At the same time, sussing out exactly how they diverge from each other can be trickier than it seems. This is especially true for new businesses (or those undergoing renovations) looking to understand which teams they budget for and focus on building out.

The short answer? Typically, marketing is regarded as a way to generate leads for a company, while PR is about influencing consumers’ perceptions of the company as a whole.¹ 

For those looking for a fuller picture, it’s helpful to see how pr vs. marketing compare in terms of metrics, time frames, and the day-to-day efforts that make each discipline distinct.

What is PR?

The Public Relations Society of America defines public relations as a “strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”² 

In other words, the goal of a PR specialist is to build brand recognition and help people like and connect with a company more. PR campaigns and efforts might be dedicated to:³

• Kindling conversation or excitement around a forthcoming new product.
• Relaying information about an organization’s finances to investors, stockholders and financial stakeholders.
• Building transparency by communicating information between teams and higher-level executives of an organization.
• Crisis communications, where publicists help an organization regain public trust in the wake of a crisis or loss of credibility.

With this in mind, consider anything that a company does to influence or shape the public (and sometimes internal) perception of PR. 

What does a PR team do?

Publicists like to say they wear many hats, which is a quippy way of explaining their versatile workload. On any given day, a publicist might be called on to:

• Write a press release.
• Arrange a speaking event.
• Organize a press event.
• Network with media professionals.
• Engage with a local community through non-profit work.

Of course, none of this work directly generates sales. Yet, if they’re performing well behind the scenes, when it’s time to make a purchase, PR can help sway a potential customer with the positive sentiment they’ve helped influence through a long-term PR strategy.

What is marketing?

The goal of marketing is to draw on a combination of marketing strategy and creativity to ensure that people who might need a company’s products, or services know about them in the first place. Their overarching goal is to connect a business with its target audience and build an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship with them. 

With that, marketers have the ability to add all kinds of demographic information to better understand their target audience. Some pertinent factors that may influence buying decisions include:

• Age.
• Gender.
• Location.
• Education level.
• Profession.
• Interests and hobbies.

The more information you have about your audience, the easier it is to find them and promote products and services to them (easier said than done).

What does a marketing team do?

Like publicists, marketers need to perform a variety of different functions in order to be successful. Some key tasks that a marketing team executes include:

• Establishing an integrated marketing strategy
• Web development and CRO
• Developing a paid and programmatic strategy
• Organic social
• Reporting 
• Etc. 

PR vs marketing: key metrics

Every trade has its tools for measuring performance, and professions PR and marketing, both of which are geared towards storytelling, are no exception. 

Marketing professionals often look towards data on acquisition to gauge their performance, which could include:

• New leads.
• Email signups.
• Conversions.
• Revenue.

On the other hand, it’s commonly said that success in PR is notoriously difficult to gauge. Even so, those in the field typically focus on:

• Media outlet mentions and hits.
• Shares on social media.
• Website traffic.
• Digital impressions.

In addition to quantitative measurements, PR professionals assess their work qualitatively by looking at the value of their relationships and contacts in the media landscape. They may also take a look at marketing data to see whether their efforts are registering with marketing ROI.⁴

PR vs marketing: time frames

There’s an old saying that everything worth having takes time. A publicist probably wrote that. 

In PR, nothing happens overnight. Crafting a PR strategy, networking with journalists, and educating the general public on the nuances of who a company is can take months, if not years. Enduring positive associations with a brand build up over time, in large part thanks to favorable media mentions secured by PR professionals, which are often the result of relationships.

Marketing, on the other hand, can have both a long-term and a more instantaneous quality. Stats on email signups and purchases can be measured instantly, and many types of campaigns operate as sprints with short-term goals that take a few weeks or months to complete. 

At the same time, marketing teams’ “micro-goals” ideally foster an enduring foundation of trust and mutual benefit between brand and consumer. In this way, PR and marketing work in lockstep towards a common goal.

Common misconceptions about PR vs marketing

Does a day in the life of a marketer resemble Don Draper’s charming his way through mid-century Manhattan? Can publicists who “know the right people” snap their fingers and reword the news marquee in the time it takes to down a martini?

Sadly, no. Below, we take a closer look at both industries for a mini-round of marketing vs. PR Mythbusters.

Myth #1: Marketing matters more than PR

The perception that marketing is superior to PR arises from the fact that marketing spend corresponds with leads, sales, and conversions—money in the bank. Marketers have the luxury of being able to literally point to a dashboard and show just how and when they brought home the bacon.

But not so fast: exceptional PR can help contextualize who a brand is in the world, in the eyes of the general public. They help answer the “why” question, where marketing efforts tend to focus on the discrete—the reach of a new series of TikTok campaign videos, or per-segment open rates on the latest broadcast email sequence.

In other words, PR’s strengths aren’t always observable in the here and now—and often, it’s this invisibility that’s precisely the mark of “good PR.”

Myth #2: All press is good press

Speaking of good PR—is “all press good press,” as the famous adage goes? Most of the time, publicists will say:

• It depends on how established a business is – Many say that for startups and fresh businesses, building up recognition—whatever the quality—is important, while positive reputation can be sculpted later. Established enterprises, conversely, may be best off maintaining their positive reputation (which can often mean staying away from the limelight).
• Not since social media came around – The “all press is good press” idiom showcases the tremendous shifts in PR since the dawn of digital media like no other. Today, virtually anyone has a shot at entering the public conversation, and choosing which media channels to gain airtime can be much more important than reaching a broad, general audience.

However you spin it, marketing data can be a tremendous boon to public relations professionals when determining how and where to translate a story to the public. It’s data acquired through marketing analyses that helps map precisely where online target audiences lie, as well as the types of stories they’re inclined to listen to.

Myth #3: Marketing and PR are Easy 

In a word, no. 

For budding businesses and big-name brands alike, marketing or PR can be a considerable expense, and selecting a partner is a deeply considered process. Good publicists and marketers have developed refined systems for demonstrating their impact, as well as planning and executing their programs.

Both marketing and PR rely on equal parts data/analytics and evaluation to support planning and measuring campaigns. Likewise, marketers must keep pace with constantly shifting industry trends and tools (not to mention a lot of creativity). PR professionals, on the other hand, need to keep track of a revolving door of contacts to stay ahead.

The bottom line is this: Neither PR nor marketing is rocket science. Any business that is serious about scaling, however, needs to understand seriously what goes into each.

Power Digital: Where marketing and PR storytelling join forces

Understanding the differences between what PR and marketing can deliver is crucial for making informed decisions about funds, company goals, and the story you’re telling as an organization. But when budgets are tight, brands are often forced to choose between the two—or are they?

If you’re trying to decide between resourcing your PR or marketing engines, we can help. A growth marketing firm with years of experience, Power Digital helps offers specialized digital marketing services to furnish brands with the data they need to know where to reach their public and the types of messages that resonate most. Whether you already know your angles or you’re searching for a story that sets you apart, reach out today—Power Digital wants to tell it with you.

Sources: 

1. Forbes. The Difference Between Marketing And PR — And Why It Matters. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/03/10/the-difference-between-marketing-and-pr—and-why-it-matters/?sh=349bf6451552 
2. Public Relations Society of America. Public Relations Defined: A Modern Definition For The New Era Of Public Relations. http://prdefinition.prsa.org/ 
3.  Inc. Public Relations. https://www.inc.com/encyclopedia/public-relations.html
4. Forbes. 5 Measurements for PR ROI. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ilyapozin/2014/05/29/5-measurements-for-pr-roi/?sh=5d8e48f077d1

The post PR vs marketing: how are they different? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Today, companies are working with a public that generally doesn’t trust “the media.”¹ Successful PR strategies must prioritize purpose, transparency, and parity—and rather than shape top-down communications,  PR efforts should strive to start conversations.

PR success is built gradually, and rarely linearly, with each strategy bespoke to the organization it’s designed for. That said, there are six questions brands must answer to create a PR plan that seeks a two-way relationship with its target audience (as much as it tells a captivating story).

#1 What type of story does our business want to tell?

Businesses that are just beginning to plan a successful PR strategy might begin by considering the following question: Are they striving to maintain their current reputation? Or are they seeking to shape it?

Beyond these two objectives (which can alternate over time), there are several sub-disciplines of PR that most publicists recognize:²

• Finance or investor relations communications.
• Governmental or NGO communications.
• Corporate communications.
• Executive communications.
• Internal communications.
• Media relations (digital or traditional).
• Crisis communications.

Ultimately, every successful PR campaign is a form of storytelling. Each of the above PR categories tends to lend itself to a certain flavor or tenor of story layered alongside that initial PR goal: reputation maintenance or reputation enhancement.

As a comparison, take the following examples:

• A sneaker brand undergoing a manufacturing scandal – They’ll likely need a crisis public relations strategy designed to shape—specifically, recuperate—public trust to stay solvent.
• A local college that wants to showcase its value in the local community – Depending on its current reputation, this college may be looking to maintain (or enhance) public perception. They might take a cue from Community PR, Corporate PR, or even Internal PR to tell a story about their farm-to-table dining program designed to support local agriculture as well as student health.

#2 Who needs to hear our story?

Once the brand story has been decided, the next step is to define who would benefit from hearing it: their target audience (in PR terms, their public).² 

For this endeavor, every good PR strategy benefits from calling on data acquired from their marketing wing. A few of the best ways businesses can determine their target constituents include:

• User data about things like location, age group, interests and so on acquired through website audits.
• Customer or audience personas that indicate the type(s) of demographics a business was designed to reach and build a relationship with.
• Issuing user surveys, which collect self-reported data from voluntary participants.

There are plenty of PR initiatives that may speak to a vast public full of many different audient segments. For example, the CDC might pursue a PR campaign to shore up public faith in credibility in the aftermath of a global health crisis. 

That said, the majority of businesses can paint a much more nuanced portrait of who their public is, which might include:

• Their age range.
• Their interests and hobbies.
• Their education levels.
• Their social media habits.
• A shared problem they possess.
• Their spending power.

Defining a brand’s public is equally indispensable for deciding how they’ll relate their story as well as which media outlet heir story is likely to gain positive traction within. 

#3 Why do they need to hear our story?

One of the publicists’ primary roles is to crystallize why a business’ story deserves its audience’s attention in the first place. Justifying why a brand deserves press is evermore important today, when consumers have a deep desire to support organizations that do more than voice their purpose—they act on them.³

Two examples of brands that have epitomized actualizing their “why” include:

• Patagonia – One of the top companies leading the environmental charge today, the outdoor apparel brand Patagonia has performed exceptionally in defining and standing by its mission.⁴ Their core values—like high-quality products and low-impact manufacturing—align with a public whose “why” is proactive environmental stewardship.⁵
• Airbnb – Airbnb defines its nuts-and-bolts mission as “creating an end-to-end travel platform” that can help travelers organize every detail of their journey. This nuts-and-bolts goal underpins a more philosophical objective: global citizenship. As such, Airbnb says its mission is “to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.”⁶

#4 How does our audience currently perceive our brand?

Measuring success via key metrics is one of the sweet spots where PR and marketing overlap. Qualitative data (how audiences feel about a business) can be assessed in many ways, whether by conducting user intent surveys, performing a  social media audit on comments or even calculating the average watch time for branded content. But where PR is concerned, it’s equally important to seek out quantitative methods of measuring the scope and nature of brand awareness. Companies can look into:

• Branded search volume, or how many people were searching specifically for a brand on search engines.
• Organic search traffic, which assesses traffic acquired from companies’ rankings on SERPs.
• Paid search traffic, which assesses traffic garnered through companies’ paid ad campaigns.
• Share of voice (SOV), which compares how much of a company’s industry they dominate in comparison to their competitors.

Many newer companies, or those just beginning to build name recognition, have to ask themselves a different question altogether: Does our audience perceive us, period?

If the answer is no, most PR initiatives will be strengthened by championing a marketing plan before, or at least while, the PR strategy is taking off. Marketing is all about generating an audience, while PR is a go-to for building and shaping relationships that already exist.

#5 What are our goals, and what resources do we have to allocate to them?

Most companies treat PR as an extension of their marketing budget. The amount of money they siphon into it depends on factors like:⁷

• What they’re looking to achieve.
• How much money they have to spend.
• How many non-monetary resources (like the internal team’s bandwidth) they’ll really be able to allocate toward their goals.

While an enormous, globally-sized streaming service may have a built-in PR wing ready to pounce on any potentially damaging headlines, a boutique supplement company might prefer a strategy that won’t eat into the budget (like team members’ relationships with music journalists). 

Not all small companies shy away from spending money on PR, however: In the tech sphere, for instance, many startups pay a lot of money for PR firms that can help them attract the attention of investors.

When deciding on PR goals and a budget for reaching them, every business should decide:

• What types of earned media would our company benefit from most?
• What specific outlets can we target (both attainable and aspirational)?
• Which no-cost (typically social) media channels can we use to drum up a buzz organically?
• How will our PR goals and our marketing KPIs work together?
• How often will we measure our PR performance? 
• Who will be accountable for measuring results?

Another best practice for deciding how much money and effort should be behind a PR strategy is to conduct a risk assessment. What, and how much, does a business stand to lose if they don’t put a robust PR strategy in place?

High-risk companies like financial firms or those dealing with public welfare may be inclined to spend more on their PR initiatives and reputational maintenance. And, generally speaking, if there’s a chance of a company encountering a crisis down the line, it’s a good idea to have a crisis communications plan devised that’s ready to activate if the time ever comes.⁸

#6 How will we measure our PR performance?

The final core question involved in creating a digital PR strategy is defining the terms with which a firm will gauge its success. Measuring digital PR performance typically involves revisiting those metrics used to gauge public perception in the first place (question #4). 

Any measurement technique will likewise be strengthened by addressing the following key data points:⁹

• Where traffic is coming from.
• Impressions and views on the quality content.
• Sales and revenue.
• Social media following.
• Partner outlets’ domain authority.

