Better Information Retention

 

 PR's Only True Measure

We measure success in PR by the conversations our clients’ stories create. That’s it, that’s all. The more that people are talking about what you do and how you do it, the more successful your campaign will be.

It might seem logical to think that social media followers or website subscriptions would make a good indicator of success, but they don’t tell the whole story. These metrics may show engagement over a period of time, but they don’t show how people are reacting to those interactions right now (or even five minutes ago).

For us the only true measure is conversation — and numbers don't lie. We all know that search metrics are impacted by factors other than the actual results, but they can be a good place to start.

We aren’t saying you should rely on search, or even your own data. We’re saying that conversation is the most accurate measure of success and it’s the best way for us to measure success to make sure we are doing what we are supposed to be doing in your campaign.

And remember: when you work with PR firms, with all due respect to their colleagues who claim measurement is their thing, measurements are our thing. We bring them as part of our business model so that we can help you and your company succeed in more ways than one.

One of the great things about conversations (as opposed to search) is that it’s actionable. You can see in real time how people are reacting and how that reaction is impacting your overall performance. That’s why we encourage measuring over time, but also because we know what to look for, which is why this book is all about helping you measure and improve your campaigns.

By now, we hope you understand what the data means and the value it holds in the crazy-busy world of social media.

We didn’t invent it — and neither did anyone else — but we know our stuff, which is why we wrote this book to help you take advantage of it.

In that spirit, let’s talk about how you can use it.

Chapter One:

The Tools You Need to Get Started

Before we get into the nuts and bolts of measuring, we want apply a couple key principles. First, conversation is what we do and you should treat it like a business within your business. If you want to be successful in social media, you need to follow practices that will help your campaign succeed. Also, remember that measurement is all about improvement — so don’t worry about making mistakes along the way; just make sure you are constantly improving for the long run (and not only for today).

As we mentioned in the introduction, we have included this chapter because you should know what tools you have at your disposal. We’ve broken it down by platform so that you can easily see what is available and how it can benefit you and your business.

We don’t expect everybody to understand everything about all of these platforms, nor do we expect everybody to dive into them immediately if they don’t want to. That being said, we do think it is important for you to be familiar with the platforms and some of their features so that you can use them when necessary or when a client asks you to use them. The more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to make sound decisions.

Communication Tools: Text, Phone and Email

Although social media is all the rage, it is important to remember that it only makes up a small part of your communications efforts. If you want to make social media work for you and your business, you will need to learn how to use other tools as well.

The most common of these are phone, text and email. We will go into detail about each individually since they have very different uses.

Phone

We don’t recommend relying on social media monitoring or listening tools (such as HootSuite) when researching people that you may want to reach out to. It is better to rely on phone calls and emails. Before you decide to pick up the phone, check into their social media presence to see what you can find because it will give you a general idea of how they want to be contacted. If they have an email address on their website or blog, look them up in your email client and check their address. You should also search for their name in search engines and see what comes up (try the different ways we show you how to do this in Chapter Five).

You don’t want to pick up the phone or send an email without knowing that it is going to the right person. A lot of the time, you will be able to determine this by reading their blog or website. If their page is non-tactically coded, it’s easy to tell if it is meant for humans or robots. If it looks, reads and sounds like a human wrote it (even if they hire a human editor), then go ahead and pick up the phone.

If you are going to call someone’s office, make sure to research their location because they might not share the number with all of the people they hire (especially if they are small and slow growing). If you can, find their LinkedIn page and see if they have their phone number listed. If they don’t, then you may want to consider doing the search on Google or another search engine and finding a listing that way.

If you are going to email someone, research them on Google and make sure that the email address comes up before contacting them. There are unscrupulous people out there who obtain email addresses and sell them to spammers so you want to make sure the address is legitimate before reaching out to anyone.

Text

Text messaging (otherwise known as SMS) is another way people communicate today. Many companies use it for communication with customers. Some people prefer it to email because it is faster and easier, so we recommend including it in your communication efforts.

If you want to text someone, you will need their mobile phone number. If you have a prospect’s email address, do an online search for their name and the word “phone” or “mobile.” If they are listed on LinkedIn, then you can find their number by scrolling through the pictures on the right side of their profile page (if they are older than 25), or hover over the phone icon next to their profile picture. It might take some digging but it is well worth it if you want to text them.

Email

Email is our absolute favorite form of communication, and fortunately, it is free. For the most part, it is better to write short emails than short Facebook posts in order to preserve the reader’s attention. You should also include some kind of call-to-action (CTA) at the end of your email so that the recipient will want to follow through and do something with your information. If you find yourself writing a lot of emails with no CTA, then you need to put more urgency into your messaging so that it becomes clear what has happened and why they should take action.

Expert writers have written books about crafting good sales emails.

Conclusion

If you are going to be in the business of selling online services, then you need to have a good understanding of what it takes to sell something on the web. We realize that for most people, this is not their strong suit. Not only that, but many people don’t have the time and energy to do everything effectively.

The good news is that although selling online is not difficult if done correctly, it does require a lot of effort and time. If you want to be successful at it, we would encourage you to learn as much as possible about your target audience so that you can speak their language.