Sharing & consuming: the PR implications for the internet of the future

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, there will be some interesting shifts in internet usage come 2015:

- Global internet traffic will quadruple by 2015
- Asia Pacific will be the region doing the most file sharing, dwarfing North America and Western Europe
- North America and Western Europe will lead the way in business IP traffic
- Western Europe will be the dominant VoIP market, driven by services like Skype
- Asia Pacific will be the number region for internet gaming, followed by North America
- North America will watch significantly more internet TV than other regions Read the rest of this entry »

What PR agencies can learn from the problems caused by freedom of information

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Any Tom, Dick or Harry can set up a Twitter account or blog and start spouting off. The difference between what’s interesting to others and not just to the author is insights. It’s all about content, as we all should know by now.

But that’s not what I want to spout about. What I want to discuss is why so many people these days have such a limited general knowledge and what this means for marketers, PR people and advertisers. We are in a rapidly spiraling decline in terms of our abilities to process and disseminate information and this is of huge importance to anyone selling a product or service. Read the rest of this entry »

If it ain’t fun, why are we doing it?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

This morning at the Marketing Association’s Brainy Breakfast, I heard from two speakers: Tarver Graham of Gladeye, a digital agency, and Shane Bradley from daily-deal website, GrabOne. It was the best brainy breakfast I’ve been to because I took away some confirmations of what I already thought (always a nice feeling) and some other fresh takeaways. This is what it told me… Read the rest of this entry »

Will Facebook enter banking and why is it important for PR?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

As I’ve mentioned previously on this blog, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of geo-location services like Facebook Places and Foursquare. I can see the value, but it’s not great enough for me to be bothered about doing it for myself. I enjoyed the novelty factor of it all when it first came on to the scene, yet I struggled to stay interested in it as people started to spam each other with their irrelevant location.

Anyway, there is a buzz on the interwebs at the moment that could change the way we all see location. In very broad and sweeping terms, Facebook could be on its way to becoming the world’s biggest bank. It makes total sense when you think about it. As ‘The Next Web’ informs us, savvy brands are already facilitating some purchases through their Facebook pages. However, this is still pretty limited in its scope. It would be relatively simple for Facebook to allow its 600 million or so users to start buying all kinds of products and services directly on Facebook. It would go from being the facilitator to the transactor and suddenly start making infinitely more money. Read the rest of this entry »

PR People Take Note - Targeted Social Networks Are Coming

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We have Twitter for instantaneous news collection, dissemination and research; Facebook for a mix of personal and professional networking and larger community collection; LinkedIn for keeping our professional profile updated and for recruitment; Foursquare for broadcasting your location; Facebook Places for following the location of others, blogging for deeper content and so on and so forth.

It seems we have all we need in terms of the large social networks. What we need now is services that filter, structure and personalise the kind of information that flows through these channels. In essence, this is the reason why the Old Spice virals took off. The minute the personalised videos started appearing is when it went from very successful to stratospheric promotion for the brand. We also need products that better connect the ‘real world’ with the internet, in a meaningful way of course.

A couple of resources come to mind here. One is Planely, a service that allows you to see if anyone in your network is getting on the same flight so you can meet for a drink or share a cab. That’s all it’s for, and therefore some would say limited. However, I’d argue that it’s useful for the very same reason – there is no confusion as to why you are using it so you are more likely to achieve outcomes for your input of time. Read the rest of this entry »

2010 was great, but 2011 will be better

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I recently shared my thoughts on StopPress.co.nz on what’s happened in New Zealand’s marketing world in 2010. It got me looking back on what has been a great year. It also got me thinking about what lies in store for 2011.

Here are some of the biggest professional realisations I will take away from 2010:

• Communications is about creating content, be it a press release for a journalist to use or social media fodder for people to consume and share. I knew this already, but I didn’t realise how much of a skill content creation is. We can all create content, but that doesn’t mean we can all create dynamic, successful content
• One day in the not too distant future, we might stop having marketing silos. When I started in PR a few years ago, I only knew the dictionary style definitions of what it entailed and the same goes for how it is different from marketing and advertising. Now that we have all become so muddied in what defines our place in the market, it might be wise to just have one marketing function, all contributing ideas directly into the same pot and do away with all the confusing titles Read the rest of this entry »

