As a PR professional, you know the value of strategic planning and you know your success is judged by how well you connect with your stakeholders. You use multiple channels to reach your audiences because you have to be wherever people are engaging in conversation about your brand. While it's tougher to predict where reputational threats may come from in a multi-channel universe, you can use tools in real-time to enable continuous monitoring and measurement. This will give you the intelligence to analyze why and when to adjust your strategic communication plans.
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Stories from the trenches and helpful tips to get more out of your PR and marketing plans
Previously issued by dna13 www.mediavantage.comAs a PR professional, you know the value of strategic planning. You also know your success is judged by how and how well you connect with your customers and stakeholders.
You use multiple channels to reach all your audiences because you have to be wherever people are engaging in conversation about your brand. Those conversations have the power to impact your reputation and ultimately your bottom line.
The down-side in a multi-channel universe is it's tougher to predict where reputational threats may come from. Mainstream media? YouTube? Twitter? A blog posting?
The up-side is you can use the same tools in real-time to engage, react, and shape audience opinion. Better still, you can deploy your own tools to enable continuous, laser-sharp monitoring and measurement to give you the intelligence to analyze why and when to make on-the-fly adjustments to your strategic communication plans.
"Remember that even if your company or client decides not to engage in social media, that won't stop rants, rebellion and revolution. People will find a way to express themselves and let it be known they're disturbed, upset, confused or disappointed. The train has left the station - be prepared."The Beaupre Blog - Seven social media lesson's from Nestle's reputation crisis
Straddling two worlds
Continuous monitoring and the ability to adjust strategies even as they're being executed - are welcome additions to traditional communication planning.
The principles of communication planning are not much different than they've ever been. Even if you're at the cutting edge of communicating in social media settings, you still have essentially the same objectives: to inform; manage a sensitive issue; build brand awareness; trust and loyalty; or, pave the way to sell a product or service to more people.
What has changed dramatically for you is the one-two punch that new tactics and monitoring capabilities deliver.
What do new tools get you?
Consider how the typical building blocks of a standard communications plan have changed ... Strategies: No need to sit in the weeds eavesdropping on conversations about you. You can engage your customers or stakeholders directly - join a conversation, respond to opinions, correct misinformation, and more. You have more control of your brand reputation than in the past. Tactics: Complement your traditional communications products with boiled down messages targeted for blogs, microblogs and discussion boards. Take advantage of tools and apps to tell your story - combine images, podcasts, video, testimonials - all in one product or a suite of products. People absorb information in different ways. Why restrict yourself to the written word? Audiences: Meet those hard-to-reach audiences or potential communities of interest on their own turf and terms. They may not be reading the daily newspaper, but chances are you can reach them on YouTube or LinkedIn.
www.mediavantage.com 2 Measurement: Search for, monitor and measure news and information in real time by following traditional channels as well as blog and micro-blog traffic, Facebook followers, discussion board entries, and web analytics. Analysis: You can deploy tools efficiently and effectively that will deliver information to you that will enable you to adjust your strategies for higher performance.
IN EACH OF THESE BUILDING BLOCKS, CONTINUOUS MONITORING AND MEASUREMENT ENABLE LASER-FOCUSED ADJUSTMENTS TO YOUR PLANS TO ENSURE MORE SUCCESSFUL RESULTS.
"To develop and maintain successful communications requires commitment. Every customer-facing department in your company must monitor and engage social media tools as part of your company's overall brand strategy. Marketing, sales, and PR should collaborate to build social media strategies into an overall strategic communications plan. ... It is essential an organization's brand ambassadors comprehend the goal and the messages to become valuable contributors to the conversation."The 1to1 Blog, Guest Blogger Steve McAbey, The Social Media Conversation
Communication in action
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