Was the real winner of the Oscars the Girl Scouts of America? How are well-established brands really using Snapchat? Can cartoons save the day when it comes to explaining complex ideas? Check out the Hoffman team’s favorite PR blog posts and articles from this week:
- Snapchat is for more than just showing off your tasty brunch. PR Newser reported on how major brands are making an impression on the popular media sharing app. Turns out that brands that use Snapchat in an engaging way can help appeal to a younger audience, while also monitoring their audience’s feedback and spreading their message by word of mouth. Brand usage of Snapchat is still in an experimental phase, but that is part of the fun.
- Need to explain the inner workings of an electric car or the intricate process of how the brain stores memories? The Meltwater PR Blog suggests explaining complex concepts with animation. Animated video gives you free rein to convey anything you want in a light-hearted way that makes sense to viewers. If the subject is dry, you can make an interesting character explain it and show the actual process without any limits. And the best part is that when you need to make eventual edits to the content, you can do so without having to coordinate with live actors’ schedules.
- Forget those enormously expensive Super Bowl ads. All a company needs to do is convince the host of the Oscars to pass around their product to the star-studded audience. PR Daily reported on how Chris Rock’s Girl Scout bit gave the organization an estimated $5.5M in free publicity. The joke resulted in 49,023 tweets about Girl Scout cookies and an invaluable amount of digital content interaction. The Girl Scouts paid absolutely nothing for the air time, and the whole idea came from Chris Rock himself. Sometimes the best PR move just can’t be planned.
- We all know it is very easy for a reporter to delete your email in an inbox flooded with hundreds of other pitches. But there are a few different ways to make it a little harder for journalists to ignore your pitch. The Cision Blog lists five ways to get reporters to respond to pitches. Name recognition is very important to get anyone to read your email, but especially for reporters. Start building your relationships with your media targets by sharing their posts online and commenting on their stories. If they start seeing your name in other places besides their inbox, they are a lot more likely to engage with you.
- It turns out that always wearing a blazer can cross over into a lot of other lessons communications professionals should know as well. The Beyond PR Blog highlighted five lessons from the MarketingSherpa 2016 conference. Perception is key when it comes to building relationships with clients, coworkers and your brand’s audience. Just like wearing a blazer conveys a sense of professionalism, paying attention to the way you present the brand you represent to the world is crucial. Taking another look at your message through a potential customer’s eyes can make the difference between success and failure.
Check back every Friday for our This Week in PR roundup to discover more PR industry trends and news.
