PR and social media are both based on communication. But social media, with its real-time messaging, strengthens your client’s awareness. And it supports PR efforts. This allows PR to be stronger and more effective. Content published via press releases lives longer, spreads faster and has a further reach with the support of social media. Social media PR is today’s word-of-mouth/grassroots marketing.
Social Media PR Position Clients in the News
As stories are shared in real time, public relations professionals can use social channels as a tool to leverage their client’s brand. Follow specific hashtags that are relevant to the client. In addition, follow the journalists that cover applicable beats.
Journalists often use Twitter as means to find an expert for a story they are working. They are also searching for an idea that is coordinated with their editorial beat. Use Twitter as a research tool: view journalists’ tweets and retweets and arm yourself with the topics they’re interested in. Observe the people they engage with and use this insight to craft your message.
Setting The Stage for Success
When setting the stage for a major announcement or activation – start teasing the message on your client’s social platforms with hashtags that include media outlets. The teaser campaign should include strategic story angles that will whet the interest of news outlets. Beyond dropping links on LinkedIn or Twitter, consider additional formatting ideas such as:
Highlighting key press release points in the caption
Providing bullet points or a “condensed” release in conjunction with the external link
Organizing the release into an image or infographic
When you get a media placement, share it across all platforms to integrate your client’s social media and PR strategies.
Takeaway
Social has given brands new outlets to connect and share information. The channels are constantly changing, challenging brands to adjust quickly and create compelling content to reach target markets across a variety of mediums. Brands that recognize the power of PR and social media have emerged as industry leaders, bringing value to their overall brand and creating loyalty customers.
What are social selling and social commerce, and how do they differ? Would your business benefit from adding one of these practices to your sales efforts? If you’re like most small businesses, then you may have started with a storefront. Next you built a website. And after last year, your website became a much larger part of your sales strategy, as most of the world turned to ecommerce over in-person shopping.
As you plan your marketing strategy for the rest of the year and beyond, recognize that your social media can also be a part of your ecommerce strategy. In addition to being a personification of your branding, your social channels now have the functionality to make sales directly on each platform.
Expanding your brand conversations into making sales on social media is the goal of these tools. Social Selling refers to cultivating a relationship with your customers on social media with the goal of eventually making a sale. While Social Commerce means your customer is buying your product or service directly from the social media app. There are many ways to execute a social selling strategy on social media platforms. But currently, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest offer Social Commerce, and Twitter is testing this functionality. Here’s an overview of what sales tools are available on some of your social channels.
Facebook Social Selling and Social Commerce Tools
By 2017, a quarter of the world’s population was using Facebook monthly. As a small business thinking about expanding your customer base, it makes the most sense to start on this platform. With tools like Messenger, Groups, Insights, Shop and Marketplace many small businesses can leverage their local fanbase into larger audiences and make sales with social selling. In addition, brands can create active product catalogs right on Facebook with Facebook Shop for social commerce direct sales.
Facebook’s potential customer base combined with specific targeting tools makes this platform an easy place to start. A retailer or restaurant could post a limited time offer for instance, and then boost that content for a nominal charge, getting it seen by more people. Posts can even include a button to take an action.
Companies can sell products and services – including things like webinars and online classes – in the marketplace or in their Facebook Shop. And with insights and targeting tools available, brands can create ads as well, tailoring the audience for each ad deployment.
An example of a Facebook Shop
Instagram Social Selling and Social Commerce Tools
Instagram upgraded their social selling and social commerce tools in 2019 (look for the shopping bag icon in the nav bar of a business profile). Audiences like GenZ now rely on this platform to find and purchase new products right in the app. And, brands with a business page enjoy sales functionality that regular Instagram users don’t have including follower insights.
Selling on Instagram can be as simple as posting beautiful images of product, with an offer, and steering customers to a specific website link to purchase. Or companies can employ ad types like Carousels and Stories. Tools like LinkInBio or LInkInProfile enable Instagram accounts to post a specific website link for each post. (Otherwise there is only the one link in the bio for the entire account).
