Predictive Scanning:

Why PR is Poised for

a Comeback

St. Louis Bridge Co.

Imagine this.

You’re going about your day, scanning through the online news site, your feeds on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Some things you like, some things you share, you might comment on, some things you just scroll past…

This is what we call engagement. And this is great for brands, right?

Fast forwardTen minutes. Twenty minutes. An hour.

Maybe you remember one or two bits of content you saw today, but only because you’re thinking about it.

Come dinner time, you’ve completely forgotten that you really loved the Papa John’s heart-shaped pizza post on Facebook today, because you feel like tacos for dinner and barely remember you even saw it.

Do you remember every brand you engage with?

5,000 messages a day,

according to CMO.com

How People Want to Interact with a Brand has Changed

Remove the clutter. Focus on what really matters and you can stand out and create real ROI for your brand.

It’s not that content marketing is bad.

Your audience is seeing so much everyday that it is hard for them to tell what’s important.

If you are thinking, I interact with people all day regarding customer

service issues, events, inquires, etc.

That’s the nature of BASIC marketing.

How do you break through the noise? How do you create real perception and behavior change?

It’s not through engagement – it’s timing your SPIKE.

SPIKEA sudden, point of interest that kick-starts exposure good or bad.

How?

Bad News.

Executives are on the same distraction cycle and want quick, easy solutions that don’t

require strategy, messaging and timing

considerations.

They want – FREE SOCIAL MEDIA!

But, it isn’t free.

In fact, it costs more than staff resources and time.

It is the cost of always being available for your

audience.

A penny for your thoughts.

Details are lost b/c you see the penny so often.

Does that also translate to

brands?

A Gallup poll finds that 62% of

people say social media has no influence at all on their

purchasing decisions

91 percent of 32,000

people studied by the Keller Fay Group over the course of a year shows people still get brand recommendations directly from word of mouth.

Social Risk

Just 2.7% of people are willing to stick

their neck out on the line to recommend your brand via social media, because of a factor known as “social risk,” according to the Journal of Consumer Psychology.

PushPushPushASK!

We recommend focusing on real-time initiatives, campaigns and

ideas…

WHEN they are important to

your audience.

Doing this doesn’t have to…lessen your budgets or

your effectiveness.

It can actually increase ROI, Results and Respect.

Build-up and build down approach to a SPIKE in

interest.

SPIKE Spotting

You are the Senior Communications Director for Circus Cruise Line.

One of your top competitors XYZ Cruises is stuck at sea for the past two days and is getting terrible media coverage because they are not communicating with passengers in a transparent way, they are avoiding answering questions about when the ship will be back in working order and members of the media are getting reports from people on the ship related to the deplorable conditions.

Your brand is known for outstanding customer service for the past 20 years, until a recent hiccup last week where the company’s former Social Media Coordinator posted a personal tweet about how much the company sucks, which was retweeted thousands of times and reported on Mashable and accompanied by a trending hashtag #circuscruisefail.

Shortly after that incident, legal got involved and has now put an extra step in the process to social media posts, slowing down your company’s real-time responses by a few hours. This has also made other people in the leadership team in the organization gun shy about social strategies. But, your CMO has requested better metrics and engagement on social media channels and you are trying to find innovative ways to SPIKE your brand awareness.

• What creative ways can you develop to respond to this in real-time without seeming opportunistic or does that matter?

• How do you go about convincing leadership, i.e. CEO, CFO, COO that you should respond in real-time? What role should your CMO play in convincing senior-leadership to act quickly? How do you deal with the legal team’s apparent bias to social media?

• How will you allocate resources to respond in real time?

Some timing considerations…

• What’s trending? • Social and Traditional Media

• Buying cycle considerations • Awareness, Engagement, Discovery, Purchase, Retention

• Competitor missteps/wins• New legislation, advocacy, issues • Contrarian opinions, i.e. bloggers, pundits, etc. • Previous industry/company issues • Potential weak spots• News cycle trends…

?

PBS

CVS’ Bold Move

Lockheed and Boy Scouts

Thank You