PR Experts: 3 Tips to Create More Effective Content for Social Media Marketing

As a PR Expert, you know the challenge you face to engage markets that are on many different social sites. According to research in the US, around 80% of the population have at least one social network profile. Coming up with quality content in social media that will attract more followers and interact with customers. As a graduate student at Northwestern University studying Integrated Marketing Communications, I have found two great articles below highlighting the importance of content marketing in PR world.

“3 trends PR pros should embrace in 2017” by Christopher Penn for Shift Communications

Christopher in his article shows three mega-trends that will influence on PR industry this year. He mentioned that more content created than ever before. They found 72 million news online stories written in 2016 and is expected to continue expanding in the coming year. Besides, Christopher also highlighted that influencer marketing is quickly becoming one of the most important online marketing channels. Today influencer marketing is on the huge rise and tends to listen and build a strong relationship with consumers. Certainly, companies really need content marketing, and PR can help create a great content marketing strategy and build trust and credibility.

 

Source: SEO Content Specialists

“PR Content Strategy: Let’s Talk Shop!” by Gini Dietrich for Spin Sucks

The second article explains the applicability of content marketing in public relations. Unlike the company messaging or traditional advertising, Gini thinks the strong content marketing can build brand awareness, loyalty, and trust. In addition, she also emphasized how to identify content that will resonate with audiences and drive engagement. To sum up, PR content strategy can deeply understand brands’ ideal customers and drive company growth.

Recommendations

Based on the sights in these two articles and my studies at Medill, I listed three key learnings from PR contents strategy that can help PR pros to be successful in social media marketing world:

l   Make It Easy to Share - Influencer marketing taps into the power of writers who are well-known by brand’s audiences and uses their influence to spread the article. Adding social sharing buttons and making it far easier for influencer or audiences to share content.

l   Use the Storytelling to Connection - Great stories attract attention. We always say people forget facts, but they never forget a great story. Telling story can be a fantastic way to have a deeper and more meaningful social media conversation and successfully connect with brands’ target audiences.

l   Embrace PESO Model - We have the content and we can use shared media to spread it, paid media to extend it, and earned media to hand-stamp it. Overall, PESO model is a great tool to help PR pros to find the success they can build on. 

Next time you developing a PR piece, remember these three action items to create successful social media content.

I-Chuan Hsu currently is a Master of Science Candidate in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Medill-Northwestern University, as well as a marketer experienced in Los Angeles for 2 years. She is graduating in December 2017 and is interested in data analytics and International Marketing. Feel free to connect with her at @florina_hsu or LinkedIn here.

Television Execs: 3 Tips on How to Respond to Netflix

Television execs – did you know that Netflix added a record 4.9 million subscribers in the first quarter of 2015 while traditional TV viewing among 18-24-year-olds in 2014 was down by more than 17%? Internet TV streaming can no longer be ignored, and as a student of the Northwestern Medill Integrated Marketing Communications program I have identified three important articles that tackle these changing consumer trends head-on.

New York Times writer Emily Steel recently interviewed Netflix CEO Reed Hastings one-on-one for her article "Netflix is Basing Its Future on Exclusive Programming." He talks about Netflix’s stock boom and recent bevy of original programming such as House of Cards, Orange is the New Black, Bloodline, and Marvel’s Daredevil. Hastings also clarifies his company’s relationship with HBO – Netflix does not want to kill HBO. It wants to kill plugged-in TV.

The important quote: “We’ve had 80 years of linear TV, and it’s been amazing, and in its day the fax machine was amazing…The next 20 years will be this transformation.”

Picture Credit: Mike Cassese/Reuters

However, Netflix isn’t just pushing the industry forward from a content standpoint. In the Wired article “How Netflix is Creating the Ultra High-Def Future of TV,” editor Brian Barrett focuses in on what Netflix is doing on the technological front. The company is upgrading its website and servers to handle ultra high-definition 4K video and high-dynamic range streaming (HDR for short). These types of intense visual upgrades can take years to add on to physical televisions due to bandwidth concerns and product life cycles but can be more easily implemented into online services. 

As an Integrated Marketing Communications student, I have three major recommendations based on the above articles:

• Find Streamers - Internet television streamers are looking for new projects too – pitch to their needs just like you would to traditional networks. 

• Get Online - Find a way to move your company’s new and completed content to Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or even all three if possible. 

• Play with Format - Online streaming allows for all the rules of traditional television to be broken – explore longer and shorter-format works to reach new audiences. 

Internet television is where the future is. Moving creative operations more toward the online sphere will help your company thrive and put it in position to continue producing great content for a new era.

Zach Hyman has immersed himself in the creative during his time at Northwestern, majoring in Radio, Television, and Film with a concentration in Creative Writing for the Media and picking up an additional certificate in Integrated Marketing Communications. He's worked in development and casting at Karga Seven Pictures and in talent representation at The Gersh Agency alongside directing the rhythm and dance ensemble Boomshaka. Zach will be attending Northwestern again in the fall to get his Master’s Degree in Leadership for Creative Enterprises (Go Cats!). Find him on Twitter at @ZachRHyman.