A personal brand is an essential business tool today. We work online, shop online, socialize online. Our profiles exist across a plethora of channels and each one is an opportunity to promote a professional and approachable brand.

The idea of personal branding has become synonymous with online marketing in particular; as a way for smaller businesses and entrepreneurs to quickly grow their brands and their businesses simultaneously.

However, personal branding takes time – a resource in itself. It may also require budget investment. Small businesses and independent consultants lack both. The old personal branding tactics of blogging or social media marketing may already be taking up all your spare time.

There are clever ways around this, though. Make the best use of the tight resources you have with these 7 best practice tips to PR your personal brand on a budget:

1. Get Media Coverage

You don’t need to hire an expensive PR firm to get some traction with this. The new online media is hungry for stories. You have a story to tell, somewhere within you and your business.

By taking what you do and finding a relevant news angle you can easily bag yourself some space in this online world for the mere price of some time spent writing emails. Twitter is a great place to search for media contacts, many of whom list their email addresses in their bios.

If you don’t have any news, you can create some. Gathering survey results, submitting a guest blog post or offering yourself as an expert for comment.

You can easily find journalists looking for such expert commentary on Twitter. They will use hashtags such as #JournoRequest in tweets. Searching this term will alert you not to media opportunities and journalists who are covering your industry.

Online coverage has the added benefit of providing you with content worth sharing on your own channels, complete with the social proof of a third party endorsement. If they give you a backlink, it may even help your website’s SEO efforts.

2. Invest In Photography

The tactic of imagery in branding has never been more critical than in a world where we are bombarded by a constant stream of messages. We tap or scroll passed most of it.

But a good image can stop us in our tracks. Whether you sell services or you have products to PR, imagery is one area worth investing in.

Now that we conduct so many of our initial interactions online, virtual personal branding has become as important as the handshake once was. So if you intend to spend time promoting yourself as the face of your business, then you will need a professional photographer.

This is also essential for your social media platforms, media mentions, guest blog bios and conference speaking agendas. Just find a photographer whose portfolio fits with your vision when it comes to “brand you.”

There are still ways to save money here, too. Contact photography clubs as many will host evenings of informal training for professionals simply looking to move into a new genre or to offer a new service in their business.

Local photography courses are another option, where posing for a session might be rewarded with some imagery.

3. Brand Your Tools

Many small businesses and entrepreneurs will start out with nothing more than a laptop, a smartphone and a notebook. The dream of a sign above the door may be a long way off. PR-ing your personal brand is part of how you get there.

Branding will eventually boost your bottom line.

Just because you don’t have a huge team yet doesn’t mean you can’t still portray a slick professional image. For example, you should still invest in a professionally-designed logo at this stage, using a small-scale graphic design freelancer, for example, to keep costs low.You can then use this to print a branded notebook, business cards, use it as the header across your social media channels and even print a bespoke laptop cover.

You can then use this to print a branded notebook, business cards, use it as the header across your social media channels and even print a bespoke laptop cover.

Remember that all of those business meetings are opportunities to impress and make your brand resonate. Not to mention the hours spent in public coffee shops working, as people walk past your open laptop case.

The most basic branding tool of all is actually the humble email signature – and it’s free! Don’t forget to set it up and include your logo professionally with your contact details and links.

4. Enter An Award

Awards are relatively inexpensive for the profile return they yield. They reach a highly targeted audience of industry peers and potential customers. Plus the subsequent credibility boosts your ability to speak as an expert in your field.

Of course, there can be large entry fees which put people off applying. But there are equally as many that are free to enter. They cost only your time.

The good news is that once you hone your answers, it’s only the figures and examples that need to be updated for future applications.

Most award providers will then do their own PR around the finalist announcements and results. This may include shortlists and winner case studies in the press and across social media.

Find suitable awards by searching online. Then check for awards run by your professional or chartered bodies. Also look to local business organizations like the Chamber of Commerce. Then see where competitors in your industry are trying to be recognized.

5. Host An Event

Hosting an event doesn’t have to be an elaborate or expensive affair. When starting to grow your personal brand, a conference or gala ball is not going to be cost-effective PR for you.

But small events, offered for free or at cost, sometimes in partnership with other local small businesses can be a great alternative. It could be as informal as a drop-in advice clinic at a local library or a panel session on a particular topic hosted at lunchtime in a local cafe.

Honing your presentation skills could prove very lucrative for your personal brand. Think about creating your own “talk” or short workshop on a useful topic that you could deliver to groups.

Initially, you might offer this for free to industry associations, non-profit organizations or your Chamber of Commerce.

When you’ve delivered a few, create a speaker profile with your topics and testimonials and make a point of sending it to program chairs, event planning people and the heads of industry associations who organization conferences.

Eventually, you might find yourself as a keynote speaker at a big industry conference and this will work wonders for amplifying your PR efforts.

6. Create Free Content

Blogging has been a key tool for people trying to PR their personal brands for much of the last decade. However, the online space is now crowded with similar information, making it hard to get noticed and grow your brand with written content.

One proven method is to you create something of value for your potential audience and then give it away for free on your website.

This could be anything from a substantial eBook to a small checklist or a downloadable template. It can be as simple as an article that takes someone step by step through a process.

If you can provide it in exchange for email addresses, you can grow an audience of people to whom you can deliver your most valuable content directly.

Those people can then refer you to friends or colleagues and ultimately end up doing your PR for you.

7. Start Live Streaming

If the now well-known personal branding tool of social media marketing isn’t working for you, then you can always look to the next big thing: live streaming. Video is now increasing in popularity among the public.

Live streaming on places like Facebook or even in short bursts on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram Stories can seem more manageable. Webinars are also very popular among B2B audiences.

The public expects live videos to be “unpolished” because it’s fast and raw. So there’s no pressure for expensive equipment or fancy editing skills.

These messages also tend to reach a lot more people. So if you can find the confidence and practice your skills, it could prove a great way to communicate to potential customers, for free.

All of these tactics mentioned are not only helpful to the promotion of your personal brand in their own right. Each one is also a content opportunity for your digital channels.

You could secure media coverage for winning an award, for example. You could post on LinkedIn about your new branded stationary for meetings. Or tweet a shout-out to the photographer as you change your Twitter profile picture to a professional one.

Always think about getting the maximum return for your spend and you’ll be sure that your PR budget is working hard for your personal brand!

About the Author

Bio: Leanne Ross is a digital consultant, creator of award-winning business and tech blog aCupOfLee.com and author of “Talk is Cheap: The Digital PR Your Startup Needs But Can’t Afford.” She has guest lectured on PR and Digital Marketing at both the University of Ulster, Ireland and the University of Otago, New Zealand.

As small business owners or marketers, we all know full well how important it is to put time aside for PR.

