While digital media is certainly not a newbie to the marketing scene, this is the first time companies and organizations are making a shift toward relying upon digital marketing methods over traditional forms of media. Overall, an integrated marketing approach is still critical, however digital is now definitely taking precedence, both in terms of budget as well as strategy. Even traditional print publishing houses are now embracing the idea of digital. This is primarily due to the ability of digital media to adapt much faster and rapidly keep pace with developments as they occur.

Social media not only allows for quick adaptation, but also allows for organic development by involving the reader in stories as they emerge. Even the business world can take a page from this form of ‘social journalism.’ At the root of what we are now seeing is a change in behaviour which has been in the making for several years. Increasingly, the audience for any organization or brand can be found online. As a result, consumers are now demanding companies make the shift to the digital world. Practically all media is now consumed through a host of digital channels, including social media, apps, and the web. The most important key for marketers and PR professionals to take away from this shift is the need to focus on meeting the needs of online audiences. This could very well mean re-structuring your business, but ultimately it is a move that is essential to survival in an increasingly online world.

It likely comes as no surprise that social media is still an incredibly strong PR and marketing tool. The focus now must move beyond the question of whether or not you are incorporating social media in your marketing campaign, but whether you have made the move to decentralize your social media. Ask yourself whether a single person or department controls your social media outlets. Emerging trends indicate that the future of online marketing and PR will be focused upon social media that is increasingly decentralized. More and more, an entire organization has a hand in the integration of social media. The final result ensures that each and every person in the organization or company is an ambassador for your brand. Certainly, there are risks involved in this type of move. The largest risk is the relinquishment of control, and ultimately, relinquishment of your brand. While this can be a frightening move for many traditional marketers, it is crucial to understand the shift that has taken place as a result of the increased focus on digital media. At one time it might have been beneficial to ensure all company messages were as consistent as possible, but that is no longer the case. Any consistency should now be completely organic, and in order to achieve that you need to be prepared to ensure all employees are empowered with the ability to represent the company’s brand. To make the most of this opportunity, you must also be prepared to internally communicate your company’s cultural values. The ultimate goal should be a brand message that is similar, yet distinctive enough to be unique.

Beyond relying upon individuals internally involved in your organization to get the word out, there is also a trend in which increased focus is placed on user-generated content. Until recently, crowd-generated material was rather lacklustre, but that is all poised to change in 2012. The real key to succeeding with this method is to spend some time identifying the ideal crowd to help you communicate your story digitally. More and more companies are now engaging their customers and sharing the stories those customers have to tell about their own experiences. If you are not tapped into what your customers are saying about your company via their tweets, posts and mentions, you will be destined to fall behind the competition in the coming year. If you are not already building your networks and interacting with them on a regular basis, it is essential that you begin doing so.

Finally, we are now seeing a shift toward personalized content as individual needs are receiving more focus than larger target groups or demographics. A clear example of this shift is the way in which users are now able to utilize a treasure trove of applications to receive news automatically about specific topics. The ultimate takeaway point from this shift in behaviour is that the public as a whole is now selecting their content. Not only that, but they are doing it on their own terms. Trust has always been a critical component in the world of marketing. The importance of trust is now underscored more than ever. Today consumers are increasingly relying upon newsworthy suggestions via friends. The same trend is also emerging in social commerce. A recommendation service may not be new, but social commerce is now spreading like wildfire on Facebook. Given the number of active users on Facebook at any given moment in time and the way in which they interact, it is certainly the ideal platform for companies to market their products.

The changes emerging in PR and marketing in 2012 underscore the importance of telling stories, emphasizing a neutral tone, and lending trust and credibility to the company and brand.

Guest Blog by +Tim Capper

“To retain customers you must embrace technology.” Seventy Nine PR, April 24th, 2012

On a recent trip to India, a sobering reality dawned – how rapidly a global brand can lose its market leader title.

The thought came after seeing a huge billboard from Nokia – nothing new in the country where it is one of the market leaders. But it made me think – how long before Nokia loses its grip on the Indian market – just like the UK.

When the UK mobile market was maturing, Nokia was the must mobile to have. They were absolutely flying.  Something like three out of four phones sold were Nokia. It was the mobile of choice for young and old.Nokia had become the must-seen accessory to be seen with. The Snake game was also one of the most played ever. Everything it released turned to gold.

On June 29, 2007 the first iPhone was released. It revolutionised the market. Nokia stood still, banking on its market leader status. In the meantime Blackberry et al were already chipping away at corporate customers with its smartphones. Nokia’s chokehold was loosening. We waited for Nokia’s answer. Poor phones, lazy designs. In the end, Nokia died a death by slow strangulation.

Now there is a reason for this Nokia story. This is a message to Blackberry and parent company Research in Motion (RIM) to take notice.

