Executive Summary - Digital PR Summit, NYC, Oct. 16 2013

Executive Summary
PR News Digital PR Summit
Oct. 16, 2013, Grand Hyatt, NYC

8:30 a.m. – The Wake-Up Call: PR’s Role in the New Social Landscape

Maggie O’Neill, Partner & Senior Director, Peppercomm

We may want to control social, but we can’t. All we can do is listen.
Think about what your audience is saying, how they are saying it and where they are.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of adults are on social.
Millennials are outpacing all other demographics with an 89% social media adoption rate versus only 43% of seniors.
Visual networks are strongly emerging as dominant social networks
Think about how often people are on social. Users on Facebook, for instance, spend an average of 405 minutes each month.
Half of all American television users access a second screen while watching television and 1/6 engage simultaneously.
People share content about your brand not just because they like your brand, but also because it gives them fodder to interact with friends.
Take B2B beyond LinkedIn—there is a lot of opportunity on other social channels that hasn’t been explored yet.
Don’t generalize about social networks; for example, don’t assume your audience of women will be drawn to Pinterest.

Molly McKenna Jandrain, Director of Public Relations, McDonald’s USA

Be a good listener—think of social like a cocktail party in that your conversations are two-way.
Develop a social strategy with measurable targets and objectives. Don't jump into a platform without planning first.
Form an integrated team and move away from silos.
Make your C-suite believers by involving them in real-time campaigns.
Establish an authentic brand voice.
Think of social as a tool to drive your business.
Build relationships without expecting something in return.
Be nimble and think outside of your plan.
Have fun and don’t take yourself too seriously.
Leverage your followers to co-create your social brand identity.

9:00 a.m. – How to Measure and Communicate Social Media ROI

Johna Burke, EVP, BurrellesLuce

There is no silver bullet for social media ROI.
Don’t be distracted by the hard work that is necessary.
The better you define the channels for yourself the more you can impact your communication channels.
Have an action plan to put against your listening plan.
Think about psychographics, values, interest, hobbies and desires. This will help you gauge trends and stay on top of what interests your audience.
Be specific with your social media profiles.
Never stop learning about your audience and what moves them.

Scott Gulbransen, Director, Social Business Strategy, H&R Block

One overlooked element of ROI from social is the money a company saves by leveraging social platforms.
Services can be fulfilled through social, without a user leaving the channel.
Social can alleviate customer problems, and quickly.

Mark D. Tullio, Vice President, Worldwide Marketing, Lantronix, Inc

Almost half (49%) of B2B companies don’t have a content strategy.
A lot of pushback from the C-suite and other executives occurs because there is a misunderstanding of what social is and what it can do.
Creativity can fill in for a lack of budget.
Social media not about you; it’s about your audience and your message.
Sales is the ultimate measurement of ROI following a digital or social campaign.
A social campaign needs to be evaluated in real time.
Content needs to be not only consumable but also shareable.
Be confident—educate your entire organization on social and be clear in your objectives.
Spoonfeed the media—they are hungry for content and if your pitch is on point and targeted you can gain free media.

9:45 a.m. – How to Play by the Latest Rules of Engagement on Facebook

Charles Territo, Senior Vice President of Public Affairs, American Traffic Solutions

A goal for social media: “be at the table and not on the menu.”
Before posting content consider if it’s provocative, appropriate, timely and relevant.
What has been shown to work: Facebook advertising and campaigns, promoted posts, industry-relevant topics, highlight clients and charities your company works with, integrate as many platforms as possible, moderate commenting.
What hasn’t worked: content-heavy pages, deleting negative comments, overloading your page with posts and clogging your followers' feeds.
Infographics can be an extremely powerful content tool for B2B companies.

Iris Yen, Vice President, Communications, American Eagle Outfitters

Treat your Facebook account as if the content is being generated by a real person rather than by a brand or marketing platform.
Your social status is definable by the number of likes and follows your brand accrues.
Younger demographics seek authenticity.
Avoid deleting negative comments no matter how bad they are. Instead, respond appropriately and use it as an opportunity to show that you are responsive and you care about your audience.
Respond quickly and carefully, and own your mistakes.
Ask yourself if the content is relevant to your fans and your brand.
The most engaging content is often real people over celebrities, behind-the-scenes content, video and photos and user participation.