With KPIs and benchmarks fleshed out, all that’s left is determining which team members will be responsible for putting the PR plan in motion. 

But like any other relationship, those with the public take work: an ongoing commitment to building trust and mutual benefit. Sometimes, all it takes is an in-house PR team—other times, it takes a village to ensure a good PR strategy is on track for sustained brand growth.

Power up your PR strategy with Power Digital

In a global digital landscape, there’s no “pause” button on the public conversation. For brands, that’s both a blessing and a curse: infinite opportunities to enter the public sphere mean it takes considerable effort to earn and maintain public trust.

If your business is looking for successful marketing services for a PR strategy that’s authentic and adaptable in the current climate, we want to work with you. To partner with an experienced, data-backed PR team that’ll work in lockstep with your custom growth marketing plan, schedule a consultation with Power Digital today.

Sources: 

1. Knight Foundation. American views: Trust, media and democracy. https://knightfoundation.org/reports/american-views-trust-media-and-democracy/
2. Public Relations Society of America. About Public Relations. https://www.prsa.org/about/all-about-pr
3. Forbes. The Role of Public Relations in 2022. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2021/12/29/the-role-of-public-relations-in-2022/?sh=555b71a83e32
4. Forbes. Patagonia’s Focus On Its Brand Purpose Is Great For Business. https://www.forbes.com/sites/veronikasonsev/2019/11/27/patagonias-focus-on-its-brand-purpose-is-great-for-business/?sh=acb266254cb8
5. Patagonia. Core values. https://www.patagonia.com/core-values/
6. Airbnb. Airbnb 2019 Business Update. https://news.airbnb.com/airbnb-2019-business-update/
7. Investment News. Are PR firms worth the cost?  https://www.investmentnews.com/are-pr-firms-worth-the-cost-64100
8. Forbes. Should You Budget For PR Services? https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2020/01/07/should-you-budget-for-pr-services/?sh=465e38d62fd4
9. Forbes. 14 Key Metrics For Measuring A PR Campaign’s Effectiveness. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2021/09/14/14-key-metrics-for-measuring-a-pr-campaigns-effectiveness/?sh=2a3dee583b5a

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Have a Pulse on Current News Cycles

Public relations professionals must be aware of what’s in the news, especially during highly-publicized events. We can get wrapped up in our to-do lists or pitching priorities but it’s never a good look to pitch someone without the wherewithal of what else is going on in the world. It’s always a good idea to keep a news tab open to refresh throughout the day, but an even better idea to have a dedicated team member responsible for flagging unique PR trends and breaking news a few times during the workday news cycle. 

Communicate and Set Expectations with Clients

Our clients look to us as trusted experts and lean on our recommendations for media relations. That trust is heightened during larger moments in time and the news. It’s up to us to debrief our POCs on what the media landscape will be like, and set expectations on media coverage and how active our outreach will be. If there’s a timely product launch on the calendar for that week, do a gut check on how timely it truly is. More than likely, the brand news isn’t as urgent as the client might feel and can wait until the dust settles so it doesn’t leave the wrong impression or gets lost in the shuffle. Offer your expertise to marketing areas outside of traditional PR such as paid and organic social media. If there’s an influencer campaign slated for that week or social posts scheduled to go live, take a second look at timing and readjust if need be.

Know Your Audience

Of course, we are familiar with vetting the right contacts for specific pitches, from their specific beats to usual story angles. This year has taught us it’s essential to take this a step further by knowing more about your contacts, such as where they live. If your go-to beauty editor lives in the area where breaking news is happening, it’s safe to say he or she might be consumed in their local news rather than the latest drop from your client. If the contact includes social handles in their bio, take a look to see if they’ve sent any recent tweets on how they’re approaching writing and accepting pitches at the moment. 

Be Authentic

Remember that the people on the receiving end of your email are human, too, and stay away from those generic introductions of “hope you’re well” when we’ve all experienced a range of emotions this year. Put your personal touch through a common interest, how a recent story of theirs made you feel, or simply check in on them without a direct pitch behind it. Similar to knowing your audience, take a look at their social media channels if public and try to find common ground to expand on. We are all trying to do our jobs, but at the end of the day, treating writers as the people they are rather than writing robots can help build a relationship. 

If the last 11 months of the COVID-19 pandemic have taught us anything, it’s to be resilient and aware of others through ups and downs. Being in the know of national and worldly news can prevent publicists and brands from coming across as tone-deaf. Knowing more about the writers you pitch and adding a personal touch is a trusted PR strategy when it comes to tackling media relations in historical moments. Remember that it’s okay not to pitch some days and use it to your advantage to update media lists, get a headstart on reporting, or take your own mental break. What PR tactics have worked for you in the last year?

The post 4 Tips for Navigating Media Relations During Historical Moments appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Public relations has been a key player in the marketing funnel since the early 20th century. PRSA formally defines the practice as “a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” At its core, modern public relations still upholds each of these key factors and is instrumental in brand messaging and awareness. However, public relations has evolved throughout the Digital Age to incorporate a variety of tactics and techniques that weren’t so common (or even existing) during the “traditional” era of PR. 

PR in the Digital Age 

Traditionally, key media targets for a standard PR firm strategy included newspapers, magazines, broadcast TV channels, and other traditional media. Media relations was primarily one-way, where a PR professional communicated to the media with formal press releases. The rise of the Digital Age marked a decrease in print mediums and introduced a variety of widespread internet outlets like social media, newsletters, blogs, and more. With the increase of digital opportunities, PR professionals can now tell their brand’s story across a multitude of mediums. 

Social media is a prime example of how PR has evolved in the Digital Age — there are countless opportunities to build your brand across social platforms. Working hand-in-hand with digital PR, brands can amplify amazing press features through social media posts, extending the reach of the placements and strengthening brand authority within their industry. Additionally, influencer marketing is a crucial player in building brand awareness to target audiences. 

Influencer partnerships help build authentic and trustworthy relationships between brands and their audiences. In fact, 71% of shoppers are more likely to purchase products and services based on social media referrals. Social media is an ever-changing platform, allowing brands to engage in a diverse range of marketing campaigns through organic seeding, influencer whitelisting, TikTok partnerships, and more — the opportunities are seemingly endless. 

Another tool that has been introduced to the PR world is affiliate marketing. Following the slow burn of print media, many digital publications now rely heavily on online revenue to remain profitable. With affiliate marketing, publishers can earn a commission for product purchases made from their articles. Because of this, publications will often favor brands that have an affiliate program. This turns traditional eCommerce PR upside down and often blurs the lines of what it means to secure an “earned” media placement. However, PR professionals and affiliate marketers can work together to marry their strategies and maximize media outreach. 

When it comes to modern PR, a common caveat experienced by PR industry professionals is breaking through the noise. Following the influx of digital mediums, journalists now receive hundreds of emails a day, so how can PR professionals effectively get their messages across (or even get their emails noticed, for that matter)? From the media side, editors need stories to perform well online and on social media, so they will prioritize articles that will receive the most traffic and revenue. As a PR professional, you should regularly use Google Trends and SEO data to support your pitches. If your client falls within a trending topic, use this to your advantage and craft a compelling, data-driven pitch. The media (and your client) will thank you! 

Why it Matters

In today’s economic climate, it’s no surprise that marketing budgets across all industries have taken a toll. With PR being a top-of-funnel strategy focused on brand awareness, many brands mistakenly pull the plug on their PR campaign in order to focus on a more revenue-driving service. 

However, it is during these times when PR is the most important marketing strategy within the marketing mix. PR professionals are here to tell your brand’s narrative the right way by carefully crafting your brand’s key messaging. By securing earned media placements, PR professionals help build your brand’s credibility, which is of utmost importance during trying times. In fact, Nielsen found that PR is almost 90% more effective than advertising at establishing, building, and protecting credibility. The authenticity of earned PR placements truly goes a long way! 

PR at Power Digital 

In the past few months, Power Digital Marketing’s PR team has seen first-hand how traditional PR and modern digital marketing can come together to create a powerhouse strategy. Following the merge between our data-driven team and Covet’s PR professionals, we have combined best-in-class consumer PR with science and data analytics to craft campaigns that truly move the needle for our clients. There are differences between digital marketing vs public relations and their benefits to your company. When these two avenues are aligned on strategy, the results can be astronomical.

Our PR tactics are ROI-driven and strengthen the account strategy across all channels, synonymously creating content for email, paid social, organic social, and other channel campaigns. And, unlike traditional PR, our campaign results are measurable. Our data-driven resources allow us to measure the success of campaigns through domain authority, website traffic, backlinks, affiliate revenue, and more. 

The Bottom Line

While traditional PR has seen many digital changes over the years, we do not classify the practice as “dead.” Rather, we have observed a “rebirth” of the traditional public relation practice. Each of the new factors (affiliate partnerships, social media, etc.) can serve as a catalyst for your PR strategy rather than a threat to your PR campaign. Integrated PR campaigns that work hand in hand with other new digital channels will only strengthen your overall brand strategy. It’s important to note that public relations and digital marketing are ever-changing industries, so it is important to be nimble and prepared to jump on the next unknown. We know we are! 

The post Is Traditional PR Dead? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

This year has been anything but normal — 2020 has been a whirlwind of emotions, canceled plans, strategy shifts, and everything in between. PR agencies and professionals around the world have adapted to meet the needs of clients in various industries and seemingly solid annual public relations plans have been thrown to the wind. With all these changes, PR trends in the digital marketing agency world have changed too. We’ve seen our world change in ways that none of us could have ever imagined, and with that comes a shift in the nature of the trends that we’re so used to seeing as we head into a new year. 

Though we’re optimistically turning the page into 2021, that does not mean we can expect the world to just return to its regularly scheduled programming. It’s crucial for a PR firm and their PR professionals to reflect on this year’s learnings and strategically advise clients on how to make the necessary changes in ways that make sense and will help them maintain relevance in industries that have been forever changed. 

The Importance of Environmental and Self-Care

The concept of “care” is one that comes in many forms and is an area where we’ve seen and will continue to see an emphasis in the coming year in digital PR, content marketing, and influencer marketing alike. The “Blue Beauty” movement was originally concepted by Beauty Heroes’ Jeannie Jarnot, who notes that not only is this an ocean-friendly practice. The movement is also about beauty brands making sure their products are environmentally friendly. This means ocean-safe as well as sustainably sourced products that have a minimal carbon footprint while being aware of the ways their practices have a positive impact on the environment. 

This applies to e-Commerce and CPG beauty brands in a big way, and is a touchpoint for PR professionals to keep in mind when pitching PR strategy. As a publicist, ask yourself questions like, “Am I prepared to walk an editor through my brand’s sustainability practices if they ask?” and “Do I have the proof points I need to showcase my brand’s dedication to a minimal footprint?” These questions should be easy to answer and live at the forefront of a beauty campaign. It’s not just the message, but the value of that message that really makes an impact. 

With the shift to the work-from-home environment, many consumers have shifted their focus from cosmetics to feel good, self-care body products and skincare. Editors have also taken to this transition and this is very prevalent through the content that is currently being published. Consumers want to know about different types of treatments they can do at home and are looking for new ways to switch up their skincare routines by incorporating more earth-friendly “blue beauty” products as well. Creating interactive content and media coverage around this will not only improve your PR efforts overall but really touch the target audience you are looking for. 

Lastly, the traditionally over-the-top media mailer that was once a moment of delight for a receiving journalist is now frowned upon — both media and influencers are not interested in the excessive packaging, but rather a minimalistic approach that doesn’t have a negative impact on the environment. From a PR standpoint, this interest is only going to continue growing into 2021. Know what you’re pitching and how it impacts the environment and understand how the product(s) you’re showcasing play into the demand of today. This PR and marketing strategy will help spread a positive message on social platforms and media outlets for you and your client. 

Giving Back is No Longer a “Holiday-Centric” Initiative

The COVID-19 pandemic had and continues to have a gut-wrenching impact on businesses around the world. More than ever, consumers are looking for unique ways to support their communities, whether that be through purchasing from a brand that donates a portion of proceeds back to a charitable cause or by supporting small, locally owned mom-and-pop shops and restaurants. A great example of this is the holiday gift guide trends in 2020 we’ve been seeing — there are more and more headlines and content that celebrates small businesses, minority-owned brands, and companies that place a strong emphasis on the importance of giving back. 

PR professionals need to be prepared with messaging that brings value to the table if they want to see continued coverage in today’s market. It’s as competitive as ever, but for good reason. Both editors and social media influencers are increasingly aware of how partnerships and editorial content is reflective of their personal ethos and are selective about the products and brands they cover. 

There are some media and influencers who won’t even consider showcasing or working with a brand unless there’s a strong element of corporate social responsibility involved. This trend isn’t going away, and PR pros need to have a deep understanding of the values of the media that they’re pitching and ensure they’re addressing these points through media outreach. 

Nostalgia Marketing is Here to Stay

We’ve all found ourselves seeking comfort in unique ways this past year, and brands have answered that call. There has been a resurgence of brands reverting back to “simpler times” with less of a focus on what’s modern and cool and an increased focus on things that make people feel good and elicit feelings of nostalgia. 

Take the iconic brand Lisa Frank’s recent collaboration with Friends, one of the most popular sitcoms to ever air, for example. The feel-good vibrancy of Lisa Frank’s brand brings a lot of us back to our sticker book days and combining that with the ‘90s nostalgia of Friends is the icing on the cake. Pizza Hut also recently released a 15-pound weighted pizza blanket that reminds us of a cozy night in with friends and family while also eliciting feelings of comfort and safety. 

We’re also seeing a revival of ‘90s style celebrated through graphic tees with your favorite cartoon logo, fuzzy sweaters, biker shorts, and more. These types of products and subsequent marketing campaigns not only tug at the heartstrings, but give consumers a feeling of urgency to get back to those nostalgic times through purchasing. By using digital storytelling, or just storytelling in general, and content creation, customers feel more engaged in the product, leading to better outcomes.

What Does it All Mean?

