Tag: social media

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Digital marketing digital pr Featured marketing online pr SaaS

Escherman Announces Solution Partnership with Nimble: social CRM for PR

escherman: Nimble Solution PartnerHot on the heels of our our recent Hootsuite Solution Partner agreement, we’ve just signed a Solution Partnership with Nimble, a Social Business Platform that combines relationship management and social engagement into an affordable web-based solution. It integrates LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google, email contacts and conversations into “one seamless, intuitive environment, empowering small businesses in today’s socially connected world to attract and retain the right customers.”

As far we know, escherman is the first UK consultancy to attain both Hootsuite and Nimble Solution Partner status. We think this a big deal for a number of reasons. Not least for the world of PR.

Joining the social media and social business dots: training, implementation and management

Consider this question: if PR is about managing reputation – and this is largely done through managing relationships with various stakeholders – why has the industry been slow to make use of CRM style technologies?  Admittedly, CRM software has been largely targeted at sales, marketing and customer service – but given you could easily replace the “Customer” in CRM with “Stakeholder”, why haven’t we seen more PR firms and in-house departments make use of tools like Salesforce, SugarCRM, etc?

Cost can’t really be an issue given that most of those tools are SaaS based and the cost per month per user is pretty minimal.

The truth partly lies in lack of knowledge of exactly how to use CRM tools in a PR context. And possibly the fact that these tools haven’t yet displayed any real integration with social.

So when Hootsuite and Nimble announced an integration partnership back in December of last year, the light bulbs went on here.

We’ve been using Nimble as our own relationship management system for some time.  Aside from being a very powerful system at an affordable price, we’ve always liked its emphasis on integrating social elements.  Now, with a direct integration with Hootsuite, we have the makings of a truly 360 degree view of key stakeholder relations and management. And at a price that won’t break the bank.

We think the fact that we are now official solution partners for both Hootsuite and Nimble puts us in a unique position. By combining our popular social media training services with the ability to help organisations implement a combined social media management and relationship management platform, we can help businesses more rapidly start to reap the benefits of social media – across all aspects of the process. Not least of which we have a particular speciality in understanding the needs of PR firms and in house PR departments. There are many ways in which PR and comms teams can benefit from understanding how to exploit the power of social media and social business – we’ll be posting more in coming weeks about how to get the best out of the combination of Hootsuite and Nimble.

In the meantime, click here if you want a free trial of Hootsuite.

Or click here if you want a free trial of Nimble.

And clearly if you’d like to talk to us about social media training and implementation generally, just email us.

(And don’t forget the social media and digital marketing training we provide via the CIPR).

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Digital marketing digital pr Featured General PR online pr SEO

One trick ponies make good glue (CIPR Conversation)

(This post first appeared on the CIPR Conversation).

The debate around PR and SEO refuses to go away. However, recent Google algorithm changes seem to have pushed the discussion to the fore again. A common theme is emerging – namely, that, more than ever, high quality, relevant content on trusted, high authority sites is crucial to good SEO – and PR professionals may be better placed to create that content than many SEOs.

Simple, yeah?

One Trick Pony?

Well, not quite. As ever, reality begs to differ. I was particularly reminded of this by Dr Peter Meyers of the Chicago based firm User Effect who has written some excellent blog posts recently on the subject of SEO.

Specfically he points out that: “Every week, without fail, I hear someone ask where they should put their SEO budget – in on-page tactics or in link-building. Unfortunately, there are plenty of SEO companies and consultants lining up to give them the answer – and that answer just happens (“coincidentally”) to be whatever the company/consultant is good at. When you’re an expert with a hammer, you start to think you can nail anyone (wait, that’s not right).”

And of course, these kind of comments could equally apply to PR. If your expertise lies in media relations, then naturally you’ll find it hard not to recommend to a client that a media relations solution is the way forward.

But I agree with Dr Meyers when he says that the honest answer is: “It depends”.

And of course, that is the answer that no client wants to hear. They want “an answer”. Or more specifically they want “THE answer”. That someone is going to take the pain away and deliver the silver bullet solution.

In a similar vein, people sometimes view training as a quick fix. Send someone on an SEO training course and they’ll come back with “the answer”.

Clearly, you have to start somewhere – and for PR professionals, the CIPR already offers workshops and webinars that will provide a rapid fire introduction to SEO basics (as well as other areas of the digital marketing mix such as social media and analytics).

But this is merely the first part of the journey. You can spend your entire life just reading about SEO or attending training workshops. However, there comes a point when you actually have to start doing it.