Investing in your public profile helps with generating inquiries, creates awareness and can lead to a variety of opportunities. I’m making sense, aren’t I? The thing is, it’s all well and good saying it and, even better, when you practice what you preach, but how do you know if it’s working?

There are some tell-tale signs I can speak about as a business owner that I know work for my company and our clients.

So, without further ado, I’ve pulled together a few tips that might be able to help you to answer this question.

You get a feeling…

No, we’re not about to sing the song ‘I gotta a feeling’ by the Black Eyed Peas. What a classic!

If you’re an astute CEO you’ll feel it in your water when PR is working. Contacts within your network will get in touch, friends and family will notice and hopefully, the phone will ring off the hook after your spot in the limelight.

The company environment will change a little too, and staff will feed off the success which can help with productivity. After all, good vibes count. So never shrug off a physical feeling, as this is definitely one of the signs.

Increased awareness at trade shows

When you go to a trade show following a bit of PR, it’s amazing how many of your peers will recognize you or your brand.

As you may have been under the radar, you’ll notice an increase in awareness. Even if it’s basic knowledge, it’s better than nothing. Make the most of this, as you never know who you will meet and what opportunities you could get.

Over time you might be able to speak at industry shows either on an expert panel or via a presentation to offer opinions, guidance on trends and your business journey. And this really will get you noticed.

Can we get your opinion on that?

Ever thought you could make it as a ‘thought leader’? Well, after some media exposure, journalists and bloggers might be getting in touch with your comments and opinions.

If you’re working in the world of PR or marketing, you’re the one that’s always picking up the phone to journalists or dropping a line to a blogger. When the shoe is on the other foot it’s a great feeling – believe me.

If you’re seen as the expert, opportunities like guest blogs, advice columns, podcasts and potentially the chance to speak on TV or radio could come flooding your way.

Increased ranking of keywords

Now I promise not to get too technical, but this point is worth a mention.

If you’ve ever read into search engine optimization (SEO) you’ll know the way to increase the rank of your website in the search engines is ‘link building’.

Over the last few years, Google has released several updates that have minimised the effects of easily gameable ranking signals, such as high volume, low-quality links, and links from directories. Natural editorial links from high-traffic authoritative websites are now one of the best ways to build links in 2017.

It’s also a way to see that your PR is working. In an industry where measuring results are notoriously difficult, the number of links acquired is a way to quantify your efforts and is a way to answer the question ‘is my PR working?’

If you have software like SEO Moz or SEMrush you can take this a step further. I appreciate not everyone will have this, but it might be worth investing in your company. By measuring your Domain Authority (DA) you can start to correlate the links coming from PR efforts to the authority of your website. And that really is a result that you want to see!

Check your referral traffic

If you’re looking for another tangible way to measure PR, try logging into your Google Analytics account. Traditional PR metrics such as readership estimates are guesses at best, and increased coverage will appear on a publication’s website, as well as in print.

By checking your referral traffic in Google Analytics, which you can find under ‘channels’ in the acquisition section of your account, you can see the source of any traffic that has come from a referring website. Alternatively, a tool such as Answer the Client will do this automatically so you can clearly see how effective your coverage has been.

Don’t forget to keep a keen eye on your website hits on a month-by-month basis, as this intel can seriously help with future campaign planning and can identify areas that need some development or TLC.

What makes you different?

Your customers will have a clear idea of what you do depending on how many services they use. Off the back of some PR, this could help with giving your clients more visibility of your wider services and how they can best utilize your company.

And it’s important to gather customer feedback too. Don’t just think PR is about what the public thinks about you or your company. It’s also key to understand how your customers feel. Survey them on an annual basis to track changes of your brand and their perceptions over time.

If you want to know what makes you different or what you’re known for, a good place to start is to find out from those that pay the big bucks for your services.

Conclusion

There you have it… some top tips from me to you about the best way to track your PR success. If you can think of any other ways to measure PR campaigns why don’t you get in touch with us?

Author Bio

Raman Sehgal is the owner of ramarketing, an award-winning PR, design and digital agency that’s in the business of helping ambitious companies in the pharmaceutical industry get noticed. Away from the office, he is a blogger, speaker, guest-columnist and occasional university lecturer. You can follow Raman on LinkedIn and find out more about ramarketing on its website.

Today everybody can publicly give a thumbs up or down to each customer experience.

Whether you’re an Uber driver or a brain surgeon, you have to accept that online reviews are now built into the buying process.

While negative reviews can certainly impact business, it’s second only to having none at all.

When potential customers don’t see reviews or any trace of satisfied customers, you immediately fall off the short list.

Since you know customers are already going to talk behind your back, you want to make sure your business lands on the right side of reviews.

Here are eight ways you can inspire customers to talk positively about you online:

1. Highlight the things people love about your business. Your stand-out qualities could be your areas of expertise, location, service, or a special touch that people have come to associate with your business. Develop a list by asking loyal customers to weigh in and share why they frequent your business. Highlight their reasons on your social media profiles, website, and online business listings and directories. This helps separate you from the pack, reinforces your strengths, and drives word-of-mouth.
2. Create memorable experiences. The customer experience doesn’t need to be over-the-top or cut into your profits to be memorable, but it should make an impression and be unique to your business. After all, customers tend to remember how you made them feel more than what they purchased. Creating a memorable experience can be as simple as the welcome customers receive when they enter your physical or virtual business, recognizing their birthday or sending a personalized thank you note, for example.
3. Be transparent and authentic. In other words, ditch the pitch and focus on addressing the customer’s needs. That requires your conversations and marketing content to inform and steer them toward the best products and services for their particular needs and budgets. When they know that your priority is to help them get the most from their investments, they’ll be more inclined to buy from you and recommend you to their friends.
4. Freely offer your expertise. There’s a misconception among some small business owners that if they offer free advice, they’re cutting into their profits. Nothing could be further from the truth. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you work for free or compromise your livelihood, but you can strike a balance by sharing enough knowledge to establish your credibility and reputation. Some simple ways to do this are through proactively answering frequently asked questions and offering insider tips and shortcuts on social media or in your email newsletter. Make those tips easy to digest and share online and your customers will thank you for helping spread the word.
5. Solicit feedback and read between the lines. Nobody wants to be surprised by a bad review, which is why it’s so important to encourage customers to provide feedback, even if it’s not always what you want to hear. Along with regularly engaging customers in soliciting their feedback, consider initiating short surveys in your newsletter or on your Facebook page. Also, depending on the products and services you sell, it might make sense to follow up a few months after a customer has been using your product for a little while. Along with these overt requests for feedback, pay attention to a lack of response as it can speak volumes. Additionally, take a good look at how your customers are engaging with you online. Are they clicking on your email content and sharing it or have there been dips in your subscriber list? Keeping an eye on these subtle customer actions and reactions allows you to continuously improve the customer experience and get ahead of potentially negative reviews.
6. Share great content. Follow news and trends that are happening locally and in your industry. Specifically, be on the lookout for posts that relate to your customers’ interests and present an opportunity to reinforce your value. Along with sharing the content, make the post your own by inserting your views (while giving credit to the original source). This engages your audience, inspires them to share your content, elevates your profile, and reinforces what makes your business unique.
7. Foster an active online community. Use your social media platforms to spark conversations with customers and connect them with each other. You can do this by tossing out a question on social media, sharing content from followers, and spotlighting customers. Fostering an active online community helps quickly spread the word about your business while giving you great insight your audience so you can deliver more personalized marketing campaigns. Not to mention it helps instill brand loyalty.
8. Shape the conversation to earn great reviews. Every small business owner knows that online review sites are getting more sophisticated at spotting fake posts and preventing them from going live. Yet that doesn’t mean you should sit idle and hope for a positive review to magically appear. When customers tell you they’ve had a great experience, let them know which review sites your business is listed on and suggest they tell others about it. If you keep the dialog light, let them know how important their online feedback is to your business, and avoid quid pro quo situations, they’ll be inspired to write authentic posts.

