Showing posts with label pr tips. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pr tips. Show all posts

Wednesday, 18 December 2013

5 tips for being sexy with your content marketing

Hi guys! Hope, you are all enjoying this lovely Wednesday and counting days to Christmas. :) I, on the other hand, am a little bit upset as my Glasgow days are almost over and my luggage is half packed. 
As for my blog - I am not saying 'Good-bye' to you anywhere soon, so here is my latest post. Let me share some sexy tips with you. Enjoy! :-)

Looking back on how TV, commercials and 'not-so-innovative' marketers work, one can always find that sex (sexy images, naked body parts, 'intriguing' noise and so on) always works as a fast and easy way to sell stuff to people, be it chocolate dessert, luxury car or the newest fragrance. 'Sex appeal' or the prosaic 'sex sells' rule has been long ago incorporated into the advertising/PR/marketing world agenda (which was 'scientifically' proven by Gallup and Robinson btw). 

And I am not here to judge what is and is not wrong with it. Let me just say that today's blog post was inspired by the growing popularity of 'Masters of Sex' and the iconic status of 'Sex and the City', people's interest to 'Secret Diaries of a Call Girl' and the idea that all commercially successful perfumes are 'Guilty' 'Pleasure' 'Seduction' 'Fallen Angel' and so on.

I guess there are so many decent ways to include 'sexy' principle into your strategy, be it in the field of marketing, content creation, or sales, that more attention should be paid.

One way to go, (which we have already discussed) is to feature half-naked people in your ads. The question is to what extent such idea is cheap and tacky.



Here is my rather tasteful solution of integrating the well known rules of seduction into the everyday content marketing strategy - 5 tips on how not to cross the line between sexy and vulgar.



1.  Every glamour magazine would advise women to be mysterious, because secret equals intrigue. With content marketing there is a similar trick. If you want to ‘write sexy’ something should be always left unsaid. To clarify, I do not suggest you write incomplete articles or do not answer questions in a proper manner; instead, your content has to be so engaging that the audience would strive coming back for more.

2. Pay attention to words and styles. Catchy headlines work better and so do witty articles. Always reflect on the people you are targeting: professional jargon might be appropriate for some industry-specific journals and websites, but general audience would prefer clear explanations. Would you say nerds are sexy? Who knows. In the meantime, don’t leave your audience feeling ‘What?! I did not get a word of this’. Do not confuse and provide great examples to illustrate your points.

3. Confidence is sexy. Confident people always have charm which makes them even more attractive. Make your content emphasise your expertise and leadership in the particular field. Moreover, let you style of writing be confident as well. No one will follow ideas like ‘our products seem to be better’; ‘you will probably enjoy our services’ and so on. Nevertheless, be careful with the thin line between the confidence and arrogance. If you claim you are the best - prove it (better have others prove this for you).

4. Flirt. Yes, just like in a real life, in producing and managing content, there often is a place for flirting. Of course, I believe flirt is art and talent, but some tips are pretty general so anyone can use them. Thus, engagement is one thing - replying to comments, Liking, re-tweeting and re-posting are all examples of modern digital life coquetry. You should make your customers, readers and potential buyers feel they all have their tiny place in your company's heart. The only exception to the rule in the context of flirting is customer service - if you provide this on your Facebook page - that is definitely not a place to ‘play hard to get’ despite how sexy you may think it is. Another way of flirting would be through the actual content. Talk through your content.  What this means is that engagement always increases when some real-experiences, case studies and illustrations are involved. When you write for your audience from their standpoint and in their words, real magic happens - readership starts ‘Liking’ you.

5. I thought of having tip No.5 here at first, but then decided to make it sexier by leaving some space for ‘fantasies’...I mean comments and questions. :) But than my colleague came up with this brilliant rule, which basically sums up everything written above - Think Pirelli calendar rather than Hooters bar...

Thursday, 31 October 2013

Who is afraid of digital marketing? OR the Scariest Post so far!