2020 was anything but normal and the trends we’re seeing heading into 2021 support this claim. In order to see continued success, PR professionals need to be more aware than ever of what they’re pitching and the implications that come with that. 

Know the ethos behind your brands and put this at the forefront of your pitches. Do your research into the editors who you’re pitching and make sure your offering aligns with their personal and professional values. Make the value aspect the focus of your PR messaging and your campaigns. Help your brands identify ways they can start or continue to support communities that are most in need right now — it will all pay off in the end. 

The post Three Unique PR Trends to Consider in 2021 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Define the Client’s Goals to Determine a Budget 

 Before deciding which route to take in terms of influencer marketing, there are two factors the brand needs to consider: the goal and budget. What do they want out of the influencer campaign? What does a successful campaign look like to them? Once they know, then they can decide on a budget. 

The budget they allocate will determine how many influencers are allotted for the campaign, as well as the type of campaign you move forward with. If the budget does not allow, organic seeding is still an option. Organic product seeding is a great opportunity to get products in the hands of influencers and to receive feedback. Plus, there is always the possibility they will post on their socials for no cost at all. 

If the brand does have a budget for a paid marketing campaign, it will determine how many influencers are allotted. Micro-influencers (10K-100K followers) rates are usually significantly lower than macro-influencers (100K-1M+ followers). Deciding what type and how many influencers to bring on all comes back to your goals. Would you rather have more influencers talking about your brand or only a couple that could talk about it more than once? 

One of the great benefits of a paid influencer campaign is getting control over what the influencer says or posts through the signed contract. The brand can position the product whichever way it pleases. While working on paid campaigns, you can also review the influencer’s posts before they go live to make sure they’re exactly the message the brand wants to portray to its audience. 

How to Determine Influencer Payment

After determining the budget needed to achieve brand goals, it’s important to begin compiling a list of influencers that the brand can work with. It is important for an influencer agency to choose influencers that will likely achieve the ultimate goal of the campaign, either with sales or brand awareness, to the target audience. 

Once a brand compiles the list, they should begin reaching out to influencers to get a sense of pricing. A micro-influencer with under 20,000 followers may charge around $350 for an Instagram story, $850 for an in-feed post, or $900 for IG TV. While a macro influencer with 800,000 followers may charge $1,500 for an Instagram story, the brand may see a return of $2,000 or more in sales as a result. 

Making Sure Influencers are the Right Partners

This is why it’s crucial to ensure the brand is selecting influencers that will be beneficial to the campaign. Some ways to effectively choose influencers is to see if they’re a fan of the brand by organic seeding. If the brand has built a relationship with an influencer by sending them a product and they love it, their followers will have seen it on their social media previously, and with a swipe up link may be more inclined to trust and buy the product. 

Another way to make sure an influencer is the right fit is by making sure their content aligns with the brand’s overall goals. If the campaign is targeted towards a certain demographic, in age or similar interests, make sure the influencer frequently posts about it as well. This will make the paid Instagram posts look more natural in the influencer’s feed or on their stories and less like a paid ad. It’s also necessary to vet an influencer’s feed and make sure they haven’t partnered with any competitors within the past three to six months. 

Lastly, another thing to consider while working with influencers for a paid campaign is to check their engagement. Make sure the influencers the brand is selecting have a relatively high engagement rate. Some influencers have followers who might not interact with their posts or have a lot of followers but may not be “real” and instead are bots. Choosing influencers with high engagement is important for an overall rate of investment. The more their followers trust the influencer, the more likely they are to also trust the product and try it out for themselves. 

Why You Need Both 

Both organic influencer seeding and paid social media campaigns are beneficial to a brand and its social media goals. Organic product seeding builds relationships with influencers and allows their followers to become familiar with the brand, while paid campaigns allow the brand to have total control over the message and its goals. 

A good mix of both is key to being successful in garnering brand awareness through and on social media. Power Digital Marketing has countless relationships with relevant and successful influencers and offers services that can tap those influencers to achieve brand goals. As an experienced digital marketing agency, we can help introduce brands to those influencers to create long-lasting relationships with them and successfully launch social media campaigns that have a desired ROI. To find out more, contact us today. 

The post Organic Product Seeding vs. Paid Campaigns appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

With this acquisition, the agency is expanding its digital PR footprint to provide Covet’s partners with full-funnel marketing strategies incorporating PR to drive topline revenue, and Power Digital’s partners will have access to an incredibly robust PR offering, including events, celebrity and brand partnerships, and extensive relationships with the top editors for all things CPG.

When Power Digital created a PR umbrella six years ago, the intention was to add a top-of-funnel channel that could support marketing efforts across all stages of the consumer journey. As the digital marketing agency has evolved, we have added more services to our roster, from email and SMS to Amazon and YouTube. Today, we have over 15 unique service offerings, which can all be supported through public relations.

PR and How It Fits in The Funnel

PR plays a critical role in awareness, consideration, and loyalty. But for the sake of this post we will focus on awareness and consideration.

Let’s start with the top of the funnel, or the “awareness” driving stage of the funnel. The whole goal in this phase of the funnel is to drive as many new eyes as possible to the brand. But quality of the new traffic to the brand is really what matters here and PR is typically one of the most effective ways to introduce highly relevant eyes to your brand. An ideal PR placement introduces a reader to the brand for the first time AND convinces people why they need your product. Oftentimes when brands drive awareness through their own digital channels, it doesn’t hold as much weight because it’s from the perspective of the business. Top tier PR hits with great content from a trusted author can change the game for a new brand or product.

In the consideration phase, the prospect is aware of your product but hasn’t purchased it. The prospect is considering whether to purchase your product or not, and the best ways to close people in the consideration phase are through risk reversal OR social proof. A well-timed PR placement can drastically improve performance across the consideration stage of the funnel because the objections to the purchase can be overcome through a well-written PR hit. And if a reader that is considering purchasing the brand sees one of their favorite publications rave about the product, that is one of the best ways to get a potential customer to close for the first time. 

PR and SEO

While building a site that is easily accessible and has the appropriate content for search engines is important, building links to that content is a just as integral part of getting your domain to rank for the more competitive terms. Getting links built back to your content is the strongest signal a domain can send to search engines proving authority on a specific subject. Search engines typically rely on authoritative sources like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, or Bloomberg for signals about which domains are important and for what specific subject area. 

The typical SEO and PR workflow starts with collaborating with the content marketing team to create an amazing piece of content. Typically, the most successful SEO and PR collaborations use proprietary data to publish information unique to the brand and to deliver some unique insight to potential publications that would be covering this industry. For example, if a job posting site wants to get links back to their domain, they may consider publishing content about the state of the economy based on user activity levels and work with the PR team to outreach to business publications for backlinks back to the domain. 

Lastly, the PR team is instrumental in helping launch new products on a domain. Typically, most product launches are newsworthy events and can be easily pitched to local, trade, and national publications. These announcements can help search engines understand that the domain now has expertise in the new product category and help the new products rank much faster on search engines. Any product or market launch that is dependent on SEO should work closely with PR so the new products or markets can be quickly indexed.

PR and Amazon

While the impact of PR on Amazon is not discussed as much as the impact of PR on SEO, PR still plays a strong role in improving and maximizing performance on Amazon. Amazon’s A10 algorithm evolved to place a stronger emphasis on external traffic to Amazon pages. This means that strong PR placements that can drive a volume of users to Amazon will then lead to organic ranking and visibility improvements of a brand’s products on Amazon. 

The A10 algorithm does place a higher emphasis on ranking products that receive external traffic to the listings and especially when that traffic converts at a higher rate. Online users typically have more trust in top tier publications and the content they are producing, so oftentimes this can lead to more sales than lesser known outlets due to the credibility of the site and placement. Therefore, allowing PR placements to direct traffic to Amazon will send traffic that is likely to convert, which will have a more positive impact than many other sources of external traffic. The A10 algorithm will detect this external traffic, along with the sales velocity it generates, and then rank a brand’s products higher organically for the terms in which the listings currently rank for. 

Amazon’s algorithm will also increase rank for listings that receive traffic from influencer campaigns. Amazon in general is moving in this direction with the launch of Amazon Influencers, where influencers can have a page/store on Amazon that lists the products they feature within their posts. Therefore, if you work with an influencer that sends traffic to your Amazon listing or their Amazon page where a user buys the product, this will also increase the rank of a brand’s listings on Amazon due to the external traffic and sales velocity that the Amazon algorithm detects. 

Both traditional PR and influencer marketing traffic can have a positive impact on Amazon performance, and therefore Amazon can (and should) be another cross channel integration tactic within your PR strategies. Given that Amazon listings convert higher than most websites, this can allow these PR & influencer initiatives to drive more sales when sent to Amazon, ultimately generating more sales than your website depending on the product, industry, brand, website and type of placement. 

PR and Paid Social and Search

PR is an amazing asset for paid social at the middle of the funnel. Users who have visited your website and are not convinced are looking for justification for their purchase. Top tier media coverage is an amazing way to add social proof to your retargeting campaigns and increase conversion rates. 

The food and beverage space has been a vertical we have seen where PR is not only a booster in terms of conversion, but a necessity. The learned behavior for purchasing food online is still very new and consumer trust is low. Top tier PR logos act almost as a FDA stamp of approval on the brand. Leading with this type of coverage in your prospecting campaigns will get over the largest obstacle in the category — trust. 

PR and Content

Aligning your PR strategy with content is a great way to get even more out of your recent coverage. One key place to start is on your website and landing pages. Whether you are dropping in logos of where your brand has been featured or a quote from a publication, there is an immense value in leveraging the social proof element of PR. This is especially important when you consider how familiar a user is with your brand. 

If you are pushing users to a landing page, blog post, or even your homepage it’s good to think about if they’ve seen your site before or if this is your first interaction. New users are looking for signs that they can trust your brand and the credibility that a PopSugar, New York Times, or Buzzfeed logo shouldn’t be discounted. 

Another great way to integrate content and PR is to leverage topics that are trending in the PR space or catching the eye of editors to generate topic ideas. This is a perfect way to get a jump on what is trending and will likely be highly searched and sought after within the coming months. Collaboration between these two teams will help ensure you are producing content that users will truly engage and connect with! 

PR and Email

Combining your PR efforts with an inbound email strategy is key to maximizing the lifetime and value of your earned media. There are a few key ways in which you can integrate these two channels to drive better results for your marketing efforts. The first is through press hits as social proof. If you secured a noteworthy and top tier piece of online press coverage, the social proof from relevant PR wins and media hits should be incorporated into your email marketing strategy. You can do this as a full broadcast email if the media placement is outstanding with messaging like “Hear why Vogue called us the best thing that’s ever happened to the fashion industry,” for example. 

You can segment your list to send to those who have not purchased in a given time period who may need another push to purchase again. Your email can pull quotes from the article and direct subscribers to read the article and shop featured products right from the body of the email. Think of it as your way to build credibility to your target audience, share your win, and drive revenue from latent subscribers.

Another way to integrate PR and email is by incorporating PR into your welcome sequence. When someone first subscribes, you need to educate and convince them to make a purchase, which can be done through impressive media hits. Whether you are pulling logos and sharing “Most loved by [insert list of press hits]” within your email, or adding a quote to the header or footer of the email, this is your way to nurture and convince a potential customer to make the purchase decision. 

Finally, similar to showcasing impressive media reviews on your brand’s website, you can do this across all email marketing, from subject-lines, to footers, to specific product launches with media reviews. PR will add to the credibility and support the consumer journey when purchasing for the first, second, or third time.

PR and CRO

As your PR campaign gains new traction and users begin to filter through the funnel and onto your site, it’s important to make sure your website experience is set up to nurture the user. In order to maximize your PR efforts and ensure these visits turn into conversions, a healthy conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategy should be employed. There are three key CRO strategies that can be supplemental to any PR campaign:

• Personalization – Typically, PR campaigns will have specific promotions or missions. The latest technology in CRO practices allow you to personalize your site dynamically to fit these campaigns. If you run multiple campaigns, this will help organize site messaging and offers to tailor to the user, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates. See here for more about dynamic personalization.
  

• Analysis and Data Building – At the heart of any CRO strategy is data. Capturing user behavior and analytics is key to be able to make the right decisions and changes on site. The traffic gained through PR can help bolster and augment the data, and in turn your PR tactics can be improved by accurately identifying how users react to campaigns and site messaging (as it pertains to the PR message).
  
• Ongoing Testing, Analysis, and Iteration – The most common practices behind CRO are A/B testing, multivariate testing, and other forms of experimenting with a web experience. PR can help drive traffic to these experiments, allow you to test new messaging, and even provide better approaches to future campaigns. 

Outside of these three core strategies, it is always important to make sure your website or landing page is set up properly, tracking the right information, and functional. CRO can help optimize your campaigns, and PR can act as the fuel behind your efforts (and vice versa).

Wrapping Up

Without a doubt, PR plays an integral role in the customer journey by providing the social proof necessary to engage, convert, and retain customers. As you read in this article, each stage of the funnel can be supplemented or improved with some well placed PR hits paired with a savvy utilization of the coverage after it is secured.

The fun doesn’t stop with the immediate attention driven by the PR hit. It is crucial that all channels and platforms that represent your business continue to place a spotlight on the most relevant and well-known PR hits for your brand. In the past, a public relations strategy has been a nice value-add for most brands. In today’s age of information, PR is widely seen as a necessity versus a luxury for any successful marketing campaign, especially for those companies trying to break into industries with a lot of noise or competition. 

What can PR do for you and your business? Reach out to Power Digital today to get a nova assessment and to gain an understanding of how a world-class PR strategy can play a pivotal role in the success of your business!

The post 6 Ways to Drive Better Marketing Results with PR appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Here are the 2020 holiday gift guide trends our digital marketing agency foresees, and why you should keep them in mind when crafting your Q4 media relations plan.