Blackberry was and still is a viable contender to iPhone. It did something which was a testimony to how good it really was – appeal to the business consumer and the teen crowd thanks largely to the its excellent and popular Blackberry Messenger (BBM) or Ping as many youngsters call it.

But today Blackberry losing money and has recently hired a law firm to restructure the firm. To make things even worse, Blackberry recently tried to connect with its younger consumers by holding a celebrity-packed party.

It was aimed at connecting it with the hip, younger crowd. Those who like to stay in touch through BBM which is still a powerful communication source. Jessie J was booked. A central London nightclub was booked. It all pointed to a good PR exercise. Then disaster struck.

The column inches were supposed to be PR for all the good reasons. i.e Youngsters talking about the party and the brand in a positive way through its social media networks like Facebook, Twitter and BBM. Posting pictures of Jessie J, of their Blackberry.

Instead – a father of two died in a horrific attack at the party. Blackberry was quickly suffering its annus horriblis.

So, how did it come to this? How did the Blackberry go from the must have to the “accessory of yesterday”?

Firstly, Blackberry committed the same mistake as Nokia – it rested on its laurels. It failed to evolve the brand and explore new ways of engaging with its consumers -corporate and the younger generation. BBM was a fantastic tool to connect with the young crowd. But it didn’t evolve. It is more or less same format now as it has been since it came out. The BBM should have been an interactive audience to sell products to. Blackberryfailed to pick up on this.

Its app store is diabolical compared to the platform provided by Apple. Its models didn’t evolve with the times. It was the same old tired functions.

Last year’s server problems, when the system went down was a Public relations disaster. Blackberry’s worst mistake was its failure to communicate. Our blog post on this matter last year delves deeper into the mistakes it made. The result – disenchanted customers leaving to join iPhone. Blackberry literally handed its customers to its biggest rival.

Then came the Playbook – a huge disaster and one of the main reasons it’s losing large sums of cash fast. In its most recent quarter, RIM posted a £77 million loss.

Blackberry is rapidly hurtling towards becoming the new Nokia. What looked like such a bright future, has become a dark cloud. RIM can still slow down its decline. But it all rests on a few things.

1) The next Blackberry product – It has to to be huge. unique, different and above all build on the crossover value of its predeccesors – i.e connect with the business consumer and the younger crowd.

2) Engage in a massive consumer and public relations programme – many consumers have felt badly let down by the brand. Blackberry needs an ongoing charm offensive to woo back consumers and rebuild the trust it lost.

3) What it does with its current assets – cross selling and licensing its current assets. Blackberry owns a lot of good assets namely BBM. There is so much potential for this especially the data it has stored on consumers. Marketed well, and with the correct partner, it can make a huge profit.

“Online PR and SEO are like salt and pepper”- Seventy Nine PR, March 21st, 2012

Top 10 reasons why you should do Online PR

Whereas offline PR is largely everything connected with print (newspapers and magazines), radio and television. Online PR fills the, uh, online vacuum. Simple or what? Therefore online PR focuses on influencing consumers through the Internet: blogs, forums, discussion threads and Internet (including RSS feeds).

So, there is a strong correlation between online and offline PR. In reality, it is a simple, inexpensive way to grow your company reputation online, drive traffic to your website and boost your search engine rankings. Read on for the full lowdown.

1 – Everybody is online – with iphones, smartphones etc etc the UK consumer has changed the way people consume news. Therefore getting your press release out to every possible way a consumer can access it can only be a good thing.

2 – Online PR and SEO go hand in hand – “Really?” you ask. “Yes, really,” we reply.  The more press releases that are on online sites – the more links you are building. And for SEO – its all about the links baby. And if another site, especially a prominent news site, links to yours, watch your rankings take a nice boost

3 – Keyword density – Sending press releases online can increases your keyword density and help you appear for keywords within the body of your release. Naturally, a good copywriter is required

4 – Publishing the news story on your website can strengthen your arm – Sounds very basic doesn’t it? It is, but you would be shocked at the amount of businesses that forget. Get it on your site straight away.

5 – Longetivity - online stories can generate interest and traffic for many months, even years afterwards.

6 – Cheap resource - relatively simple and inexpensive. You’ve created the press release. Now all you’e gone to do is wring it for everything trickle of ink it has written on by sending it all over the place.

7 – Immediate - Issuing online means it can be seen by everyone within seconds and can steal a march on your rivals. Want to issue something quick? Online is the way to go. The Budget 2012 being a perfect example.

8 – Creates awareness and sends traffic to your website and social media outlets – Add a website link, video, twitter feed, facebook page et al to the end of the release? it means you are now driving traffic to your social media channels for free.