Happy Halloween to everyone! :)


Never understood how scary holiday can be happy, though!;) Time to read about digital marketing tricks and treats inspired by this popular celebration.  Many news websites now offer their readers interesting pumpkin pie or soup recipes as well as coffee shops showcasing brand new pumpkin-flavoured lattes (I`ve tried one of those 2 days ago - not bad at all). 

Here is my Halloween marketing recipe.


1. Play with words

Did you know that every October the word ‘Pumpkin’ gets 20 times more searches than normal? Yes, this is pretty impressive and should be taken into consideration. What does this mean for us? Well, in our digital world we can plan content strategies around relevant holidays, celebrations or seasons; take trends onboard and craft content accordingly, having fun with wording, paying attention to keywords and tags.

Headlines are also important because of their power to increase engagement and readability of content. Therefore, I believe all Halloween headlines should be ‘killer’, content must be ‘scary-good’ and all of this better be accompanied with ‘to-die-for’ Tweets and Likes on Face-boo-k. Play with the words, turn them into hashtags, get involved in conversations and make the most out of the pumpkin hysteria!

2. Take pictures and make videos


Recently emerged phenomena of Vine and constantly growing popularity of Instagram encourage digital marketing practitioners to include those two apps (mobile social photo/video platforms) in their agendas even more. Six or fifteen seconds long, witty and creative videos may be a very good tool to use in the run up to October 31st. One of the most recent examples of great Vine Halloween-themed campaigns (fully described in AdWeek) was developed by washing powder brand Tide and consist of seven short viral videos. Every video clip features famous brand’s product in a well-known horror movie and a corresponding tagline, such as ‘Strains better be scared’ from the upcoming remake ‘Carrie’.


By the way, pictures of Halloween costumes may be also ‘Instagramed’. Moreover, if that’s a product you are launching or promoting, try putting a funny little costume on your product and make it Vine viral. Just imagine new iPad Air in a cute Batman cape :)

3. Create contests!

The last and probably the easiest idea to implement this last day of October as a part of digital campaign is to organise a contest. People love Facebook contests and so do I - they are engaging, easy-to-do and can only be limited to one's imagination. Photo sharing contest (such as of the craziest outfit or a handmade Jack O’Lantern; ‘guess a scary movie’ type of contest; the best Halloween meme; scariest-looking cupcake or even online trick-or-treating) can all be performed in order to make your brand more popular and more likeable while adding some life to your Facebook page.

Wednesday, 30 October 2013

PR Basics. Lesson 3: The Art of Telling the Story

Hi there,

The weather is so terrible these days and my feelings towards what is it I want to do in this life are so confused, that it was a real struggle today. (I know I promised to post something yesterday, but I hope you will forgive me). No, I still love you all and want to keep going, it is just one of those moments when you have to keep your dreams in mind and keep going.

There is so much to tell about PR basics, that I almost had no ideas what to share with you this time :-) We've already talked about strategy, target audiences, press release writing and media relations. Seems like it is time to write about...stories.

What is PR anyway? Hundreds of definitions may be given with all the references to Ivy Lee and Edward Bernays, but I was taught that real public relations is only possible to build when there is a great story present. In fact, just look at all those examples with Coca-Cola and recipe kept in secret, Susan Boyle and talent TV show, Apple and Steve Jobs, MasterCard and a guy who forgot his cash at home and than invented the first credit card ever and so on. All of these brands were made because of great PR and almost fairy-tale-like type of stories. But what if those stories have never happened, would we still know about and love those brands? Have those stories taken place at all or maybe they simply are the great examples of PR people outstanding skills of storytelling?

To start with, storytelling is something following me around these past few weeks. Firstly, I read about this big annual conference for PR specialists taking place in Ukraine where the main topic is going to be 'the importance of stories in PR' or something. Secondly, I have just started this new brilliant online course in storytelling organised by the University of Applied Science in Potsdam and could not be more interested in sharing what I have learnt so far with you.

