Search, PR and the Social Butterfly at SES NY 2011

Just over a year ago, our team wrote our Social Media White Paper (PDF).

Essentially it’s the story of how we’ve gone about creating an engaging experience for our customers using social platforms like blogs, forums, Twitter and Facebook.

Since then we’ve been asked to tell our story at digital marketing events all over the world.

Me, Greg Jarboe, Lisa Buyer & Kristjan Hauksson with our colourful butterflies!

I was delighted to be asked to present at SES New York last week in a session with Lisa Buyer, Greg Jarboe and Kristjan Hauksson about search, social media and PR.

To give you an indication of what I talked about, I’ve added a few more ideas to my post from last year 7 ROI Value Indicators for Social Media to include the latest tips with a PR twist:

Ask yourself why?

Too often I’m asked to advise on Twitter and Facebook pages by businesses who don’t have a plan. They don’t even know what they want to set up those channels, other than because everyone else seems to be doing it.

If you ask yourself why, it forces you to have reasons, reasons based on research, projected KPIs and outcomes.

Where’s your varnish?

Varnish, glue, veneer, whatever! How are all your PR and marketing efforts connected so your target audience can slide easily from one to the other and stay in touch with your message? Does your TV ad promote your website? Does your website link to your Facebook page?  Are your call-centre staff mentioning your Twitter handle? Are your press release titles SEO and Twitter-friendly.

Optimise for people “outside the room”

If you’re having a product launch or holding a conference, how will people outside the room know what’s going on? Have you provided a hashtag, a live stream, some web links where the people INside the room can be influencing the people OUTside the room?

These three extra ideas all add to our mantra of making your content discoverable and shareable.

The internet has given us so many more ways to communicate effectively, but also helps us gather data more quickly about how our brand values are translating with our customers and potential customers.

Being disciplined about how those values are distributed and their resonation reported on, can really pay dividends in creating brand loyalty and translating that into increased sales.

It was great spending time in the Big Apple!

See all of our coverage here: SES New York Microsoft Advertising Blogging

Hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Cheers,

Mel

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