Digital PR Archive

Consumer brands are livening up their social strategy by taking the humor up a notch. While this isn’t a new tactic by any means, some brands have started using social media to find their inner stand-up comics.

Brands like Taco Bell and Domino’s have been garnering attention for their sassy presence in the past 5 years or so. The level of humor used has been steadily increasing with various brands implementing the tactics highlighted below in a variety of ways. From all-out sass to casual jokes, there are certainly different levels of risk involved as well. But there are also benefits with some efforts even garnering media attention, like last year when Wendy’s capitalized on a social copy error on the McDonald’s Twitter handle.

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All digital marketers want to increase content visibility. All brands want to increase awareness that leads to trust and conversions—the basics of the business marketing. The trick is finding a competitive and cost-effective way to amplify this brand content. One of the ways to increase this visibility is with employee advocacy. It’s essentially free. People you already pay take a moment to share your new content, increasing visibility, and organic reach. And the commentary on this content is from experts too, as employees have the most detailed knowledge of your brand and its features.

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Developing your personal brand and sharing your story is wonderful when things are going well, but what happens when things go wrong? Perhaps your career was affected by a colleague’s gossip or your stellar product launch was closer to a fiery inferno. Your Amazon seller reviews come back not only poor but also mocking. Maybe your personal information got shared publicly, or disaster strikes and your service is disrupted.

It’s not a matter of if something bad will happen, but when. How you handle these troubles can be a tipping point that makes or breaks your brand. In the face of adversity, here are some things to remember.

Owning Your Mistakes

An excuse is not equivalent to an explanation—and no one wants to hear it. Describe what happened and own the error. Don’t pass the blame along to a third party. By admitting that a mistake was made you demonstrate honesty and integrity. You may be surprised at just how empathetic your audience may be towards human error.

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We are beside ourselves with delight to announce that we’ve won our first ever industry award from the Content Marketing Institute for the Best Use of Technology as Part of a Content Marketing Program for the role we played in the creation and execution of the Majestic in Space Campaign.

The prestigious Content Marketing Awards received over 1000 entries and in our final category, we were up against the likes of such mighty brands as Salesforce and FedEx!

Our quest, in partnership with our fine clients at Majestic.com and the crew at Made In Space, to 3D print a data visualization of “The Internet” on the International Space Station had been about 2 years in the making (astronauts move pretty slowly you see!) and so this accolade really is the icing on the space cake of what has been a thrilling year for us.

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Next week I’ll be joining an illustrious panel to discuss the US election and I have been asked to talk specifically about how digital and social media is affecting the potential outcome.

I wrote about it a bit more in this article: BABC Pre-Election Breakfast Discussion in Seattle on my personal blog but thought our Delightful followers would like to know in case you’re in Seattle next week!

Register here: Pre-Election Breakfast BABC

Hope to see you there!

Mel

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We are big-time supporters of Majestic here at Delightful, and while the British search engine tells you who is linking to whom across the web, we want you to uncover everything it has to offer beyond just being a tool for SEO (search engine optimization).

I chatted to Duane Forrester, VP of Organic Search Operations at Bruce Clay, at a conference recently about how content marketers and digital PR people could use link data to tell better stories about their campaigns and how to get creative when planning outreach to influencers.

Duane says, “the reality is links are a source of direct traffic,” and gives you the opportunity to uncover potential partners and evaluate the success of your content. You’re putting in the work, but still, how well do you know your customers? Who are your key influencers? What is the net long-term effect of the content and campaigns you are producing?

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If you’re in the business of building media lists for PR outreach, you may use an established database from a company like Cision or PRNewswire.

While those tools are an excellent resource, they can be expensive, so we’ve put together a video for Majestic.com (I’m their US Brand Ambassador) to show how you can use link data to figure out who is writing about what AND know how influential and authoritative they are as a writer or publication.

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At the end of last year, those nice people from Vizion Interactive asked me to have a chat on camera at the Digital Summit in Dallas.

I was at the event in my capacity as Brand Ambassador for Majestic.com, so chose to talk about broadening their audience beyond SEOs and link building and how important links are to the public relations industry.

Are you a PR pro? Are you using link data for competitive analysis and PR planning and reporting?

Watch the video to give you some ideas and inspiration!

Warning! I get a bit passionate towards the end!

Cheers,

@MelCarson

September was full of fantastic industry events and Delightful has been busy learning about, and sharing the latest digital marketing trends and technologies.

During Dreamforce 2015 in San Francisco, we got the chance to learn about the future of marketing technologies and the current state of the industry from some great speakers like Satya Nadella from Microsoft and Marc Benioff from Saleforce. With our client Majestic.com, we attended Share15 and Mel was invited to share his wisdom on influencer marketing in a session with the digital marketers. The last stops on the crazy autumn conference train were SMX East and #JanesofDigital in NYC, where we had a great time helping our clients and connecting with our friends from the industry.

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Join Delightful’s Founder – Mel Carson – and the team from PR Week on Wednesday June 24th at 9.30am PST (12.30pm ET) for a webinar in PR Week’s Performance series entitled: Perfecting Your Personal Brand

Here’s the blurb:

From amplifying efforts on behalf of your brand to making you a stronger representative of your current organization to paving a path to genuine thought leadership, establishing a personal brand is a crucial career-advancement element.

In today’s social media age, it is more important – and challenging – than ever to communicate who you truly are and what you stand for. The benefits of doing so effectively – and, conversely, the issues that could come from doing so ineffectively – can have far-reaching impact.

Presented by Mel Carson, founder and principal strategy consultant at Delightful Communications, former digital marketing evangelist at Microsoft, and frequent speaker on the topic, Perfecting Your Personal Brand will be a 90-minute session detailing the key dos and don’ts of establishing and reinforcing your personal brand.

Crafted specifically for communications pros, this is the latest offering in the PRWeek Performance Series, webinars designed to help you do your job better.

Subjects covered in Perfecting Your Personal Brand will include:

• Analyzing and improving your current digital footprint
• Strategies to amplify your best work and instill more trust in your company/clients
• How your personal brand helps you stand out in a competitive workplace environment
• Cutting-edge tips to make a better impression offline
• How to become a thought leader and back up your personal brand claims

Register here for this 90 minute webinar: Perfecting Your Personal Brand Hosted By PR Week

Hope to see you online in a few weeks!