10:30 a.m. – Get Your Messages in Front of the Right Followers on Twitter

Brooke Primero, Senior Vice President, PR & Marketing, Academy of Country Music

Create an element of suspense to drive engagement on Twitter.
Fully develop your brand identity and recognize who your competing organizations are.
When crafting tweets: think like a fan and focus on why they follow you in the first place.
Use Twitter as a primary channel rather than just a satellite.
Don’t be a 9-5, Monday through Friday brand. Stay on top of Twitter all day every day. And pay attention to breaking news that could be relevant to your brand and your followers.
Create routines for your audience to look forward to—for example, a throwback Thursday campaign.
Tweet full messages; don’t spread a narrative through multiple tweets.
Make your tweets easily retweetable.
Don’t attempt to capitalize on everything happening. In other words, don’t force content just because it's socially relevant if it doesn’t align with your brand’s mission.
Only use rich content in tweets if it adds value to your brand.
Think about the user experience, and before you post ask yourself: Is it worth the click?
Arm your followers with rich media assets that allow them to disseminate your message.

Gemma Craven, Executive Vice President, N.Y. Group Director, Ogilvy

The meaning of crisis has now changed in light of social media and real-time communications.
Twitter can especially be an accelerant for a communications crisis.
Be prepared . Because Twitter is a volatile, real-time channel, a crisis plan must be ready at all times.
Use the channel to rebuild once the crisis has been addressed.
Be smart and fast in a crisis. But make sure your messages are transparent, compassionate, informative and deliberate.
Apply sentiment analysis because comments are contextual and emotional.
Understand hacktivism—poorly planned Twitter campaigns can be prime targets.
Know whom your advocates and “haters” are, and try to stay a step ahead of both.

Peggy Ann Torney, Associate Director of Public Affairs, Lymphoma Research Foundation

In order to build your community you need to start by perfecting your Twitter profile, and then you must find your followers.
Begin with broad content topics and move into specifics.
Pay attention to who your followers are, whom they follow and what provokes them to engage with others.
Discover what people are saying about you in the space.
Identify influencers, engage them and attempt to score them. Influencer score = (followers)(relevant posts)
Make your research actionable in order to develop a strategy on how to impact conversations in a meaningful way.
Draw on your organizational strengths.
Have internal conversations about social goal setting.
Cultivate strategic partnerships in order to cross-promote.
Develop a list of hashtags that connect with your overall mission and strategic plan.
Hashtags should be clear and concise and relevant to your brand’s objectives—they are extensions of your brand.
Give people something to do so they are compelled to spread your message.
Avoid being too promotional, otherwise you risk turning off or losing your audience.
Manage your Twitter account daily. Consider scheduling posts, but be sure to vary the content mix.
Measure what resonates with your followers in order to optimize for success.
Think about leveraging Twitter chats to spike engagement.

11:15 a.m. – Content Marketing Clinic: PR’s Role in Content Creation

Simon Bradley, VP Marketing, North America, Virgin Atlantic Airway

Marketing and PR needs to step away from silos.
PR can drive marketing because they have the inside knowledge of the business and know how to create great stories.
Be empathetic toward your stakeholders.
Consider carefully what channels your content can be shared on.
The foundation of your content marketing is focusing on what you do best and then amplifying it.
Cross-functional teams produce the best results in content marketing.
Create a content ripple effect by leveraging your audience and your partners to spread your content.

Albe Zakes, Golbal VP, Communications, TerraCycle

Content marketing enables exponential growth through media exposure.
Create a content marketing mission statement.
Make sure everything you create works toward your mission statement.
Find your brand story and find creative ways to tell it.
Channel third-party blogs and media organizations. It equals free content, free marketing and free exposure.
Consider a book deal because book publishers are hungry for valuable how-to guides.
Channel endorsements. When other brands endorse your product it can introduce you to a new audience.
Leverage consumers as content distributors.
Look for ways to get your content out there for little to no cost through cross-promotion partnerships.

Keynote Presentation: How to Engage with the Internet’s Passionate Communities

Victoria Taylor, Director of Communications, Reddit
Marta Gossage, Community Operations Manager, Reddit

Reddit is one-to-one with the possibility of content moving from one-to-many.
Addressing comments on Reddit on behalf of your client can create more problems than it solves.
Reddit is one of the fastest-growing social spaces in the country.
Submitting brand content is not allowed, so the question is: How can brands engage on Reddit? The Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA)—a free-form Q&A platform—is one option.
Advertising through sponsored headlines is permitted. The sponsored headlines allow you to seed content within the Reddit community without concern about breaking the platform rules.
All the content on Reddit is determined by voting, and the best content rises to the top.
Redditgifts is another way to engage users. There's a low barrier of entry and it promotes good PR.
Reddit users care about transparency, authenticity and passion. Humanize your Reddit account.