Motivating customers to talk positively about your business starts with providing a positive customer experience, engaging customers with helpful, free advice and consistently asking for feedback to continuously improve the products, services, and experiences you deliver. Then you won’t have to worry about those conversations happening behind your back.

About the Author

Dave Charest is Senior Manager, Content & Social Media Marketing at Constant Contact. Dave and his team make stuff to help small businesses do better marketing. For more insight and advice on marketing your small business, subscribe to the Constant Contact blog.

If you have limited your social media participation promotional content only, you are missing the point. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using social media as a place to share announcements about new products, upcoming sales, and specials, or boost flagging sales. In fact, doing these things is a good idea.

It’s just that your biggest opportunities on social media channels isn’t promotion. It’s branding, and the best way to improve your branding is to reach audiences with your unique messaging. Remember that consumers don’t just care about your products and prices. They want to connect with brands that reflect their values.

1. Give Your Audience a Behind The Scenes Look

Your values and your mission can be best seen in your daily operations. Invite customers in by filming behind the scenes videos. Let them meet the people who produce your products and run things behind the scenes. The passion, enthusiasm, and professionalism that is reflected in your workplace can be infectious. This is especially the case when customers see that your branding and your operations are in line with one another.

You’ll accomplish something else by doing this. People enjoy feeling like insiders, and as if they are in the know. It makes them feel as if they are a part of something exclusive. Behind the scenes content gives people those feelings.

2. Highlight People And Causes You Believe in

Is your business active in social causes? If so, let your audience know the causes that you support, and that they support by patronizing your business. Even if you don’t include charitable giving in your business model, you can still find causes that reflect your mission and signal boost them on your social media pages.

Don’t forget about inspirational people. Has someone on your team beaten a serious illness, run a marathon, or accomplished some other amazing feat? What about someone in your community. Share their story on social media.

3. Curate Humorous Touching or Inspiring Posts That Reflect Your Brand

Finding trending stories and videos that make an emotional impact is relatively easy. In fact, you could probably head to your Facebook feed right now, and find at least one post that fits in this category. The challenge is finding the right content to curate.

Sharing just any viral post or video might earn shares and a little bump in traffic, but that doesn’t help you with your messaging. The key is to find content that resonates and represents your values. Instead of thinking, ‘hey, a lot of people will like this post’, think ‘people who like this post share the values that my brand represents.’

4. Tape Introduction Videos of Company Representatives

Why not take the concept of the ‘About Us’ page to the next level. Film video introductions of the folks who represent your company, and who were responsible for getting your operations off of the ground. People will feel a much stronger connection, and will buy into your messaging if they connect  your brand with people they believe are sincere and trustworthy. Getting to know you content should be very important to brands as part of a marketing strategy that focuses on customer relationships.

5. Use Visual Content to Make Emotional Connections

Trust is a key element when forming connections with your customers. Visual content has been shown to evoke feelings of trust. It also evokes emotions. So, include pictures, videos, and other visual elements in your social media posts.

To really connect and give your messaging impact, share lots of photographs with members of your team. Remember that smiling pictures of women are especially good at increasing trust.

6. Ask Questions And Solicit Opinions

It might help to think of social media marketing like online dating. You can tell potential matches all about yourself. You can broadcast what you like and dislike, your stands on social issues, even share your future goals. In the end, in order to establish a relationship with anybody, conversations have to take place.

On social media, you have to create openings for these conversations to happen. The way to do this is to ask open-ended questions and invite  your followers to share their thoughts. Then, when they do this, engage them. When you participate in conversations, rather than simply posting content, you help to establish and strengthen customer relations.

7. Focus on Accuracy And Consistency

The best way to make your messaging connect with your followers is simply to show up with good content on a regular basis. If you curate content, source it from reputable sites, and be sure that your sources’ values are close to your own. Remember that when you share content, you aren’t just endorsing a particular piece, you are endorsing its source as well.

When it comes to the content that you create, it should be relevant, accurate, and it should focus on meeting your audience’s needs. If you become known as a source of quality information that helps people to solve their problems, you will have no trouble getting your message out.

Conclusion

By focusing on messaging instead of promotion, you build trust, establish your brand and your employees as thought leaders, and create believability. Doing this takes creating and sharing content that reflects your values, allows people to get to know your people and your story, and that is high in quality and visual elements. Finally, consistency is key.

If you liked this post, check out our Small Business Guide to Social Media.

Kerry Creaswood is a passionate writer and blogger. Her topics of interest are SEO, marketing, and social media. To find more about Kerry – check her Twitter

Within every company, big or small, brand and culture must unite to create a solid foundation for a lasting, successful business model. Individually these concepts serve a different purpose, but when combined, they are a driving force that enables long-term and sustainable growth.

Creating a brand culture isn’t easy. It takes a great deal of hard work, time commitment, and patience in order to create an identity that will endure the test of time, especially in today’s ever-changing society. However, there are several steps which business owners can take to invent their brand’s culture:

Step 1: Define (your brand)

A brand is one of the most valuable assets a company has. A strong sense of branding will lead to a stronger sense of pride for current employees, as well as a stronger presence for both prospective staff and customers. Your brand is what you stand for and what you offer to consumers and, in order to be successful, it needs to be unique.

For example, any pizza place can brand itself as a shop that sells pizza, but a truly unique brand has something to offer that others don’t. Whether it’s a unique pizza delivery model, one-of-a-kind toppings or unbeatable prices–they can easily entice people to eat their pizza over other pizza, and they capitalize on it.

What makes your company special? What sets you apart from your competitors? Define this and own it.