9 – Viral factor - Send a press release online and it can be taken up and commented on minutes later especially if its a good one.

10 -Tweet Tweet - Good stories can get tweeted getting you traffic very easily. (Hint Hint)

Still confused? OK, send us a tweet or comment using the form below and we will answer your questions.

TWITTER: twitter.com/seventyninepr

E-MAIL: info@seventyninepr.co.uk

So you want to start an online business.  Your business name has been decided. Then you go to find a relevant domain name. Shock! Horror! Someone’s already taking it. All variants of it as well.

We cannot stress enough how much our SEO guys stress the web developers to stress the importance of a relevant domain name to clients everyday. Confused? Good read on.

When you’re starting up a business, you need to consider two main things: the name of your company and the name of your domain. You might want to think long term about SEO content and the exact match domains before you just randomly pick a brand name for your product or service.

When a person starts a search with a search engine, the search engine results focuses on exact match domains (EMDs) first and foremost. This is a frequently discussed topic and many SEOs are saying that it isn’t a very important factor for the future of SEO content.

The reason for this is because there are so many other things a website can do to increase their weight, often weighing in with higher ranks than some of the more well-known brands of the world.

Industries are Still Dominated by EMDs

With all of that said about the ability to rank higher, the truth is that many industries and niches are still being dominated by the exact matching of a domain. In the long-term, this isn’t going to be the case but it still is reality for now.

There are affiliates and brands who use EMDs but there are also ones that don’t use a branded name that constantly get more hits. For example, there is a home and garden retailer in the UK that uses diy.com. These rank higher because they instantly provide an exact match query for so many different things.

The best bet is if a company can do both. This means getting a good exact match domain and building a brand through SEO content and other features. This will give you the strongest position for rankings right now as well as for the long term. The rankings will be based on the exact match queries as well as your efforts for building a brand.

Google is very crowded, so it’s worth considering some options with a brand name to make it search engine friendly. People may type your brand name into the search engine instead of in the address bar, too, which means you need to rank the highest for your business or you’re losing customers over to your competition.

Focus on the Word Choice

All of those everyday words should be avoided, unless you absolutely have to have them for your business. You want to avoid competing with as many organisations in search engine results as possible.

An everyday word will only work if you have the budget to work at keeping your website highly ranked. Think about your names, too. If your last name is “McDonald” think about picking a different name for your business because the fast food chain is going to make it nearly impossible to compete with.

Think About Your Domain Name

If at all possible, your web address and company name should be the same. If you can’t get it to be the exact same, your company name should at least be part of the web address, even if there’s a number before or after it. This will help you rank better.

Now, make sure you check the domain’s availability. You may want to find a domain and then name your business so that you have more flexibility to get those ranks that you really want. You may even be able to get a great keyword based domain and use that as your business name, too.

Google is not the be all for domains. If you have to choose a different brand name or domain name, don’t get too caught up on it. Just make sure your SEO agency is working for you.

Register TLDs

You should try to secure the common top level domain names (TLDs) to build a great domain. This means that you should try to get as many domains as possible. Example would be if you already have a .co.uk domain, try and get the .com and .net versions, too.

This will get rid of your competition taking these names and help you avoid any kind of legal case or bidding war for the domains down the road.

The Google algorithm is also rumoured to use the length of time the domain name has been registered for, however this does not hold much truth. As long as you get a domain, just don’t let it expire and you’ll be fine.

Use Paid Search When You Have To

Struggling to optimise a domain can be difficult. With Paid Search, you will appear at the top and/or the side of people’s relevant search results. So while you may not be able to get the ranking your name deserves, you can at least start to help yourself.

There is no website that cannot benefit from optimization however. Targeting local searches and highly specific keywords is the way to go.

Focus on ranking with your own name above all else, even for the long term.

Top tip

“Get what your business does/sells/offers into the domain name,” shouts our SEO expert as we are writing this post.

If you sell windows, get this in your domain name. It will help.

For more tips, get in touch with us including an SEO audit of your website. You’ll be amazed what we find and what we can do to help. Ask our clients.

Thanks

79PR.

“Marketing to the UK’s ethnic population is not something to be scared about. It should be embraced.” Seventy Nine PR, November 23rd, 2011

Back by popular demand. Following an event we attended today looking at how brands and businesses can market themselves to the UK’s fast-growing ethnic population, we thought we would reproduced a piece of literature we created some while back.

The original blog post we created was over two years ago. It has, by a long long way, been our most popular with amazing feedback. Therefore we would do the honourable thing and repost it.  Enjoy.  We would love to answer questions on this so please get in  touch or use the comments form below!!!

Top tips for UK PR and Marketing agencies/brand managers on how to market to the ethnic consumer

OK. So what is it? Is it language? Is it culture? Is it religion?