Rallying Around Small Businesses

This holiday season, it is more important than ever to focus on supporting small businesses. Small businesses have been taking a hard hit this year because of the impacts of COVID-19. Within the past six months, 43% of small businesses had to temporarily close. Rather than buying from big name brands this holiday season, consumers are shopping small and local, and the media is advocating for this opportunity — making it the perfect time to leverage the brand from a PR perspective to gain new traffic sources.

Shopping Black and Minority-Owned

As a submovement of the Black Lives Matter movement, consumers are seeking Black and minority-owned businesses to lift up and support through their holiday shopping. As such, there is ample opportunity for thoughtful gift guides focused solely on Black-owned businesses. Now is a huge time to spotlight these companies, their founders, and the stories behind the product. 

Brands That Do Good and Give Back

Brands this year have been doing good for their communities and giving back. This has caused many holiday shoppers to support businesses that have a great cause. People are more likely to support businesses that give back to communities and support the greater good.

A Shift in the Industry Landscape

There has also been a shift in the industry landscape that is causing a change in the type of gifts people are buying in the 2020 holiday season. Instead of purchasing plane tickets or travels, people have more home goods, books, and health and wellness centric products on their holiday shopping list. Quarantine has brought most people to focus on bettering themselves, their home, or their loved ones. 

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Roundups

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are going to look a little different in the 2020 holiday season than years past. Many businesses have put out statements about being closed on Thanksgiving Day this year, while usually businesses would remain open. For this year, however, online holiday shopping will be very popular. Forecasts have stated that online shopping could potentially make up 30% of all U.S. sales this holiday season. This prediction highlights the need for online retailer sites to prepare themselves for increased traffic ahead of time with strategies such as holiday A/B testing.  

Closing Thoughts

With all of that said, make sure you are prepared this coming holiday season. Keeping up with the latest shifts and trends across brands and industries is imperative to crafting your own media relations plan. So, use this guide to your advantage and start planning!

The post Holiday Gift Guide Trends in 2020 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

However, recent controversy involving potential security issues with the app’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has created confusion and uncertainty about the fate of TikTok’s presence in America. Read more to learn what exactly this means and how we recommend pivoting your TikTok influencer marketing strategy should the app become banned in the US.

What is TikTok and why has it become so popular?

To provide some background on its history, TikTok initially came to be in August 2018, through the merging of two apps: Musical.ly and Douyin. Musical.ly was a popular lip-syncing app in the United States, which was quickly acquired by massive Chinese tech company Bytedance. Soon after, Bytedance consolidated Musical.ly with its already popular short-video app, Douyin, because of their shared mission “to create a community where everyone could be a creator.”  Fast forward two years later to 2020, and the platform’s popularity has taken off. TikTok’s audience now includes more than 800 million active users worldwide.

In its early stages, TikTok video content primarily involved singing and dancing, but it has since evolved with content ranging widely from beauty, to cooking, life hacks, comedy acts, viral challenges and more. The app is similar to its social media competitors Facebook and Instagram in the way users can interact with content and users through following, “liking” and commenting. However, it is also very different because users open the TikTok app to be entertained by strangers, rather than their friends and family members. TikTok content is organic, fun and not as staged as other platforms, and its algorithm allows normal users to quickly become viral sensations and micro influencers.

As stay-at-home orders swept across the world in early 2020, online behavior began to shift to embrace the “new normal.” With this, the TikTok app’s popularity quickly surged, especially among a younger audience. In March 2020, TikTok crossed 2 billion total global downloads with 315 million downloads in Q1 alone, breaking a record for any app in one single quarter.

So, what’s all this controversy?

Putting its wild popularity aside, TikTok is facing turmoil in the United States today, as its Chinese-owned parent company Bytedance is under scrutiny for potential user privacy violations. On August 6, 2020, President Trump issued an executive order that TikTok must sell to a US-based company by November 12, 2020, or the platform will be banned in the US. There are several contenders for the purchase including Microsoft, Twitter, Oracle and Google, but the social media platform’s fate is still unknown.

New and Emerging Platforms Similar to TikTok

Since the announcement of TikTok’s potential ban, there are a number of competitors that have risen into the spotlight and seen a substantial surge in users including Triller, Likee, and Instagram Reels.

• Triller, a 5-year-old entertainment platform, is a prime example of an app that has quickly gained popularity through the current TikTok controversy. Since the announcement of the executive order, Triller has seen a 50 percent increase in installs, bringing the platform’s user base to 120 million users.

As a video sharing service, Triller is similar to TikTok, but it is primarily focused on the music industry, which limits its target audience. Additionally, its algorithm favors established musical artist accounts when showing its users new videos, while TikTok provides a balance of both relevant TikTok influencers’ and regular users’ videos.

• Likee is another video-sharing app and TikTok rival seeing an increase in popularity since talk of the ban. According to a recent earning’s report, Likee’s worldwide user base is now 150 million, an 88 percent increase since Q2 of 2019.

Likee is a free-form platform, and like TikTok, is not focused on any particular vertical. The app is known for cutting-edge tools and an Artificial Intelligence engine considered to be better than TikTok’s. A key differentiator that sets it apart is its virtual gifts feature, which allows TikTok influencers to make money from these “gifts” they receive from fans.

• In an effort to keep users away from TikTok, Instagram has rolled out its newest feature, Reels. Similar to TikTok, Reels allows users to create 15-second multi-clip videos using audio, effects and creative tools.

All Instagram users can share Reels with their followers on their Feed, and users with public accounts can also make them available in a new space in the “Explore” tab, with the goal of reaching a wider target audience. When comparing its algorithm and virality to TikTok’s, the “Explore” tab consists of curated videos based solely on similar pages you follow. Alternatively, TikTok uses more factors such as percent of videos viewed, and also aims not to show back-to-back videos that are “too similar.”

Aside from potentially pivoting to the newest, shiniest, brightest social platform, this potential ban also sheds light on how important it is for both marketers and influencers to continue to diversify their campaigns amongst multiple platforms.

Furthermore, we see this potential ban as an opportunity to leverage current existing social media platforms in a more unique way. 

See below for some of our ideas to shake up your social influencer marketing campaigns just like how this ban has shaken up our TikTok clients.

How to Creatively Leverage Existing Platforms 

• Facebook – Ah yes, the OG of social media marketing. We tend to find that Facebook is a forgotten audience, especially in comparison to it’s cooler brother, Instagram. Facebook offers multiple ways to engage with influencers and reach different audiences through different mediums including Facebook Live and Facebook Groups.

Prior to IG Live, there was the launch of Facebook Live. Facebook Live allows users to view videos in live time from brand pages, as well as influencers. At its inception, tons of beauty brands flocked to FB live as an opportunity to work with influencers on tutorials. Since then, brands, including powerhouses such as Sephora, have continued to leverage the Facebook feature and do FB lives for their very dedicated Facebook groups. We definitely feel there is a huge opportunity for brands to cater to their dedicated followers and bring onboard influencers to spice up their Facebook lives. Influencers can also cross-promote on their personal Instagram and Facebook to tease the Facebook Lives. 

To further the cross channel strategy here, unlike the more glitchy IG live, Facebook Live gives the option to immediately save, making it easier to whitelist (if on an influencer’s Facebook group) or further promote the content.

Another unique opportunity Facebook presents is the chance to collaborate with specific Facebook groups that have extremely targeted demographics. For example, say your client sells gluten-free flours — you can try to partner with a gluten-free baking Facebook group and offer an influencer hosted recipe tutorial on the behalf of your client. Fun right?!

• Pinterest – Pinterest is certainly a beloved social platform for a variety of users. Why? Well, primarily because it lets you search for exactly what you are looking for and formulates the results in an aesthetically pleasing way. Both influencers, brands, and consumers alike love this very easy-to-use platform, but as of lately, the platform is offering more opportunities for Influencers to gain popularity. 

As of 2019, Pinterest started launching the beta of Story Pins — Story pins are basically the new way to share creative content on Pinterest, allowing select users and influencers to share up to 20 pages of content, including videos, images, text, etc., according to Medium.Com. You are also able to add custom links to each slide of the pin, so multiple opportunities to receive impressions, conversions, etc. Since Pinterest is a viral platform, influencers have been seeing incredible results here if their pin goes viral.

Consider TikTok influencer marketing campaign to offer customers awesome tutorial pins or ideas for gift giving as we move into the holiday season.

• LinkedIn Stories – Hear us out here. We know this is not exactly the social mediaplatform you think of when it comes to influencer marketing; however, with the development of LinkedIn Stories, there is certainly an opportunity for influencers to take a larger stance in thought leadership. According to Later.Com, similarly to Instagram, the platform feels this new feature gives users the opportunity to create creative content that is more in the moment vs. committing to an in-feed post.

Pending the client, utilizing LinkedIn Stories could be a huge opportunity to connect with future customers, especially in the B2B space. The feature is still in testing at this time, but we definitely feel this is a huge future opportunity to take advantage of.

• YouTube-  As we all may know, YouTube is a mecca for influencers and for a good reason. YouTube provides brands the opportunity to receive quality video assets, but more importantly, it is evergreen content that can increase brand awareness by consistently introducing your client to more and more users over time. 

Aside from the actual video aspect, there are now YouTube stories that its app viewers receive. If you have a client who has a strong YouTube presence, you can utilize stories to drive traffic to a YouTube influencer campaign or request these types of usage rights on your next collaboration!

Although the above platforms and current platforms may not be TikTok itself, they offer great opportunities to further your influencer marketing strategy for your digital marketing agency and consciously pivot away from TikTok, despite what its future may be.

One thing that us marketers can take away from this potential ban is how important it is to leverage different platforms for campaigns, because we truly never know what will happen!  

Sources:

• https://www.businessinsider.com/tiktok-app-online-website-video-sharing-2019-7
•  https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/24/tiktok-sues-us-government-over-trump-ban.html
• https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2020/07/9941593/what-is-triller-app
• https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/5/21354117/instagram-reels-tiktok-vine-short-videos-stories-explore-music-effects-filters
• https://techcrunch.com/2020/08/13/likee-150-million-monthly-users/
• https://medium.com/@elle.linton/introducing-story-pins-from-pinterest-keep-it-simpelle-2e9b4258d406
• https://later.com/blog/linkedin-stories/

The post How to Pivot Your TikTok Influencer Strategy appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

But how do you accomplish this? How do you optimize your PR strategy to the information era—one where a large part of your marketing is digital?

This detailed guide will answer that and more, chronicling the strategies you can employ to augment any PR campaign. 

Interested? Let’s dive in. 

Traditional PR and Digital PR

In the past, a publicist was a public relations specialist that focused on networking with producers, publications, journalists, editors, and writers to get their clients into legacy media, such as:

• Newspapers
• Magazines
• Television
• Radio

Traditionally, a public relations agency was limited to mainstream promotional activities like those listed above. But the internet changed everything when it created endless opportunities for online promotion. To that end, digital PR firms still utilize traditional PR, but now they give significant attention to their online efforts like social media and content marketing. 

It’s important to note that although they’re now in closer alignment, digital PR and marketing are not synonyms. 

Digital PR – Involves managing a brand’s reputation and using news to increase traffic and brand awareness. It lets people know:

• Your brand’s values
• What makes you unique
• What’s currently happening that they should be aware of 

Marketing – Involves starting a conversation and directly promoting a good or service. 

Regardless of the era we find ourselves in, the end goal for any PR expert remains the same—improve their client’s reputation, increase brand visibility, and drive sales. 

And how do they accomplish this? How do they build their client’s digital presence?

How to Optimize Your PR Strategy

You can’t simply wait and hope for your brand to get noticed. You have to act, execute, and optimize along the way. To aid you in this process, we’ve compiled a list of tips that top PR firms use to drive brand visibility and create awareness.

Online Media Placements 

If you’re struggling to draw in new users to your website and fill your retargeting pools, online press placements might be the remedy. These can be in the form of an online blog, magazine, periodical, or website. But what matters is that they will be viewed by a wider audience. 

Getting new and fresh eyes on the brand is a great way to drive referral and organic traffic to the site. And, as a top-of-the-funnel channel, it supports overall brand awareness and can help introduce new potential customers (which you can then nurture through PPC, Paid Social, email and display). 

While increasing brand awareness is the primary goal, online media placements can positively impact your digital marketing and PR efforts. They can also provide secondary benefits, including:

• SEO – Online media placements that include links and brand mentions are great signals to Google that you’re legitimate. Doing so supports your overall SEO strategy and builds up your backlink profile through organic, relevant, and quality third-party content sites.

If an authoritative site refers to your brand, Google perceives you to be respectable, and thus increases your domain authority. The higher your domain, the higher you rank. This means increased traffic, better click-through rates (CTRs), and more sales. 

Traffic – When an article or media placement includes links to your brand, it drives referral traffic to your website. You can use Google Analytics to measure a media placement’s efficacy by studying key metrics like:

• Time on site
• New vs. returning visitors
• Pages per visit
• Number of sessions
• Conversions

Link building via PR media placement will help establish your credibility with both customers and search engines. And the more high-quality sites that you can entice to link to your website, the more site traffic you’ll receive.

Once you secure placement, be sure to then leverage it digitally so the content can live on forever. Down the road, they can be leveraged on social media and your website (with logos and links attached, further branding the piece). 

Newsjacking 

Newsjacking is a tactic used by savvy brands to insert themselves into a conversation or news cycle that they had no business being in originally. It links your brand to topical news stories in order to gain media and consumer attention. 

These days, the most powerful and cost-effective newsjacking efforts are done through social media, which is largely driven by memes, jokes, and constant plays on the original source material. Because of this, successful newsjacking often comes down to timing and wit.

What are some examples? 

There are two simple ones that come to mind:

Oreo “Dunk in the dark” 

On February 3rd, 2013, the power went out in the Superdome during the Super Bowl championship game between the 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens. While the world was buzzing about the blackout, Oreo Cookie tweeted this. Within an hour, it had garnered more than 10,000 retweets and had spawned more than 15,000 conversations, with most praising Oreo’s PR and marketing team for being quick on their toes. 