 Step 2: Write (your mission, vision, and values)

Once you’ve defined your new brand, write down your company’s mission, vision, and values. These should align with the brand and become the words each employee lives by. Companies that develop these laser-focused, non-negotiable values tend to see higher customer and employee satisfaction, as well as increased revenue.

Take note: your company’s values must be committable in order to be effective. Zappos, an online shoe and clothing store, has excelled at this. The company has a list of 10 core values, one of which is simply to “be humble.” In this video, CEO Tony Hsieh discusses these values and how they were ingrained into the company to create its unique culture.

Step 3: Create (your identity)

Utilizing your new brand, mission, vision, and values, you can now create your company’s identity – or how your company will be presented to the public. This includes the visual statement (color schemes, designs, slogans, etc.) that exemplifies the business’ services, employees, and overall philosophy.

While creating it, remember that this identity will become the permanent lens through which your company views itself. It must clearly and accurately portray everything that has been created so far – your brand’s mission, vision, and values.

As an example of a clear and effective identity, take a look at Treadwell, a small flooring company that specializes in building practical, durable floors. Treadwell partnered with Perky Bros, a creative branding agency, to create its entire brand identity – including logo and website design – with only one request: That the identity is centered around “standing upright and walking the walk” to help their clients feel confident in their product. The result? A combination of dark, bold colors with solid geometric lines that embody the strong and confident look Treadwell hoped for.

Creating this identity isn’t always an easy task. If you’re struggling to translate your brand into your corporate identity, a brand activation agency might be something worth looking into.

Step 4: Educate (your employees)

An employee’s personality and character have a tremendous impact on company culture. Employees are often your brand’s biggest advocates, and building a vibrant culture allows employees to thrive and personify your brand in a positive way.

For that reason, each employee needs to be educated and fully understand the company’s mission, vision, and values beyond just memorization; they must understand why each one exists and what it means to the company, its employees and the public. To truly build the culture you desire, these values should be ingrained in each of your employees and apparent in their daily work.

Step 5: Hire (your best-fit prospects)

Beyond educating any current employees, hiring new employees who fit within your company’s culture and share your company values is vital to building an honest brand. Does your company value cross-department collaboration? Do you have a culture where encouragement and empowerment are the driving force for the company?

If an individual’s personality or work style contradicts it, you are effectively poking a hole in the bottom of the ship that is your brand’s culture. A ship cannot float unless all of its pieces work together, and your culture will sink if the wrong tools are utilized.

In addition, hiring top talent improves employee retention, reduces turnover, and increases productivity. According to a recent study completed by Columbia University, job satisfaction and employee turnover are directly affected by satisfaction with workplace culture.

Step 6: Tell (your story)

Now that you have found your brand, identity, and the right employees, it’s finally time to present your brand and its culture to the public. What’s the best way to do this? Storytelling.

A story has the ability to capture its audience by engaging them and evoking emotion. Without a story, it is impossible to hold the attention of the people watching – or, in this case, the customers who are considering purchasing your product or service.

Your job is to tell the story with all that you have built; tell a story that will captivate and convince your audience (consumers) that they cannot live without your products and services.

Result

The brand culture you create should translate directly to the products or services you offer, and how your company interacts with clients. Each piece should line up strategically and creatively to have the maximum impact. When you establish a clear brand culture, and hire individuals who will complement it and carry it forward, your company is more likely to see the steady, long-term and sustainable growth small businesses can only hope for.

Alyssa Armstrong is a digital marketing coordinator at Sparxoo, an integrated digital marketing agency based in Tampa, Florida. At the Xoo, Alyssa helps bring her clients’ brands to life with social media management and content creation. She works with clients of all sizes in industries ranging from education and technology to sports and entertainment.

If you’re tired of trying to crank out endless marketing initiatives and manage the high costs of advertising in hopes of generating returns, you’re not alone. Marketers everywhere are struggling to keep up engagement with their audience.

But perhaps paid advertising isn’t where your focus should be. Here are six brands that used simple, even less-expensive methods to build consumer trust, which resulted in big gains.

1. Lexus Builds Trust Through Conversation

In 2011, Lexus Sweden was the first automaker in Europe to provide customers with a voice through the use of reviews and incorporated them into its overall marketing and branding strategy. Since then, Lexus has relied on reviews as a major component of creating and building consumer awareness. This has proven to be a successful strategy, with 99% of reviewers saying they would recommend the automaker to friends and family. Among those reviews, the average customer rating is 4.7 out of 5.

The Takeaway

Reviews work because they bring credibility to the brand and promote engagement within the domain of Lexus. Passionate customers become vocal brand ambassadors. That benefits both the brand and the resellers because Lexus can get a better idea about their customers’ needs and then act upon that feedback.

2. One King’s Lane Provides Value in Retargeting

A lot of brands are using retargeting to try to win back customers. One King’s Lane is among them, but the home décor brand developed a new approach. To increase ad spend efficiency, the company uses custom audiences to target those who have expressed interest in the brand. It then serves content recommendations from publications and sites like the New York Post, Vogue, and Apartment Therapy. The content typically provides a wealth of advice, including how to replicate home décor from popular designers. As a result, the cost per acquisition was cut by 50%, and conversion increased by 4x with a 1.5x increase in click-through rates.

The Takeaway

This is a smart campaign approach. Rather than simply retargeting customers with product ads in social media or other channels, One King’s Lane focuses on providing value. This builds trust and memorable experiences with the audience.

3. Burberry’s Art of the Trench

It might be surprising to hear that companies have been leveraging user-generated content well before social media skyrocketed to popularity. In 2009, Burberry launched a new website called “The Art of the Trench,” where users could share and comment on pictures of everyday people wearing products from the brand. Following the site’s launch, Burberry saw a 50% year over year increase in e-commerce sales.

The Takeaway

It’s important to know what interests your audience. Find ways to engage them that leverage their passions and interests. For Burberry, the website focused on fashion and style with real people, not models. Seeing a growing number real people enjoying a product creates trust, as well as heightened interest in the products and brand.

4. Target’s Education Pledge

In 2010, Target pledged $500 million to support education and later aimed to double its donation to $1 billion with a competition centered around students sharing their acceptance letters. The campaign involved customers submitting videos showing acceptance letters being opened. Target collected its favorite submissions to create a commercial, which was used to highlight and expand the visibility of Target’s philanthropy.

The Takeaway

The millennial generation wants more from companies: they want to be part of something that has real impact on the world, both at work and in their personal lives. Utilizing user-generated content presents Target in a way that’s more attractive to a younger generation, building trust through philanthropy and humanitarian efforts.

5. Coffee for Less Optimizes for Trust

The Coffee For Less company wanted to improve its organic visibility to increase conversions from the targeted traffic. Instead of aiming for general optimization, it upgraded the reviews and comments section of its products. This gave users the ability to easily submit reviews and share their comments with others. As a result, the number of comments grew by 6,000 within three years. According to MarketingSherpa, the comments and reviews on the Coffee For Less website generated a 10% lift in organic search traffic and a 125% boost in conversions.

