Media Trends: Local is the New National

By Mattie Walker and Gabrielle Hoyt
Senior Account Executive, Dallas and Assistant Account Executive, Atlanta 

In a world of mass, national media, sometimes we forget to think about our own backyard. As an extension of client communications, we are challenged to take national and global content and make it applicable to where our client’s readers are located – from the Huffington Post to the Denver Post, Business Insider to business journals.

Edelman’s client Regus, a global provider of flexible workspace, is a great example. Regus sends Edelman mass global data frequently that is broken down by market and covers topics from challenges small businesses face, to growing their business, to the oddest location to conduct a business meeting. Edelman churns the content into rich, local messaging for 25 priority markets. This was daunting initially, but the team quickly adapted.  Below are some key lessons for applying national content to local stories: 

1. Local appeal is a must: this goes without saying, but New York data isn’t going to resonate in Orlando. Many local papers are strapped for staff and focus solely on local stories. The Regus team heard recently from the business editor of the Orlando Sentinel that they get their national stories from outlets such as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, so if you do have a national story, focus on larger local dailies in hopes they get syndicated.
2. Have a content team: If you’re a lucky and get content en masse from a client, assign a few team members to collect and organize content and set a distribution calendar. The teams can look at how to tailor each piece of content locally and tie it to something timely. 
3. Own a market: Consistency is key in media relations. Assign team members to a city, state or geographic region to “own” that market, and really get to know the market you own, from the media landscape to the natural landscape.
4. Make it easy: Local newspapers are strapped for writers. Try creating a pitch that can easily become a story. When a great story is sitting in their inbox, a reporter is more likely to post it online and call it a day.
5. Go hyperlocal: If your story can get to the “hyperlocal” level, look at the suburbs of a big city and pitch stories applicable to the surrounding area, which can often reach your target audience. 

Digital Insight: Vine & Instagram Video, 5 Brand Considerations

By Bill Mrazek, Assistant Account Executive, Chicago

Although updates to new social apps and platforms are a dime a dozen, it’s not often that two mainstream social apps like Instagram and Vine go head-to-head with software updates that could change a brand’s social presence. By now, the differences between Vine and Instagram Video’s capabilities and user interfaces have been exhausted, so here are five considerations to help brands determine whether to create content for Vine, Instagram Video, or both.

1. Community Presence

Similar to any social platform, it’s important to consider the implications of the presence of a brand’s fan base on Vine or Instagram, as well as the ownership of each (Twitter and Facebook). There are limitations for cross promoting Vine to Facebook and Instagram Video to Twitter, so it’s necessary to determine where the community would appreciate the brand’s presence most. It’s worth noting that Instagram’s sharing capabilities to Facebook, Twitter (not-embedded), Tumblr, Flickr, Email and foursquare increase its exposure.

2. Social Reach: Paid and Organic

The opportunity for paid support behind content on each video-sharing app is yet to be determined. Content from Vine can be shared seamlessly to Twitter and Instagram Video to Facebook. Twitter’s Promoted Campaigns and Facebook’s Promoted Posts will both present the opportunity for increased exposure to the content and a brand’s presence on the new platforms. Time will tell which platforms achieve better reach through paid or organic posts. 

3. Timely Content and Engagement

This is where the specific features of each video sharing app come into consideration. Instagram Video allows the brand to provide a more cinematic experience (multiple edits, filters, image stabilization, etc.), while Vine’s un-editable, six-second loops deliver an on-the-go, quick and raw experience. Brands may find both useful, whether featuring a new product, demonstrating an experience of its service or sharing real-time content from events.

4. Search and Monitoring

Both Vine and Instagram Video are optimized for search with the ability to use hashtags and tag individual users. These functions enable brands to search for user generated content, as well as easily track how users are sharing the brand’s content and branded hashtags. This also allows users to track relatable, trending topics.

5. Glocalization

The localization of brands’ social presence is becoming increasingly important, and both Vine and Instagram Video allow geo-tagging for content and cross promotion to foursquare. However, with the growing popularity of local pages on Facebook, Instagram Videos have an upper hand in reaching local communities. Brands can organize video content by specific locations and feature user generated content from local pages by posting the content to the official brand page - generating national or global exposure.

The demand for brand video content will continue to grow (including YouTube’s on-demand long-tail content), especially as Instagram Video and Vine’s interfaces provide immediate content with low barriers to entry. 

Brand Purpose Purveyor: Your Choice

By Larry Koffler, Executive Vice President, NYCPA CSR

Most of us enjoy having a choice. While there has been a heated debate in marketing and psychology circles about too much of a good thing (the average number of items carried in a U.S. supermarket is now over 40,000), the ability to choose among a few items seems to be preferable. According to a recent study, this applies to cause marketing as well. 

The Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship recently posted a summary of insightful takeaways from a Journal of Marketing study “Choice of Cause in Cause-Related Marketing” showing that consumer choice generally has a positive influence on response - its effectiveness varying with the characteristics of the cause, the campaign, and the audience. 