#markchat : The Idea Economy – how do we think creative before delivery?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We increasingly speak about the difference between online and offline and how, sooner rather than later, we will all be walking around with iPad-style devices. In a few years, we won’t read print newspapers, certainly not on a daily basis, and we will consume only nuggets of information. Anything bigger than that will be too big for our shrunken attention spans to comprehend. And Social media has been the greatest accelerator of these trends. As a result of this wave of digital activity, you’d think it’s made the world more creative and more linked to the business objectives because there are more opportunities to talk direct to consumers and more channels for releasing ideas into the world. But, I’m not sure this is the case. Read the rest of this entry »

Two Ears, One Mouth: Social Media and Continuous Dialogue

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I’ve heard or read that many marketing types believe that one of the themes of social media next year will be continuous dialogue with customers. For a while I thought this sounded great; ongoing dialogue means more opportunities for marketing. And this is all synonymous with social media, or so they have us believe…

Having mulled it over, I’m not convinced that ongoing dialogue is the right way forward for most brands. Let me quickly clarify something. I feel that, broadly speaking, there are two types of brands when it comes to social media and online marketing: those that I call ‘utility brands’ and those that aren’t. Utility brands are those in the utility sectors themselves, along with pseudo-utility brands like telcos, banks and public sector organisations. Utility brands are those where we have few opportunities to switch (think long term contracts with electricity companies or telcos). Non-utility brands are those that we can pick up and discard easily. If a restaurant is rubbish, we just won’t go back, for instance. Read the rest of this entry »

Correlating social media with ROI… a ‘this much I know’ blog post)

Posted by: Robyn Ellson

It’s been almost a week since the end of Social Media Junction 2 and this has given me some time to digest that tricky conundrum of equating social media with a return in investment.

Business being business before investing considerable time and resource into social media I can imagine that a lot of senior executives will want to know what this will do to their bottom line, but the thing about social media ROI is that there is no hard and fast answer on what impact it will have on sales. For a start, not everyone is engaging in the social media space the right way. For example, posting tid-bits of information about your products and services on Facebook is unlikely to win you many friends (or their influence) and may even impact negatively on your business… because no one wants to associate with a tin of spam, hey? Read the rest of this entry »

Social Media Junction 2 - The Public Sector Workshop

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

For the opening day of Social Media Junction 2, we held a Public Sector Workshop, spearheaded by Simon Wakeman. Simon is Head of Communications for Medway Council in the UK and is considered a thought-leader in online communications within the public sector. He regularly speaks at conferences and blogs on his personal site, which you can find here.

The day began with audience members being asked to write down their expectations for the workshop, along with their personal role within the public sector. This was a useful way for people to get to know each other and a timely reminder of the importance of sharing information and experiences between delegates as much as gaining insights from the speakers themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

Does a smaller budget increase creativity? #Markchat tomorrow at 12.30pm

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I’ve often heard people say that a smaller budget increases creativity. They argue that because you have less money and fewer resources, you have to think harder. The brain working on overtime produces better results because you don’t have the option of throwing cash at marketing without much forethought. I certainly agree that massive budgets often breed lazy marketing; however, I’m not sure the opposite is a truth that can be confidently stated.

Sometime it’s true that a smaller budget increases creativity, but smaller budgets just as often deliver rubbish ideas. For me, it’s a bit like the kids at university who claimed that doing their papers on the night before they needed to be handed in was preferable as they ‘performed better under pressure’. I didn’t buy that line then and I don’t now. How can necking copious amounts of Red Bull and coffee and staying up for longer than anyone should be awake deliver your optimum effort?

Anyway, we digress. Tomorrow, at 12.30pm NZ time, we are doing #markchat and we want to hear your opinions on the topic above.

To kick-start your thinking, I had a look for great examples of small budgets delivering great creativity. I didn’t come up with a huge selection; partly because I wasn’t sure what people would define as a ‘small’ budget (I would guess it is relative to the competition). That said, this guy has done some very cost-effective marketing over the years, despite a large personal fortune. And these guys have long driven an idea/campaign I love, which hasn’t been expensive compared to others in the market.

On the other end of the spectrum, here is one terrible piece of marketing that would have cost a fair wedge of budget and here is another, more recent example that has received a fair amount of criticism. Oh, and here’s another for those of you who want more.

Does NZ ‘ness’ matter for brands? #markchat

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Is there a New Zealand quality to New Zealand brands? Does it truly come through and is it useful? Should we express New Zealand ‘values’ to brands?

These are the questions we kicked off today’s #markchat with and it stirred lots of useful debates.