The Takeaway

Nielsen research has shown that over 92% of consumers trust peer reviews over other forms of advertising. Turning those reviews into a source of organic visibility and traffic will establish trust before the customer even lands on your site. It’s an excellent way to leverage user-generated content and offer customers outlets for expressing their opinions.

6. McDonald’s Revitalizes in the UK

In 2005, McDonald’s was faced with diminished trust among its UK audience for a number of reasons, necessitating a revitalization of the brand. The changes included revamping the menu and décor, as well as other improvements based on consumer feedback. McDonald’s efforts also brought about a change in communication. There was no mainstream social media marketing at the time, so McDonald’s created a website that allowed consumers to ask any question and it would be answered honestly.

This direct engagement, something the company had never done before, paid off big and improved trust and interest in the brand. By the end of 2008, McDonald’s in the UK saw 11 consecutive quarters of growth, with sales growing by 8.5% in 2008.

The Takeaway

One of the best ways to improve trust is to consistently and transparently engage your audience. The channel you use to communicate is less important than the authenticity and sincerity of the message or response.

What are you doing in your marketing efforts to build consumer trust? Share your thoughts with me in the comments below:

Aaron Agius is an experienced search, content, and social marketer. He has worked with some of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, including Salesforce, Coca-Cola, Target and others, to build their online presence. See more from Aaron at Louder Online, his blog, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Smartphones and its technologies are becoming undeniable assets to businesses today. It is time to grasp the value of Mobile power and the value of mobile apps. Working on the go, or while you are holidaying is getting better these days. The stress of competitors, the need to take decisions instantly, the anxiety to close a deal anytime, the transaction that can happen anytime, the always required necessity to monitor your team for improved productivity, the finance that needs to be adjusted and many more pressures like these have been constantly pushing you to chase your office even on the go.

What helps you to put your office in your pocket? Just take advantage of some of the best apps that can help you to keep in touch with your office and track all details, monitor, manage, do business, make payments and so on while on the move. You can happily holiday and still run your office/business without any break. Few apps can give you unlimited opportunities. Make use of these apps and solve all your skill gaps even on the move.

#Cloud Business Management App

Netsuite – One single app to keep you connected with your finance, commerce, and customers.

Available for both iPhone and Android users, this is one solution for all business size, industry and role. It is a unified business management suite, covering ERP/Financials, CRM, and ecommerce. It is a single app that connects financials, customers, and commerce. Where ever you are, you can access to all business information of your organization and take actions as you go. It is simple yet easy to use.

# Operations Management App

NimbleCRM – Customer relationship management while on the go

It is easy to get trapped in any of your work activity trap if you fail to have a management strategy. You need to have visibility and complete connectivity if you wish to serve your customers better. No worries. You have an app for that. Nimble is one of the top rated social sales & marketing customer relationship management apps available today. With Nimble, you can have your team customer engagement including contacts, calendars, emails, social interactions etc., all at your fingertips. NimbleCRM now can be integrated with MailChimp, an app for email marketing. Through this facility, Nimble CRM sales team can easily get a glimpse of what their customers, leads, prospects or suspects are clicking on or opening in target marketing emails sent by the Marketing team in MailChimp. With just MailChimp app too, you can quickly look at how your campaigns and lists work even while you are away from your office.

# For Social Media Marketing

Buffer-Social media Scheduler

Time is one thing that cannot be recovered once it is gone. So be productive even when you are away from your office. Social media is one big sucker these days. Managing them wisely for your branding, promotion helps you save your time. No worries, there are a number of apps for that. One such high rated one is Buffer. You can promote your business and engage your communities easily with Buffer even if you are away from your office. Launched in 2010, Buffer is a fantastic scheduler for all your social posting. It works well with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. It frees you from the hassle of scheduling every single post separately. Available for both Apple and Android users, the app allows your team to work together, connect to more profiles, schedule posts in advance, and even analyze data generated by your followers. This app helps you to connect and optimize social media marketing easily and conveniently.

# For Ecommerce Analytics

Abondo- At a glance of ecommerce statistics

If you are running an ecommerce business, then this app can be the right choice for you. Information is a key to be successful in any ecommerce business and converting information into insight is wise. “You can’t just open a website and expect people to flood in. If you really want to succeed you need to create traffic,” said Joel Anderson, CEO of Walmart in one of his statements. Abondo is one app that gives you ecommerce statistics at one glance.

# For Google Analytics

Dashboard

Achievers make informed decisions – and informed decisions make achievers. Visualizing and analyzing real-time data is critical for any business today to make decisions. With the right metrics, you can turn data into information and capture your revenue. There are apps that can help in pulling real-time data from multiple sources. Dashboard is one such app. It has a top rating in the app store. Fast, quick and real-time google analytics conversions and metrics – wherever you are. It helps you to monitor your business performance and success on the go, set targets for your KPIs, track target values for main metrics, add custom conversions and access to over 90 plus reports.

# For File Sharing

Google Drive

Google Drive is one place where your files are safe and allows you to access and share files, photos, documents, designs, videos, recordings etc anywhere and at any time. Your storage and access depend upon the cloud storage plan that you choose. Your storage can be expanded to Drive, Gmail and Google photos. The app works with Google. You can save any attachment to drive and access and share them anytime, scan documents and save it as PDFs in Drive. Go ahead and make a presentation while you fly too.

Evernote

Dump all your notes in one place. You can still be organized. This app lets you make a note or capture them and access anywhere on all your devices. Your notes can be just a scribbled note, a formatted text, a photograph, webpage, voice memo and so on. Drop all of them into Evernote and access or share them as you want them.

# For Invoice / Accounting

FreshBooks

No more excuses like “my dog ate your invoice,” “our boss in on a holiday,” “your invoice is unethical,” “I am not well to come and collect the invoice,” and so on….
Developed specifically for small business owners, FreshBooks app makes your accounting simple, intuitive and online. It is cloud based and lets you send invoices easily, track time and capture expenses effortlessly. Reporting and accounting have never been so easy. With FreshBooks, there is no stress on expenses and invoicing and even a non-accounting person can handle this app well and get their job accomplished. Easy to use, get paid fast, raise invoice quickly and share them, get organized and save time. The best part is you can do all these anywhere and completely away from your office too…

Zoho Invoice

Zoho Invoice is yet another top rated invoicing app that helps you to send invoices, accept payments, send reminders, and even accept card payment online. All – quickly and easily on the go. Automate and save time.

