Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018
8:30 a.m.-9:10 a.m. Opening Forum: Your Communications Future as Digital, PR & Marketing Blur
Dave Samson, General Manager, Public Affairs, Chevron Corp.
Wendy Vlieks, Director, Corporate Communications & Issues Management, Nestlé Purina PetCare
Morry Smulevitz, Head, U.S. Public Affairs, AbbVie
- As a new employee, always try to build an internal constituency to gain your foothold:
- Senior leaders (C-suite or board) will never ask you about impressions. What they care about is the business outcome of your work.
- PR’s changing role includes paid media, better understanding of business challenges and having a grasp of artificial intelligence and data
- Next-gen skills for PR: show the ability to change and learn new skills, exhibit great writing, dabble in a lot of areas, then focus on what excites you.
9:10 a.m.-10 a.m. How to Connect Paid Social With Your Overall Communications Strategy
Ben White, Senior Vice President, Edelman
Chip Ross, former Director, Social Media Marketing, LA Times Media Group
- Before you start a campaign, make sure that your goals are clearly defined and that you have the necessary analytic tools in place to measure your success
- Be purposeful in your paid content, don’t just boost it and forget it
- Remember, paid isn’t the driver, it’s just another vehicle to deliver great content,
- When reporting on the effectiveness of your paid content to senior leaders, dig deeper into core metrics like impressions: have you reached a new audience?
- When reporting to senior leaders, tout your multi-platform approach to paid content, and highlight the teamwork or cross-functional team partnership
10:10 a.m.-11:30 a.m. No More ROI Nightmares—How to Shift Your Measurement Strategy From Metrics to Insights
Andrew Bowins, Executive Director, Corporate Reputation & Digital Engagement, KPMG
Eric Koefoot, President and CEO, PublicRelay
Aaron Strout, Chief Marketing Officer, W2O Group
- Data without insights, data that doesn’t drive action, is just dashboards and numbers
- Robust measurement programs are a combination of strategy, tactics, insights and accountability all coming together with the data to cause positive change.
- Impactful insights are often revealed only after a great deal of exploration, testing and iteration.
- Context is King: The analyst must be both highly experienced in the data exploration process, and have a wide understanding of business context to be effective at generating insights.
- All measurement programs must start with an understanding of your CEO’s goals
- "You have access to all of the data you need on your phone now: It’s getting to the storytelling that counts"
- “Your brand is defined as the conversations going on around you, not necessarily what you’re telling them.”
1:05 p.m.-1:40 p.m. Media Relations Strategies That Help You Build Relationships with Reporters
Nisha Morris, Executive Director, Communication, Providence St. Joseph Health
Maire Griffin, Vice President, Global Communications, Wyndham Hotel Group
- Get Creative: before pitching a story to the media, first ask whether the story resonates with you
- When pitching an event, make sure the concept is simple but unique enough to gain a reporter’s attention, then make sure you have sources/experts available
- Tell brand stories that translate into “elevated” news stories for journalists
- Use social media to connect with influential journalists and make sure you respond quickly if they direct-message you on a platform, or text your phone
1:50 p.m.-3:10 p.m. How to Manage an Escalating Crisis in Real Time
Temeka Easter, Senior Director, Social Media, Sallie Mae
Kevin Elliott, U.S. Director, Risk & Crisis Communication Practice, Hill+Knowlton Strategies
- Preparation and training is critical across departments—create a crisis communication plan in partnership with your legal department, marketing and PR teams and others, and perform annual crisis drills
- Set a clear social media policy and let that be your navigation system during a crisis: Who’s responsible for social? What is the review process? How is information archived?
- Make sure there’s a system in place to temporarily stop/halt social media posts in the event of a crisis
- Take responsibility, demonstrate authentic empathy, make sure there’s a clarity and consistency in your message, and if you can’t talk about the solution, talk about the path to the solution.
