The Bloggerville that is BlissDom

By: Natalie Wilson, Assistant Account Executive, Edelman Dallas, and Mattie Walker, Senior Account Executive, Edelman Dallas

In late March, several members of Edelman Southwest had the privilege of attending BlissDom, a premier blogger conference for women. This annual meeting usually takes place in Nashville, but in 2013, the conference was right in Edelman Dallas’s own backyard-- the Gaylord Texan!

Numerous companies took advantage of the unique opportunity to place their brand in front of key influencers, and  a group of more than 800 women gathered at the resort in Grapevine, Texas.

The Edelman Team took away a few key lessons related to social media, the legalities of blogging and storytelling:

Bringing Social Together

·         Companies and Social:

o   Every disaster isn’t a PR opportunity: In the opening keynote, Scott Stratten touched on how every natural disaster isn’t an opportunity for companies to take a stance. Offer condolences, offer help or be quiet. When people are hurting, it’s not an opportunity to profit.

o   Be good on and off social: Companies that have a 90-minute customer service call wait time but respond immediately to a tweet won’t be well received.

o   Be human: In responding to consumers via brand social channels, “Please accept MY apology" - versus "our" - humanizes the response. We all just want to be heard.

·         The YouTube Trifecta:

o   YouTube isn’t a stand-alone: In a session on “Demystifying YouTube,” Mindy McKnight  stressed the point that YouTube isn’t a stand-alone medium. It’s part of a trifecta. Social channels, a blog and a YouTube channel must work together to tell a cohesive story.

o   Treat your YouTube channel as a TV show: Pick a date / time to upload a new video on a weekly basis to encourage viewers to tune in to watch the content.

·         Legal Bliss:

o   There is an expectation for bloggers and PR pros to know the laws, related to offering promotions, giveaways, and product reviews.  A few topics to be aware of:

§  FTC Disclosure

·         It’s the law. FTC Disclosure has to be done by the blogger(s) you are providing with inventory for giveaways, sweepstakes, contests, etc.

§  Definitions

Legally, all promotions fit into one of these three categories:

1.       Sweepstakes are prize giveaways where the winners are chosen by the luck of the draw. Prizes can be almost anything you can think of, from handmade cards to an all-expense-paid trip.

2.       Contests choose a winner based on some merit. The winner is chosen based on some criterion, such as best photo, most votes on a video, or best recipe.

3.       A lottery is a prize drawing where people must pay money to buy a chance to win. Lotteries are highly regulated and should not be run without consulting legal counsel.

Everyone Is a Storyteller

·         Big Picture to Tiny Details: Pictures bring stories to life, and readers become more invested.   

·         Good Enough or Great: In his session, Jeff Goins  discussed the significance of putting your best foot forward and being relevant. What are you saying and why does it matter? Why should people care?

It’s hard to share everything we learned, but these are some of highlights! BlissDom was a great learning experience, and Edelman suggests attending, if you have the chance. 

Stopping to Smell the Roses Delivers Great Stories

By Katie Wittenburg, Vice President, Consumer, Edelman Dallas

Recently, the Edelman Dallas Consumer Team was tasked with promoting the launch of the new Travelocity ad campaign, appropriately titled “Go and Smell the Roses.” The TV campaign is more than a tagline; it embodies the Travelocity way of life. The theme is deeply rooted in the idea that the world is a magical place. It encourages travelers to “Go and Smell the Roses,” see the world and never look back.

The campaign features Travelocity’s own Roaming Gnome, because no one embodies the “Go and Smell the Roses” spirit more than he does.  In the new TV spots, the Roaming Gnome left the mundane behind to experience the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain, the joyful Holi Festival in India and other amazing travel destinations – reinforcing the idea that meaningful experiences through travel are there waiting for you.

The integrated strategic Travelocity media relations push targeted business and travel writers, as well as advertising trades.  The Edelman Consumer Team secured nine media interviews and 33 earned press mentions, totaling more than 16 million media impressions and garnering an earned media ad value of more than $89,000. In addition, both analysts and reporters reviewed the Travelocity campaign with positive feedback and support.