# For Instant Recruiting

Workable

Recruitment is the only department where multiplication and division mean the same… What makes your recruitment process effortless? There are few apps for that. Workable is a recruitment app that will help drive efficiency in hiring the right candidate. Used widely, this app allows you to post openings instantly, track applicants, compare candidate and collaborate, mass mail, integrate with Gmail, import reports / database, hire on the go. Simple and yet a functional app that makes recruitment totally hassle free.

# For Customer Support

Freshdesk

This is one tool that will help you support your customers wherever you are. Moreover, it lets you integrate with your CRM or order management system thereby letting you provide contextual support anytime and anywhere. Handling customers, managing their refunds, returns, queries are easy with this app.

# Workflow Management – Project management

Asana

Gone are the days when you say “I am not the only one to be blamed!”It is no more herding cats. Good control reveals problem early – a strategy for project management. Asana is a project management and collaboration app that lets you manage your team, share information, organize schedules and track the progress – all from one single app. You can also leave feedback, upload attachments and comment on each progress too. Easy to use, Asana is an app that keeps you updated with the progress of all tasks that you assign your team member.

# For Video Conferencing

ClickMeeting

This is one popular app that lets you have your online meeting anytime and anywhere. ClickMeeting is one of the top-rated mobile apps that let you schedule a meeting, host and even be present in a meeting online via any Apple, Blackberry or Android devices. Moreover, you can even share your screen, manage presentations, record your meeting and highlight certain parts of the presentation. With some of the best collaborative tools, the app can be the best tool to conduct a meeting while you are away from your office.

# For Finance Management

Yodlee

Keeping track of expenses, money flow, banking transactions etc can be challenging. But with the right apps, you can efficiently control your business finance even while you are away from your office. Yodlee is an app that works well with online and mobile banking portals allowing you to manage your finance on the move. It lets you to easily manage your cash flow, visualize future transactions and also plan for upcoming expenses well ahead.
Last in the sequence but no last in the importance…….

# Zero Distraction Apps

QualityTime

All work and no play make Jake a dull boy…Working during your holidays or away from your office can be excellent with all the apps that i discussed here. But, in case you reach a brim and feel like having your personal time, no worries, you have an app for that too. Serious. QulaityTime is one amazing app that locks your smartphone for a stipulated time set by you and restricts you to have an access to your own phone. Just select the time and hit the start button. Time to relax….

If you liked this post, check out our Guide to Managing Your Small Business Finances.

Meenakshi Krishnan is a Content Consultant at OpenXcell, a pioneering Mobile App Development Company in India and USA. Technology inspires her and this has helped her to write contents on varied topics ranging from telecom, apps and healthcare communications and so on. She is currently working on global mobile app technologies reporting on diverse subjects. Prior to this, she was working for a technology marketing company based in Norwalk as a content contributor.

It’s no secret that getting positive ratings and reviews about your business on third-party websites is an important part of marketing these days. Study after study has confirmed that a majority of consumers trust online reviews of local businesses and use those reviews when making buying decisions.  However, despite all the press about the importance of reviews, many local businesses still haven’t gotten the message and are not doing anything to encourage their customers to leave a review for them—and that’s great news for you.

You see, the fact that many businesses are not giving this aspect of marketing the attention it deserves means that it may not be too late for you to become the #1-rated provider of your products or services in your local area.  If you act quickly to claim this title, it could have a profound and lasting impact on your business.

The Psychology of Being #1

Before I get into how you can go about becoming the top-rated provider in your area, allow me to explain why doing so is well worth your time.  You’re probably familiar with the psychological concept of social proof, which says that people tend to reference the behavior of others when making decisions.  What you may not be aware of is how powerful this phenomenon is.

In many studies covering a wide variety of industries, the best predictor of the popularity of something was how popular it was already.  That has been proven to be true for everything from the number of downloads a song will get to which answer people will choose on a multiple choice test.

It has also been proven that a small increase in popularity early on will lead to a much larger increase in popularity down the road.  There is no denying that people simply trust the judgement of the crowd.

What this phenomenon means for your business is that if none of your local competitors has any online ratings or reviews—which is still the case in many industries in many local markets—by simply getting a small handful of great reviews on one or two key sites, you can not only become the top-rated provider in your area, but you will likely ensure that you will always be the top-rated provider in your area.

You see, once you get a few great reviews on third-party websites, at least some people will choose to do business with you simply because of that fact.  This will, in turn, make it more likely that you will get more good reviews on more third-party websites…which will make it more likely that people will choose you simply because of your good reviews…and so on.

The good news for you is that if you take action on this quickly, by the time your competitors realize what you’re doing you’ll probably be so far ahead that they’ll never catch up.  The bad news is that if your competitors take action first, you will have your work cut out for you if you ever want to unseat them as the top-rated company in your area.

Deciding what category you will be top-rated in

Now that you understand the importance of acting quickly to become the top-rated provider in your area, let’s talk about how exactly to go about doing that.

The first step is to decide what product or service you are going to be the top-rated provider of.  At first this might seem obvious, but it’s actually important to put a little thought into this for a few reasons.

First, you should do a little bit of keyword research to find out what products or services your potential customers are searching for, and what keywords they are using to describe those products.  This is important because you’ll want your business’s listings on third-party review sites to show up in search results for popular search terms, which means you’ll need to use those terms in the description of your business that you put on those sites.

For example, a handyman might determine that many people in his area are looking for plumbers online, but not many people are searching using the term “handyman”.  He would want to make sure to include terms related to plumbing on his business listings so that when he collects reviews he can brand himself as the top-rated plumber in the area.  Being the top-rated provider of a service nobody is searching for defeats the purpose of creating social proof, and won’t do you any good.

Another reason that you should put some thought into what category you will target for top-rated status is that one of your competitors may have beaten you to the punch in one category, but be lagging behind in another.

For example, a cleaning company that offers residential and commercial cleaning might have a competitor who only offers residential cleaning and has 20 five-star reviews on Google.  It might make more sense for that company to try and get reviews from their commercial cleaning customers and brand themselves as the top-rated commercial cleaning company in the area, instead of trying to catch up with their competitor in the residential cleaning category.

Of course, you can certainly become the top-rated company in your area in multiple categories, but you should first target categories that will get you the best results the fastest, and then move on to more specific categories.

How to get reviews

Once you’ve determined what category you want to become top-rated in and have set up listings for your business on third-party review sites using keywords related to that category, it’s time to start getting some reviews on those sites.

There’s really only one way to do this, and that means asking for them…and asking a lot.  As more and more companies catch on to how important reviews are, your customers will begin to get bombarded with requests for reviews.  Here’s a few tips about how to make it more likely that they will respond to your requests:

• Have a specific point in your customer service cycle where you ask for a review in order to make it less likely that you’ll forget to do it.
• Train yourself and your employees to always ask for a review whenever they get a compliment from a customer. Be specific about where you want the customer to leave a review, and give them the information they need to do it (such as a direct link to the site where you want the review sent in an email).
• Especially target customers you have a long history and close relationship with. They’ll not only be more likely to leave you a review, but their review will probably be more descriptive.
• In addition to your customers, ask strategic partners to leave you a review. This is 100% legitimate as long as they make it clear in the review that they are speaking not as a customer but from someone who has knowledge of your business from the perspective of a strategic partner.
• Consider using an automated reputation marketing tool to help you collect reviews (Us and GetFiveStars.com are two examples of these).