Using hashtags on Instagram is key. Small businesses can create their own hashtag, and then encourage customers to use it when they photograph and share pictures of the company’s product, place of business or service. Brands can then use that hashtag to find new customers – reposting their user generated content (with permission), engaging with that user’s followers, and tagging the customer. These activities increase the reach of the post.
Next, businesses can set up an Instagram Shop, just like on Facebook. The in-app checkout means customers can buy directly from a brand from their Instagram account. Once a business account reaches 10,000 followers, even more social selling and social commerce tools are unlocked to use, for instance, in Stories.
An example of social commerce on an Instagram video.
Pinterest Social Selling and Social Commerce Tools
As with all social channels, set up your business Pinterest account with a combination of pins of your own products as well as pins of brand-representative images that are not sales-oriented. To be part of the Pinterest community it is a best practice to pin other people’s images as well. Then leave comments and like others’ content while on the platform. Pinterest business accounts also feature analytics to glean insights into your top pins, impressions, and other KPIs.
In April 2021, Pinterest and Shopify expanded their partnership to make social commerce easier on the platform. And Pinterest also features functionality called Catalogues, allowing businesses to basically set up a virtual version of their stores complete with collections, aisle browsing and even price comparisons. 27 countries worldwide currently have all of this new functionality.
An example of a Pinterest Catalogue
Twitter Social Selling and Up-And-Coming Social Commerce Tools
According to TechCrunch, Twitter is now testing ecommerce features for tweets. In the Twitter “card” system, the product card will link to a shop’s website and feature the product as well as a “SHOP” button. This type of Twitter post could be used not just as an ad, but also as an organic social commerce post.
Twitter is definitely a place for brands to gain insights and engage with their followers. Using practices like social listening and tools like Buffer, Brands can discover how customers talk about their brand. Brands can also use hashtags for locating information, and lists for grouping like-customers together and marketing to them.
An example of a Twitter ecommerce card
Adding Social to Your eCommerce Strategy Can Pay Off
Social commerce is an $89.4 billion market right now. It is projected to grow 8x that over the next few years. Start small, test often and grow your business with social media using social selling and social commerce!
Today, social media is a huge part of people’s daily lives. It is used as a way to communicate, keep up with family and friends, see what’s happening around the world and network virtually with business connections that we may not have the opportunity to meet in person.
Social media is such a major component of people’s personal lives. It should be a sure sign for small businesses that a social media presence is an absolute must to build and grow. It is a way for businesses to interact directly with current customers. It is also a way to reach potential customers.
These days, consumers and clients want to engage with businesses through social media and expect businesses to be present on multiple networks. The key to using it successfully is choosing the right networks and consistently updating content. With all the platforms that exist today, the big question for small businesses is, “Which networks are right for my business?”
At Front Porch Marketing, we are big proponents of social media. It is the foundation of almost every marketing plan we create.
Some of our favorite social media networks on the Porch:
Facebook – presents a huge opportunity for consumer engagement
Twitter – allows businesses to keep on top of what is being said about their industry and stay ahead of the competition
What small businesses have to do is figure out which networks are the right fit for their company based on their target audience. Each reaches a different set of demographics. Once the right networks are defined, it’s critical to share content and interact with customers in a timely and consistent manner. This creates an awesome experience for the customer and any potential customers who may be watching.
If you are looking to establish, expand or evaluate your social media presence, we can help!
Everyone has his or her own morning routine – mine happens to include hitting the snooze button at least once, a big cup of coffee and a quick scroll though Twitter.
Twitter is how I keep up with friends, keep up with the news, but most importantly- how I keep up with marketing. By following my favorite branding and strategy experts, I am able to learn their insights from decades of experience that I don’t have.
Over the past few months, I have curated a list of marketers that I follow to cover all the marketing bases, and here are just a few of my favorites.
