Social Media & SEO

With White House aspirants and professional footballers live streaming, what are the best ways for brand communicators to take advantage of these live streaming tools? We asked communicators for insight about content strategy and content creation, selling these live (read “unpredictable”) tools to the C-suite, measuring effectiveness and working with influencers.

Life is live, but so much of what we watch on screens is taped. For brands wanting to control their messages, avoiding in-the-moment tools would seem to make sense. Still, for brands there’s much to be gained by using Snapchat. With many brands getting started on Snapchat, and plenty timidly staying away, we asked Sarah Maloy, director of social media and external video at Fuse Media LLC, parent of national television network Fuse TV, to tell us of Snapchat traps to avoid.

A look at the top stories of the past week in PR. This week including the not-so-friendly visits to Capitol Hill by Wells Fargo CEO John Stumpf and Mylan’s Heather Bresch. Other stories include Facebook’s goof on how it measures time viewing videos, Finn Partners’s growth spurt and a new tech chief for APCO Worldwide.

Communicators know Snapchat is a powerful tool for audience engagement, but that means nothing if they’re dealing with a skeptical C-suite. Limited metrics, doubts about the platform’s staying power and a reluctance to stretch lean social media budgets further are just a few of the arguments communicators might encounter when proposing a Snapchat channel launch.

At the risk of sounding obvious, you need to have strong visuals to have a good Instagram presence. This is not something that comes naturally to some brands, especially nonprofits and B2Bs. With a little help from some communicators at the top of their game, however, anyone can put a strategy in place that will make their Instagram feed more engagement-friendly.

Snapchat is known for its informality and immediacy. For communicators seeking to control their brand’s messages, however, those two descriptors could be reasons to stay away from this hot, new tool. Sarah Maloy, director of social media and external video at Fuse Media LLC, the parent of cable music network fuse, has managed to meld (yes, we could have said fuse) Snapchat’s in-the-moment tone with various corporate strictures.

It turns out that one of those right-brain skills—good writing—may be the best SEO weapon available. Now more than ever, SEO success depends on strategic writing skills. Creating content that satisfies search engines’ need to deliver useful information improves Google search rankings.

PR pros understand the importance of a great hook in storytelling. But how do you employ such hooks on Snapchat, where you have just one day to get noticed before that crucial opening moment disappears, along with the rest? Melanie Cohn of Dunkin’ Brands says that success lies in crafting an enticing hook that keeps audiences along for the ride, and following through with a matching payoff within the platform’s 24-hour window.

A recap of the week’s news in PR, including announcements about people. The lead item looks at how Twitter might have found itself a good niche live streaming NFL Thursday Night games. Another item notes that Heather Bresch, CEO of EpiPen maker Mylan, this week will be in the hot-seat on Capitol Hill explaining how her company can justify raising prices of the life-saving device by some 400%.

More than a billion people watch countless hours of video every day on the platform, making it one of the largest social networks around. But YouTube’s biggest flaw is that it’s never felt very social. That’s all about to change. YouTube announced the public beta for a new feature called “Community,” which aims to make the platform a much more socially engaging destination.