Join Grace Leong for “Bringing the Power of PR to Brand Marketing” on Sept. 25, 2012 noon–4:30 p.m. EDT, and learn how to build brands with public relations insights and strategies.

What do the brands Chipotle, Chrysler and Nike have in common?

If you answered that these three brands are seeing strong growth in their sales, and consistently maintain top spots on the lists of the world’s most admired brands, you would be correct.

However, even more interesting to me as a marketer and a public relations professional, is the fact that each of these brands has recently won a top national or international award in an advertising competition for a campaign that was not led by advertising, but rather driven by a public relations insight and powered by traditional public relations techniques.

Yup, it’s true. As several bloggers in the communications industry have already noted, these brands, and dozens of others, are winning advertising campaign awards by embracing public relations practices and using our principles to drive deeper levels of engagement and connect more completely with consumers. An examination of some of these award-winning programs clearly shows that public relations ideas are serving as the foundation for best-in-class, 360-degree marketing campaigns.

What’s happening here? It’s simple really. These brands have evolved into a new era of marketing by adopting a values-driven approach. Simply put, values-driven marketing is based on the premise that brands can spark the emotional connection that leads to engagement by focusing on the values shared by both the brand and consumer.  

Continue reading " PR’s Influence in the New Era of Values-Driven Brand Marketing "

AMEC’s European Summit introduced a glossary of social media measurement terms and a proposed update to the public relations valid metrics framework. The current public relations valid metrics framework is included in the PRSA Business Case for Public Relations.

Many of the measurement presentations from the Summit, including David Rockland’s presentation “How to Be Compliant with the Barcelona Principles,” are now available on AMEC’s website.

The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) hosted the fourth European Summit on Measurement, where representatives from more than 30 countries gathered in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13-15 to debate competency standards for PR measurement professionals and for PR practitioners in general.

What do you need to know to be an expert in measurement and what do you need to know about measurement to be good at public relations?  This question stems from the Barcelona Principles.

Here are some of the qualifications under consideration:

• Knows quantitative and qualitative research techniques
• Writes clear goals and objectives
• Selects appropriate metrics for outputs, outcomes and business results
• Measures quality and does not rely on simple quantitative measure, such as clips and impressions, alone
• Understands the benefits of different media measurement techniques
• Has knowledge of different outcome measures
• Can create effective research proposal requests, follow vendor and tool selection best practices and develop research budgets
• Integrates analytics into communications efforts across channels
• Emphasizes transparency in all facets of research
• Measures traditional and social media consistently

Continue reading " Setting Standards: Measurement Qualifications for PR Pros "

Measurement & ROI online and on-demand training courses are included for free as part of PRSA membership.

While analytics is an old idea, it has a new significance in public relations. In the past 15 years, we’ve evolved from rudimentary clip books to building databases detailing media that we generate. We now have the data to really play in the world of ROI measurement.

In the last 15 years, we have evolved from making clip books with scissors and tape to building datasets about the quality and quantity of tour media placements. We now have the data to make an impact in the world of ROI measurement.

Continue reading " Making an Impact in the World of Public Relations ROI Measurement "

The PRSA 2012 Digital Impact Conference, to be held April 2–3  in New York City, offers workshops where public relations professionals will hear from entrepreneurs and others who specialize in technology communications or social and digital media.

Pinterest is the latest hot social media platform. The public loves it but what exactly is its best use for businesses? Is it a relevant marketing platform or is it more of a sharing network where marketing messaging isn’t welcomed?

Like many professionals, public relations practitioners (PRSA staff included) struggle with implementing new technology to make the user experience of for their customers more worthwhile. It’s a problem that seemingly never goes away yet gnaws at any professional who wishes to stay abreast of trends in an ever-changing marketplace.

There are hot technologies that never quite become as ubiquitous as people predict. It seems like just yesterday that Second Life was being featured on the cover of magazines, bringing in an era of changed platforms and virtual reality. In truth, it was eons ago (OK, 2006) and we are no nearer to conducting all of our earthly transactions in a virtual world then we were then.

I bring this up because some institutions, at the behest of their PR and communications departments, pursued aggressive engagement strategies on the platform, often to the detriment of other mediums like Facebook or the blogosphere, whose proliferation continues relatively unabated.

This isn’t to excoriate those institutions or campaigns. Maybe for their audiences, utilizing those platforms made sense. Maybe they were bowing to the pressures of a CEO whose entire knowledge of the digital world was based on a magazine cover they saw in an airport (it’s happened to all of us.)

The point is, most PR and corporate comms departments are small and resources are limited. A prudent institution with limited means should be thinking very carefully before dipping its toes into a new platform or technology.

Which brings me back to my original point: when a shiny new technology comes out, we here at PRSA give serious consideration to its application and utility to our members. As I’m sure you guessed Pinterest is the buzz around here at present, as it is throughout much of the PR industry.

Continue reading " How Should You Be Using Pinterest for Business? "

Now in its third year, Hispanicize 2012 (#Hispz12) is the annual event focused on Latino trends and trendsetters in social media, entertainment, marketing and media. The event is a partnership of Hispanicize, the Hispanic Public Relations Association (HPRA) and the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA).

Everyone knows that moms make most of the purchasing decisions in U.S. households. Moms are much more likely to make those decisions based on what other moms think about a product. According to a Fleishman-Hillard & ModernMom.com 2011 Marketing-to-Moms Study, 63 percent of moms surveyed said blogger reviews are influential to their purchase decisions. With Latina women becoming one of the fastest growing demographics online and more than 85 percent of them visiting social networks on a regular basis, it should come as no surprise to see the attention that Latina mom bloggers are garnering from major brands, public relations firms, marketing agencies and media. Latina mom bloggers can be a culturally relevant voice for brands that want to get their products in front of Hispanic moms and families. The question is, how can brands effectively engage with Latina bloggers?

Continue reading " Latina Mom Bloggers: A Powerful Force to Drive Culturally Relevant Online Brand Awareness "