Social Media and Online PR

Journalists

How journalists work

• 91% of journalists search Google to do their job• 64% use social networks• 89% use blogs

• stories, background, research, queries and sources•"expert" is a common search term

sources: TopRank, George Washington University, & Cision

How journalists work

• Over 75% of reporters view blogs as helpful in providing story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue

• Nearly 70 percent of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis

• One in four reporters (27.7%) have their own blogs

• About one in five (16.3%) have their own social networking page

• Almost half of reporters (47.5%) say they are “lurkers”

• Over half said blogs have a significant impact on “tone” (61.8%) and “editorial direction” (51.1%) of news reporting

source: Omnicom Group’s Brodeur and Marketwire (2008)

How journalists work

• While almost a third of journalists do not cover blogs, over 25% regularly read five or more blogs to research desired topics. Nearly 70% follow at least one blog regularly.

• 28% of journalists visit a social media or networking site, such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace, at least once a week, over 44% visit at least once a month.

• Nearly 16% of journalists receive five or more RSS feeds of news services, blogs, pod- or videocasts every week, and about 37% receive at least one regular RSS feed.• 20% of journalists say they seek audio and video material at least once a month from corporate sites.

• While a large majority (76.9%) of journalists report that they use local newspapers to follow news, c. 64% report they use Google or Yahoo news services.

source: TEKgroup International and Bulldog reporter (2008)

Overview

Methodology Findings

Social media activity Tactics and strategies ResourcingBudgets, effectiveness and

measurement TwitterBarriers to success Questions

Methodology

Online survey September 2009

Over 1,100 respondents, including:

458 client-side organizations

522 agency / supplier-side

respondents

Biggest sectors: financial services,

publishing, retail, travel.

Social media activity

Extent of social media activity

We are heavily involved in social media 26%

We have experimented but not done much

64%

We don’t do anything 10%

Major benefits of social media

More brand awareness 73% Increased customer engagement71%

Better brand reputation 66% Increased communication / networking with key influencers62%

More online brand mentions58%

Increased direct traffic to website 56%

Increased indirect traffic 46% Higher customer satisfaction / advocacy / NPS

44% Increased leads 43% Increased sales 29% More offline brand mentions

29% Increased profitability 24%

Clear pattern of priorities: “softer” brand-building factors more widely seen as “major benefits” of social media activity than harder financial advantages such as increased profitability

Attitude to social media

Tremendous opportunities for the business 61% 31%

Major risks and challenges 12% 19%

Open-minded, but not fully convinced about value 27% 44%

A load of hype and a fad 0% 6%

Overwhelming personal enthusiasm for social media, but many organisations do not share the same positive outlook

Personalattitude

Organisation's attitude

Organizational view of social media by turnover

•46% of companies with a turnover of <£1M feel social media provide tremendous opportunities •Bigger companies more likely to say social media is a fad.

Tactics and strategies

Online PR tactics employed

Online traditional media relations

67%

Press release posting sites and wire services

60%

Online press office / investor center

44%

Blog relations

44%

Online dialogue with UGC / social media

43%

Online PR content creation

34%

Online reputation auditing and monitoring

33%

SEO press releases

32%

Online crisis and issues management 13%

Social media tactics employed

Use of Twitter / microblogging 78%

Social network profile creation and management

65%

Creation of video / use of video-sharing sites 60%

Corporate or brand blog 47%

Use of social bookmarking sites 39% Use of social news sites 31%

Creation of podcasts

25%

Creation of widgets

21%

Virtual world creation and management

6%

Areas of social media covered

Resourcing

Time taken up by social media

More time 90%

Less time 2%

The same 8%

Is social media activity taking up more time internally than it was a year ago?

Satisfaction with agency knowledge

Very satisfied

13%

Moderately satisfied 42%

Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied

19%

Mildly dissatisfied 16%

Very dissatisfied

11%

Use of buzz monitoring technologies

No 46%

Yes - free tool 39%

Yes – paid-for tool 8%

Yes - combination of free & paid-for tools 8%

Do you use an online reputation or buzz monitoring technology to analyse what is being said about your brand?

Budgets, effectiveness and measurement

Budgets

• 31% not spending any budget on social media.

• Around half (49%) spending up to 10% on social

media.

• 64% have increased social media budget since last

year.

• A third (34%) say spending has remained the same.

Majority of companies (86%) expect investment in

social media to increase in 2010.

Value gained from social media

Real, tangible value 25%

Some benefit, but nothing concrete 60%

No real value 15%

Absolutely no value – a waste of time 0%

25% of companies have gained real, tangible value from social

media.

60% have gained some benefit, but nothing concrete.

Value by involvement in social media • “You only get what you put in” – companies getting the most value out of social media are heavily involved in the medium. • Only 1% of companies who are heavily involved in social media say that they have gained no real value from the channel.

Metrics

Direct traffic to website 64%

Brand awareness 39% Customer engagement 38% Indirect traffic 27% Sales 22% Brand perception 20% Leads 17% Customer satisfaction / advocacy / NPS

16% Online brand mentions 13% We don’t measure anything 5%

Profitability 5%

Offline brand mentions 0%

Twitter

Organizational attitude to Twitter

Tremendous opportunities for the business 31%

Major risks and challenges 13%

Open-minded, but not fully convinced about value

50%

A load of hype and a fad 7%

How does your organization use Twitter?

Types of Twitter account

Overall company Twitter account 59%

Separate Twitter accounts for different individuals 28%

Separate Twitter accounts for different products and services 26%

None of the above 19%

Companies are experimenting with different approaches to optimise overall engagement with the brand.

Barriers

Barriers to effective social media engagement

Problems and challenges

Social media done badly is worse than social media not done at all. We have decided to stay laggards because without the resources to dedicate to maintaining and updating content, it is a recipe for failure.

Effective social media marketing requires buy-in from across the organisation with everybody contributing.

We are still on a learning curve, but the biggest barrier is having a small team and a lack of time and resource to explore the potential benefits of this activity.

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SummaryVast majority say they are planning to spend

more money on social media, and it is taking more time.

Most companies are still experimenting, often because they don’t fully understand value.

Need to understand how social media fit with business objectives, and then decide on tactics and metrics.

Questions?

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Rebecca Lieb, VP, US Operations

rebecca@econsultancy.com @lieblink

Website: http://econsultancy.comTwitter: @Econsultancy