shouldn’t hire a PR firm. His reasons are simple and straightforward. PR firms are expensive, in his view, and they simply can’t accomplish anything beyond what a CEO can accomplish in terms of media relations.

Of course, we had to chime in, especially because we just launched Rocket Packs for Startups last week! Mark makes some valid points, and hiring a PR firm is not in the best interest of all startups. Yet, one essential fact that Mark glosses over is that doing media relations can take a significant investment in time to see results.

As the CEO of a startup, do you know what your time is worth? We bet you don’t, because that’s generally not part of the startup business model.

On the other hand, as an agency, we know exactly down to the minute what our time is worth. We know the amount of time, elbow grease and shoe leather it takes to get through to the media. And we know what they want (most of the time), so we don’t waste clients’ time trying to figure that out.

Many startups are going the lean route. And that’s a smart way to go. In fact, it’s how we’ve built our business; we keep overhead as low as possible, so that we can maximize every minute we spend building the business and servicing clients.

And we’ve built Rocket Packs with the “lean startup” in mind. It’s what our friend Greg Cangialosi called “lean PR.” Can’t afford a full-blown campaign? No problem, we can provide a little boost. Want to just announce a new product or service? We’ve got you covered. Not sure how to approach your marketing? We can lead you through the thought process, get your messaging down and give you the tools you need to get started.

Whatever the need of your startup is, we’re confident that we can get you moving in the right direction, very affordably.

Five things that need to DIE in 2012

Daniel — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 19:34:45 +0000

There are a number of things wrong in marketing today. Or rather there are a number of things that marketers do that have little relevance or impact–long term or otherwise. Some started off as a “best practice,” which means that they were dated and over-used as soon as they became a “best practice.”

So, here’s our list of things that we’d like to see die in 2012.

Blog posts made of lists. Yes, we know this is a list. Call us hypocrites, that’s ok. Quite honestly, this was the easiest way to make our case. Too often, marketers use lists as eye-candy. They’re effective for attracting views and links, but they’ve become completely over-used and a substitute for real conversation and substance. Hopefully, we’ve been able to transcend that in this list.

Going through the motions. Speaking of lack of substance, too many marketers are so gung ho about leaping into social that they overlook activities that are substantive and offer any real value for their constituents. Let’s make 2012 the year where marketers stop going through the motions and take a good, hard look at their activities with the goal of creating real relationships with clients and other their audiences.

Gurus. Yes, gurus need to go away. Whether its social media gurus, a marketing gurus, or even dish washing gurus. The point here is that marketers needed to stop thinking in silos and start thinking in cross-disciplinary terms. Some might call this integration, but that’s not really enough, in our opinion. Cross-disciplinary, as we’ve always thought, means working on the edges and overlaps of disciplines, where far more interesting things happen, creating even more opportunities for innovation.

Social media automation. OMG! Does this have to stop or what? How many companies are out there linking up all their accounts and spreading the exact same content across every single network? It doesn’t even look good, especially when the posting parameters are different (such as a Facebook post that gets cut off on a linked Twitter account). Marketers need to invest the time to treat each individual network–and their connections on those networks–as the individuals they are.

Spreading links just to show “thought leadership.” This is such a common Twitter and Facebook tactic that it’s actually gotten old. Just because a company (or a person) tweets a link to an article with a smart headline doesn’t mean that they themselves are smart. The result is that there’s an utter proliferation of links that are just irrelevant clutter. That’s not to say companies shouldn’t share links, but rather, they need to do them more judiciously. That, and they need to actually read what they’re linking to.

Top 2012 Marketing Trends and Predictions Roundup

Daniel — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 05:24:03 +0000

It’s that time of year again! Social media and marketing experts across the globe are trotting out their lists of prognostications for the coming year. There’s lots of great advice out there year-round, but somehow this time of year makes us all highly reflective. And there’s so much out there. We thought we’d take a few minutes to summarize some of what we’re finding and reading.