All key questions that marketeers ask themselves when trying to understand how to market to the UK’s diverse ethnic population. (I focus on UK for this blog, but the same lessons and tips can be used in the US).

The truth of the matter lies in all of them. Read on.

79PR has helped a number of business make the crossover to help them market to the brown pound. In fact, we have helped launched two major brands directly marketing to the ethnic crowd. Both very different businesses, both used different tactics. But, before I carry on let me talk to you about working with ethnic businesses on their PR and Marketing campaigns. In fact, I won’t. Because I’ll blog about in detail as my next post.

Anyway, getting back to the subject at hand. For this blog I will be looking at the brown consumer. So anyone in the UK that we term British Asian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Asian). India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc etc.

Before I begin, many marketeers may ask themselves why they need to understand this market? Well, unless you have been walking with a bag over your head on the streets of UK today, the answer is pretty obvious. Just as ignoring digital media is to your peril, the same is true of the ethnic market. Put very simply – it’s a very lucrative market. To be a completely rounded marketer you have to be able to sit and tell your clients about the make-up of every different consumer in the UK that is available. If you don’t, you’re not doing yourself or your client justice. Did you know that British Asians contribute to 6% of the UK’s GDP? Still think they are insignificant?? Thought not.

Anyway some stats and background to set the scene:
According to the UK census of 2001, there were around 2.3 million British Asians in the UK.(4% of the population) I say were because nearly 1o years on, I estimate this total to be two/three times this amount. I really do. British Asians also made up 50.3% of the non-European population in 2001. And finally, the Indian origin dominates followed closely by Pakistani and then Bangladeshi to complete this demographic trivia.

So, loaded with all this information, what can you do with and what do you need to understand before marketing to this audience?

Ok, so we know which part of the world they originate from , so what defines them? How do they think? Work? Live? What do they eat? ..and what shapes that social habits. Our extensive research of the market has shown the below traits. These are the topics any marketeer should make sure they understand and considered even before trying to put together any proposals. And what you will see from the below is how it all links together.

1)Religion is a start. Hindu, Muslim and Sikh are the main religions. So, make sure you understand the difference between them. For example, a campaign to PR a Shariah-compliant insurance product will be largely wasted on Hindu and Sikh regardless of its ethical stance.

2) Family – Big on family for all religions. For example a typical wedding attracts 600 people on average. Word of mouth therefore naturally proves a very strong marketing tool. Also, many tend to live in one household. So the chance of catching three generations in one go via a concerted direct mail or PR campaign is highly probable.

3) Social class- The attitude today is: “… if my neighbours/uncle/friend/guy from street has got it, I want bigger and better.” So they tend to spend big on luxury items. BMW and Mercedes have done particularly well. Big homes in affluent postcodes are a norm. However, even those who live in less desirable areas will be driving a top-of-the-range Range Rover. How? (See point 4.)

4) Disposable income – Lots of it. The nature of living with parents whose houses are largely mortgage free coupled with the income generated from business (see point 6) means a larger disposable income than the average Joe( no pun intended). Living with parents means no rent to pay freeing up plenty of spare cash (see point 5) . Also, work-mentality-at-an-early-age has been taught by the parents at an early age so many are used to earning. What this means is that salary earners are a plenty from an early age. If six are earning £20k + every year, you do the maths!

5) Lifestyle – As mentioned having the best cars and homes feature heavily. But so do having the latest gadgets. Latest mobiles? Check. Designer clothing? Check. LCD/Plasma TV? Check. See point 4.

6) Entrepreneur – famed for their business skills. British Asians mainly started working in factories when they came to the UK. A few came with business ideas and started little enterprises serving their own community such as butchers and grocers. After a few years, once they became more confident they branched out – mostly in garment manufacturing. Today, they have businesses in every sector possible. Being a businessman/woman is a given. B2B marketeers? A chance to connect?

7) Education – Very keen on education. Doctors, Dentists and Pharmacists, Lawyers and Accountants a preferred choice. But similar to above, the ethnic minority have branched out into almost every profession.

Holidays – Whereas going to India and Pakistan was a treat 10, 15 years ago, today’s reality is different. For this generation, anywhere in the world is fair game. Dubai is the popular destination.

9)Culture – Bollywood is…Hollywood. Bollywood is big news here. As is Indian food and clothing. Visit Southall, Birmingham, Bradford for an example.

10) Media – Heavy influences from Bollywood mean media outlets such as B4U, Zee, Sunrise Radio, BBC Asian network, Eastern Eye are good places to start for a targeted campaign. Include in this the high number of religious outlets such as Islamic Channel etc etc and you have a good portfolio of contacts to push your campaign to. However, remember than only target these for a specific campaign. See below.