The general feeling seemed to be that a Kiwi flavor to the brand is useful and relevant so long as it isn’t forced. The brand is partly responsible for fostering this ‘NZ-ness’, but the consumer will ultimately decide whether it feels right and whether it sticks. Speaking of brand perceptions, the consensus was that people have long memories. Both Bullet PR’s Jennifer Duval-Smith and Gen-i’s Chris Quin had interesting points and questions on this subject. Read the rest of this entry »

Does branding enable B2B business? #markchat

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Does branding enable B2B business?

This is the subject for tomorrow’s #markchat. And here are a few questions and points to get you thinking in advance.

Perhaps senior decision makers choose partners and suppliers based on existing relationships. But these relationships could also have started due to intelligent B2B branding. There may have been a moment in time, perhaps before the decision maker was senior or even in the position to make these choices, when a brand got the message right and established the connection. Or maybe not. Sometimes these business to business agreements are a case of circumstance, such as when two offices are located near each other, for example. This could be the main reason why a business uses a printing company. It may have nothing to do with their logo.

Speaking of logo, to what degree does design of a logo contribute to the credibility of the business? I’d wager that it’s quite influential, although it’s up for debate how much of a factor this is. It’s been suggested, for instance, that the new BNZ logo was a result of a need for a more serious symbol in the corporate side of the banking operation.

And when it comes to the differences between consumer focused and B2B branding, what about websites? How does the choice of what information we share contribute to branding? Taking it one step further, in this amalgamated world of information we all live in, how much of a difference is there between consumer and B2B branding these days?

Please join us at 12.30pm tomorrow for #markchat; we’d love to hear your opinions.

PR Conundrum: How to turn ‘like’ into ‘I’ll buy’

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We are all in the business of encouraging as many people as possible to be more engaged with the products of our clients. And we want this to lead to increased sales and revenue. The issue is that ‘likes’ and ‘follows’ don’t necessarily translate into ‘buys’. There is a big difference between the ‘like’ of the potential customer letting you converse with them and the ‘love’ of actual purchases.

But how do we untangle this complex situation? A friend recently alerted me to a cool set of new adverts by Foster’s, the beer made in Australia and consumed primarily in the UK. I think the adverts are really funny; they also make me feel more engaged with the brand and I’ve already told plenty of other folk about them, so they have the talkability factor.

The problem is that I would never buy Foster’s. It tastes god-awful and I only bought it when I was a broke student. I’d like to buy it because I love the adverts. I just can’t bring myself to get a crate of something I wouldn’t use. I imagine the adverts will help increase sales as it will influence people choosing between Foster’s and a beverage of similar quality. So I guess it’s done its job. It did get me wondering though whether the quality of the creative was directly proportional to the effect it will have on selling more beer? Read the rest of this entry »

#markchat round three: social media and ROI

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We held the third #markchat yesterday, with the aforementioned topic of ‘Social Media Engagement and ROI’.

Plenty of great points, suggestions and debates appeared in the tweet stream and it really feels like we have something with huge potential on our hands. It even climbed up the trending ladder in Auckland, which is cool.

I’m going to struggle to articulate all the salient comments, but here we go… Read the rest of this entry »

Bullet PR speaks on ‘Social Media for Professional Networking’ at Social Media Club

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

We were part of an interesting Social Media Club on Tuesday night. The topic was ‘Social Media for Social Networking’, an important topic for us all.

Our speakers were:

Linda Coles, trainer and speaker on building and maintaining relationships online (www.bluebanana.co.nz; @bluebanana20)

Jane Kennelly, Company Director of frog recruitment, industry veteran and innovator (www.frogrecruitment.co.nz; @frogrecruitment)

And me, Alex Erasmus of Bullet PR (www.bulletpr.co.nz; @AlexErasmus)

Linda mainly discussed LinkedIn and we can all use it for establishing and strengthening business relationships. I think her talk reminded everyone of the points of difference that LinkedIn has over the likes of Facebook. The most pertinent point for me was that it only takes a few minutes a day to keep your online profile looking good. In many ways, it’s simply a ‘hygiene factor’ for when you’re looking for work, but it’s a good habit to get into.

Jane Kennelly of frog recruitment showed she is one of the few in her sector who is embracing social media. There is certainly a sea change in recruitment, where employers are now often looking at LinkedIn profiles and not CV’s. This is especially true for those working in media, but will surely be true of many more jobs in future. This is, like a lot of social media related subjects, heavily tied in to faster broadband, free wi-fi zones and smart phone adoption. Jane gave the example of MOTAT, who produced a great recruitment video, which beats traditional methods.