Where to get reviews

The answer to where to get your customers to leave reviews for your business depends to a certain extent on your industry, your competitors, and where you are located, but for most businesses, the following guidelines are a good starting point.

• Start by getting six 5-star reviews on your Google My Business page. This will make the average star rating show up on the page instead of just the number of reviews.  It will also make your Google listing more likely to show up as one of the three businesses displayed in the maps section of the local search results.  This will help kick-start your “top-rated” claim.
• Next, get 5-10 reviews on your business Facebook page. This page often turns up just after or even before your website in search results when people search for your business by name.
• After Google and Facebook, do some local searches for the keywords you are targeting and also some branded searches for your business, and see what directories if any turn up in search results. Get some reviews on these directories next and get 5-10 reviews on each.
• Last but not least, get some reviews on high-traffic industry-specific review sites such as Homeadvisor.com, Zillow.com, Healthgrades.com, or Cars.com.

Once you’ve done all of the above, then pick one or two sites to get the majority of your reviews on going forward.  It will be easier to brand yourself as the “top-rated” provider if you can point to a large number of reviews on one site vs having to average ratings and reviews across many sites (although this is still a valid strategy).

What to do if you’ve already been beaten

In some competitive industries or large metropolitan areas, if you are just now starting to gather ratings and reviews, you may be too late to the party to become the top-rated provider.  In that case, with a little bit of creativity you can still use social proof to help you get new customers:

• Narrow your geographic focus: If someone else has nailed down the top-rated status for your industry in the closest major city, try targeting your suburb or even your neighborhood (if your business is located in a neighborhood that has a widely used name but is not formally recognized as a municipality).
• Target a narrower category: If there is a service you provide that your highly-rated competitor doesn’t, get some reviews reflecting that and brand yourself as the #1-rated provider of that service.
• Get reviews from a specific category of customer: Instead of branding yourself as the #1 rated provider of your service overall, you could brand yourself as the #1 choice of a specific type of customer after collecting reviews from that type of customer. For example, a cake bakery could get reviews from owners of bridal salons in the area and brand themselves as the “top-rated bakery for wedding cakes among local bridal salons”.

By following the tips listed above, within relatively short order you should be able to claim the title of “#1-rated” in at least one category.  Don’t wait too long to take action, though—for all you know, your closest local competitor could be reading this same blog post and planning their own top-rated marketing campaign!

Kevin Jordan is a member of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network and the owner of Redpoint Marketing Consultants, the #1-rated marketing agency in Christiansburg, VA.  He’s also co-author of the award-winning book The Small Business Owner’s Guide to Local Lead Generation and the host of the top-rated video podcast The Small Business Marketing Minute Show. You can connect with Kevin on Twitter @RMCVirginia.

If you are a business owner, you are already familiar with public relations and their input in the success of your business. PR is something no one can avoid since you can either have good or bad relations. This makes the whole process a rather challenging one because it relates to both the organization and the individuals’ appearance and behavior.

Getting a journalist write about you is not an easy task and one must understand the need for public relations in order to succeed on the market. Of course, every individual has their own standards, but this does not limit you in finding a way to maximize the chances for the success of your PR.

What follows are 10 stats that can help you boost your PR:

1. The golden time to send an email

According to the research done by GetResponse, the majority of the e-mails being sent to journalists are opened at a specific period of the day. The fact is, there is always such a thing as a ‘right timing’ when it comes to communication with people. The golden time for sending an e-mail is 8am-10am.

Angela Spark, an outreach specialist for the resume writing service Resumesplanet has confirmed this theory claiming that ‘journalists tend to reply with angry emails if contacted at 3.30am and 6.30pm. For them, later is the ‘dead’ time since they have already finished their job and turned to engaging in other activities.’

2. The perfect day to send an email

When contacting journalists, you also need to pick the right day. A massive study conducted by iAquire and Buzzstream has chosen Tuesday as the best day to send an e-mail. Why? Because this is the day when emails are most frequently opened and replied to. A veteran journalist for The Post Register, Jennifer Austin, claims that Monday is a busy day for everyone and one may easily miss an e-mail or postpone the reply for the day that follows.

Art of outreach

3. Name importance

A case study conducted by iAcquire tries out two methods of opening salutations: ‘Aloha’ and ‘Hi, Mike’. The result is quite obvious: choosing a personal salutation rather than a general one such as ‘Aloha’ gives you more chances that your e-mail will get a response. Why? Because generic salutations give the impression that you don’t know who you are contacting and choosing a personal salutation gives the idea of being more professional and involved. Additionally, the problem with spam emails that feature these types of common, generic salutations is always present, so you may not get a response due to your email being misplaced in the ‘junk’ folder

4. Number of follow-ups

When it comes to contacting people via e-mail, the timing and the salutation is definitely not the only thing that needs considering. Another point captured by iAcquire is the number of follow-up emails required for successful communication. The general understanding is that persistence gets the best results and this study proves this point exactly. A second and third email resulted in 60% more responses than one single e-mail.

5. E-mail or phone

iAcquire has pointed out that 64% of the total number of journalists included in the study have chosen phone over e-mail communication. Why is this? The answer would be that the time spent while contacting via e-mail can be much longer than by a simple phone conversation. Matters can be more easily discussed when you are not waiting for the other party to open their inbox and normally, this saves up much time for the journalists.

6. Getting to the point

The attention span of Americans is approximately 8 seconds, according to a study from Microsoft Corp. The results of this research show that people can lose concentration after as little as eight seconds. This was based on a survey of 2000 participants and brain activity studies of 112 participants. This means that getting to the point fast can be one of the key factors in boosting your PR when  communicating with journalists.

7. E-mail length matters

If you’ve found yourself wondering why the journalists you contacted are not reacting to your e-mails, you should know that the length of the message is a big factor in them reading it. A study from Boomerang has shown that the optimal length that an email should have is between 50 and 125 words. The response rate for this length has proven to be above 50% and short emails are most commonly followed by a response.

8. Keep your e-mail to the point

The B2B PR blog has conducted a study that resulted in 68% of the journalists wanting just the facts. This is why it is crucial to keep an e-mail short and concise, with the purpose of making sure that the journalist knows the facts and does not reject reading your e-mail because of all unnecessary details included.

