Archive: September 2017

We ask PR and marketing leaders to tell us about people who’ve influenced their career, the best advice they’ve received and recent trends. This week we speak with Melissa Galland, marketing manager, Adair Homes. She tells us about answering customers’ questions and listening to customers online, in person and via surveys.

The cruise ship industry is often on the wrong end of crisis communications, but Hurricane Irma has given Royal Caribbean the chance to show its humanitarian side, even as it deals with pressing customer service issues on social media. The Miami-based company is mobilizing four of its ships to help people in need with food, water and other supplies, in coordination with the federal government as well as local governments in St. Thomas and St. Maarten.

Marking any tragedy, let alone one of the most tragic events to happen in the history of the United States, is not a time to make it “all about you.” For your average brand, the only time it is a good idea to insert yourself into the message is if you have something of value to offer that is intrinsic to the brand (and you have a clear-eyed perspective on what “value” means to the public).

On the surface, Equifax seemed to respond to its data breach in textbook fashion. It issued an apology both in writing and in a video. The brand also set up a web site where consumers could check if their data had been compromised. A deeper dive, though, shows Equifax may have committed several costly errors in terms of crisis response. An early lesson from Equifax’s crisis is that merely having a crisis plan is not enough. Execution of the plan is critical, too.

We’ve all read stories of an angry customer tweeting at an airline or a restaurant because they had a bad experience. But social customer care is about so much more than just dealing with irate customers, says Brandi Boatner, a digital experience manager with IBM. We recently sat down with Boatner during a Facebook Live session to pick her brain on how social customer care is evolving—and how IBM is using artificial intelligence to bolster the process.

Brands have to be extremely sensitive about how they show support in times of crisis. It’s all too easy to come across as crass and opportunistic, despite the best of intentions. Airlines, though, are in a unique position when a natural disaster strikes. They can take real, life-changing action.

If you want a better website with better content, Google Search Console should be one of your first stops. It’s a powerful set of tools that can give you valuable information on errors you may have in your code, usability, search traffic and so on. And yes, there can be a slight learning curve if you’re new to it. In the PR News Guidebook: Google for Communicators, Chris Hornak, owner of Blog Hands, argues that fluency with these tools is well worth the afternoon or two it might cost you to learn how to use them.

For the past 14 years, Vanessa Wakeman has given her team simple marching orders: to challenge what is before you, in pursuit of a greater good. Her dedication to challenging the status quo has led to her great success in the social change sector.

You’d be hard pressed to find a Fortune 500 company without a presence on Twitter, but should the big boss also be on the medium? It depends on myriad factors, including your goal for being on the platform, who will actually compose the tweets, the type of information your CEO wants to share and, of course, whether they have a thick skin.

LinkedIn has rolled out a targeting tool for brands that sponsor content on the platform: Audience Network. The tool increases brands’ chances of their content appearing on audiences’ LinkedIn feeds, as well as—perhaps more excitingly—tracking users across the internet once they leave LinkedIn. Here are three ways brands can start experimenting with Audience Network.