 

Edelman client eBay allows consumers to choose their own charity through its Giving Works Program (highlighted in this Forbes post from David Hessekiel). The program allows sellers to choose to donate a percentage of their sale to a charity of their choice when they post an item on eBay. It has been quite successful. In 2012, 186,000 sellers created more than 14 million charitable listings, resulting in $74 million raised for over 30,000 charities -- and bringing the total raised to over $350 million to date. In addition, eBay discovered that buyers and sellers that participate in eBay’s giving programs are more loyal and active customers. “Compared to non-donors, buyers who make a donation spend, on average, 36 percent more on the platform. Similarly, sellers who donate sell 35 percent more than those who don’t”

An activation Edelman helped develop for Citi surrounding their U.S. Olympic program tapped into empowered giving as well. The $500,000 donation to the USOC for the Every Step of the Way program benefited future hopefuls and athletes via donations that were allocated by consumers through Facebook and Twitter to sport programs that inspired the 13 athletes of Team Citi. 

According to research presented at the World Federation of Advertisers' annual conference, 88 percent of marketers surveyed said that CSR will be increasingly important in building brands in the future, and 60 percent of consumers claimed to be looking for brands with a sense of purpose. CSR efforts are something brands should stay conscious of, as cause-related purpose becomes an increasingly important factor in consumers’ brand preference.

The New Horizons for Higher Education

By Karen Lindsey-Lloyd, Vice President, Edelman Southwest Education Sector

I enjoy watching the reactions of people when I tell them I work for Edelman and focus on higher education. They think I am either some boring academic type or that I do not get to do “real” public relations work. After a good laugh, I eagerly share how the landscape of higher education has changed dramatically over the past five years and that there is an increasing need for strategic public relation counsel beyond campus crisis situations. More and more university presidents have been appointed with business backgrounds, and this, coupled with the media interest in the value of a college degree, unemployment and online education, has raised interest in the education sector.

Topics such as the cost to obtain a college degree and the growing popularity of online education continue to dominate the news. As more adults and veterans return to college and traditional undergraduate students are unable to find jobs, academicians, CEOs and even the President have elevated the conversation. 

President Obama and his administration recently unveiled a plan that created a lot of buzz in the media. After a quick review of the White House fact sheet of the plan, here are a few critical elements education sector clients and others are talking about:

1) Create College Scorecards

The most talked about part of the Obama proposal is the creation of new rankings for schools based on data in a college scorecard. Among U.S. colleges and universities, the most talked about rankings game has always been the U.S. News and World Report rankings. The new angle proposed by Obama on “College Scorecards” and rankings includes information like:

• Percentage of students receiving Pell grants
• Average tuition, scholarships, and loan debt 
• Graduation and transfer rates, graduate earnings, and advanced degrees of graduates

While this sounds groundbreaking, colleges and universities constantly track this data but rarely find ways to act on it. These elements of a college scorecard address concerns from parents, students, media and accreditation organizations about access, affordability and outcomes. While there are alternative rankings that take criteria like those into account, the data are not commonly used. For example, the Washington Monthly‘s rankings are based on three categories becoming of great strategic interest to higher education institutions — social mobility, research and national service. 

2) Make the data matter to impact affordability

After a quick review of the White House fact sheet, it sounds like they are gearing up to tie federal student aid — including Pell Grants and  federal student loans — to institutional quality, as measured by the new rankings system. Currently, as long as a school is accredited its students can get federal aid. 

3) Innovation and Technology 

The plan indicates that the “rising tide of innovation has the potential to shake up the higher education landscape.” Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and “flipped” or “hybrid” classrooms help demonstrate that technology can reduce costs to increase access and affordability. The President’s plan is challenging higher education leaders to adopt practices that:

• Award Credits Based on Learning, not Seat Time. This is the idea of competency-based online universities serving large numbers of students with relatively low costs and short duration to obtain a bachelors degree. 
• Use Technology to Redesign Courses. The notion that redesigned courses that integrate online platforms (like MOOCs) or blend in-person and online experiences can accelerate the pace of student learning. The 
• Use Technology for Student Services.  Online learning communities and e-advising tools enable students from across campuses and across the world to collaborate and faculty to identify academic issues. 

Edelman Southwest education professionals stay abreast of these trends and collaborate across practices such as corporate, digital and business + social purpose to bring the education perspective to our clients. More and more, we are seeing the intersection of education and other sectors, as the evolution of education has become one of the most widely-discussed societal topics of current times. To learn more about the education sector in the Southwest, feel free to contact me, Karen Lindsey-Lloyd, or education sector lead Julia Weede. 

Deep September Thoughts

By: Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

September, in an odd way, is a time for both reflections and new beginnings. In business, it’s often the time when corporate leaders reassess the year in progress and sprint for the finish in terms of revenues and profit. For parents, teachers and students, it’s the start of another year of meeting new challenges, learning from our efforts and moving toward something new and better. In sports, as baseball winds down, football becomes king while the ghosts of March Madness linger to jumpstart new hoop dreams.

With the above as a framework, it seems to me that September is a good time to set or re-set goals for ourselves. As we find ourselves in the middle of everyday life, as opposed to the whirlwind of the New Year, it’s a more balanced time of year to consider how far we’ve come and where we want to head next.

I know there are serious theories and scientific studies about goal setting (Gary Locke and Edwin Latham seem to be the gurus here), but I’d direct you to lululemon athletica’s website (www.lululemon.com) instead. Yep, the athletic wear retailer keeps it pretty simple. “Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment” is part of their manifesto.

Goal setting is best when you keep it simple and stick to one goal at a time. What’s the one thing that will change the outcome the most? Start and end there.

As for me, I plan to spend more time in my yoga pants this September and, as the weather cools and leaves begin to color, focus on positive thoughts that bring health and wisdom back into perspective. As Yogi Berra once said, “You got to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”