In terms of online measurement, Google Analytics was quite positive. Travelocity realized double-digit growth in overall traffic, as well as direct and mobile traffic, following the campaign launch.

Spring Brings Growth of New Vines

By Heather Stephenson, Senior Account Executive, Digital, Edelman Austin

As visual storytelling continues to be an important aspect of your full communications strategy, it is important to think beyond the standard product shot and minute-long video.

Earlier this year, Twitter launched a short-form video application for iPhone/iOS called Vine that allows users to record and share video in an active and growing “in-app” community. The videos are limited to 6.0 seconds, providing a “gif-like” effect. Vine offers an opportunity to capture timely events, showcase an atmosphere, or simply develop video art. The Vine platform emphasizes the significant role video will continue to play in content strategy and brand messaging through social media.

How Can Brands Use Vine?

Since the platform is still in its infancy, brands are experimenting with the best ways to leverage short-form video. As outlined on the Edelman Digital blog, Dominic Kirkwood highlighted how Urban Outfitters and General Electric (an Edelman client) have used Vine.

Urban Outfitters

An edgy high-street retailer focusing on trendy and cutting- edge fashion, Urban Outfitters (UO) is one of the most enthusiastic early adopters of Vine – 17,494 followers at the time of writing. If my illuminating Casio wristwatch from Urban Outfitters has taught me anything, it pays to be both cool and clever. Combining product demonstrations with a witty and playful context in the “Girls Gone Mild” video (http://seenive.com/v/923004362291294208),UO projects a cool corporate culture while creating engaging content that sells shirts.

However, it’s not all catwalk and product shots. Curating content around popular and trending in-app hashtags, UO owes much of the account success and community growth to the copious amounts of humor  and dog related videos that both humanize the brand and spotlight employees – I mean, who wouldn’t buy clothes from a brand that high-fives bulldogs?

General Electric

So, your brand or client doesn’t high-five bulldogs? Tough break, but don’t lose all hope just yet. 

General Electric, the sixth largest firm in the US (by gross revenue), is probably near the bottom of the list of brands you would expect to be flexing their creative muscle on the Vine platform. 

Publishing clever and interactive stop-motion content around their popular Twitter hashtags, GE creatively engages with the Vine and Twitter communities. GE also frequents a series of surprisingly cool “garage-science How-To’s” that appeal to pockets of users otherwise disengaged from the organization’s day-to-day operations.

Moving Forward

Upcoming platforms such as Vine provide an opportunity for brands to creatively tell their story, without the heavy price tag typically associated with traditional videography. The video also reaches consumers through a different medium, adjusting the way they consume information.

Engage Small Businesses to Reap Big Rewards

By Angela Griffey, Senior Account Executive, Corporate, Edelman Atlanta, and Marisa Puthoff, Group Head, Corporate, Edelman Atlanta

How to reach one of the most powerful target audiences in America

Time-starved. Vastly diverse in size and demographic. Craving interaction with their peers and experts. These are just a few characteristics of the 27.9 million small-to-medium business (SMB) owners in the U.S.¹ Don’t let the ‘small’ fool you, though – SMBs are the driving force behind the U.S. economy. U.S. SMBs employ nearly 68 million workers – approximately half of all private-sector jobs. Additionally, this sector has generated between 60 to 80 percent of all new jobs annually over the past decade, according to the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Clearly, given their reach, SMBs are an audience that should not be ignored. While no two small businesses have the same needs, there are some basic rules of engagement that companies would be wise to follow to reach this target audience.

