Executive Summary

PR News' Digital PR & Marketing Summit

October 18-19, 2017 — Eden Roc Resort, Miami Beach

Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017

9:00 am-9:30 am: Keynote Presentation—YesJulz: Keys to Reaching Your Brand’s Demographic, Authentically

YesJulz, Entrepreneur + Philanthropist

  • Millennials and Gen Z-ers want to see authenticity and brands that are making a positive difference in the world
  • Ask for input from influencers on campaign and promotion ideas
  • Consider extra budget for influencers on top of their existing fee (e.g., a “bank” for philanthropic efforts)
  • Give influencers visual assets to share on social keeping in line with their audience

9:40 am-10:20 am: Harnessing the Power of Live Streaming for Your Brand

Erin Flior, Senior Director of Digital Communications, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation; Carlos Martinez, Director, Latin America, Guinness World Records; Israel Niezen, Chief Revenue Officer, Telescope

  • Live streaming is a tool, not a strategy
  • Live experiences should be engaging, measurable, valuable and sharable
  • Tips during a live stream broadcast: be visual, listen to audience comments and give shout outs, reiterate why you are broadcasting, have questions prepared and don’t be afraid to experiment
  • Increase engagement through audience polling via hashtags, reactions and comments
  • Create a buzz around your stream by using a graphic to countdown the start of your stream
  • Boost your post and retarget audiences who viewed the stream

10:30 am-11:10 am: How to Develop a Snapchat Presence

Carmen Collins, Social Media Lead, Cisco Talent Brand Team (HR), Cisco

  • When considering Snapchat vs. Instagram Stories, consider who your target audience is, and what your goals are
  • Snapchat is more authentic, raw, human, etc. than Instagram Stories, which is more glossy
  • Know where your audience is
  • Set goals and measure your efforts based on those goals
  • Be Snapchatty on Snapchat!

11:20 am-12:10 pm: How to Use Instagram Stories for Your Brand

Shairy Gonzalez, Senior Manager of Social Media, United Way of Miami-Dade; Carrie Strehlau, Senior Social Media Specialist, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital

  • Find the internal influencers at your organization
  • Create a spontaneous, dramatic, quirky full-screen experience
  • Engage the audience using immersive storytelling
  • Give a call to action at the end of a Story with a link if relevant.
  • Plan stories ahead of time, but be prepared to think on your feet
  • Make the most of the content you have

1:10 pm-1:50 pm: Turn Social Listening on Twitter into a Brand-Building Communications Strategy

Adam L. Snyder, Vice President, Corporate Communications, MUFG Americas; Joe Strupek, Assistant Vice President, Public Affairs, State Farm Insurance; Chris Albert, Senior Vice President of Digital/Social Research & Analytics, Ketchum

  • Your efforts on Twitter should be about 70% listening and 30% content
  • Don’t respond to everything you see, it can alienate a consumer
  • Most negative tweets should be addressed via private direct message, not in public
  • Building a brand through Twitter is about being known for something
  • Hashtags aren't tweet jewelry, they should be targeted, relevant and most importantly used by the audience you’re trying to reach
  • Understanding your audience, their activity and preferences should be the foundation of your content

2:00pm-2:55 pm: Get the Most Out of Your Facebook Ad Dollars

Andrew Huddleston, Digital Director, UAW; Tom Pompei, Vice President, Social & Innovation, FleishmanHillard

  • Do your research: Use surveys, current lists, custom audiences and lookalike audiences to get powerful insights and segmentation
  • Social advertising can be really expensive, but it doesn’t have to be if you segment smartly
  • Avoid vanity metrics
  • Run experiments by segmenting your audience as much as possible
  • Show your ROI to prove how it helped reach your goals

3:10 pm- 3:40 pm: What You Need to Know to Launch a Podcast for Your Brand

David Quiñones, VP, Editorial & Content, RockOrange

  • Benefits to podcasts: low barrier of entry, brand exposure, placement in media, ownership of the platform, quantifiable, growing media
  • When establishing your strategy, consider:
    • What’s the hook?
    • What’s the format?
    • Who’s your audience?
    • Whose voice do we hear?
    • When, where and how often will you record?