Even after the game was over, both consumers and journalists were talking about it, so much so that there were articles published about the successful newsjacking, such as Wired’s, “How Oreo Won the Marketing Super Bowl With a Timely Blackout Ad on Twitter.” Creating this tweet cost Oreo practically nothing—but instantly shifted the spotlight onto their brand and away from the stalled championship game.

KitKat and iPhone 6 plus “bendgate” 

When the iPhone 6 Plus first came out, there was a rash of reports from early adopters complaining that the phone had bent in their pocket. So, as the news cycle started to blow up with online conversation centering on “bendgate,” KitKat inserted itself into the conversation with this simple tweet. In the space of a few hours, it already had 23,000 retweets, with many more people sharing and talking about KitKat’s playful jab at Apple’s recent debacle.  

If you want to take advantage of every possible newsjacking opportunity, it’s important that you have someone on your team that’s on deck and who checks the following boxes:

• Is on top of the hot topics in the media and on social media
• Familiar with current memes
• Is creative and clever enough to capitalize on any opportunity that presents itself

Building Relationships with Digital Publications 

Even though PR firms have evolved over time, a vital aspect of your PR efforts still involves building lasting relationships. These days, your focus should be on building affinity and creating a rapport between your brand and digital publications. And, by nurturing this bond over time, you can become the digital publications’ go-to resource on subjects related to your area of authority.  

By growing your brand affinity and showing up more frequently in top tier, reputable publications, you can move PR to a middle-of-the-funnel channel as opposed to a top-of-the-funnel channel. 

Paid Social 

Social media is a powerful tool you can use to directly and immediately interact with your audience. But building an audience doesn’t happen overnight. As Forbes notes,

Having a social presence online for your company can be a great marketing technique to really bring in online traffic and create brand awareness. Think of it as more of a relationship- and community-builder, and less as a sales channel. The more you grow the relationships and engage your community, sales will naturally fall into place.

Although much of social media is free and fully at your disposal, you can boost your reach and PR efforts with Paid Social. This utilizes third-party tools to drive users (who click on the link) to your website. It also utilizes advertising and sponsored content to amplify how often your website shows up on third-party pages or feeds. 

With Paid Social, you can send targeted media placements, press placements, or ads that act as customizable CTAs and are capable of driving traffic to your website and enhancing your PR strategy. Paid Social can help with: 

• Building brand awareness
• Targeting customers 
• Capturing leads
• Increasing your cross-channel effectiveness

Because it typically has a high CTR, Paid Socials can serve as a great cold prospecting tool on Facebook to introduce people to the brand.

Optimizing Your PR Strategy

When it comes to digital marketing and PR campaigns, just pitching product launches isn’t going to cut it any longer. Simply put, it won’t make you stand out amongst your competitors. To accomplish that, you need to optimize your efforts with strategies like building relationships, using Paid Social and media placements, newsjacking, and transforming your brand into a voice of impact.    

But what do you do if you don’t have a PR company on your side? 

That’s where Power Digital Marketing comes in. We’ve spent years establishing ourselves as a key player in the PR and digital marketing world. Thanks to our extensive network, we can leverage our existing contacts and resources to increase the success of your PR campaign. 

What can Power Digital do for you? 

To start, we optimize your PR strategy by:

• Setting up business profiling
• Publishing SEO online content 
• Pushing Influencer marketing
• Creating online press releases
• Establishing relationships with online journalists

And that’s just to start. So, if you’re interested in finding out more, reach out today to request a Free PR Appraisal.

Sources 

Twitter. Oreo Cookie “Power out, no problem.” https://twitter.com/Oreo/status/298246571718483968

Wired. How Oreo Won the Marketing Super Bowl with a Timely Tweet

https://www.wired.com/2013/02/oreo-twitter-super-bowl/

Twitter. KitKat “We don’t bend, we break.” https://twitter.com/KITKAT/status/514817515177123841

Forbes. How to Get the Most out of Your Brand’s Social Media Campaign. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2020/02/11/how-to-get-the-most-out-of-your-brands-social-media-campaign/#3398c0fd5d37

The post How to Optimize Your PR Strategy appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

A crisis communication plan affects all marketing channels, and it’s crucial to plan accordingly, even if you do not believe your company could be impacted by a crisis.

Below are a few best practices in implementing an effective, holistic crisis communication strategy.

Task Out Campaign-Specific Action Items

If you’re currently rolling out a marketing campaign that could be portrayed as untimely or insensitive to the situation at hand, it’s best practice to postpone. Whether it be a product launch, announcement or PR campaign, a period of crisis is an inappropriate time to move forward with these marketing initiatives.

Create a Task Force and Designate Roles

Selecting the task force to best represent your brand both internally and externally is imperative. 

For public relations and media purposes, appoint a key representative from your executive personnel who is polished, seasoned in public speaking and available to answer media queries, release a statement and take interviews.

When appointing a leader to inform your internal publics of a situation, ask yourself who would be the most appropriate figure to speak on the subject, and whether or not your team should hear the news directly from their managers first.

In addition to selecting key speakers, designate a management team to coordinate these means of communication as well as a creative team to craft the right message.

Communicate to Customers and Media With a Consistent Message

In addressing the issue at hand, relay concern for those who are affected and be human in the situation. Take care of business efficiently and effectively while demonstrating that the people behind the brand understand that lives are affected. The brand must remain empathetic and united without placing blame or avoiding the situation.

Act as Quickly as Possible

The moment you are informed there is a crisis, your top priority must be informing your publics, both internal and external. Connect with your PR team and work to craft your message. Once finalized, spread the word across all appropriate channels— address it on your website, distribute a press release, send an email to past and current customers and employees and post on social media as soon as possible.

At Power Digital, we are determined to help brands be proactive and keep their publics informed, in a clear and authentic way. For more information on our crisis communication service, book a time to chat with us.

The post Best Practices | PR Marketing in a Crisis appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Although they may not have as large a following, they can be just as effective, if not more so, than a celebrity with millions of followers, particularly when you enlist a small army of them. Knowing this, it would be foolish for your brand to overlook utilizing micro-influencers, since there are several advantages that only they can provide. 

Below, our influencer marketing agency reviews the importance of the micro-influencer and then discusses how you can best utilize them to target specific audiences and maximize your brand’s reach. 

The Evolution of Influencer Marketing

It’s somewhat shocking to compare the nascent stages of social media to the all-consuming beast that it is today. Scant few people could have predicted that the apps and websites meant to connect friends, share pictures, or post videos could one day evolve into a center of commerce and marketing mecca. 

But they did, which in turn precipitated the meteoric rise of influencer marketing. 

That said, while influencer marketing can still be used effectively—as demonstrated by the infamous Fyre festival, whose undeserved hype was practically conjured out of thin air by a concerted major influencer push—it’s not as powerful as it initially was. 

This is occurring for three reasons:

1. The market has become oversaturated by influencer marketing, which causes an influencer pitch to feel less natural.
2. The cost-benefit is not what it once was, particularly since large social influencers can command million-dollar fees for a single post.
3. Consumers have become inured to it and are no longer as receptive as they once had been.

In the State of Influencer Marketing report, Forbes notes the shift occurring therein:

At the same time, marketers don’t spend their money how they used to but are dramatically changing how they work with social influencers. “The bigger the influencer, the better” is no longer the favored approach. As consumers become more wary of how fake the industry can be, marketers’ tactics are becoming much more sophisticated and collaborations are becoming more well thought through.

Due to this decrease in receptivity and efficacy, brands are pivoting away from the mega-influencer. In order to stay authentic, many have begun partnering with micro-influencers, or influencers with less than 10,000 followers. Such people have highly-engaged, niche audiences, to whom they’re deeply connected. And thus far, the vast majority of reports are favorable, with most marketing and PR teams claiming that this creates more poignant messaging and targeted results. 

Why Brands Shouldn’t Overlook Micro-Influencers?

Although it may be tempting for marketers to shoot for the moon and work with celebrities who have hundreds of thousands of followers, the analytics suggest that this is not the best route, particularly for marketing teams that have a smaller budget. 

Reasons for this include:  

Micro-influencers get better engagement 

Influencer marketing is used to maintain trust and relatability to the brand, which is something micro-influencers excel at. Although macro-influencers have a larger following, that figure doesn’t necessarily mean they have higher engagement or results. In 2018, Markerly conducted an analysis of more than 800,000 Instagram users, with most having at least 1,000 followers, and they found the following:

As an influencer’s follower total rises, the rate of engagement (likes and comments) with followers decreases. Those with less than 1,000 followers generally received likes on their sponsored posts 8% of the time. Users with a 10 million+ follower count only received likes 1.6% of the time. There is a clear downward correlation between follower sizes and post likes.

They conclude that the sweet spot that maximizes both engagement and reach is in the 10k-100k micro-influencer range. There are various reasons why this is the optimal range, including:

• Followers are not bought.
• Followers are more loyal and return to their content at higher engagement rates.
• Followers are more likely to engage since there’s a higher likelihood that the influencer responds in kind. 

Decreased cost

Every marketing campaign has its limitations. One of the most pressing concerns typically involves the budget, or lack thereof. And the truth is that few marketing teams have deep enough pockets to pay Kim Kardashian’s exorbitant $250,000 per Instagram post fee. Micro-influencers, on the other hand, are far more cost-effective. Per Digiday, the average cost for someone with 100,000 followers on the various platforms would go as follows:

• Instagram – $1,000 
• Snapchat – $500 per 24 campaign  
• YouTube – $2,000

Micro-influencers, especially the smaller ones, are also more amenable to receiving free products as payment or partial compensation. In addition, they tend to become brand advocates that continue to speak on behalf of the company, instead of being bought to post a single time and then silence thereafter.  

They’re more relatable 

Followers are far more likely to trust micro-influencers because they tend to be far more relatable and down to earth, at least in the eyes of their fans. Oftentimes, they only post about products they genuinely like as opposed to macro-influencers who are paid big bucks to post whatever. Audiences know that micro-influencers are less likely to post products they hate since they’re doing so for little money, if not for free, and that they’ll receive widespread blowback from their audience for shilling a subpar product.

Easier to work with 

As is often the case, the higher in demand someone is, the less they have to care about what they do or say. Stars and talent have more power, which allows them to get away with things that they’d never have been able to when they were on the rise. The simple truth is that mega-influencers can be extremely difficult to work with. They tend to be headstrong, obstinate, and very likely won’t care as much about your brand. 

Micro-influencers, on average, are much more amenable, flexible, and receptive to your messaging and campaign goals. This creates a mutually beneficial arrangement where they’re more dependent upon pleasing you and vice versa. By working with them, you can avoid much of the headaches and drama that reportedly comes with mega-influencers.  

Open to partnerships 

Along the same lines, when you work with a micro-influencer who is a fan of your brand, you have the ability to arrange a long-term partnership where they act as a brand rep. Doing so strengthens your messaging far more than a one-time post ever would, particularly since it allows their audience to become far more familiar with the brand, its name, and message. 

Remember that most every micro-influencer is also trying to expand their reach and audience. So, if you get in early with a rising star, you may strike gold by forging a natural partnership at an agreeable rate, which continues into the future. 

You can take risks 

Because an influencer campaign doesn’t cost you much, you can experiment or take risks with messaging that you’d be unwilling to do when the price tag was much higher. Should the campaign flop, it will have little to no impact on your bottom line. As a result, you can conduct trial and error campaigns, which provide you with invaluable feedback on what works and what doesn’t. 

Also, you can give your micro-influencer more of a free rein to be creative and take risks that they might otherwise not consider. Doing so will empower them and strengthen your future relationship. 

They may already be fans 

Many micro-influencers could have already been promoting you without ever being paid a cent. Naturally, such people are more effective salesmen and more willing to work in exchange for free products or at a discount rate. So, to find enthusiastic micro-influencers, use in-depth search functions in order to see who has posted about your brand, its product, or the industry as a whole. 

Targeted audiences 

Micro-influencers have the ability to target niche communities that are more likely to respond positively to their messaging. For example, if you were a goggle brand, you’d probably get more sales from working with a professional snowboarder with tens of thousands of followers—who are also snowboard enthusiasts—over some celeb with millions of followers. In this case, the micro-influencer can help create a natural buzz that reaches your ideal consumer. So, to ensure you work with the right micro-influencer ask yourself the following:

• Is their audience your target audience?
• Is their brand in alignment with your brand identity and values? 

Authenticity 

Consumers tend to know when they’re being overtly sold something. With mega-influencers, the audience innately knows that the celebrities are likely hawking a product for a huge check. We’ve been conditioned. Our eyes are keen. With micro-influencers, particularly those that are already plugged into those niches, audiences view them as more down to earth and honest. They trust them. And trust in marketing is everything.

Don’t Overlook Micro-Influencers 

Now, there may be a time and place for working with the mega-influencer, but the analytics show that consumers are more receptive to pitches from micro-influencers. A simple cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that you’ll likely see better results working with 20 micro-influencers with 100k followers than a single mega-influencer with 2,000,000 followers. 

So, as you go about planning your 2020 influencer marketing campaign, avoid the pitfall of overlooking the power of a smaller voice sending a targeted message to an engaged audience.   

Sources

Forbes. The State of Influencer Marketing: Growing. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forrester/2019/09/02/the-state-of-influencer-marketing-growing/#118092ee4e80

Markerly. Instagram Marketing: Does Influencer Size Matter? https://markerly.com/blog/instagram-marketing-does-influencer-size-matter/

Digiday. What Influencer Marketing Really Costs. https://digiday.com/marketing/what-influencer-marketing-costs/

The post Why Brands Shouldn’t Overlook Micro-Influencers? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Nowadays, every company seems to be trying its hand at employing influencers.

As a means that has become more common practice than merely supplementary, how do brands and influencers manage to keep engagement fresh and innovative? This article will explore every fabric of this question, proposing three ways in which influencer marketing can innovate beyond its oversaturated landscape. 