1. Get social. SMBs are increasingly using social media to strengthen their customer relationships. Recent data shows that 73 percent are engaging with customers on Facebook, 61 percent on LinkedIn, 55 percent on Twitter, 47 percent on YouTube and 44 percent on Google+. To reach this audience on line, companies should have a team dedicated to digital outreach and search for related conversations on social networks. Be forewarned: Businesses that engage with SMB owners should be prepared for dialogue versus a one-way conversation. They must provide valuable content, instead of marketing or sales materials.
2. Provide value and insights to help them grow.  Any company outreach should be relevant to the individual SMB, its business evolution and its bottom line. At UPS, for example, the company provides an online resource center for SMBs to help them go global. One tool is the Snapshot for Small Business, a series of guides designed to help tap emerging markets by providing general knowledge, fresh insight and links to additional resources. To get started, consider housing a similar SMB resource center on your website. 
3. Leverage ‘peer-influencers’ to get your message out. SMB owners thrive on interaction with peers and industry experts. Large companies should consider partnering with ”peer-influencers,” SMB advocates with high visibility on traditional and social media, to reach this target audience. Individuals including Mike Michalowicz of Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, Melinda Emerson (aka Small Biz Lady) or Carol Roth have a massive SMB following and will partner with brands to spread the word about a product or initiative of value to the community.

With so many entities fighting for a share of voice with this target market, businesses would be wise to spend the time and resources needed to best engage with the SMB audience; otherwise, they will be left behind by the competition, and shut out by the customer. 

1.        U.S. Census Bureau, SUSB and Nonemployer Statistics.

Mirror, Mirror

By Helen Vollmer, President, Edelman Southwest

Where do good ideas come from?  I admit that I’m a bit obsessed with, not only the genesis of good ideas, but how to translate good ideas into brilliant innovations that succeed in transforming a company, a product, an institution or a campaign.

As a young pup in PR, I would charge into Sam Keeper’s office (my first PR boss and guru) at Ruder Finn to tell him about the great idea I had for Kinney Shoes, Borden’s Milk or Pentel Pens.  He would stop me and say, “Great ideas are a dime a dozen.  What’s so special about this one?”

To this day, I have to rein in my enthusiasm periodically, and force myself to ask whether a good idea will get the results I’m looking for and, if the answer is no, accept that potential failure can be the mirror side of creativity.  When you step back and think about limits, typically ideas become sharper, more focused, and more original and inspired.  Restraint forces ingenuity.  You have to know where the walls of the room are before you can figure out what to do inside them.

These thoughts are reinforced in Tina Seelig’s new book, InGenius: A Crash Course on Creativity, a must-read for those who believe that we are all naturally creative and that creativity can be taught.  Seelig, a Stanford professor, cites three factors that can spark creativity: 1) attitude; 2) knowledge; and, 3) imagination.  The three overlap in fueling innovation and are assisted by external forces—culture, habitat and resources—creating an interdependence between the individual and his or her environment.  Combined, Seelig calls this her “Innovation Engine.”

The more you know, according to Seelig, the more you can unlock resources, so knowledge is paramount to creativity.  Hear, hear!  At Edelman, we believe that great ideas must come from informed insights.  Creativity and strategy go hand-in-hand.  To that end, we’ve formed the Strategic  + Creative Guild at Edelman, a group of focused experts that help our clients build pioneering frameworks and platforms that yield success.

We all have good ideas.  And, I believe we all have the capacity to turn many of these sparks of thought into engines that drive innovation.  Where’s the next best thing come from?  Look in the mirror.  Then let knowledge be your guide.

Social Media and Thought Leadership

By Rob Discher, Vice President, Crisis and Consumer, Edelman Austin

"An actor’s a guy who if you ain’t talkin’ about him, ain’t listening."
-Marlon Brando

Our fair Hill Country hamlet here in Central Texas has been under siege for the past two weeks as throngs of movie makers, musicians and digital savants have paraded through Austin. The coffee shops are packed, the bars busting that seams, the average pants appearing a bit tighter and blacker than they usually do even in our hipster-friendly village. 

As celebrities pile into town, the glitz and glamor makes its annual return and, I’ll admit, it’s easy to get caught up in the “knowledge of the now”.  Eleven months out of the year we write off celebrity wisdom as lightweight fare, but something struck me about this old school Brando quote and how it relates to Edelman’s work bridging our corporate, consumer and digital practices. It hits on a key facet of thought leadership that we too often overlook – the value of listening and engaging.

Thought leadership is a somewhat ambiguous term, but at its core, there’s the basic concept of changing hearts and minds. Moving people from one place – physically, mentally, emotionally – to another in a manner that leaves a clear mark for whoever did it. Underlying that effort, however, is the need to listen and customize content to your audience. You need to get to know them. The expectations now, with social media part of our everyday lives, is that companies won’t take a blanket approach. They’ll respond to your questions, fix complaints lobbied into the ether of Twitter or Facebook about their product or service.