I finished the evening with a quick run-through my take on online networking. My opinion is that you should start by being interested in what others are saying and listen to their responses. It also pays to have a clear understanding of what you are looking for from the relationship. Networking for networking’s sake doesn’t do any of us any favours. Moreover, are you actually adding value online? Rather than trying to connect with as many people as you can, why not try and do something different from others in your field so that people want to connect with you? This is a much better way of approaching it. Read the rest of this entry »

#Markchat: social media engagement is fine, but how do you evaluate and define ROI?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

To those who are new to this #markchat business, it’s a weekly Twitter conversation at 12.30pm (NZ time) every Thursday. Each week we have a different topic and encourage new people to join us. We started it as a way for people to have a conversation around a relevant topic amidst all the clutter we see online. We co-host it with one of our clients, Michael Holt, CEO of gardyneHOLT design. To follow the conversation, simply search for the hashtag #markchat using TweetDeck, Seesmic or a similar tool. Alternatively, you can go to www.wthashtag.com/markchat

This week we will be talking about how you take social media beyond engagement to the point of evaluating ROI. This is also the over-arching topic of the conference we are hosting - Social Media Junction – on November 16^th and 17^th. This time, we will look to focus more on B2B brands, rather than the typical consumer brands people reference in these conversations (Apple, Coca-Cola etc.) Read the rest of this entry »

Do we need Twitter as a Mini-Facebook? What PR Consultants need to be aware of

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

What with the launch of the #NewTwitter, it seems apt to speak about what the changes are going to mean for the social space in terms of PR. Twitter’s changes are all with a view to making it more responsive so that you work less for more information. The increased functionality could herald some worrying times ahead for the various applications like TweetDeck, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see how this pans out. In terms of looks, it’s moving towards an iPad feel. Read more about it here and here. Read the rest of this entry »

The Future of Real Estate – Social and Digital Engagement

Posted by: Nicholas O'Flaherty

I recently delivered a presentation at Realestate.co.nz’s ‘Future of Real Estate Conference’. I spoke about how real estate agents could use social media to engage with potential customers.

One of the overarching themes of the event was how real estate agents can make themselves a central part of their local communities. This can be achieved through a mix of talking about the local property market and also about news in the surrounding area.

This can be anything from local festivals to new shops opening. It’s another example of how online communications are becoming more personalised in order to increase their relevance. Here’s a great example of a real estate agent leveraging the most out of online. Thanks to fellow speaker, Joel Burslem for highlighting this one.

In terms of my presentation, these were the main points I discussed:

· The relationship between PR, SEO and the real estate industry

· The changing nature of being an influencer

· The differences between a journalist and a blogger and why this matters

· Business outcomes off the back of social media Read the rest of this entry »

The Complexities of Social Media Monitoring for PR Agencies

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I’ve been doing a lot of research recently on online monitoring case studies. They all talk on about how the monitoring tools reduce the time it takes to track mentions, buzz and sentiment for their brands.

While this is certainly true and useful, I haven’t read many people who mention how the requirements of a tool vary dramatically from client to client.

This is especially important in New Zealand. For some brands, it is interesting to monitor global trends. For example, a coffee company locally can be ahead of the curve by watching trends from the North American market around the pick-up of geo-location services.

On the other hand, for some brands it is near-irrelevant what’s happening abroad. Kiwi supermarkets should be primarily focused on comparative online activity locally, for instance. This is magnified by the duopoly in this market. Read the rest of this entry »

The Human Touch

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Not that long ago there was a void in terms of online measurement tools that went beyond ‘you have had 24 mentions this month’. There was a lack of connecting measurement to ROI, something that dug a little deeper towards bringing it back to the business benefits.

Now there seems to be a plethora of options, some of which have had pick-up in New Zealand and some of which haven’t. As with most things, there will probably be a cooling off period where the best ones establish themselves and the others fade into obscurity.

We all know that social media/ digital marketing is just the first step towards better communications and PR. The more important facet is what to do with that data. It’s pointless having it and not using it. Before you jump into the ocean of data, you need to set a long-term strategic plan. But where do you start? Read the rest of this entry »

Beyond the guff, is all this social media stuff just advertising and PR in disguise?