Thursday, Oct. 19, 2017

8:30 am-9:20 am: Social Customer Care That Builds Brand Loyalty

Brandi Boatner, Social and Influencer Communications Lead, Global Markets, IBM; Josh Ives, VP, Customer Experience Management, Samsung

  • Social customer care is different from customer service
  • It is about driving deeper engagement on social platforms by meeting the audience where they already are
  • When considering whether social customer care is right for you, ask yourself:
    • How are you making customers aware of your products and services today?
    • Are you currently leveraging digital customer experience strategies in your communications plans?
    • Is innovation in your company limited by the experiences offered in traditional channels or by conventional wisdom?
    • What analytics are you tapping to understand why your customers interact with you over both traditional channels and social channels?
  • “Do simple better”

9:20 am-10:05 am: Integrated Communications: How Marketing & PR Are Collaborating on Digital Now

Anna Lingeris, Senior Manager, Communications, The Hershey Company; Nick Bell, VP of Marketing Communications, Cision

  • We must change the way we think about earned media
  • Establish earned media as a growth driver
  • Be strategic and set common objectives
  • Be inclusive from the start—you can’t over-communicate
  • Stick to a defined workflow process
  • It’s not about connecting siloes; it’s all about aligning strategy across siloes

10:25 am-11:10 am: How to Use Customer Journey Mapping for Your Brand

Kara Hendrick, Manager of Digital Marketing, Velcro Companies; Thomas Buchte, Manager, EY Digital CX Strategy, Marketing Operations, Mobile & Social Business Transformation, Ernst & Young LLP

  • Customer journey mapping is a diagram that illustrates what steps your customer goes through in engaging with your company
  • The more touchpoints between the customer and your company, the more complicated the journey can become
  • The journey map is hardly ever linear
  • Think about:
    • Where is the customer interacting with you?
    • What’s bugging them?
    • How can you help them on their way?
  • Use your research to walk in your customer’s shoes
  • Visualize the journey and apply what you’ve learned to improve the customer experience

11:10 am-12:00 pm: Engaging With Media Pros on Social Media—During a Crisis and in Peacetime

Marco A. González, VP, Public Relations & Corporate Affairs, LBI Media Inc./Estrella TV; Cynthia Martinez, Director, Global Corporate Communications, Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd.

  • Everyone with a phone is now a journalist
  • Never speculate, and avoid giving out firm numbers until everything is verified
  • Media train spokespeople and educate employees on how to handle media (and customers)
  • Maintain message discipline
  • Continuously share information on social media, even if you are repeating the same info
  • Establish your company as the main source of info for the media (if they don’t get the info from you, they will get it somewhere else and it will likely be incorrect)
  • Own the conversation

1:00 pm-3:00 pm: Media Relations & Crisis Management Workshop

Temeka Easter, Senior Director, Social Media, Sallie Mae; Kena Lewis, Director, Public Affairs & Media Relations, Orlando Health; Ibrey Woodall, SVP, Web Communications Services, Business Wire

  • Create your communication crisis plan in partnership with your legal department, public relations team and others
  • Have a system to temporarily halt social media posts
  • Perform annual crisis drills
  • Use a solid listening tool
  • Create template for real-time updates
  • Use a dark site (a hidden page) created in advance to be ready whenever a crisis occurs 

3:00 pm-3:30 pm: Closing Keynote Presentation

Fernando Machado, Head of Brand Marketing, Burger King

  • If the CEO is too quick to accept a pitch, throw it out—successful campaigns require lots of back-and-forth
  • Be selective with your agency choice for campaigns
  • Keep your campaign goals simple to allow agency partners/creative team the freedom to do their best work