So rather than waste our energies arguing over whether SEO firms should be doing PR and vice versa, the only real way to find out is as Dr Meyers so eloquently puts it: “Do The F*cking Work.” Sticking with the same core set of skills that may have worked in the past is no longer an option. As I’ve opined before, one trick ponies are going to be a liability. Or as Dr Meyers more colorfully puts it: “One trick ponies make good glue”.

No single blog post or one day workshop is of itself going to solve all your problems. This is your profession and your career. Not only is continuous learning and development a pre-requisite, actually making the time to apply it is mandatory. Even if you can’t immediately find opportunities within your own work to apply these things, then make the opportunities yourself. It costs next to nothing to create your own blog, install Google Analytics and set up a Google Adwords account. Don’t just read about SEO and nod sagely when people stand up at conferences and say that PR professionals COULD have a valuable role in SEO. Actually do it.

Categories
Digital marketing digital pr General PR online pr

Is PR still living in the 1980s?

(This post first appeared on the CIPR Conversation site.)

Someone showed me the slide deck for a new business pitch from a very well respected PR firm this week.

The thing that surprised me was that other than one token slide about SEO (which clearly betrayed a lack of understanding of the subject) and a reference to blogging, the kernel of the proposition boiled down to writing press releases, pitching stories to journalists, and organising press meetings. Social Media? What’s that? (I was also bemused that nearly a quarter of the budget was going to be allocated to “account management” – even though there was absolutely no detail as to what that actually meant or entailed for the prospective client).

This proposal could have been written 30 years ago – maybe even longer.

But is that necessarily a bad thing?

On the plus side, the agency concerned is clearly doing well (as attested by their recent financial performance).  And if this pitch proposal is representative of their approach, then it would seem there are plenty of client companies out there still happy to consider this kind of traditional PR approach.

So are skeptics right to argue that they don’t need to be paying attention to the calls from people like me to invest more in new skills based around social media, SEO and analytics?

I think the honest answer is: no.

For a start, the agency above are clearly an exception not the rule – certainly in the sense of continuing to be profitable by ostensibly selling the old wine of traditional media relations in a new bottle (with a thin digital label).   The more prevalent message I hear from the world of PR consultancy is that clients are shying away from media relations-only solutions – or at the very least, they aren’t prepared to pay as much for pure press relations as they might have done in the past. Digital expertise and integration is needed now – and the demands on PR consultancies and in-house teams will only get ever greater.

Perhaps some in PR are suffering from what psychologists call hyperbolic discounting:  taking what you see as the sure thing in the present (media relations) over the caliginous prospect some day far away (biting the bullet on digital). Or perhaps the affliction is “present bias” – being unable to grasp what you (your clients) want will change over time, and what you (your clients) want now isn’t the same thing as what you (your clients) will want later.

Either way, I strongly suspect that the kind of new business slide deck I saw this week doesn’t have as long a shelf life as some might think (or want).

Have a hyperbolic weekend.

Andrew Bruce Smith and The Conversation team

Please note, this Conversation Roundup is written in my own capacity.

I am not a spokesperson for the CIPR.

 

Categories
Digital marketing digital pr marketing online pr SEO

“Social media is vital say top SEO firms”. But the bosses aren’t very social…

One of the most frequent comments from search agency bosses in the recent NMA league table of the UK’s top search firms was the importance of social media to search.

The following is a representative quote: “the biggest growth opportunities are in increasing the effectiveness of search by integrating it with areas such as display and social media.”

So are the bosses of these search firms walking the walk, as well as talking the talk when it comes to social media?

On the whole, it would appear the answer is no.

To try and work out just how social the bosses of the UK’s top search firms are, I created a PeerIndex list of the MDs of the top 45 firms as per the NMA league table.

As the observant among you will notice, there aren’t 45 names in this list. This was because I wasn’t able to find a Twitter handle for all of them. This suggests they haven’t got one or they aren’t making it easy to find their Twitter profile (*).

As can be seen by the PeerIndex list, the bosses of the UK’s top search firms don’t appear to be that active in social media.

Of course, I’m fully aware of the argument that bosses shouldn’t be wasting their time Tweeting and Facebooking 24/7 – they have far more important things to do like running their businesses. However, given that the top search firms seem to have a consensus about the importance of social media to their clients, you might think that there might be more of an effort to “lead from the front”.

On another point, I will spare the blushes of the search agency MD who “protects” his Tweets.

As I said earlier, I don’t think anyone is disputing that search and social media need to work hand in hand. And from the PR perspective, if the PR sector wants to “own” social media, perhaps it could lend a hand in helping the bosses of search firms get more immersed in the environment. And perhaps creating powerful intergrated offerings that will deliver more effective, high value and more profitable services for clients?

Agree? Disagree? Have your say below.

(*) I’ll happily add in any search agency boss I’ve missed off if they want to supply their Twitter handle to me

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