1. Why is story important?

Like with all the great books, movies, TV series, myths and legends the magic (meaning the interest to the object of reading/watching/hearing) happens when the process of identification happens. Thus, if the audience realise they have some connections to the protagonists of the story or locations where everything happens, or sounds, smells, names - they start seeing a part of themselves in all of this. Similarly, with brands or other items for PR it is very important for potential customers to be linking themselves with the products/services which proves their loyalty. Brand can be appreciated for its prestigiousness/exclusiveness/britishness/mannishness or for being used by a certain people/group/class, and these distance features can only be established through a great story.

2. How do we create a story?

If you think that storytelling is important in PR only as a part of brand management, I can argue, there is so much more to it. Story is everywhere - in a press release you send to journalists, trying to make them interested; in campaign messages, in people you chose to be the speakers and even in the products you promote. And for every of these little tales there is one rule to keep in mind: the story should hook from the beginning (exposition), keep readers interested (confrontation) never let them go till the end (resolution). There are so many ways to hook your audience: some brand in their communication try to engage the audience with their long history and authority/trustworthiness/class (Guinness, Burberry, Rolls Royce), stories from Pepsi, MTV are supposed to hook young generation because these are the companies teens can identify their selves with.

On the other hand, it is possible to spot some patterns (cliches) in the PR stories borrowed from well-known legends/archetypes etc. For instance, Susan Boyle is a clear example of the Cinderella scenario, when somebody you pity at first becomes extremely successful kind-of-like-a-princes. The story with most of the politicians plays around Prometheus/Heracles characters -  very strong, confident personality with the ability to save the people of the given country and the whole world.

Now you probably think stuff like - hm...what about Samsung, Oreo, McDonalds and others - nah, we don't see any Cinderella-Prometheus happening with mobile phones, cookies, and fast food. Yeah, you are right, with products and services as opposed to people and fictional characters, stories may not follow a pattern in terms of plot, but archetypes do take place here as well. One can try to create something super-mega-hyper-wow with the overall PR&communication strategy, but in the end you will be able to see that your masterpiece is quite likely to be similar to something already know. Below I provide a diagram of the most popular cliches/patters/whatever used to create great stories.

There are a number of ways X and Y can be named. For instance, let X in the following example stand for 'Individualism vs Collectivism', while Y varies from 'Stability to Change'. So every brand can be described according to those attributes and place in the relevant corner of the diagram. I can now think of iPhone as very illustrative example of 'Individualism & Change' mix, as innovation, coolness and personality are among the brand values.

Change
(Dynamic, fast change, speed, risk, adrenalin, innovation)

Individualism Individualism CollectivismCollectivism
(Personality, uniqueness, exclusiveness)                          (Friendship, family/country/community values)

Stability
    (Power, authority, trust, strength)

Another brilliant classification of archetypes that help telling PR stories can be found in this guide by Synovate and their Synovate Censydiam methodology. The core of the system here is motivation, something that will make people buy/want to buy/identify themselves with a brand. I would recommend you look through the whole guide as it is full of great explanations and pictures, but the summery is below.

So the most common (archetypical) motives people have for doing things are represented by 8 colours. (I wonder if one can claim being super powerful because violet is their favourite colour :-)

Personal dimension is how we feel in relation to ourselves (we can either be very happy with ourselves and let our inner energy drive us - Enjoyment; or be very uncomfortable with what and who we are and behave like a control freak - no laughing, no staying up late, no driving fast - Control); while social dimension shows our relations to others (are we leaders who want to dominate - Power; or shy and discreet people who rather want to Belong to a group than lead it). And here are some examples from that guide on how this works in real life:

Enjoyment (adult toys archetype) = Smart cars that 'put mobility and entertainment at the heart of driving'

Conviviality = Beeline (Russian mobile operator) stand for 'connected people with a happy outlook on life in their communication'.

Belonging = Coca-Cola is the perfect example, as in the perception of the vast variety of people Coca-Cola equals holiday equals Christmas.

Vitality = Nike as 'testing your own limits and boundaries'

so on and so on. It is also really interesting that Beeline uses yellow, Coca-Cola is brown and Nike`s shoe boxes are red...

3. What do we do next?

Come back for more PR Basics tips next Tuesday and discover the answer.

Thanks again for making me come back to this blog and learn more and share it with you! =*

Your M.