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I went to an NZ Marketing Association event this morning that featured the head of Facebook for Australia and New Zealand as well as the Online Editor team at Rugby World Cup 2011.

It was interesting to get an update on what Facebook can offer and it was also good to hear the inside story on how the Rugby World Cup is being promoted.

The talk did, however, raise a few questions in my mind about the ongoing role of social media.

Social media is all about sharing and it’s all about user-generated content (70% is the target according to Facebook) and…you’ve heard this before so I won’t bang on about what it is.

Driving Facebook followers or ‘likes’ is mainly achieved through advertising. Seeing as social media’s based on non-advertorial pledges, isn’t this oxymoronic? Read the rest of this entry »

Online public relations and the privacy debate

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

There have been lots of conversations recently about privacy, specifically in social media. Mark Zuckerberg, Founder and head-honcho at Facebook, got very sweaty when discussing the topic recently. If Mark Zuckerberg, one of the pioneers of the share everything world we live in is getting sweaty about ongoing privacy concerns, then perhaps we should all be worrying.

But I don’t think it’s really about privacy. It’s actually about money. And egos. Read the rest of this entry »

Brands battling it out as World Cup looms large

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

The FIFA World Cup is the biggest event in the world and therefore seen as the biggest branding opportunity known to man.

In terms of global reach, it knocks spots off The Olympics, Super Bowl or the Rugby World Cup. Almost every country in the world will be watching.

Here’s Nike’s effort. Is it over-produced and slightly ridiculous? Yes. Did it cost an enormous amount that could have gone to any number of charities? Undoubtedly. But is it a lot of fun? You betcha. Read the rest of this entry »

Bullet PR looking for online-literate Account Manager

Posted by: bulletpr

If you are driven, motivated and like working in a flat management structure, this could be the role for you.

We are excited by the possibilities and challenges that digital media brings and passionate about using social media to complement ‘traditional’ PR. We wouldn’t claim to be social media experts, but we know our stuff and love learning more. Our new team member should have some knowledge of online PR, digital influence, social media and how they interrelate.

As an Account Manager at Bullet PR, you would be expected to have some PR or relevant marketing experience – probably one to three years in an agency setting. But, more importantly, you would need a  self-starter attitude and a determination never to give up.

You would also be comfortable picking up the phone and pitching to journalists as this will always be part of what PR is all about.

The office atmosphere is very open and everyone’s ideas are heard.

If you thrive off responsibility and like the idea of joining the team, please email your CV to jenniferd@bulletpr.co.nz

Targeting YouTube for marketing campaigns

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

People often refer to YouTube as the world’s second most popular search engine, but is it really a search engine? People don’t search for ‘builder in Auckland City’ or ‘movie times in Wellington’ like they do on Google or Bing. Most people tend to be pointed to YouTube via another source, be it Facebook, Twitter, word-of-mouth or even (shock horror) email. I would personally call YouTube a video sharing platform. Read the rest of this entry »

An engaging online strategy doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in bottom-line revenue

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

I’d never really noticed it before, but Burger King has a really cool homepage.

Take a look for yourself, but the website has three volume bars (‘Fun’, ‘Food’ and ‘King’), which control how big the central icons are.

For example, if you max out the ‘Fun’ bar, and minimize ‘Food’ and ‘King’, it makes it easier to see all the advertorial video content on the site. Read the rest of this entry »

Creating online communities: the journey doesn’t stop there

Posted by: Alex Erasmus

Working in PR, marketing, advertising etc, we need to pull ourselves back from situations and realise that we don’t all spend the entire day behind a computer screen engaging with Social Media.

We should always, at the very least, ask how the offline is being influenced by the online. Jeremiah Owyang recently alluded to this in a post on his Web Strategy blog.  If we don’t, then we can end up with a campaign overflowing with clever ideas that create dynamic online communities, but build limited relevance for the company in question and, as a result, limited revenue and ROI. Read the rest of this entry »

The rules of social media

Posted by: Paul Matthews

Rule number one:

There are no rules.

Sure there are ways that you should do things and a lot of ways that you shouldn’t, but for all intents and purposes social media and the law by which it is governed, is not too dissimilar to how we live in the real world. ‘Do unto others…’, build relationships, show respect and generally be nice; all of these social etiquette practices apply online and act as a guide to how we should behave.

If understood, the success of campaigns, initiatives or ideas that people/companies have will rise and fall on the response of the desired recipients: the community you are looking to engage with.

Read the rest of this entry »