Social Media & SEO

Companies may expend tremendous energy and time to find the right influencer for their brand. Unfortunately, they often fail to look deeply into an influencer’s past for clues of potential future behavior. Although many details surrounding a recent incident in Denmark remain unclear, it reminds us of the need for companies to research the reputation of influencers before going into business with them.

So, the White House plans to host its first ever social media conference this Thursday. But Facebook or Twitter have not been invited. What does a social media summit look like without two of the biggest platforms participating? And who’s going to this thing, anyway? The White House has been mum. But based on what we do know, we take look at what might be discussed.

Here at PRNEWS, we regularly meet communicators who just can’t get enough SEO training. We want to know best practices for SEO, but don’t know where to begin—and the rules keep shifting! Ahead of our Digital Boot Camp: Using Google Tools for Communicators immersion class later this month at NYC’s Yale Club, test your understanding of what SEO means for communicators with this handy quiz.

For the past few years, future-focused communicators have seen cryptocurrency as a potential tool for promoting brand transparency and accountability. That’s because blockchain, the digital technology that logs cryptocurrency transactions, acts as an unalterable ledger.… Continued

With PRNEWS’ Top Women in Healthcare Communications awards luncheon coming up later this month, we asked our data partner Shareablee to look at the most socially active pharma and healthcare insurance providers for the first months of 2019. Clearly, these sectors need to address their social media strategies as both suffered major downturns in consumer engagement vs 2018.

We rarely cover live events in this publication. PRNEWS senior content manager Sophie Maerowitz gave us a reason to make an exception. She attended a PRSA session featuring former Hearst executive Joanna Coles, who offered so many interesting tips and tactics that we had to share them with you. Here are some gems from the sharp yet blunt mind of Coles.

There’s been a generational and cultural shift toward activism over the last few decades, as consumers call for more organic and open conversations about CSR from businesses. With this, the spirit of reversing capitalism-induced environmental and social damage has also become a trend in marketing. And millennials are largely the ones driving the shift.

Putting Facebook’s problems with inconsistent messaging aside, the “platform vs. publisher” debate has considerable relevance for PR pros, whose success in Media Relations largely depends on building out some variation of a PESO strategy that involves a traditional ad spend, an earned media component, solid SEO and robust owned content delivery channels. Communicators are in a position to become influencers of Facebook’s policy, not just through their partnerships with marketing and ad spends, but by treating the ubiquitous social network as a “publication” and not a “platform.” Here’s why.

Google has several enterprise-level tools that require a budget, but many of its tools—including Data Studio, recently graduated from beta—are completely free for the time being. Our roster of SEO and Analytics pros will be discussing some of these tools next month at PRNEWS’ Digital Boot Camp: Using Google Tools for Communicators, July 17 at NYC’s Yale Club. Ahead of the boot camp, though, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t feel empowered to start familiarizing yourself with these tools now. Communications professionals would be well-served to start experimenting with Google’s latest offerings, tinkering with messaging placement and delivery to see what resonates most with audiences.

A social media budget should focus on so much more than just dollar signs. A good budget requires a recipe of research and development, as well as resources. Every organization, from billion dollar companies with multiple marketing departments across the globe, to smaller nonprofits with social media armies of one, should take a look at social media usage and where it fits into their overall strategy.