Social Media & SEO

Social marketers often know what tools and resources are worth spending money on, but advocating for that budget, and working with the C-suite to allocate said budget, proves the greater challenge. We spoke with Rajesh Kari, Vice President and Business Leader at Infovision Social, about this exact matter ahead of his appearance at next week’s Social Shake-Up Show in Atlanta.

Many brands provide options for customer support on social media. While some companies fall back on traditional customer care departments or call centers, in today’s digital, “customer experience first” world, successful brands realize that consumers expect more personalized engagement. Customers choose social media in order to avoid traditional calls or chats. What does that mean for developing social strategies that fulfill customer service needs and also provide a differentiated experience?

Our regular roundtable feature includes honorees from the 2018 PRNEWS Platinum PR awards and speakers from The Social Shake-Up. Among the questions we put to them: What qualities does a successful communicator need? With the onslaught of technology, how can brands ensure customers have a human experience? And what social media trends are you eager to learn more about during the Social Shake-Up?

The social media platform Pinterest went big time on April 18, announcing its initial public offering at the New York Stock Exchange. ‘PINS’ are now not only being traded between user boards, but investors as well. Pinterest serves as the fourth most popular platform for U.S. adults, only surpassed by Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Adidas and Donald Glover (aka Childish Gambino) used Apple’s AirDrop to distribute free sneakers at Coachella. To those who accepted Glover’s AirDrop invitation, it was a highly personalized experience that ended with free Adidas. For others, it was a creepy use of an app designed for people who actually know each other.

PR pros often focus on the “fun” side of social: the stories, images and conversations that bring a brand to life. Unfortunately, darker forces also exist. Brands face a number of adversaries; from account hacks to bot attacks. Sometimes, brands are their own worst enemy, violating federal regulations that a communicator may not have even been aware of.

There’s much PR pros can learn about communicating the intricacies of AI from a story this week. It seems Amazon’s Alexa indeed is listening to our conversations. In fact, the hockey-puck-looking device has an army of 1,000 humans who listen to what it picks up in homes around the world. One lesson is that communicators need to urge brands to be transparent in their AI activities.

As we look to next week’s PRNEWS Measurement Conference in Washington, DC, we asked several scheduled speakers to prognosticate about PR measurement’s future. Up ahead, they said, is more data integration and testing of well-established ideas. In addition, tools will be smarter and (thank goodness) easier to use, which will encourage the use of measurement for decision-making.

Bots and automation can help communicators with audience research and faster response times, and fake followers can make you look important. But consumers are smart and want to find a brand they can put their trust in.

Communicators know words mean everything. What you say in a press release, advertisement or tweet can make or break a brand. So it’s not a surprise that search engine optimization remains an important strategic tactic on a digital level. Proper SEO makes sure brands get noticed in that continuous quest to the first page of Google, Yahoo or Bing.