Seth Godin (@ThisIsSethsBlog) – Author of the book, Purple Cow and others, where he discusses how to transform your business and yourself by being remarkable, posts daily about permission marketing and tips on how to be the “purple cow” in a field full of competition. His twitter is purely reposts of his blog, which ranges in topics from how to turn your creativity into a profession, to how to power a digital future for your brand.
Jay Baer (@jaybaer) – If you want a daily update on all different aspects of digital marketing, follow Jay, as he is the most re-tweeted person in the world among digital marketers. His posts include influence marketing workbooks, six step playbooks for handling social media complaints, and everything in between.
Ann Handley (@MarketingProfs) – If content marketing is your thing, then definitely follow Ann, as she is “waging a war on mediocrity in content marketing.”
Bonin Bough (@boughb) – He is currently chief of media and eCommerce at Mondelēz International (formerly Kraft Foods), and specializes in digital strategy that crosses paid, earned, owned and shared media. Posts a great deal of social media tips, and if you know Front Porch Marketing, you know we LOVE all things social media.
Marie Forleo (@marieforleo) – Guru of how to achieve the perfect work/life balance. Posts about how to build a business you love, increase customer trust through social media, and increase productivity in every day life.
Robert Caruso (@fondalo) – Another expert content and digital marketer, who tweets about innovative ways to improve your social media, tips on how to increase brand awareness for startups, and how to get results in B2B marketing.
Kim Garst (@kimgarst) – As one of Forbes top ten social media influencers, she is the queen of social selling strategy. Her tweets range from Facebook advertisement jumpstart guides, tips on how to keep the cost of SEO down, and “cheat sheets” for selling on social media.
Bryan Solis (@briansolis)- Expert on digital marketing who provides step by step help for brands looking to transform their digital approach to create a brand experience.
Neil Patel (@neilpatel) – If you want to read a little bit of everything about digital marketing, Neil is your guy. As a Forbes columnist with years of experience in marketing, he combines motivational business tips with the knowledge necessary to succeed as a modern marketer.
While these are just a few of the hundreds of successful and influential marketers to follow on Twitter, by reading a few of their posts daily I am able to keep up with the ever-changing world of marketing. In addition to following experts in the field, a lot of successful marketers follow venture capitalists, as they see and predict new innovation that affects most industries and markets. Effective and influential marketers have to keep up in order to connect with their target market, so why not utilize social media to do so?
Rachel Mains is an intern at Front Porch Marketing. Follow her on Twitter.
We on the Porch are passionate about Branding! We have talked about branding. We have talked about lifestyle branding. Now let’s talk about how photos define your brand.
Simply put, pictures are as integral to your brand as grapes are to wine! They bring your brand to life. Beautiful photography can be used in so many ways! Photos can be used on your website, for sales materials, market/trade shows, third-party training materials and for social media.
Delivering your brand message via social media is imperative. Of the top five social media sites, two of them are 100% visual! You can’t gram or pin without a photo, so what should that visual be? Your visual storyboard is just as important as your branding message.
Considerations:
Studio Shoot or Location Shoot?
Obvious or Subtle?
To Demonstrate or Not to Demonstrate?
Features need highlighting?
Professional or smart phone?
How to Represent the Brand?
Hold up a minute! How to represent the brand? Yes, remember all the branding work you’ve done around brand promise, brand characteristics … these need to be applied to your photography. A simple three-question quiz to ask when choosing a photo to represent your brand:
Does it match your brand personality, characteristics and definition?
Does it evoke emotion?
Does it illustrate your story?
Should you invest in professional photography? Heck, yes. There is a direct correlation to sales for almost all the brands we represent. Photography matters. It is worth the investment.
Need proof? Here’s our Client L’Amour Des Pied’s showroom floor before and after an investment in photography.
Our world is served to us on screens and those screens can’t give us a 5 sense experience, we must rely on the photo to evoke necessary emotion. Remember,a picture is worth a thousand words.
Social media is such a major component of people’s personal lives. It should be a sure sign for small businesses that a social media presence is an absolute must to build and grow. It is a way for businesses to interact directly with current customers. It is also a way to reach potential customers.
