I’m excited to share a Storify explaining the social
strategy, daily execution and overall performance of my blog – Kristen the PR
Girl. The web page can be accessed HERE.
I feel that I’ve taken a very honest approach to the success
of my blog over the last month or so, and look forward to your feedback. Here
are a few outstanding items I’d love your feedback on:
·What are your thoughts on my strategy? Are there
any areas I missed, should expand upon, etc.?
·Do you think the activity section was easy to
follow?
·What are your thoughts on Yandex.ru being a key
traffic driver to the blog site? It looks like most other classmates had the
same result. Also, very few of us saw Twitter and Pinterest as a key driver to our blogs. Why do you think that is?
Thanks in advance for your feedback and I look forward to
hearing from you.
Kristen
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UPDATED
My updated Storify per classmate feedback can be found HERE. Thanks for all of your initial input and please let me know if you have any final thoughts!
America has become a culture of “oversharing.” Many of us enjoy posting
photos and videos on our many social platforms to show family and friends all
of the fun things we are up to. However, some people post information that
threatens their privacy and safety without even knowing it. Social media can be
a fun and rewarding way to share your life with friends, but it’s important to
practice safe social media policy to protect you, your family and your company.
Americans acknowledge that security is an issue on social platforms, as
seen in the below infographic:
Therefore, we need to better educate ourselves to avoid falling victim to
identity hacks that could endanger us.
Social media security is about how you manage and protect your personal
social sites, like adjusting privacy settings, using secure passwords,
eliminating geolocators and limiting the amount of personal information you
share.
Most companies have a social media policy that applies for all employees
and explains guidelines for personal and corporate social media use. Policies
are also set by social networking sites to establish ownership of all posted
content so they can edit or remove any posts that violate the established
policy.
THE SOCIAL MEDIA SECURITY CHECKLIST
The following checklist serves as a guideline for posting on social media
to ensure a safe, private environment to protect you and your network of
followers.
·Be
careful who you friend – As a general rule of thumb, you should not accept
friend requests from anyone you do not personally know. Even if this person
knows someone in your network, they could be using this relationship to get
access to your personal information.
·Adjust
privacy settings – It’s important to adjust your privacy settings so
only your friends can view content on your social platforms. You should also monitor what photos, videos
and status updates you are tagged in by others that might expose your personal
information to people outside of your social network.
·Monitor
and eliminate geotagging – It’s important eliminate as much geotagging on social
media as possible. By giving information about your location, you might be
subjecting your home to break-ins.
·Protect
your passwords – Do not use a password that could be guessed
easily, like the name of a family member or pet. Hackers can find this
information from your social profile and easily access your account if the
password is easy to predict.
WIRED reporter Mat Honan participates in a video
discussion titled “Avoiding An Online Nightmare: Protecting Identity With
Two-Factor Authentication” during which he explains how easily answers to
security questions on accounts can be discovered, and offers tips for protecting
your identity and accounts online:
I’m certainly someone who likes to share events and
activities on my social platforms, but after reading more about social media
policy and security I will think twice before I post moving forward.
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References
Department of Defense. (n.d.). Social Networking V1.0. United States of
America Department of Defense. Retrieved February 25, 2014 from http://iase.disa.mil/eta/sns_v1/sn/launchPage.htm.
We all understand the persuasive power of social media.
People are more empowered to have their opinions heard, show support for a
cause, offer advice to friends and share photo and video assets. This not only
impacts the way we do business and conduct our personal lives, but it has
greatly impacted the sociopolitical structure in our country.
Social media persuasive power was first seen in the Obama
vs. Hilary Clinton preliminary election in 2008. It was social media that first
put Obama on the map when Amber Lee Ettinger (AKA “Obama Girl”) released a
video on YouTube called “I’ve Got a Crush… on Obama” which was viewed 11.5
million times in the months leading up to the election (Qualman, 2005, p.52).
This video greatly impacted Obama’s popularity and helped
generate excitement for his campaign. Obama embraced social media early in his
campaign, and he had over 3.1 million Facebook fans, 833,161 MySpace friends
and 113,000 Twitter followers by the time he was elected, more than any other
candidate (Qualman, 2005, p.51). This growth in popularity on social platforms
resulted in endorsement dollars which helped fuel the campaign through the final
vote against John McCain.