1:45 p.m. – No-Holds Barred: How Two Brands Have Met the Challenges of the Digital Present and Future

Kevin Hunt, Social Media Manager, Global Communications, General Mills

With over 100 brands, General Mills is tasked with maintaining and evolving brand legacies.
Changes in journalism have changed the way PR is implemented—maintaining a brand requires an integrated approach.
Your homepage blog can serve as your content hub.
Don’t be afraid to experiment with new platforms.
PR managers need to do more than just write, they need to learn how to shoot and edit video.

Bob Sipchen, Director of Communications, Sierra Club

A measure of success can be qualitative if you are fulfilling your overall communications mission.
Don’t abandon your traditional practices, find ways to integrate them with digital strategies.
Don’t repeat the mistakes that occurred in newsrooms with the emergence of digital media. Be ready to adapt.

2:15 p.m. – How to Use Instagram, Pinterest and Vine for Visual Storytelling

Amanda Junker – Digital Director, Shape Magazine

Pinterest is not just for b2c brands—it can help b2b brands tell their story through visuals, and can increase site traffic, promote commerce and foster community.
Contests can be excellent growth catalysts on Pinterest.
Pinterest can allow you to repackage existing content in new ways.
Pay attention to user performance data and leverage it for future content posts.
Share pins on other social networks, and be sure to tag them appropriately for search optimization.

Allison Robbins Director of Global Public Relations, Zumba Fitness

Social management is still a very collaborative effort, but we're seeing more and more dedicated professionals.
Instagram is typically for a young, tech-savvy audience. It is also the largest ad-free network, and its users are aware of that fact.
If your focus is on clear ROI, Instagram may not be for you. It is not for conversions and sales. Instead think of it as a tool for relationship building.
It can also serve as a platform to solidify your brand identity and create a window into the internal workings of the brand.
Avoid posting too much content and using too many hashtags.

Doug Simon, President & CEO, D S Simon Productions

Whether it’s 6 seconds or 15 seconds, you have more than enough time to build a video story.
Know ahead of time what your pitch is to get someone to watch your video.
Sharing content increases your chances of earning media—journalists are watching social channels to find story ideas.
Broadcast media can be converted to Instagram video.
Production quality = brand image.

3:15 p.m. – What’s in Your Toolbox? Social Media Monitoring Tools—the Paid and the Free

Emily Buchanan, Senior Principal, Chair of Social Engagement and Brand Marketing, Carmichael Lynch Spong

Monitoring social doesn’t require paid tools; there are great free services available.
Metrics can mean different things to different analysts, and there is no one-size-fits all approach to evaluating data.
Having too much data can create problems if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
Think about what you should you track and not what you can track.
Facebook tools include Facebook Insights (free) and Wildfire (paid).
“People talking about this” should be considered the most important Facebook metric.
Twitter tools include tweetreach (paid) and TOPSY (free).
Social conversation tools: NETBASE, ssomos, infegy, radian6—all paid.
Tools for other channels: piqora (Pinterest), Statigram (Instagram), Numblr (Tumblr).

3:45 – Building, Motivating and Managing Your Digital Dream Team

Gemma Craven, Executive Vice President, N.Y. Group Director, Social@Ogilvy

A digital team is necessary because of the two-way nature of social and digital media.
The social customer is reachable through three channels: word of mouth, social media and search.
A social brand is responsive, committed, open and trustworthy.
A digital team should be comprised of strategists, creatives and analysts.
Strategists are responsible for execution and optimization, strategy development, knowledge of the social landscape and research.
Analysts are responsible for benchmarking, insights and reporting, data strategy and KPIs.

Calvin Stowell, Director of Digital and Content, DoSomething.org

Digital fits everywhere across your team—it belongs everyone on your PR team.
Keep your language accessible and familiar to your audience.
Nonprofits can measure success through conversion.
The human element is the most important thing to think about for your digital strategy.
To cultivate your digital team, invest in their learning and education.
Set yourself up for real deliverables by creating real, reachable objectives.

Executive Summary – Digital PR Summit, NYC, Oct. 16 2013