Examining the Industry

Before diving into how to best utilize influencer marketing, we should iron out some definitions. What exactly is an influencer? Or, more accurately, who is an influencer? 

According to an Elon University study, a social influencer:

• Is a third-party endorser with the ability to affect audience attitudes
• Gains popularity through social networking and online media
• Acquires a following by making their personal narrative accessible to audiences
• Is viewed as more “organic” than high-profile actors or celebrities

Quality Over Quantity 

65% of influencers expect some form of compensation for their services, so influencer marketing undoubtedly comes with a cost. Thus, before investing allocated money in an influencer, it is crucial to select the influencer(s) that aligns with your brand and intention. 

Establish Your Goal

Not every business has the same objective. The top three goals that influencers are most frequently used for are:

1. Brand advocacy
2. Building awareness of a product, brand, or service
3. Appealing to new target audiences

Depending on your company’s specific goal, particular influencers may be more suitable to achieve the desired outcome, especially once you have established a budget. 

Finding Your Influencer

Where can you begin the search for your influencer?

• Agencies – If there was any doubt about the role of influencers, they have been dismantled by the existence of influencer talent agencies. Unable to connect with an influencer? Use an agency to make contact.
• Blogs – Similar to celebrity tabloids, keeping track of names who frequent blogs relevant to your niche may give you a good starting ground.
• Influencer Software – Solely relying on the word of an individual may not be enough. Install specific software to view social media trends and verify potential ROI.
• Referrals – There is no better time to make use of your network than now. Discover candidates through connections.
• Social Media – When completing background research, you will surely use social media. Straight from the source, you may use it to explore influencers and their work directly.

Choose Wisely

Here are a few tips to take into consideration before committing to particular individuals:

• Enlist a handful of long-term, highly-targeted influencers who have impeccable and consistent engagement.
• Ensure their audience aligns with your desired demographic by looking for overlap with their followers’ geographical distribution, age range, gender, tax brackets, and language.
• Influencers should only post about one or two brands on their account.
• Evaluate their relatability, knowledge, helpfulness, confidence, and articulation.
• Utilize a third-party tool to discover the influencer’s reach.

Micro-influencers with Big Results

Contrary to what might be a business’s first instinct, it isn’t necessarily the best move to immediately seek out the most prominent celebrity. Instead of relinquishing a hefty chunk of your marketing campaign funds to a macro-influencer, consider the following statistics about micro-influencers:

• Micro-influencers charge $1,000 at most per sponsored post.
• A HelloSociety study found that micro-influencers generate 60% greater engagement than other campaigns.
• Micro-influencer content is 6.7 times more effective at engaging than macro-influencers.

But, who exactly is considered a micro-influencer? Any influencer with 3 to 100,000 followers may be categorized as a micro-influencer. Beyond this sweet spot, engagement begins to decline as follower count increases correlatively.

Although their audience size may be smaller, their relationship with their fan base is stronger, which remains true of the average engagement of nano-influencers (<3,000 followers) as well. Resultantly, micro- and nano-influencers’ followers are more likely to place confidence in and accept what comes across as a recommendation from a confidante rather than a celebrity endorsement.

Real Thoughts, Not Bots

Authenticity is in. 

Read that again. Got it? Good. Because that one word should be one of the primary focuses of any influencer campaign in 2020. 

The draw of influencers stems from the fact that they are people their fan base can relate to and trust. Thus, avoid relying solely on follower counts and regurgitated statistics with no correlation to your intention. 

The Elon University study (aforementioned) identifies the sense of reliance behind Social Influencer Theory:

Influencers give off a sense of trust as a third-party sponsor for a product because of their consumer peer status…Influencers who maintain this sense of identity to their communities are looked at as relatable and credible, allowing them to become important messengers for consumers looking for recommendations on products.

By selecting influencers that genuinely believe in and love the brand they advocate, consumers will be more effectively compelled to make a purchase. According to surveys, 73% of influencers will also dedicate more effort into promoting a product if they feel passionate about it. 

With intimate details provided by the influencer, consumers may feel a reliable source has validated their purchase. 8 out of 10 consumers have actually bought a product after seeing it recommended by an influencer.

Referring Friends

In addition to endorsements, referral marketing has become a lucrative method of increasing sales and building trust among consumers. According to a study by Nielsen, it outperformed every other kind of marketing strategy across all demographics. Take a look at the numbers yourself.

Which respondents trust referrals?

• 80% of Boomers 
• 83% of Generation X 
• 85% of Millennials 
• 83% of Generation Z 

By implementing a referral program with a hired advocate, there is potential to create a self-sustaining positive feedback loop, meaning that those who accept the influencer’s referral have a higher probability of going on to refer it to their connections. 

With active effort made to build positive customer experience, 83% of consumers are willing to refer business to others. Additionally, they are 16 times more likely to share if there’s a call-to-action placed on the designated post-purchase page.

Create An Experience Consumers Want to Invest In

The days of static advertisements are long gone. Consumers need to be sold an experience to resonate. This requires a significant amount of thinking outside of the box. So, simply posting is no longer sufficient. Allow followers to be a part of the experience and ensure that the influencer’s lifestyle matches the product’s motto.

How do you craft experiences as opposed to just promoting features? Focus on cohesion and encouraging exchanges.

Brand Consistency

After selecting influencers, be sure to structure events around the influencer’s lifestyle. With a successful match, your business will be promoted organically to followers. Develop a cohesive campaign by:

• Maintaining the same language across each medium.
• Commissioning a long-term partnership with regularly scheduled series rather than singular and sporadic posts.
• Choosing influencers that post weekly or several times a week consistently.

If there is one takeaway from cultivating interactions among followers and influencers, it is that storytelling remains essential to marketing in every form. Consumers can tell when advertisements have been excessively manufactured and artificial, so give your influencer the artistic license to produce content that matches their aesthetic. 

Stimulate Dialogue

The beauty of social media is in its ability to reel in a wider range of eyes with minimal to nonexistent physical contact. By encouraging people to participate in something that can also be shared digitally and via word-of-mouth, you open the gates and the potential to reach a broader audience.

Influencers that consciously create a dialogue with their audience drives high rates of engagement. Allowing for direct communication with a few loyal consumers and externally engaging with followers about their partnership helps show consumers that their purchases are valued, further galvanizing brand loyalty.

Be Indirectly Direct

No one wants to be inundated by blatant advertisements. The entire appeal of influencers is their authenticity. These are some tactics to minimize artifice:

• Strategically place the product in photos, so they aren’t at the forefront. Tag the company, so that it remains visible but not overtly.
• Make the caption something related to the photo and not necessarily the product. This subtly hides the upfront ad-quality yet still successfully makes the consumer curious about the product.
• Use stories for more direct promotion. Influencers can discuss the product, use the swipe-up feature on Instagram, or hashtags (you want the least disruption possible). This will keep the influencer’s page engaging while encouraging followers to remain curious and active.
• Be candid with ad disclosure. Although the goal is discretion, there is a fine line between that and duplicity. 

Transparency and Accountability

Market research conducted by Label Insight discovered that 94% of the 2,000 individuals surveyed would be more inclined to be loyal to a brand if it was fully committed to transparency. With an increasingly skeptical audience, the effort to be transparent with consumers can differentiate your business from spam to potential sales.

Remember to Refresh

Amidst a society that constantly craves new content, businesses must continually search for novelty takes and twists to appeal to consumers. 

It appears that influencer marketing is not only here to stay, but ready to evolve yet again.

Keep your business aligned with current social trends or risk falling behind the competition. So, reduce your marketing team’s workload by investing in an influencer who successfully caters to their fan base. 

With intelligent research, influencer marketing has the potential to revolutionize your outcomes overnight. It’s not by chance that it’s been so pervasive, and it’s not by chance that companies are going to shift their focus from likes and follower counts to fan engagement and authentic content.  

Source: 

Extole. 15 Referral Statistics You Need to Know. https://www.extole.com/blog/15-referral-marketing-statistics-you-need-to-know/

Medium. Consistency is Key in Influencer Marketing, Pick Your Influencers Accordingly. https://medium.com/@sponsokit/consistency-is-key-in-influencer-marketing-pick-your-influencers-accordingly-96ed050a6e07

The Drum. Why Marketers Need to Get More Creative with Influencer Marketing. https://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2019/03/12/why-marketers-need-get-more-creative-with-influencer-marketing

The post Looking Ahead: 3 Ways Influencer Marketing Can Stay Innovative appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Today, one of the best ways to differentiate your brand from the dozens of competitors is by taking a two-pronged approach that utilizes both public relations and influencer marketing. But how does that work? 

Below, we’ll discuss the underlying marketing strategies and benefits to both of these lines of attack.

The Shifting Cannabis Market

Over the past decade, the Cannabis industry has grown exponentially, much in part to a shift in public sentiment of the plant towards acceptance, if not favorability. One of the primary reasons for this change in views is the result of the growing CBD market and all of the medicinal and therapeutic benefits seen therein, particularly in light of the opioid crisis. 

Such beliefs were further entrenched by the passing of the 2018 Farm Bill, which completely reshaped the CBD game by making the following changes:

• Legalized hemp that contained less than .3% THC, which in turn made CBD legal so long as it followed those limits. 
• Allowed the transfer of hemp-made products for personal or commercial reasons.
• Lifted restrictions on sale, possession, or transport of hemp-made products.  
• Promoted wide-scale hemp cultivation.

Naturally, this was met with excitement by producers and consumers alike and changed forecasting for CBD’s market growth.

Rolling Stone writes:

For years, experts have predicted that if the cannabis industry expands at its current rate, the American market will reach $20 billion by 2020. But it turns out that one market is spinning off into a mega-industry of its own: according to a new estimate from cannabis industry analysts the Brightfield Group, the hemp-CBD market alone could hit $22 billion by 2022.

Despite this legalization, CBD still operates in a relatively grey area, especially when it comes to advertising. This is why it’s crucial to focus on using influencers and PR to push and grow your brand. 

How CBD Brands Can benefit From Influencer Marketing and Public Relations?

Public relations and influencer marketing are fantastic ways that you can help establish a voice for your CBD brand. Both of these channels seek to increase brand awareness and work very synergistically with one another.

Per Business 2 Community:

As the lines between media and advertising have blurred, so to have the lines between marketing and PR. This has been especially true for PR and Influencer Marketing, particularly given the large role that PR agencies play in facilitating collaborations. The relationship has become close enough that many industry articles now refer to these strategies interchangeably, but this over-simplification can lead to confusion. 

While both strategies aim to get the brand’s message out, each has its unique strengths, tactics, and goals. However, when used properly in conjunction they are ideal complements to one another.  

The Influencer Approach

Influencers are uniquely positioned within the CBD space to skirt both advertising laws and undermine public mistrust in overt traditional advertising itself. This is particularly true for Millennials who have an innate wariness towards being sold something, unless it’s coming from a person they already follow and whose opinions they trust.

According to Forbes:

Digital personalities have become a part of a larger marketing strategy known as influencer marketing, and it is this type of marketing that Millennials accept and trust. Adweek published a study in which 57% of millennials state they are willing to view sponsored content from a brand as long as it includes authentic personalities and is entertaining and useful.

By enlisting an influencer to act as brand ambassador—whether short-term or long-term—you gain advantages that would never be found otherwise. This is largely due to the fact that influencers already have a built-in audience that is receptive to their ideas, especially those on products and brands they use. In addition, they have far higher engagement than traditional advertising. 

A 2016 Tap Influencer study confirmed this sentiment with some incredible findings, including:

• “Influencer marketing content delivers 11X higher ROI than traditional forms of digital marketing. 
• Twitter users report a 5.2X increase in purchase intent when exposed to promotional content from influencers. 
• 71% of marketers believe that ongoing ambassadorships are the most effective form of influencer marketing.
• 49% of people say they rely on recommendations from influencers when making purchase decisions.”

Micro-Influencers

Depending on the size of the marketing budget, CBD brands can enlist the services of both larger influencers, as well as micro-influencers. For the latter, it can be quite effective to procure the voice of micro-influencers who are already tied into the CBD space in some shape or way. This can include those who are tangentially related by being in the health and wellness or food sectors, or those who are directly plugged into the Cannabis market itself. 

Per Forbes:

Micro-influencers, with lower follower counts than big-time influencers but typically with higher engagement, have become the partner of choice for CBD companies. They are posting content gold, such as videos highlighting CBD products. Sometimes they temporarily add a link to the CBD company in their Instagram bio, boosting web traffic.

Ideally, you will want to work with micro-influencers that not only reach your target demographic but who believe in and have used the product to their benefit. Doing so will ensure that they speak authoritatively and passionately about how it has impacted their life for the better. Examples of ways to utilize their services include:

• Posting about the CBD brand on their Instagram channel.
• Making a video about the CBD product and how they use it.
• Tweeting deals, links, and offers. 

The PR Approach

Your PR team can help you organically build your brand and get the word out. Their goal is to create a narrative, tell a story, and build up the excitement so that a buzz is created and then the media engages and writes about the CBD brand. In addition, your PR team can help you do the following:

• Educate consumers about CBD and its many benefits.
• Build up the CBD brand and create name recognition.
• Conduct a market analysis that helps you determine your place in the market. 
• Create trust with consumers.
• Handle crisis, whether internal or external.
• Position your brand as experts.

Your PR team should be able to approach your CBD branding strategy from several angles since there are so many different potential opportunities and avenues to push CBD through. You need a team that will not only introduce your brand to the public, but that will be able to handle the resulting growth and then channel it into further success.   

At the end of the day, the essence of their job is simple—to get the word out there. They can accomplish this in a variety of ways, including:

SEO 

By building up blog content using pointed search engine optimization strategies, your PR team can help you accomplish the following:

• Increase website traffic
• Establish a steady audience
• Build up authority and credibility

This is done by creating a content strategy and schedule that’s filled with an assortment of content mediums, including blog posts, videos, infographics, etc.

