For those who may need a little nudge in the right direction
or are a little burned out from the activities of last year, here are a few
Digital Media and PR tips to get you started…
1. Let your Brand-loyals
Promote your Brand. The best and most powerful sales or marketing
“representatives” a brand can ever have are its brand-loyals - those who
advocate your brand online and spread the word.
According to Mack Collier, the author of Think like a Rockstar, "You're
marketing to the wrong people…the real money is in connecting with your biggest
fans. Your fans will go out and acquire new customers for you."
The trick is to find a way to connect with your brand-loyals
and showing them that they matter. Create a reward scheme, perhaps, Customers
Appreciation Day! Develop an online and offline strategy on how to reach out to
connect with them. They will return the favours by reporting and promoting your
brand passionately, with whatever resources are at their disposal.
2. Give up Control of
your brand. In Order to get control of your brand, you must first give it
up; I will explain…
With the advent of the internet, it has become quite easy
for brand-loyals and other customers to create videos, audios, images, tweets
and posts about your brand. Monitor these closely and then build your content
to guide the misguided or to improve on the good PR.
On another hand, you could concentrate only on your brand-loyals
and develop tools with which they can promote you. Be rest assured that their
passion for you will ensure they portray your brand in positive light.
It is all about trusting and giving up a little control. It
is risky, it could require a lengthy campaign but in the end, it is worth it!
3. Think about
Content more strategically and Plan for the Long Term. In an industry that
largely depends on content in driving its messages, creating strategies and
planning on content is key in staying ahead of competition and keeping brand-loyals
loyal. Advisedly, plan content posts down to the nitty-gritty of daily Facebook
posts and Tweets.
In order to make the most impact, it is important to be more
strategic; have a content plan. More importantly, have a plan for which
platforms the content will be posted and shared on. There is a rule called the
“Smart Rule of Three": If you
create a piece of content, you must use it on at least three different
platforms/channels.
An idea of how to create unlimited content is to balance
between original and curated content. Again, remember tips 1. and 2. above on
connecting with brand-loyals and allowing them to create content for your
brand.
4. Get Smarter with
your Data. There is a running joke in PR that PR professionals got into
communication because they were bad at math. Generally, the PR world is fonder
of words than figures - but that is changing.
Learn to love and
understand numbers; and how and why using data can be an extremely powerful
tool. If you asked a business analyst, he might say data is sexy because data
equals more money.
Instead of shying away from analytics, statistics, and
numbers, it is important to gain access to these tools to help you understand better,
the data driving the success of your brand.
5. Just be useful. In
order to boost your brand, you must find a way to be useful to your customers
and brand-loyals, beyond the product/service you provide; call it added-value
if you like!
If your brand is useful and provides information/service
that your customers are looking for, they will respect you and, ideally,
purchase from you. Find a way to use your online tools to provide utility first
and then to promote yourself second.
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