Marketing Profs: Top 5 Marketing Trends for 2012

Dealing with “Big Data”
Marketing automation leading to more complete customer profiles
Improved customer intelligence revealing marketing opportunities
A renewed interest in the customer lifecycle
Right-time multichannel marketing lets marketers sell what customers want, when they want it, how they want it

Social Media Explorer: FIVE SOCIAL MEDIA TRENDS FOR 2012

Content Marketing (it’s amazing people are still talking about this as though it was just invented)
Social Media Influence makes its way into discussions in the c-suite
Increased integration between marketing, technology and data (i.e. mobile)
Legal crackdown on blogger giveaways
Social connections used for more than just measuring influence

B2C Community: Top 5 Inbound Marketing Trends for 2012

The rise of personalized marketing as mobile and local collide
Faster real-time analytics leading to more agile marketing
More channels = more need for channel integration
More cloud services (SaaS) options for marketers
The unchained (mobile) consumer

eMarketer: 2012 Trends: Social Media Metrics Take Center Stage

Only one big trend noticed here: Many marketers still don’t have a good sense of ROI that social is offering, but many are confident it will yield a result (eventually).

Social Meida Today: PR, Communication, and Marketing Trends 2011

Got a prediction for next year? Let’s hear it! Leave it in the comments or on our Facebook page.

Can Advertising Save Our Souls This Holiday?

Daniel — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:21:27 +0000

(Hat tip for the video to @mmmcdermott)

British retailer John Lewis thinks so. In this heart-warming holiday ad, the retailer turns the viewers’ expectations of greedy, present-hungry kids on its head and reminds us that the holidays should be about giving.

It’s a smart strategic move that’s bold in its appeal to our higher selves, especially when the National Retail Federation estimated that shoppers spent more than $100 on themselves over the holidays. And it’s quite common for holiday ads to play to our selfish interests–be they buying gifts for our loved ones or ourselves.

The lesson to learn here? Zig when others zag. And more importantly: Advertising can be shocking in a good way and still be memorable.

Burberry Gets Social. Do You?

Daniel — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 14:02:40 +0000

“To any CEO who’s skeptical at all: You have to. You have to create a social enterprise today. You have to be totally connected to everyone who touches your brand. If you don’t do that, I don’t know what your business model is in five years.”

–Angela Ahrendts, CEO, Burberry

It’s great to hear a quote like this coming from the CEO of a top fashion brand–and not just a social media evangelist. It was a key highlight of this video put together by Burberry and Salesforce.com, highlighting what the 100-year-old brand is doing to connect with customers online.

If a brand this old take these bold steps to declare itself a social enterprise, why do so many other companies still grapple with social media? Granted, most know that they need to be social, but they fall down when it comes to actually being social. This begs the question: If Burberry says they get it, can they prove it?

The answer is: Yes. And No. Here’s some fun things they’ve done on social in just the past few days:

Livestream a live fashion show on Facebook (livestreaming is one of our favorite things to do, by the way)
Ask people about the weather where they live on Twitter (sounds banal, but not when you consider their trench coats are wildly popular)
Crowdsource a collection of customers pics at artofthetrench.com

The one thing that really bugged us, however, is the main Burberry website. There’s lots of social integration throughout, including “Like” and Share buttons on each individual piece of clothing showcased, but there’s no way to find where they are on various social networks. You might argue that with a brand with such a strong following doesn’t need this. But there’s no way to know if Burberry is on other networks besides Twitter and Facebook.

The question businesses need to ask themselves is this: If a brand that’s as old as Burberry can get social, why can’t I?

PR for Ad Agencies

Daniel — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 03:55:52 +0000

One of things that our agency clients often ask us to do, in addition to providing services to their clients, is to help them with their own PR. Sometimes they have a great story to tell. Other times we need to help them figure it out.

Agencies present their own unique challenges in terms of earning coverage. Because, let’s be honest, the day-to-day life of an agency is not as glamorous as it seems on shows like Mad Men. (Sidenote: We really dig the day-to-day of agency life, but those living outside our own gilded halls may not get the poetic nuances of the environment.)

In truth, there are only a handful of approaches to earn coverage for an agency. For the most part, they are:

Do amazing work
Win awards for said amazing work
Do amazing work for charity

We should clarify: by coverage, we’re talking about feature stories. We’re not talking about the new client or new hire announcements, or the random quote in the local business journal about some trend. Those are the blocking and tackling efforts that have to be done in order to get those one-line mentions that are needed to help keep your agency top-of-mind.

In short, like any client, the agency has to have something interesting to say–either about itself or the work it’s doing. If the work isn’t interesting, unusual or significant in any way, no one’s going to care. Least of all the media.

Who Says You Can’t Buy Friends?

Daniel — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:49:57 +0000

Recently, more than a few people have taken up the position that it’s a bad idea to “buy friends” on Facebook. And by “buy friends,” we mean to advertise to get people to “Like” your business page. Sure, it sounds icky, and seems to fly in the face of everything social media stands for: engagement, interaction, dialogue, etc.