- Use research to understand the problem: Have solid listening tools in place to ensure you can distinguish between a crisis and a bad day
3:20 p.m.-4 p.m. How to Harness the Power of Influencer- and User-Generated Content—and Measure Its Impact on Your Brand
Amisha Gandhi, Head of Global Influencer Marketing, SAP
Michelle Kempner, Vice President, Operations, BuzzFeed
- 70% of a B2B buyers journey is complete before a buyer ever reaches out to sales; in fact, 84% of B2B buyers start the purchasing process with a referral
- Buyers aren’t only influenced by authors, academics, business consultants and thought leaders, but also by communities, associations and existing customers as well
- When testing out the success of user-generated content, flexibility is key. Keep your team lean so that it can quickly test data hypotheses fairly quickly and adjust on the fly
- Key metric for measuring influencer effectiveness is Cost per Thousand, or the price of 1,000 impressions on one webpage
Friday, Feb. 23, 2018
8:30 p.m.-9:50 p.m. Workshop: How to Craft an Elevator Pitch About Your Social Media Results for Your C-Suite
Joe Fullman, Vice President of Marketing, The Onion
Amisha Gandhi, Head of Global Influencer Marketing, SAP
- Deliver relevant content via digital, social and mobile to drive awareness, consideration and purchase
- Content should be consumable at every stage of the customer journey: awareness, consideration, purchase, support, and customer loyalty and advocacy
- Continually measure the reach of each content type (video, photo, text etc.) by network
- Continually benchmark the paid and organic value of each content type by brand and number of organic and paid promotions
10:00 a.m.-10:55 a.m. Brand Storytelling: Learn What True Success Looks Like From Hallmark, Ticketmaster and Guinness World Records
Carrie Bratcher, Public Relations & Social Media Strategy Leader, Hallmark
Ashley Dos Santos, Director, Communications, Ticketmaster
Kim Partrick, Head of Brand Development, West Coast, Guinness World Records
- Understanding consumers' stories, personalities and on-camera presence can lead to successful video and local market pitching
- Partnerships are key in amplifying local stories
- Your storytelling voices can include employees, influencers and the media
- Measure what matters, aligning your results to your goals to show value
11:05 a.m.-11:55 a.m. AI's Impact on Business, Culture and Brand Communications
Mike Delgado, Director of Social Media, Experian
- Alexa’s “News Feed” skill can help PR teams get a pulse on company news and trends quickly
- Smart chatbots can help your brand provide great customer care 24/7
- Marketing teams can easily gather web analytic data and other business intelligence with @Alexa
- A.I. can help companies identify customers with voice analysis to reduce fraud
- A.I. will help senior leaders gain business intelligence in-the-moment
1:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m. Dynamic Dashboards: How to Build a Real-Time Communications Measurement Center
Danielle Calhoun, Director, Platform Strategy, San Francisco Office, Weber Shandwick
Scott Davis, SVP, Client Experience, Weber Shandwick
- Focus on insights that drive action, not just data
- Define the desired action, then design the right KPIs for success
- Ask: What data streams will you need to drive strategic insights? Do you need to partner with people outside of your comms team? Is there marketing data you can integrate with?
- Google Data Studio: Free tool, owned by Google, and integrates with G.A., AdWords, YouTube, etc.
- Domo & Tableau: Dashboard tools, both have free trial and monthly subscriptions
1:40 p.m.-2:30 p.m. How to Grab (and Keep) Attention with Short- and Long-Form Video
Lauren de la Fuente, Vice President, Marketing + Communications, Boingo Wireless
Ken Peterson, Communications Director, Monterey Bay Aquarium
Larissa van Lockner, Creative Team, Social Media, PwC
- 43% of people want to see more video content from marketers
- Think about using video as if it were your most important tweet ever
- Channels like Snapchat and Instagram Stories are great platforms for creating short form video that is raw and snackable
- 85% of social videos are watched without sound; use Instagram stories or Snapchat as free tools to add captions to carousel-style videos
- Tailor the length of videos to suit your audiences/objectives
2:40 p.m.-3:25 p.m. What Facebook's News Feed Overhaul Means for Your Brand
Ryan George, Assistant Vice President of Marketing & Communications, 1st Global
Jacque Marianno, Digital Strategy Director–Western States Affiliate, American Heart Association
Larissa van Lockner, Creative Team, Social Media, PwC
- Facebook's algorithm change means low to no organic reach for brands, requires organic content overhaul
- Expertise, influence, partnership and growth all key to organic growth
- Visible experts help businesses increase reputation, partnerships and new business through the halo effect
- Content should be accessible, consumable, shareable, relevant, timely and connected to meet algorithmic changes
- Turn influencers into strong, mutually beneficial partnerships for more organic growth
3:25 p.m.-4:00 p.m. What’s Next: 8 Trends That Will Define Brand Communications in 2018
Adrianna Hosford, Senior Vice President, Ketchum
Joss Hastings, Vice President, Franchise and Retail Communications, Disney Consumer Products & Interactive Media
- 1-PESO (paid/earned/shared/0wned): Paid media, be it advertising, paid search or the like, lights the match to get people sharing
- 2-Social impact: If you want to engage with millennials, understand your organization’s impact locally, nationally and globally
- 3-Curated experiential events: The media is looking for unique experiential events just like you are
- 4-Branded content: Communicators should pitch branded content like they would an editorial pitch
- 5-Clickability: Create content that circulates and drives engagement
- 6-Translating tech trends for PR: Communicators should be the first in their organization to identify and understand the tech trends and to actually learn the technology to drive PR
- 7-Authentic editorial and influencer partnerships: Amid the talk about influencer marketing is the rising importance of the micro influencer
- 8-Psychographics: When crafting your messaging and campaigns, go beyond demographics to mindset and behaviors (psychographics)
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