This is where we find a beautiful connection between social media and leadership. If you’re not really paying attention to your audience, and if you’re not generating content that speaks directly to their best intentions, egos and aspirations, you’re never going to move them anywhere. Ten years ago we leaned on focus groups and staff brainstorming sessions to figure out what our target audience wanted. We spent a lot of money and caffeinated hours coming up with what eventually became an educated guess. This guesswork informed executive speeches, marketing campaigns, advertising and product delivery.

Social media turned that on its head. Now, when we want to monitor an issue, we do it in real time, over an extended period, and we measure the impact we’re having in quantifiable ways.

Listening gives us the license to lead. Doing this over time and with intelligent tools gives us the opportunity to track changes in the conversation, find new ways to participate in it, and change our messages or delivery mechanism accordingly. Social lets us talk directly to people in the language that they’re already using. It gives our campaigns…our realtime interactions…personality and responsiveness. It opens up companies to lead not by decree or manifesto, but through genuine human interaction – at scale.

Four Tips for Researching and Recommending Speaking Opportunities

By Abby Van Uum, Account Executive, Edelman Austin
and Risa Kleen, Assistant Account Executive, Edelman Austin

Our clients are always looking for opportunities to showcase their executives and expertise, but the idea of selecting key events from the endless opportunities available can be daunting. It’s helpful to bring a method to the madness and apply a process to researching and recommending events, especially if there is CEO-level participation. Below are four steps that can help you be more efficient in your event research and ultimately provide educated and valuable recommendations to clients.

1. Understand client priorities. Even the most thorough research is useless if client expectations and priorities aren’t taken into account from the beginning. What audience does your client want to reach? Who would be the primary spokesperson? What key regions do they want to target – local, national, global or all of the above? 
2. Know the relevant logistics and barriers. Some opportunities require a significant amount of travel or may only be open if tied into an event sponsorship. Is your client open to pay-for-play speaking opportunities? How much are they willing to spend for travel/event fees? These are critical questions to ask before diving into your research and can help you make a fast initial cut on events.
3. Do your research. Events can often be judged by the company they keep. Research the sponsors, exhibitors and speakers of each event, both past and present, keeping in mind your client’s competitors, customers, and prospects. Look into how the event has been covered in your client’s priority media, and if any media sponsors are attached to the event.
4. Provide a quantitative recommendation. We aren’t the only ones who can feel overwhelmed by the event research process. Clients are concerned with using budgets wisely and want to prove to senior leadership that each event gives the most bang for their buck. We’ve had a lot of success creating “scorecards” that assign points to different event criteria and help us gauge the value of one event over another. It’s a great tool for clients to use internally, and one they can help develop with a clear understanding of their priorities. Our scorecard system uses a maximum of 60 possible points spread over six different criteria that are “scored’ between 1-10:
• Attendees – Are there opportunities to engage key customers and prospects in person?
• Media influence – Is there a critical mass of strategic media attending/covering the event? Are key media outlets present in the region, even if they aren’t attending?         
• Engagement opportunities – Are there opportunities available to speak/exhibit at the event, network with industry leaders and partner with customers?        
• Region – Is the event in a key region that your client wants to target?
• Costs – Does the cost to attend the event, taking into account travel and accommodations, fit within your client’s budget? (The higher the cost, the lower the points given)               
• Event notoriety – Has the event been held for multiple years and is it highly regarded in its industry?
5. Provide a qualitative recommendation. Use this quantitative score rank it against other events and slot it into one of four big categories:
• 0-17 points - Pass
• 18-32 points - Nominal
• 33-53 points – Strategic
• 54-60 points – Imperative

It often helps to take your recommendation a step further by suggesting key announcements that your client can leverage and key topics that align with your client’s focus areas. With both a qualitative score and quantitative value in hand, you can feel confident in the recommendations you provide to your client and make their job of selling it into an executive a lot easier!