Some reasons cited for not buying friends include:

Companies that help you buy friends are all spammy
Having fans that don’t interact can hurt your Edgerank
It’s better to earn fans than buy them
People you buy will never be as engaged with your page as people who find you organically

Are there companies out there who are “doing it wrong,” by buying friends? Sure. Are there some less-than-credible companies who are providing less-than-reliable Facebook advertising services? You bet!

Does that mean it’s a completely worthless medium? Absolutely not. In fact, when wielded properly, buying ads on Facebook can give a page a much-needed boost faster and more efficiently than simply growing connections with people organically.

Take, for example, American Estate Jewelry (full disclosure: AEJ is a former Evolve client). When we started working with this company, they had about 35 fans. Through a highly targeted campaign, we proudly boosted this to just over 1,000 in about two months for a relatively low investment. Today, well after the advertising campaigns ended, the fan page has more than 1,300 fans–the last 250 or so being won organically.

More importantly, engagement during the campaigns grew very rapidly, and keeps growing. We went from virtually no interaction, to several likes and comments per post every day (on average). This is clearly a case of advertising driving the initial introduction, with engagement produced through–you guessed it–relevant content.

The point here is that engagement levels change over time, which also means that Edgerank (Facebook’s method for determining what makes it to users’ individual walls), shifts over time. Like Google search engine results pages, Edgerank is not static! In terms of “buying friends,” having individual fans who are not closely connected to your brand might result in fewer Facebook feed impressions in the short run. But in the long run, as the business provides more relevant content on a more frequent basis, the more likely it is that those “bought” fans will see it.

For example, check out Nutella (not a client, but still one of our favorites!). Nutella has more than 11 million fans. In terms of engagement, though, roughly 2,000 – 10,000 individuals respond to any given post (likes and comments). Even if 20,000 people engage, that’s still only .18 percent of the total fanbase.

In case you couldn’t tell, we’re big believers in social media advertising. Why? Well, as Erik Qualman put it, “In the future we will no longer search for products and services; rather they will find us via social media.” There is no other medium currently available that allows marketers to target individuals the way Facebook does.

Our job as marketers is to help the products and services we represent find the right customers. The future of advertising, in many ways, is Facebook. As marketers, we need to be objective about our recommendations–but also recognize opportunities (for ourselves and our clients) to experiment a little.

We also need to recognize that buying fans (or any form of advertising for that matter) isn’t the be-all end-all of Facebook marketing. Instead, we should look at it as a small push down what could be a very steep hill.

Photo credit: Yes!Online

Three Ways Evolve Works with Agencies

Daniel — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 03:19:57 +0000

One of the first questions we’re inevitably asked when we first meet with a potential agency client is “Exactly how does this white label thing work?” So, we thought it might be a good way to outline them here for your reference.

We provide our white-label digital marketing and PR services in essentially three different ways.

1) True White Label

This is where we work behind the scenes entirely. All interactions are performed directly from the agency, and we do not interface with them at all. All information comes from the the agency, and we report directly back to the agency.

2) “Part of the Team” White Label

In these instances, we are brought in as a member of the agency’s team. In these cases, we’re often brought in on integrated accounts, where it’s important to present a unified team to the client. Sometimes in these situations, we not only interface with the client, but we also contribute to the day-to-day account management.

3) Strategic Partner

In these situations, an agency brings us in and acknowledges with the client that we are a separate entity. This mostly happens when the client asks the agency for help, knowing that it will need to bring in a third party but trusts the agency enough to bring in someone who can get the job done.

Yeah, but what about transparency?

Yes, we’re living in the age of transparency. Which is why we’re extremely discreet about who we work with, as well as the clients we work with (on their agency’s behalf). We know that anything we put online can be found by anyone at anytime, and that once it’s out there, it’s very difficult to take down. That’s why we only list work that agency clients have approved; or work that we perform directly for clients (we do have a few of those as well).

And, just so you know, a lot more products are out there that are created through a white label service than most of us realize. Newman’s Own, anyone?

Not that we have anything against transparency, of course. We’d love to tell everyone what we’re doing all the time. But we respect our agencies relationships with their clients. After all, it’s their relationship not ours. Our relationship is with you: the agency. And we do everything in our power to make you look great–especially to the client. That’s where we get the tag line, “We do all the work. You get all the credit.”

Photo credit: Rudi Riet