Social Media 

In a day and age where social media is king, far too many CBD brands fail to pay adequate attention to their social media content and campaigns. Your PR team can help you build a social media content strategy and calendar that utilizes several types of posts, including:

• Informational posts – “What is CBD?”
• Customer testimonials – “How CBD helped me get better sleep”
• Interactive posts – “How do you prefer to use CBD?”
• Controversial posts – “Health benefits of using CBD” 

Gift Guides 

The PR team pitches the CBD product to known writers and bloggers responsible for all important gift guides, with whom they’ve previously established a relationship. Landing a spot on these is a fantastic way to expose the product to new audiences. 

Press Alerts/Press Events

Inviting the press and announcing something big and exciting relating to the CBD brand is an effective way of ensuring exposure to the public at large. 

Article Features 

Your PR team can work with writers to pitch you as an article feature, thus establishing your credibility by making yourself known as an industry leader. If you have a new innovative process, a unique business strategy, or a compelling story, these can be channeled to help build that buzz and make customers take note.  

The Two-Pronged Approach

As the CBD market continues to grow, CBD brands must be intentional in how they set themselves apart from their competition. This mission is best accomplished by utilizing both the right PR team and influencers to spread the word. Simply put, your 2020 slate hinges upon creating and sticking to a pointed strategy that gets the most out of these useful marketing avenues. 

So, get out there and start marketing! 

Sources

United States Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry. 2018 Farm Bill. https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/2018-farm-bill

Rolling Stone. Exclusive: New Report Predicts CBD Market Will Hit $22 Billion by 2022. https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/new-study-cbd-market-22-billion-2022-722852/

Business2Community. PR vs. Influencer Marketing: What’s the Difference, and Why Does It Matter? https://www.business2community.com/marketing/pr-vs-influencer-marketing-whats-difference-matter-01832766

Forbes. Millennials Hate Ads But 58% Of Them Wouldn’t Mind If It’s From Their Favorite Digital Stars. https://www.forbes.com/sites/andrewarnold/2018/01/21/millennials-hate-ads-but-58-of-them-wouldnt-mind-if-its-from-their-favorite-digital-stars/#6538106d59ca

Tap Influence. The Rise of Digital Influence. https://www.tapinfluence.com/influencer-marketing-statistics/

Forbes. Four Lessons Marketers Can Learn From CBD Brands. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/29/four-lessons-marketers-can-learn-from-cbd-brands/#36082d315c7b

The post The Pros of Influencer Marketing and PR for CBD Brands appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

Meet MOE

In 2013, Danielle’s blog was growing at a pace that she alone couldn’t manage, so she decided to look for some help. She had tried having interns in the past, but all of them seemed to have fallen short of her expectations. At this point, New York Fashion Week was on the horizon, and Danielle knew that her breaking point was near. At that moment, Danielle received an email from a FIT graduate named Moe Paretti asking for a job opportunity. Unlike previous candidates, Moe made it clear that she had no intention of becoming a blogger herself; she was just enamored with Danielle’s job and wanted to learn how she made money, helping in any way that she could. After one meeting in a coffee shop, Danielle knew she had found her perfect assistant.

What is MOE?

MOE is the first project management system designed to put control in the influencers’ hands. Over the years and as the influencer space grew larger, Danielle realized that so many other influencers needed their own perfect assistant: their own Moe. She would constantly watch her friends and colleagues struggle to stay afloat, losing their sanity in a sea of emails.

There were so many micro-influencers that had the drive and passion to make it big but were held back by all of the work it took to manage their socials and collaborations. She knew how hard it could be without having a team of managers and assistants behind you because she had been there before. Danielle’s advantage though was that she had been there, but she had also made it out; she already knew what these influencers struggled with the most and how to get passed it all. With this superior knowledge and expertise, Danielle and Moe created the perfect assistant for public relations: MOE ASSIST. 

Manage Your Projects

Manage all of your projects in one place instead of across spreadsheets and notebooks. With this program, you can manage specific details of campaigns such as post requirements, captions, hashtags, and other creative details. Danielle stated that one of the hardest things to keep track of for an influencer is all of the minute details that are required in every campaign. Moe will categorize all of the requirements of your campaigns so that you never have to worry about complying with your contracts. Also, Moe will sync to your Google Calendar, alerting you of things such as when a caption is due for approval or to post your content on your feed. 

Send Invoices and Collect Payments

Moe allows you to connect your bank account so that companies can pay influencers directly. Moe also provides the option to auto-generate an invoice for the influencer to give to the company. The program will provide notifications to both influencer and company to stay on top of invoices and make sure that the influencer receives their payment on time.

Collaborate and Get Feedback

Moe provides you with a way to share project overviews with companies with real-time feedback. All members can add comments, feedback, and approvals all in one thread to help speed up the process.

More to Come 

Although MOE already has so many features to help influencers stay more organized, the company is planning to implement so many more. The program will have the ability to link with your social networks and upload all of your social statistics. You’ll also have the ability to connect your contacts to the program, making it easier to get in touch with other people involved in your campaigns. If you would prefer to keep your mail inbox a little bit less cluttered, Moe will also offer a messaging space to communicate with people.

What Does All of This Mean?

For influencers, this could very well be the thing that takes their blog to the next level. All of the items listed above can be accessed for just $28/month, which is incredibly affordable price compared to hiring an assistant and cheap enough for even the smallest of influencers. Even those who are hesitant can explore the platform with their 30-day free trial. For marketing agencies and companies, this program should be looked at as an asset too. This way, you know that your influencers are able to see every detail of your campaigns clearly and help reduce the risk of errors. You’ll be able to leave comments and feedback on their post layouts and even on invoices, making sure that everything runs smoothly. So is MOE ASSIST going to change the influencer marketing game? Yes, but in a positive way for everyone involved.

The post Will MOE ASSIST Change Influencer Marketing? appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

TikTok, the emerging social media platform, is making strides in its influencer marketing efforts with brands by tapping into targeting Gen Z users. In June, the Chinese ByteDance startup hit 1 billion users worldwide. It is the first major social media app to be launched in and spread to the United States. Because of this, the popular social media platform has an extremely diverse audience where it is a regular occurrence for TikTok users to see videos set in foreign countries.

The social platform allows active TikTok users to take up to 60-second videos with a raw and unedited vibe. Users can edit  the short video on the  TikTok app by trimming it, layering sound over it and adding moving captions. Users can also create their own audio or choose from thousands of options in the library on the social platform. Many songs themselves become viral when they are used for video challenges on the TikTok app.

What Are Some Features?

Hashtags are heavily used and are one of the only means of being able to search on the app. Promoted hashtags like “#foryourpage” and “fyp” are commonly used as a way for users to try to get noticed on the “For You” feed reel of tiktoks. For example, if you search the trending hashtag “#spookychallenge,” you will see a full feed of videos related to the spooky skeleton dance challenge.

The main feed on the app has an inclusive TikTok algorithm that gives both trending videos and videos without any likes a chance to be viewed on TikTok’s main feed. This enhances the opportunity for users without large followings to go viral and become the next TikTok influencer.

A duet TikTok video app feature also encourages engagement by allowing users to comment on previously made videos with a split-screen. This is the primary way users can interact with each other, aside from being able to like and comment on photos from other content creators. There is no direct messaging component just yet.

A few common  short video themes you can see throughout the popular app are dance challenges, makeup tutorials, recipe ideas, lipsyncing, comedy, and a growing celebrity presence. The possibilities are endless in regards to user generated content creation, the more unique the video, the better. For a TikTok creator, out of the box ideas are encouraged as they tend to gain more TikTok presence and  traction.

Who’s Using the App

Celebrities like Will Smith, Brittany Spears, and Ariana Grande are just a few that have hopped on the TikTok train and are posting regularly to engage with fans. Celebrities often engage in the trending TikTok challenges for a more personable approach. This is an advantageous app they use to engage with their followers in a less glamorized way. Instagram tends to be an outlet where we put our best foot forward, whereas, on TikTok, silliness is welcomed.

Doctors, lawyers, bakeries, e-commerce shops, and law enforcement are just a few examples of industries that are getting recognition. Showcasing their craft and day-to-day activities has become a way for the younger crowd to get a glimpse at different career paths. Lawyers and doctors commonly share how they got to the position they now have today, and it tends to do well on the app.

Influencer Marketing

TikTok Influencer marketing is a largely untapped territory and opportunity for brands to begin cashing in on. @daviddobrik, a comedy centered page, has over six million followers and over 51.7 million likes on his page. He recently partnered with Chipotle by taking part in the Chipotle Flip Challenge. Other influencers are beginning to partner with brands including Bumble, Curology, and ThreadUp on the app.

60% of the users on TikTok are between the ages of 16 and 24, with 60% being female. Many influencers often film their content in the comfort of their bedrooms, allowing for a less aggressive and more authentic marketing approach. These influencers are the ones driving the newest trends to this younger audience. It is easy for brands to grow brand loyalty and brand awareness through unfiltered videos.

Impact on Brands

TikTok is currently working with brands by informing them what type of paid content is performing well and who they should work with. However, it is hard for companies to find the right TikTok creator because of their limited searching tactics, which is why it is best to partner with a Tiktok agency.

There are crisis management tips we can take away from brands and their experiences with the app. Restaurant chain employees exposing the way food is made and served has become a viral trend for content creators. A video went viral of a Panera Bread employee filming that their infamous mac n cheese is frozen and warmed in hot water before being served. Panera then let out a statement informing its food prep process and that the company had cut ties with the employee. 

Headlines now focus on the employee being fired, a human target in comparison to the giant chain. The story and video are now both gaining more traction rather than disappearing. Instead, Panera could have capitalized on this by inviting the employee to their food creation centers or making TikTok content themselves showing how their food is prepared before being placed in those plastic bags.

The opportunity to engage in the conversation in a positive and humorous way would place companies and your digital marketing agency in a better position. Trying to cover up the mess places guilt on the company and makes consumers think about what else they’re hiding behind the scenes.

TikTok also poses a threat to brands from its trending encouragement of behavior that crosses the line for an increase in impressions. Risky, illegal and exposing themes are all seen throughout the app in hopes that the user will get a quick taste of TikTok fame. Brands need to have a TikTok presence if they feel that their messaging could be a good fit. If not, it is crucial to monitor activity related to your brand on the app to work proactively towards putting out any fires.

Overall, TikTok is a new and emerging marketing platform that seems to have an evergreen future for brand marketers to capitalize on. Brands often have trouble trying to find an angle to target Gen Z appropriately, and this is the perfect outlet to do so. Finding the time to scrape the app to search for influencers that match your brand’s messaging is a new and impactful way to convert your target audience in an authentic way that will ultimately build your brands’ awareness and loyalty worldwide.

The post Tik Tok Marketing 101 appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

In other words, the average viewer won’t be able to see-externally-how much attention a certain post received. This new update has posed a concern for those involved in an influencer agency or influencer marketing. If you are an Instagram user yourself, you may have already noticed these hidden likes on your feed. Luckily, our digital marketing agency has remained on top of this update and is here to help!

Why Would Instagram Remove Like Visibility?  

Isn’t the entire platform of Instagram based on “liking” posts? While this feature has been an integral aspect of their core design, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said: 

We want people to worry a little bit less about how many likes they’re getting on Instagram and spend a bit more time connecting with the people they care about. 

What he’s saying is that Instagram is trying to curb the social pressure and mental health concerns surrounding the unhealthy nature of validation, societal comparison, and depersonalization through social media. 

A Concern for Influencers

While many people support Instagram’s new mission of hiding likes, the upgrade on the social media app poses a threat to the Instagram Influencer, seeing as it’s forever been their form of digital currency. If they receive more likes, they remain competitive. If they remain competitive, their business thrives.

Of course, it’s not that simple of a formula but, fundamentally, “likes” are one the biggest engagement metrics influencers and marketers lean on. 

Being that this fundamental change is now causing somewhat of an outrage-with many believing it’s only the beginning of a platform-wide shift-people need to realize that the future isn’t that bleak for this social media platform.

The Reality: It’s A Change, Not An Ending 

The truth is that Influencer Marketing is heavily dependent on Instagram metrics. Likes and comments are a direct correlation to user engagement, and high user engagement is the main goal for Influencers. Thus, Influencers are terrified that their brand(s) is going to suffer and they won’t be able to fulfill their contracts or deliver on their various types of campaigns.

Here’s why they’re wrong:

The Like Isn’t Vanishing! 

It’s a massive change, yes, but the ability to “like” a post isn’t going to be disabled, it just doesn’t show the exact like count as it used to. A few reasons Influencers shouldn’t be worried:

• They Can Still Get Likes – Sure, not showing likes externally will likely reduce the number of likes given, but that doesn’t mean they’re disappearing. An Instagram user that engages with the content will still be able to honor them with the “double-tap.” Plus, accounts can still receive comments which is another way customers can interact with a post.
  
• Influencers Retain Control of the Metric in the Instagram App – Influencers aren’t in the dark when it comes to likes. They’ll still be able to see what posts were liked and how many were garnered. This means they’ll have full visibility on user engagement from their end. Point being: they’re not blind to their audience.
• A More Intimate Relationship with Partners – Marketers are now going to ask their influencers to share their metrics beforehand. This creates the foundation for a more authentic partnership. Social media influencers can showcase their strengths by providing “hidden” data, helping to optimize an influencer marketing strategy.

Related Article: How to Leverage Content With Influencer Marketing

Engagement Rate Doesn’t Lose Relevance!

The reality is that engagement isn’t going to decline because there is no external like count. And, being that Instagram is expected to lose 20% of their daily likes, this means the entire scale tips downward. 

It’s still an even playing field. 

Many believe that removing Instagram likes is going to pave the way for further engagement because the connections made will be more authentic. This shift opens a window for high-quality content driven by hard quantifiable data, which can actually make the user to influencer relationship more impactful. As long as influencers invest their focus towards quality content, their engagement scores with their target audience should continue to rise.

