What can I get out of social media?

This was a question I heard posed this week by a marketing manager. I don’t think this person is alone, and have no doubt that a number of people in similar circumstances are asking themselves the very same thing.

The question is really about tracking social media. While tools such as Facebook Insights, Google Analytics and Hootsuite can track traffic and interest, as ever the best place to start answering this question is right at the beginning of the campaign.

In fact the answer lies in another question: What do you want to get from social media?

Just like old favourite marketing tools such as a direct mailshot, advert in a newspaper or even Yellow Pages, it’s all about the call to action. Marketers need to act as strategically as possible, think about what they want social media channels to achieve and then work out how to reach those targets.

As the adage goes, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do (and you’ll probably end up somewhere you didn’t want to be). 

The added benefit of social media over traditional methods such as ads & mailshots is that it's a two way street, giving the company or brand greater opportunity for customer feedback and relationship building. 

Find out more about how social media can deliver for your PR here: www.accordpr.co.uk/pr-marketing-services.

Free advertising

No matter how many times I correct them, many people think that PR is all about free advertising.

I can see their point. Getting an article printed in newspapers, on websites or broadcast can effectively seem like advertising. It can also be a very cost-effective method of publicising a business, service or product. But it isn't free (well we've all got to put a roof over our heads and food on the table) and it's not strictly speaking advertising.

You see, a journalist is not particularly interested in promoting your business, service or product. Why should they? They didn't spend three years in college and two years as a junior to write promotional copy or they would have been on the marketing course.

Journalists want a story. They want something that is going to engage, entertain or interest their readers (a lot of the time they would like it to be exclusive as well).

A PR consultant's job is to ferret out the story in their client's business and portray it an engaging enough way that a journalist can see how it might appeal to a reader.
 With an advert you buy the space and say what goes in it. But customers know that.

The real advantage of the PR route is in the perceived added value of editorial. Not free, not advertising, but yes, fantastic value!

What does a fat cuttings file really tell you?

As a young reporter I had a colleague who would religiously spend time every morning cutting out his latest stories and sticking them into a scrap book. Everything from a front page splash to a golden wedding report would be dutifully clipped and pasted.

He insisted it was for his parents' benefit (he was an only child) in the 'look-what-I-did-today' method of garnering approval.

I was never so diligent, keeping only the stories that mattered to me. Needless to say my cuttings file (singular) was positively anorexic compared to my colleague's huge library of scrap books.

But I like to think mine had quality over quantity. The cuttings were selected carefully to show not just what I'd done, but what I was capable of doing.

The point of this little story is that a fat file of cuttings or a long list of links, as reassuring as they may be, are not a substitute for real evaluation. They belong in the 'look-what-I-did-today' school of approval. As lovely as that is in youngster (parents have a duty to encourage) businesses can't and shouldn't settle for such a rudimentary analysis of the value of a PR plan.