11) Charity – A major part of their life. They are big charity donors driven by religion and culture. Connection via charity is a good PR opp.

TOP TIPS:

* Research your core consumer audience. Understand them. Before you begin, take a walk in the communities you are trying to attract.

* Religion – No doubt, among the biggest factors to understand. 79PR was recently a consultant for an agency pitching for a huge account catering towards the Muslim market. One senior member of the team advised we use Bollywood as a tactical platform to launch the brand. It was a nice idea. Only one flaw though – Music is banned in Islam. Make sure you understand these little details.

* Look at key religious dates in the calendar. Ramadhan, Eid, Diwali, Vaisakhi etc etc. And no, they don’t always fall on the same date every year.

* Language – a big thing? Not any more. English is now the most common language. In fact mother tongue is now quickly disappearing. If you catering towards the older audience then Urdu should come first, followed by Gujurati.

* Media – An audit of media outlets should throw up usual suspects of newspapers/radio/TV. But believe you me when I say that many British Asians now read and consume media as an average person from the street. I advise only using ethnic media when it is a specific campaign. ie community radio stations during Ramadhan. Look at the plethora of Bollywood-induced channels for other marketing opps. B4U, Zee TV to name a few.

* Social Media- Facebook/Twitter has now become a very active and good medium to engage with ethnic minorities. Trawl through Facebook to find groups you can connect with. It’s natural that you are friends with people who share the same culture and beliefs with you.

* Engage – Communities play a big role. Could you engage with religious/community/business leaders? For a former client we lobbied a religious leader who’s endorsement proved an unrivalled success for the business.

Sorry for the long post. But it’s an important topic and the above is a complete top-line overview.

79PR is currently commissioning a comprehensive study of the lifestyle and habits of the British Asian consumer and no doubt, we will be sharing its results with you soon. We envisage the study to be completed, analysed and commented by early 2012. But, we will keep you posted.

If you would liked this post, found it helpful and wanted more information then get in touch with us. We can take you through our experiences and offer the insight you may need.

Slough.  As the place where David Brent from The Office was filmed, we were used to seeing a catalogue of errors of communication. Sometimes we laughed but most of the time we cringed at the mere sight and sounds of Ricky Gervais.

Over the last few days, Slough was the scene of a marketing faux-pas of stupendous proportions for one of the biggest brands in the world. Blackberry – headquartered in the  small Berkshire town of Slough – failed miserably at something it is supposed to be good at – communication.

And what a disaster it was. Its parent company is known as RIM or Research in Motion. It should now be called Reputation in Mud.

Don’t get us wrong. We are big fans of Blackberry and use them for a load of marketing campaigns. In our eyes it’s one of the best yet most underused marketing tools available, But this post is  a live and living example of exactly what not to do when a crisis hits your business and brand. Especially a global and household name such as Blackberry.

For those who have not been following the news the clicking on the following story links on the BBC News and The Guardian websites should get you up to scratch.

In a nutshell – The Blackberry services went down. It’s back-up plan then packed up. OK, let’s be fair, everyone gets technical problems. That we can forgive. However, Blackberry committed one of the biggest errors of the marketing textbook – shunning the customers that made the brand. While millions around the world started growing impatient as their Blackberry devices shut down Blackberry went quiet on us.  The company that prides itself in allowing millions around the world connect with each other sadly failed to do just that -communicate. Instead of keeping its customers which have been switching to rivals of late on their side, they manage to alienate them even further.

Blackberry entered what is known in marketing circles as a PR disaster. An #epicfail. And what a #fail it was.

As the world starting to turn on all things Blackberry you expected its PR team to launch a charm offensive. Damage limitation exercise. It’s a scenario that many good PR teams thrive on. Selling and marketing a brand already on the up is easy. When every country in the world is livid at poor service, the real marketing tricks should have kicked in. Instead we got an explosive cackle of silence. Nothing. A few pre-hashed statements. It revealed that Blackberry had no crisis communication plan and exposed some serious flaws. The lack of communication from Blackberry’s marketing team showed naivety, arrogance and lack of respect.

“In a crisis the need to send out information via public relations (PR) has to increase drastically in every way and in every media possible!” Seventy Nine PR, October 12, 2011.

So what exactly did Blackberry’s comm’s team do wrong?