Sharyn Smith, CEO of Social Soup, says:

If you focus on the science of influence, and not on vanity metrics, the loss of public likes to the public has little impact. In fact, it will make influencer marketing a more powerful proposition in the future as we look at genuine influence rather than a like which becomes momentary habitual behavior.

Measuring Success In More Intelligent Ways 

To piggyback on the last point, the habitual nature of liking muddies the relationship between like and engagement. In layman’s terms, just because someone liked a post doesn’t mean they’re engaged or even care that much. 

• New Metrics – Now, metric measuring options like UTM codes and Accounts Reached (with a story) are going to be some of the primary drivers of an influencer campaign. It’s not just about superficial likes or how many people are out there tapping on a given post, it’s about how successful an influencer is at driving traffic to a business. 

Brand & Influencer, A Better Relationship 

Additionally, now that metrics are going to be more pointed, the relationship between the marketer and influencer might undergo a monumental shift. 

A shift for the better.

Kady Hobbins, the creator of Kaden Ave Communications, says:

We try to encourage our clients not to put too much stock into vanity metrics like likes. We try to encourage them and tell them it’s not about the numbers. It’s about having your actual customers following you and giving them a good customer journey and experience. And then maybe converting them, so whether that’s getting them to book an appointment if it’s a hair salon, or click through to the link in your bio to purchase a product. We try to have those as goals and outcomes that we report to them, rather than just how many people are liking their photos.

The point is that brands are going to be further aligned with influencers that represent their core message through a brand ambassador program. And, as millennials grow weary of the influencer marketing landscape, they often distrust brands that stand out as having paid to place their ads—especially when it’s with a personality that isn’t aligned with their core values. This marketing strategy provides influencers the opportunity to help a company help drive sales and improve brand recognition. Influencer brand ambassadors become the face of said brand, so ambassador credibility becomes crucial. 

Content > Influencer 

Another paradigm shift that will likely occur due to Instagram removing likes is that content will become even more important. Even before Instagram began changing its ruleset, marketers were growing more aware that great content often trumps an “amplified” account. This is only going to put more emphasis on quality content, hopefully creating a more authentic marketing terrain on the app. 

The Rise of Micro-Influencers

Being that 93% of influencer campaigns rely on Instagram, marketers are unlikely to pivot away from the social media platform. If this article has taught you anything, it’s that with change comes opportunity—in other words, new strategies.

• Focus On Communities – Influencers will now have to dig a little deeper into their audience, ensuring that they know which communities are in their orbit. Why? Because marketers are going to start prioritizing marksmanship (on their end) rather than big influencer accounts. This creates an opportunity for Influencers to have even more value.
• Smaller Influencers – It’s also likely that marketers are going to start turning to nano or micro-influencers as a way of accurate targeting. Their value proposition becomes more interesting when vanity metrics fall by the wayside, seeing as deeper engagement is now what’s coveted. 

Smaller Influencers tend to have niche-followings that are extremely engaged with their personalities. If marketers can align themselves with several micro-influencers that have a ubiquitous niche, they could easily drive better engagement than utilizing bigger Influencers. 

Content Form Shift

For a good while, marketers have been witnessing the resurgence of the short-form video. With TikTok’s unbelievable success and YouTube adding its “reels” feature, we’re going back to the “snapshot” form of content. 

But what does this mean for Influencers?

It means that with this new era of Instagram, it might be time to rethink their content structure. It’s not only going to force Influencers to pay more attention to their own metrics (not to mention ensuring the authenticity of their messaging) but also to adapt to how people want to digest content.

These types of shifts create opportunities for new trends. An example of a trend making its way to the mainstream in response to social media’s new landscape is the Amazon Influencer Program. This is yet another exciting opportunity and platform for social media influencers to increase revenue by collaborating with Amazon brands.

The Change—It Was Already in Motion 

The reality is that vanity metrics have been exposed in recent years. Marketers realize that the amount of “likes” an Instagram post gets doesn’t necessarily translate to how well an Influencer can drive traffic to a business. Many strategies call for deeper performance metrics, those that rely on evaluating engagement well past how many people double-tap their screens.

While Adam Mosseri says “we don’t want Instagram to feel like a competition,” he’s also saying that Instagram has forced a change that was inevitable. The paradigm has shifted but that doesn’t mean it’s constricting. 

Take A Breath Influencers, This Is Opportunity!

The removal of likes will inevitably force social media influencers to focus on their content quality and follower engagement instead of their popularity across social media. By and large, if they take the proper strides towards optimizing their business, they can become even more valuable.

The real value drivers have remained static. Followers are still going to engage when they’re enticed. These primary facets of the influencer relationship aren’t changing because followers can’t see how many likes each post has. 

They’re still there. They’re still tangible. 

Influencers just need to pay a bit more attention, focus on their content, and adapt to the new—and every much equal—playing field.

Sources:

BBC News. Instagram hides likes count in international test ‘to remove pressure’

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-49026935

BANDT. No Likes, No Worries! Influencers Welcome Changes to Instagram

https://www.bandt.com.au/no-likes-no-worries-influencers-welcome-changes-instagram/

Forbes. Is TikTok The Next Big Thing In Influencer Marketing?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2019/06/17/is-tiktok-the-next-big-thing-in-influencer-marketing/#108ebf5f13ba

Mobile Marketer. Study: 93% of influencer campaigns use Instagram. 

https://www.mobilemarketer.com/news/study-93-of-influencer-campaigns-use-instagram/542985/

Good Morning America. Why this popular influencer likes removing “likes” from Instagram

https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/culture/story/popular-influencer-likes-removing-likes-instagram-65365015

The post The Effects of Instagram Removing Likes appeared first on Power Digital Marketing.

What Is a Brand Ambassador?

Brand Ambassador Programs are marketing campaigns where an influencer or influencer agency serve as cheerleaders or a brand advocate for a company to help drive sales and improve brand recognition and PR outreach.

Whether it’s filming video tutorials about the product or posting pictures on Instagram, Brand ambassador programs come in many forms. All that really matters is that your ambassadors genuinely use-and love-your product or service. Don’t know how to find a potential brand ambassador for your company? We can help! Read on to find out more about this fascinating new marketing strategy!

Benefits of Brand Ambassador Programs

Influencer brand ambassadors serve as the face of a company’s culture. The main job of a potential brand ambassador is to spread a company’s message to a target audience using their social media following and credibility. About 90% of customers say that they trust recommendations from people they know, so effective brand ambassador programs are essential to your marketing strategy. Here’s why they work.

Retention-Focused

Most likely, you have an existing marketing strategy in place to reach out to new audiences. Brand ambassador programs take the baton and run with it—these programs focus instead on brand retention and brand loyalty. Brand ambassadors are perfect for fostering a loyal community around your brand and, most importantly, maintaining it.

Long-Term

Just like any relationship, longevity matters. Brand ambassador programs last from 6 to 12 months, unlike traditional influencer marketing. The long-term nature of these programs allows for consumer loyalty to grow organically. Aligning your company with credible ambassadors with a large social media following will help grow your company’s social media presence over time.

Influencer Gifting

Influencer marketing relies heavily on sponsored advertisements and shout-outs, which can be quite costly for growing companies. One benefit of brand ambassador programs is that oftentimes,  a potential ambassador will accept gifts and recognition in exchange for their participation.

Not only will this relieve a financial burden, but it will also ensure that your ambassadors are motivated by their love and loyalty for your company. The sincere use of a product or service by a brand ambassador is what makes them valuable, as opposed to media influencers simply motivated by paid opportunities. 

Open to All 

The beauty of brand ambassador programs is that they target customers from all walks of life. Not only can brand ambassadors themselves come from a diverse pool of influencer or an influencer agency, but so can the communities they influence. For this reason, these programs are essential for gaining trust with a wide array of potential customers.

Creates a Community

If you had the option to buy cookies from a grocery store or from your friend, which would you choose? Your friend, right? That’s why cultivating a community around your brand is more important than ever. An Effective brand ambassador program brings your company closer to their consumers, and the more loyalty people have for your company, the more likely they are to buy your cookies.

What’s more, a potential ambassador doesn’t have to be a huge star that is expensive to work with. Small media influencers are just as valuable, as they target very specific niches in your consumer pool.

Social Media is ever changing. With talk of Instagram removing likes, the dynamic of popularity and awareness stems straight from the Influencers content and the credibility that follows. Likes are no longer a factor. Potential ambassadors are instead focused on finding other ways to maintain and grow engagement with their target audience. What sets you apart from the crowd? Influencers with a sense of community and loyalty are what Brands are setting out for. Establish your worth and create a following different from the rest with strong values. After all, a potential brand ambassador will become the face of your brand.

How to Start Your Own Brand Ambassador Program?

Interested in this promising marketing strategy? No worries, you’re covered. Here are some tips on creating a brand ambassador program that sticks.

Structure Your Program Carefully

Gathering charismatic kiddos to talk about your company does not an ambassador program make! Your program needs to be carefully designed to include goals, milestones, rules, and benefits. A well-structured ambassador program will entice potential ambassadors while also giving them clear guidelines for how to bring brand awareness. 

Furthermore, you have to decide whether your program is exclusive or inclusive. The benefit of an exclusive program is that ambassadors feel special, and you have a tighter grip on the image you are promoting. On the other hand, an inclusive program helps spread the message faster and to a broader audience. 

Establish Your Goals from the Get-Go

Determine the core mission behind your ambassador program before you begin your outreach. In order to be an effective evangelist for your brand, an ideal ambassador needs to know why they are doing what they are doing. Is your goal to reach out to a younger target audience? Or maybe you are entering an entirely new industry and need people to know! Whatever it is, make it clear to your ambassadors.

Make Ambassadors Love You

Design an incentive program that truly motivates your ambassadors. Although you don’t want to be a company that pays for positive reviews, you still have to offer your ambassadors something enticing. One of the main ways to do so is by awarding them free access to your service or gifting them merch. You can also spin gift-giving as a part of your marketing strategy by having them be the first to try out new products.

Find Your Most Vocal Supporters

Chances are, your company already has many dedicated followers shouting you out on social networks. Maybe they’re always posting tweets about your products, or maybe they’re constantly commenting on your Instagram Stories. Whatever it may be, take advantage of the existing pool of loyal customers you have and see who you can recruit for your program. 

Another great place to find soon-to-be ambassadors is on credible review sites like Yelp. Here, you can engage with satisfied existing customers and recruit them into an ambassador role.

To better target these potential ambassadors, offer them incentives beyond those of your regular ambassadors. This way, you recognize their brand loyalty, make them feel special, and motivate them to participate with even more gusto!

Brand Ambassador Programs That Work

Before starting your company’s new brand ambassador program, check out some of these success stories for some added inspiration. These stories show how you can creatively tailor your program to your industry and the communities you wish to impact. 

Red Bull

This powerhouse energy drink company knows that consumers don’t want to see ads. They take this knowledge and run with it, targeting consumers with content that their 18 to 34-year-old demographic actively seeks. This content is created by their brand ambassador program, The Wings Team. These thrill-seekers embody Red Bull’s high-energy message by posting about their adrenaline-junkie activities and extreme lifestyles. 

This program is highly successful due to its ability to connect the coolness of The Wings Team to the product itself: jumping out of planes and drinking red bull? Same thing, basically. In return, The Wings Team gets free Red Bull, an exclusive platform, and incredible publicity.

Xbox

The video game industry is the largest in the entertainment world and it’s only getting bigger. Xbox stands out because of its incredible brand ambassador program—Ambassador X—which integrates the art of gaming with the influence of social media. Xbox ambassadors help the community improve by answering questions and encouraging users to take advantage of the wide variety of products and services the company offers.

Just like anything else Xbox creates, this program is gamified at its core. Ambassadors are motivated to perform actions to unlock different rewards like merch, hidden game levels, or registration for exclusive gaming competitions. The success of this program has made Xbox a competitive force in the world of gaming and streaming. 

Lululemon

An overwhelming force in the athleisure world, this stylish yoga apparel company succeeds in part due to its highly successful and far-reaching brand ambassador program. Lululemon ambassadors are chosen based on location, so they have specific influence over the communities surrounding Lululemon stores. This brand ambassador program is not limited to posting on social media, which is why it stands out. Ambassadors will host free yoga classes in stores, lead running clubs, and organize other activities to endear Lululemon to the local community even more. 

Harley Davidson

When people think of brand ambassador programs, they usually think of retail companies or energy drinks. Never would someone guess that there is a program specifically for the leather-jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding fans of Harley Davidson. In all actuality, however, Harley Davidson is the perfect company for a program like this. They have curated their image to a tee, and they capitalize on that with their HOG ambassador program.

To be a member of the 325,000-member program, you must own a Harley. HOG members are charged with representing the legacy and luxury of the Harley Davidson brand while dishing out advice on bike maintenance and building community. This program thrives because of its ability to foster a community around a shared love for those cherished choppers. 

Something new to the scene is Amazon’s Influencer Program. In this program, Amazon offers a personal storefront for the individual influencer where they can promote Amazon products that align with their brand. Here, they earn a commission from product sales and Amazon can track sales generated by the Influencer’s specific URL. Influencer Storefronts like this provide valuable insights for Brands as to which influencers have significant social media reach that are actively making an impact on their Brand’s awareness and success.

Closing Thoughts

In a time where trust is more important than ever, brand ambassador programs are vital for any digital marketing campaign. Brand ambassador programs are the best way to target new consumers and retain existing ones because they rely on word of mouth credibility instead of flashy advertising. Brand ambassadors genuinely love the products they represent, so create your own program and start spreading the love today!

Sources:

Business News Daily. 3 Reasons Your Company Could Benefit From a Brand Ambassador Program. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/11023-brand-ambassador-program.html

Duel. 5 Successful Brand Ambassador Program Examples. https://duel.tech/5-successful-ambassador-programs/

Linkedin. 40 Employee Advocacy Statistics To Build A Case For Social Business. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-favourite-employee-advocacy-statistics-sarah-goodall/

Salesforce. How to Start a Successful Ambassador Program for Your Business. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/12/start-ambassador-program.html

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