People are doing more than “following” or “liking”
presidential candidates, they are engaging in active communication across
multiple platforms sharing their thoughts on debate topics. During the 2012
election, “39% of all American adults took part in some sort of political activity
on a social networking site” (Susskind, 2013). President Obama continued to
develop his social network during this pivotal time in his career by engaging
with his followers via Twitter Town Hall meetings where he utilized trending hash
tags and posted immediately following his win.
People are also much more aware of political issues and
candidate positions because of social media. 18% of voters reported that they took
action on a political or social issue because of something they read on a
social networking site (Susskind, 2013). People are now walking into the voting booths
in bigger numbers and better educated than ever before.
Our next presidential election is now two years away. What
should potential candidates do to start growing their social fan base? What
else can we predict will play an important role in allowing consumers to
dominate the political conversation?
Kristen
References
Qualman, E. (2013). Socialnomics (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ:
Wiley.
We all know
that communication is key to effectively running a business, and it is
imperative for all moving parts of the marketing mix to be dispersing the same
messages. In their review The Strategic
Communication Imperative, Argenti, Howell, & Beck explain that
communication must be aligned with the company’s overall strategy to enhance
its strategic positioning (2005, p. 83). I’m sure most of us agree that
communication between constituencies is necessary for any successful marketing
campaign. Not only is it important for the company to effectively communicate
with their customers, employees and shareholders, but it is equally important
for them to listen to feedback and adjust strategy accordingly.
Let’s look
at a real-time example of how a company values strategic communication today.
As always, the Super Bowl featured highly anticipated advertisements from some
of the country’s favorite products. The commercial with some of the most significant
pre-buzz was the H&M ad with David Beckham. H&M ran a commercial spot
during the Super Bowl XLVI in 2012 that introduced David Beckham Bodywear line
of men’s apparel at H&M (Elliot, 2014). H&M is the only retailer to run
advertisements during the Super Bowl, and they believed that their 2012
commercial was very successful in driving awareness for the Bodywear line.
However, the spot was outshined by heavy hitters like Anheuser-Busch, Audi,
Chevrolet, Pepsi and GoDaddy. H&M listed to this feedback and learned that
they need to do more to communicate and engage with key constituents through
the commercial. What
resulted was one of the most talked about Super Bowl advertisements of 2014. If
you haven’t seen the ad yet, you can check it out on YouTube. Consumers were
invited to vote for one of two endings to the Super Bowl commercial by tweeting
#covered or #uncovered.
The
communication strategy also extended to e-commerce, where viewers watching the
game on certain Samsung smart televisions could actually buy pieces from the
David Beckham Bodywear collection through a “T-commerce platform” powered by
Delivery Agent, an ad-technology company (Elliot, 2014). CEO of Delivery Agent,
Mike Fitzsimmons, said “This is a game-changer for the advertising industry. We
are collectively redefining the power and effectiveness of television
advertising” (Hellar, 2014).
With so many
moving parts to this campaign, it was so important for H&M to follow the
framework for strategic communication to ensure consistency across all
platforms. What do you think? Do you like the ad? Do you think the messaging
was succinct and memorable?
Welcome to my blog. I’m
initially starting this blog as part of my course requirement for Marist’s
Integrated Marketing Communications M.A. program, but I’m excited to also share
fun updates on my wild and crazy career as a PR girl living in The Big Apple,
too.
First things first – a
bit about me.
I graduated from Marist
in 2009 with Bachelor’s degree in Communications with a concentration in Public
Relations. Since then, I’ve worked in the public relations industry, both
agency and in-house, developing fully integrated strategic campaigns for top
international brands including Procter & Gamble (Pantene, Head &
Shoulders, Tide, Duracell and Pampers), Diageo (Guinness, Jose Cuervo,
Butterfly Kiss Wines, Stark Raving Wines and Smirnoff Ice), Starbucks and
Cracker Barrel cheese, among others.
I currently work as the
PR Manager for Tissot Swiss Watches, owned by Swatch Group USA.
Responsibilities include pitching lifestyle and trade accessories writers,
planning large-scale global events, working with Tissot brand ambassadors and
maintaining their stellar brand image. I’m working on my French for a trip to
Switzerland in March for BaselWorld.