9. Include a question

According to a statistic found on Hubspot, the best practice when writing an e-mail and expecting a response is to include a question in the message.  The Boomerang study has discovered that the right amount of questions to be asked is from one to three questions. The results showed that the chances of getting a response were increased up to 50%.

10. No phone number in the first e-mail

iAcquire points out that removing a phone number in the first email you send can lead to a 4.78% increase in the response rate! These e-mails can additionally get 2,48% link closes, due to the lack of the phone number in an unsolicited e-mail. Having placed your phone number in the message can easily correlate the e-mail with a scam.

Follow the guidelines above to boost your PR to a new, advanced level. Creating a good reputation or enhancing the one you already have is not simple and usually takes a big chunk of time, but if you manage to develop and update your plan, your success will be guaranteed!

Antonio Tooley is an outreach specialist and a blogger. He loves writing about SMM, marketing, education and productivity. He’s also crazy about riding his bike and bumping into new people (when he’s on foot). He will be happy to meet you on Facebook, Twitter and Medium.

There is a lot of debate over the definition of Web 2.0.

Google it and you will get a number of definitions, probably with similar undertones. For instance, this specific definition of Web 2.0 says, “Web 2.0 is a term that describes the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and Web design that aim to enhance creativity, secure information sharing, increase collaboration, and improve the functionality of the Web as we know it (Web 1.0).”

In a nutshell, it refers to the way how we utilize the Web at present as it goes without saying that there has been a tectonic shift in how web pages are created, designed and used by the end-users.

Web 2.0 is also characterized by a massive change in the way content is created and shared. Today, we have a number of personal blogging platforms, content sharing sites, social media channels, etc., which provide ample opportunities for the creation of dynamic, interactive content.

How different is interactive content from the normal content?

The basic difference between interactive content and normal content is that the users can interact with the former and are easily lured into taking a call-to-action. Apart from text and images, interactive content includes games, animation, GIFs, videos, quizzes, polls, interactive infographics, interactive white papers, etc.

Sample these statistics, which favor interactive content: 

• Content with relevant images gets 94% more views than those without.
• Users who view video are 1.81 times more likely to make a purchase than those who don’t view videos.
• Mobile video plays exceeded 44% by mid-2015, which was an 844% rise since 2012.
• Infographics are 3 times more liked and shared on social media as compared to other types of content.

This means that when you want to boost page views, you’ll require more than an article plus a picture as the target audience wants to see the more visual content, preferably interactive in nature.

How the digital PR industry benefits from interactive content?

Interactive content is transforming the way we see and use content for marketing purposes. Moreover, it is more personal and challenging to create. But once it is out there on social media channels and other platforms, there is no looking back as it can do wonders for any brand or business.

The digital PR industry, in particular, benefits greatly from interactive content

This is because interactive content:

Helps retain users’ attention spans

People nowadays have the attention span less than that of a goldfish! Add to this the fact that they process visuals a staggering 600,000 times faster than text. What does this tell you?

1. Bite-sized content is easily consumed by the users
2. Any information, however complex, can be made interesting by going interactive

A lot of planning is definitely required for this, but ultimately, it is going to be worth the efforts.

Involves the users easily

Given a choice between a long-form article on an ongoing crisis and an infographic about the same, which one do you think will capture your audience’s attention? The infographic wins hands down.

Interactive content allows your target audience to closely get involved with the content created and presented beautifully. It immerses them in the storytelling and gets them to emote or to take a call-to-action on their own.

The Guardian’s interactive World War 1 documentary is an apt example of making the target audience get involved deeply in a content. The same can be said for The Fallen of World War II, an interactive documentary created by Neil Harollan. Both these documentaries are excellent resources for learning about the two wars that are an important part of world history. Had these documentaries been presented in the form of text and images, they wouldn’t have made that strong an impact on the minds of the viewers!

Increases social engagement

Visual, interactive content will any day, anytime, ensure more engagement as compared to text.  The more people will interact with the content, the more calls-to-action they will take such as hitting the like, share or comment buttons. This leads to an increase in social engagement, which translates into a stronger relationship with the brand or business.

Raises awareness

You probably have been living under a rock if you don’t know what the heck is the ALS Ice Bucket challenge.

Promoted heavily on social media, the challenge was to raise awareness of ALS or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis. The foundation spread the awareness and raised money simply by making people have fun, record it and tag other participants, thereby creating a chain. It broke the internet!

This is the power of interactive content and this is exactly how brands can leverage it to raise awareness about their products and services.

Helps collect data

Data collection is one of the most vital steps of the decision-making process and planning future strategies.

Interactive content helps PR professionals get tons of information about their end-users known as ‘interaction data’. It helps them know the number of target users who have taken a call-to-action on their page such as liking a post, sharing it or clicking on the link to visit the website. This data proves to be vital for implementing their new, improved strategies.

The role of social media in interactive content marketing

Since we are talking about interactive content, it’d be completely unfair not to mention about social media.  According to CIO, Facebook has about 1.55 billion monthly active users, while its recently acquired content sharing app Instagram has more than 400 million monthly active users. Its arch-rival Twitter may be lagging behind, but still, it happens to be one of the best and the biggest social media platforms that exists. The micro-blogging social media platform closed the third quarter of 2015 with 320 million monthly active users. Also, Pinterest surpassed 100 million monthly active users along with LinkedIn.

Because a vast majority of their target audience are on these and countless other social media platforms, digital PR professionals have no choice but to include social media in their content marketing strategies.

The following examples are testimony to this fact: 

• Heineken Brazil’s ‘Um Like Um Balao’ (One Like One Balloon) campaign earned them thousands of followers in just a few days.
• Red Bull’s Instagram campaign, which took the popular image sharing social media platform to the streets. Literally!
• Hillary Clinton used Snapchat to reach out to young supporters in 2015.

Therefore, it is evident that by using social media as a tool, PR professionals can take their game many notches high.

It helps them to directly reach out to their consumers, gain deeper insights, keep a track of the trends, analyze consumer behavior and constantly improve their existing strategies to stay ahead in the race.

Even startups are not far behind from getting benefited from interactive content. Creation of outstanding content, with which the end-users can interact, is the best route that they can take and get noticed. They can share their expertise and slowly but surely, make an impact on their target audience.

For them, interactive content creates the simple chain of:

Create>>Post>>Views>>Engagement>>Share

With a focus on this chain, PR professionals can work on increasing startups’ exposure and credibility on the market and thus successfully implement PR for startups.

To conclude

Interactive content is one of the best and the most powerful tool, which has the potential to attract target users amidst an overabundance of content. It is up to the PR professionals how they use it to their advantage and implement it to guarantee the best results.

Taral Patel is PR Executive at PRmention, a digital PR agency. Being closely associated with digital marketing industry, he has good knowledge about how modern digital marketing methods can be applied in a PR strategy. You can connect with him on Twitter @connect2taral