1. Lack of a crisis communications programme. Seventy Nine PR did warn you. In fact these very own blog pages warned those in Marketing to adopt a crisis communications programme especially for social media. For those who want a refresher click here or visit here http://www.seventyninepr.co.uk/articles/crisis-communications-via-social-media.php. Now will you think of putting one together?
2. Lack of human involvement. The statement did eventually come. Miles too late. In fact three full days too late with the damage to its reputation sky high. Blackberry then made another PR howler in our eyes. The statement from Robin Bienfait, Chief Information Officer, from Blackberry read: “I want to first apologize for the service interruptions and delays many of you have been experiencing this week. I also wanted to connect with you directly, give you an update………….”. Blah blah blah. In a crisis you cannot hide behind prepared statements. You have to humanise. The consumers who buy your products want to see a face. They want the words: “I’m Sorry” coming from the mouth. They want to be able to look into the eyes of the managing director, They want to see his eyes feel the pain. What they don’t want is a statement. No matter how good. It smacks of a lack of respect. Get the MD/ Marketing Director/Commercial Director in front of all possible media and show some emotion. That you actually are sorry.
3. Twitter and Facebook- It’s all great having thousands of followers when things are going well but when things go wrong they can turn against you very quickly especially if you stay silent. At the time of posting this blog Blackberry had 586,636 Followers on Twitter and over 7,500 tweets. That’s over half a million users to engage with. Amazingly on Facebook it has 8,444,019 likes. Since Monday Blackberry has made four posts. Four!!! On Wednesday the gap between Tweets/Post was 18 hours. It is unbelievable that a crisis which has now gone global has merited only four messages in three days. In addition these messages were boring corporate statements. To understand the strength of anger towards Blackberry each of these statements have attracted over 12,000 mostly negative comments. The majority are scathing with many actually even promoting rivals like iphones. How many comments from the Blackberry marketing in the post? None. The biggest mistake here was keeping quiet.

What can Blackberry do now? All is not lost. The problems will be fixed and customers will start receiving their services again but until then Blackberry need to follow the below guide to make sure they still have customers left when normal service is resumed. Some are free while others will cost some money. But what price can you put on gaining back the trust of consumers.

• Use the media to tell the story. Blackberry needs to gain the trust back. It needs to personalised its messages. One way is to create a personal message from the RIM Managing Director. It needs emotion and an actual feeling in the interview. Video then needs to be promoted in every possible avenue and embedded in as many media as possible. YouTube, Metacafe etc etc
• Lots of media – as many of the directors in front of as many media as possible.
• Launch a new product – nothing better to divert the attention that announcing the launch of  a new product.
• Campaign – The “Why I love Blackberry” campaign. celebrities and consumers all creating videos, quotes, pictured with the Blackberries all extolling the virtues of their BB devices. Serious social and viral potential with this idea.
• App incentives – everyone loves a freebie. Blackberry need to create a product which they can give their customers for free. Maybe a a free downloadable app.
• Competition – give away 1,000 free devices in a random prize draw. Run the competition on the same platforms which gave you negative feedback in the first place – Facebook and Twitter.
• Increased and regular communication – keep consumers informed regularly. 4 Tweets, 3 Facebook posts, one good blog a week. Not hard is it?
• Crisis Communication plan – Blackberry – you need one, don’t you think?

Want us to help your brand and business create a crisis communication plan or want some tips on the above then e-mail us on info@seventyninepr.co.uk or call us 0116 212 6809. Get in touch. You wont be disappointed.

Happy communicating. The Seventy Nine PR team.

Social media is all the rage. All day, every day we are constantly being asked about how to use social media effectively.

As you may or may not be aware, Seventy Nine PR does more than just communicate for businesses/brands via media. We now create an all-singing/all dancing/all talking/all jiving marketing strategy for our clients. The result? You and your business communicating on every darn platform available.

It is part of our business model today as we move away from just being a PR agency to now evolving into an integrated agency. Don’t get me wrong – PR is our bread and butter but we now have specialist on every marketing discipline.

Anyway, back to social media. The purpose and aim of any social media plan is simple – conversation. No point having a social media page that is accumulating fans. without giving them a reason to stay with you.  Remember – fans for your ego score. Conversions for your dough.

The web developers and SEO guys at Seventy Nine PR are forever banging on about creating good copy. By this they mean that copy that not only sits on your static pages on your website, but also good engaging words on the blog/articles and news sections. Not will it keep the Google spider coming back for more but also, and more importantly, it will also get your customers to keep coming back to you.

So marketeers up and across the land who are in charge of the social media campaigns, listen carefully – content is king but creating a good engaging conversation via social media is superking.

It means that when planning your social media strategy, plot into the calendar a few milestone events when you will create a good engaging topic to discuss via social media. This conversation creation will act as a fuel to get your customers to engage in debate with each other and consequently means you will reach that acme that every marketing employee craves – VIRAL CONTENT.

“But how do we do this?” we hear you scream. It’s not rocket science- Make use of apps such as fan polls, creating a snazzy viral video and decent competitions. One thing to note here is that by decent we mean a good competition which engages the customer. Don’t be lazy like many brands/businesses and asking to retweet a message or asking people to recommend 5 friends. You know who you are. You won’t keep customers over the long term with a lazy trick like that.

