B2B Monday Myth: All I Need Is a Press Release
by MGB2B
The Myth: All I Need Is A Press Release
The Truth: The PR Landscape Has Evolved, and B2B Brands Must Evolve with It
The nature of public relations has changed. The truth is, traditional PR cannot exist on its own anymore. Your company cannot skirt by with just a press release, hoping that newspapers, television, and radio will pick up your story. Technology and the rise of digital marketing have forced both B2C and B2B brands to broaden their PR strategy. The way information is shared is different, and your business must adapt if you plan to remain relevant and get your stories out to the right people at the right time.
The Integration of Different Departments
In the past, PR would have its own separate silo. When social media first blossomed, it was largely separate from PR. Now, public relations must integrate with social media and other digital marketing efforts for more engaged customers and better results.
SEO is also an important part of public relations today. Your press releases can go much further with the right links and keywords. These tools also give you the ability to better target your prospects and track results. This way, you can find out which stories resonate most with the audiences you’re trying to reach and back your decisions with concrete data.
Increased Speed of Communication
Information today moves faster than ever. Gone are the days when drafting and distributing a press release was a multi-day process. Companies today benefit from preparing stories ahead of time and developing a cohesive strategy for distributing them through multiple channels and media.
Public relations, at its core, is still very much about building and nurturing relationships. Going the extra mile to write in a form that is easily convertible for your contact, who will (hopefully) be publishing your work, will go a long way and get your stories out faster. Let them know where they can find more information, such as on your website or social media channels to speed up the process and keep your company top of mind.
A Bigger Network of Storytellers
Today, people aren’t solely relying on national publications and TV news channels as the only important and credible source of information. With the rise of social media, there could be any number of people talking about your company. Identifying influencers in your industry, whether they’re respected bloggers, YouTube personalities, or trusted trade publications, can help you shape your stories and who you want reading them. Engage and cultivate relationships with these influencers and you could see your stories reaching their networks of dedicated followers.
Improve Relationships With Trade Publications
Print is not dead. Which is why it’s important to cultivate good relationships with trade publications for editorial preference and customized digital opportunities. Leveraging a media buy and keeping up your advertising with a specific trade publication is a great way to get better PR for your company.
As the public relations landscape continues to change, it will become more critical to stay on top of digital trends and maintain valuable connections. While B2B companies should not overlook traditional media and trade publications, you should look for ways to stay connected online and make your PR content even more shareable. Telling your brand’s story is an important part of connecting with your audience and reaching new ones.
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: Social Media Isn’t Measurable
by MGB2B
The Myth: Social Media Isn’t Measurable.
The Truth: The Question Isn’t Whether Social Is Measurable, But What Specifically to Measure.
Here’s some good news: social media is one of the most measurable marketing approaches. The bad news: there is no single metric that determines your overall success. Sounds discouraging. But just because you can’t snap your fingers and find the magic number doesn’t mean you can’t get incredibly useful analytics – data that can help you generate quality leads. So, how can you use your findings to build awareness, connect with customers, and ultimately bring in money for your company?
Here Are Three B2B Social Media Measuring Tips to Get You Started:
- Assess the right social media metrics:
- Demographics: Your audience offers a whole host of metrics that can help you measure your overall success on social media. Using each channels’ analytics (more on that below), you can determine what your audience is interested in, their ages, locations, and more. This can help drive your social media advertising efforts and guide your overall content program, too.
- Engagement: While growing your network should always be a goal, the number of people who are interacting with your content is key. Quality is better than quantity when it comes to social media. And your followers won’t stick around and engage if your content is lacking. Engagement levels on each piece of content you post can tell you which types of content and what topics resonate most with your audience.
- Utilize analytics tools: Measuring your reach and engagement manually can be daunting. Individual social media channels like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, all have easy-to-use analytics tools through their websites. You can also employ outside third-party services to track these metrics for you, such as Google Analytics or Klout. The more robust the program, the better.
- Understand how people move from social media to your website: How do you turn your social media insights into action? You can utilize Google Analytics to track the traffic from your social media sites to your website. The data can tell you which social media platforms are the most effective and what content best resonates with your audience. For example: If you are sharing the same white paper across Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, but find in Google Analytics that the only conversions are coming from LinkedIn, consider shifting your strategy on Twitter and Facebook to focus on other forms of content.
Measuring your social media correctly is worth the time and effort. It helps you fine-tune your strategy to drive more engagement and add new prospects into your sales funnel. And your analysis can help your content department determine what will work best. Assessing the success of your social media can add value to your company in more ways than one. Time to start fine-tuning!
Continue ReadingB2B Monday Myth: I Don’t Need a Social Media Editorial Calendar
by MGB2B
The Myth: I don’t need a social media editorial calendar.
The Truth: A social media editorial calendar can help your brand get ahead, and stay ahead, of the online chatter.
The continuing rise of social media for B2B brands means that the online platforms are not only here to stay, but they’re now some of the most dominant tools marketers have in their arsenal. Despite being a valuable asset, social media can also prove to be one of the most difficult tools to effectively manage. Due to this, utilizing a B2B social media editorial calendar can help marketers plan their content, maintain a steady online presence, and target key audiences. In fact, the use of an editorial calendar has proven to be so helpful that 56% of B2B marketers now say they’re using them.
But, there’s a lot more that goes into planning your brand’s editorial calendar than simply slotting posts in at miscellaneous days and times. Keep in mind that social media is just that: social. Your calendar should be carefully designed not only to target your audience, but also to engage them.
Here are 3 tips to maximize your B2B social media editorial calendar, and drive engagement:
- Develop and utilize categories for your posts. Building your editorial calendar requires ample research and planning. Make sure that your posts are as varied and diverse as your audience (while keeping true to your brand’s voice). As you develop your calendar, devise specific categories for your posts, such as holidays and campaigns, and decide which types of content you’ll be sharing, like videos and blog posts. Do you want to wish your followers a Happy Pi Day? Do you have tweets for a specific campaign running throughout the month of February? Do you share your blog posts to LinkedIn on Wednesdays? Managing these types of content helps to diversify your social media presence, and your audience will be thankful for it.
- Find out when your audience is online. One of the key features of your B2B social media editorial calendar is timing. You’ve developed a strategy and created content, but when do you post it all? Conduct some research on your audience. Are key market segments online most during their lunch break, or right after dinner? Do they interact more with content on weekdays as opposed to the weekend? Experiment with a variety of posting times, assess resulting engagement, and schedule accordingly.
- Be consistent, but tweak for each channel. The most important part of social media presence is maintaining your brand’s voice. This being said, you can still create a uniform narrative for your brand while tweaking your content for each channel. Moreover, some platforms are more prevalent among certain audience than others. Finding ways to craft your message to fit the channel and its audience can help target those demographics more effectively. For example, try scheduling an open-ended post on LinkedIn to spark discussion, but a tweet directing users to your website on Twitter.
The constantly active and ever-changing world of social media means that planning is becoming more and more vital for marketers. With news and updates continually rolling across your timeline, it’s important to develop a calendar and stick to it. Having a plan in place is a surefire way to prevent poor performance, and also allows you to focus on the here and now. Need help getting your B2B social media editorial calendar started? Drop us a line.
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