So what you waiting for? Get conversating.

The 79PR team.

PS – Work on a new website showcasing our evolution into an integrated agency is set to begin end of this month/early next. Will keep you posted hopefully.

“Blackberry Messenger Marketing is the most important and effective marketing strategy in the industry today bar none.” – Seventy Nine PR,  August 10th, 2011

It’s been something we have been working on for a while now. But the events over the last month across the UK has confirmed what we have been working towards.  

“Forget social media, Blackberry Messenger is the way to go in marketing your business”.  

It’s not a comment that Seventy Nine PR makes lightly. In fact, it is made with a lot of insight.  

The way to guage the effectiveness of any service/application is the take up. Or in marketing parlance -the rate of the take up. In the case of Blackberry Messenger or BBM or BB ping to use street venacular, the take-up has been phenomenal.  

Nothing illustrates our point better than the use of BlackBerry Messenger or BBM during the UK riots that plagued the UK recently. The unrest in Iran and Egypt was communicated by the masses using Twitter. But in the UK, it appears that Blackberry Messenger or BBM is the favoured method of planning the unrest that has swept across the country.  

So why should every marketing professional in the world build Blackberry Messenger marketing into their communications plan?  

• Firstly, let’s get it correct. BBM  in nothing new. It is just that the adults never knew about it. let me rephrase – they knew because their child’s head is usuallly stuck in their Blackberrys every second of the day. They just didn’t realise “it’s monsterous viral potential”.

• Unlike text messaging or Twitter, BBM is a free, private social network where almost all messages are encrypted when they leave the sender’s phone – meaning that many messages are untraceable by the authorities. It is one of the reasons UAE banned BBM last year.

• Instant broadcast – the broadcast function on the BBM means you can mass message your whole contacts base in a second. Absolutely brilliant for making sure everyone gets your message. Hence the ease with which the UK riots were organised.

• E-mail marketing, Social Media, PR is also based on percieved views. Therefore you assume that the intended recipient of your messages has seen what you are trying to say via the above communication methods. With BBM the little d(delivered) turns to r(read) which means that your message has definitely been delivered.

• Targeted marketing – there is no better way to target your audience better than Blackberry Messenger. Fact. All those you are trying to connect to in place. No distractions. Just 110% pure targeted marketing. It can’t get any better than that.

All this points to the simple question – why have so many UK marketeers missed the BBM trick? If it has so many benefits then why hasn’t the brightest marketing brains built this into their marketing strategies.  

Great question – the answer is that they are not all as smart as us bods here at Seventy Nine PR. It’s one of the reasons we won a fully integrated marketing pitch for and online retailer from web design, web development, SEO to social media and PR. (More on this account win soon).  

As part of their marketing strategy we advised them to use Blackberry Messenger as a marketing trick. Not only to stay connected with their customers by giving offers everyday, but they also do a unique free consultation via BBM. The results have been astonishing.  More sales, more retention and a direct communication link between consumer and business. Pretty amazing. But just don’t our word for. Contact us and we will show you the results.

There are certain tricks to Blackberry Messenger Marketing (BBMM as we call it) but here at Seventy Nine PR, we are delighted that an unique idea we created is bearing amazing results.  

Want us to help your brand and business to connect via Blackberry Messenger. Get in touch. You wont be disappointed.

“We have attracted some criticism on our Facebook page after one of our marketing managers added a comment as a joke.”

“Can you please help us draft some ideas on how to respond?”

Whoops! This was a real scenario which was presented to 79PR recently after an overeager account manager working for a fairly large brand posted a message on Facebook which was meant to be in a light-hearted tone.

However, it wasn’t how one of their Facebook followers took it and started posted negative comments on their wall.

Double whoops! Just the same way in how you can grow your fanbase via social media in an exponential way, the same can be said of criticism. It can snowball out of control unless you

1. Deal with it quickly and rapidly
2. Have a crisis communication policy ready to whip out when something like this hits.

While Twitter and Facebook  are great at attracting potential customers rapidly (potential being the operative word), you can lose them just as rapidly via a silly or careless remark.

Just weeks earlier one of the bosses of a PR firm got annoyed with negative remarks being dished out by journalists (isn’t that their job?) about their client’s video game and tweeted a rather angry response. Something along the lines that he would be reviewing who would be getting the next game release.

Triple whoops! Journalist swooped on him and criticism of the game transferred to criticism of his remark. The result? The video game manufacturer sacking the PR firm, issuing an apology to journalists. The PR boss not only had to apologise to journalists, his staff and his firm but he also had to make quite clear that the tweet was his own work and not the viewpoint of his firm. The fallout and damage to the reputation of the firm could linger for a long-time.

Therefore if you have staff within your firm who have access to tweet or add comments to wall please approach with caution before they commit the proverbial #fail which could see you firefighting a crisis.

According to a new study by Burson Marsteller – a huge 49 percent of business decision-makers across the globe believe digital communications has made their company more vulnerable to a crisis. A whopping 79 per cent actually expect a crisis within a year.  Amazingly, despite these fears only half of those surveyed actually had a crisis communication plan in place for their social media marketing.

All this begs the question? WHY NOTTTTTTTTT??

So if you are a business with an online presence, whether you are doing it yourself or outsourcing to an agency,  make sure you follow the below steps.

1. Create a social media policy ASAP and then spend an afternoon explaining to those responsible for tweets and walling (those who add comments on wall – might catch on). The policy should include a dos and dont’s and should be even be fed back to your client so they know where they are at.
2. Those responsible for social media should be gathered and an out of hours crises plan should be gathered. Putting someone on call every weekend or evenings could be an option with an extra budget from the client sought to carry this out.
3. Don’t be so hasty in replying to a rogue tweet or post. Be calm, assess in an neutral way and then respond.
4. DON’T be angry. Sometimes what you say in your head and write can be lost in translation. Becoming angry to a rogue element could backfire drastically. Remember that everyone is entitled to their opinion. Valuing the complainant means you value their opinion and your brand and business.
5. Apologise. Saying sorry is worth a thousand customers. Showing that you are human can work wonders.
6. Be humorous. Often a simple, light hearted response or tweet can diffuse any potentially damaging situation.
7. Be open. Don’t start direct messaging someone who puts negative comments. Be open and show everyone you are dealing with the situation in an amicable way.
8. Do something about it. If the comment was negative because of a service or product issue, then address it and show other followers you are taking the comments on board.

And if you’re wondering how we dealt with the negative comment for one of our clients. Simple – we responded with a fun, light hearted response which addressed his concerns directly. They then responded with a positive comment.

Those who want any further advice can contact us on 0116 212 6809 or info@seventyninepr.co.uk.

79PR

www.seventyninepr.co.uk

Businesses who were not averse to the internet are now quickly realising that having a social media presence is a MUST.

Especially those businesses who want to sell online. We have just completed a brand new e-commerce website for a client (fantastic new site – will post on it in subsequent blogs) and as part of our marketing proposal we told them they must have two things as part of the side(in addition to online PR).

One was SEO. Not hard to explain why. But the second was to “build a social media profile”.

With a growing number of people spending their time on social networks (Facebook has 700 million users and Google hasover 11 billion queries per month) it is now a must that to:

1. Build brand credibility
2. Touch the online audience
3. Increase the awareness of your products quickly

….then to build a profile on Facebook and Twitter is a must.

It means that PR and Comms professionals like SeventyNinePR must now build social media and SEO into any PR strategy. PR professionals now now that SEO, Social Media and PR and now all part of the ONLINE marketing mix. (PPC and online advertising falls into the online advertising remit).

For SeventyNine PR it is pretty simple. As many are now aware that S9 Design (our web design and SEO division) helps build pretty websites. But what is a pretty website without knowing how to market it. Valueless. Your website is worth zilch if you don’t know how to attract consumers and drive traffic towards it online. It is for this reason all of our clients that we build websites for, also give us their marketing budget to help them market themselves online. In fact, from the design stage we are already thinking about how we can market that website and as result we build this markeitng into the whole package for our clients.

Social media is a great way to target and reach consumers in an easy way. Furthermore social media can help you interact and engage directly with your consumers. One of our clients has just grown their Facebook “likes” to over 2,000 from only 100 or odd through a concerted social media campaign.

Having a good offline and online PR is also great for SEO. The greater the mentions you have in cyberspace the greater the chance of linking back to your site and increasingly credibility. I e-mailed a fashion retailer today with great content on their blog but only 63 backlinks. This is a classic case of building your online marketing on all levels.

All PR professionals must now understand social media and SEO from the below standpoints:

• What is the current social media strategy and SEO strategy for my client
• How can I develop the social media strategy for my clients and appeal directly to their consumers
• What is the social media strategy for their rivals?
• What are the SEO tricks and insights to increase the visibility of blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and any other digital media produced for news distribution

PR, Social Media and SEO are now quickly becoming three peas in a pod and developing a close relationship. The success of any brand or business will be not how strong they are individually but how closer they are working together.

Integrated Social SEO PR – THE FUTURE OF ONLINE MARKETING.

If you have questions about incorporating Social SEO PR into your business or how to do it, please leave a comment below or alternatively e-mail us on info@seventyninepr.co.uk

The rapidly growing importance of SEO and Social Media for Public Relations