Cheating on our Website with Facebook

Concept is populating a shiny new Facebook Page for our business, which showcases our clients and successes, goings on, team, news, points of view, and other goodness. As we’ve spent time on it this past week, posting and uploading, writing and customizing, we’ve commented to one another how easy and fun it’s been to build it out. (The kind of fun that has me working into the wee hours when my client work has long gone to bed.)

But now that we’re nearing launch phase, I’ve started to wonder, isn’t this all on our Website? And that was my husband’s first question when I asked him to come take a look. While I was hoping for a  simple, “Wow, honey, that looks great!” I didn’t get that, and instead defined why a Website works with Facebook, rather than in place of. (My husband is a great “so what?” meter.)

My description of the evolution of communications and the way people engage with brands today didn’t quite do it for him. But then I drew the smile, head nod, and “yeah, that looks great, honey!” with the following comment: To ensure people are reading our blog and staying informed on our company, they need to come to our site, or subscribe to our RSS feed, which few traditionally do for small and medium sized businesses. With Facebook, our content appears in front of our audiences, where they already are, without asking a single thing of them.

We’ve seen dynamic communication and audience growth work well for our clients through the Facebook Pages we manage. Now it’s our turn! And what about your business? If you’ve asked yourself about the virtues of Facebook vs. your Website or blog, consider the following:

1. Replace your Newsletter:  Are you doing a company newsletter? Consider replacing or augmenting it with content on Facebook. Invite the same people on your mailing list to join your Page. You’ll likely receive more Likes and Comments than you would have in replies to the newsletter.
2. Make a Great First Impression: Facebook is becoming the de facto place for people to look for and at your company (like LinkedIn replacing resumes). It has the power to replace a Website for quick introductions and information. Let your Facebook Page be the first impression you make about your business, brand values, mission and work quality.
3. Extend your Company Voice:  Are you looking for ways to develop or extend your company’s unique point of view and brand? We love the new Facebook feature that allows you to edit as your brand, so your Likes and Comments appear from your branded Page, rather than individual person, giving your company its own voice.
4. Stay in Front of your Audience:  Nearly 1/3 of the world’s population is on Facebook, including most of your friends and family, colleagues and business prospects. They’re already there, and your brand can be there as well, speaking to them, asking questions, sharing content and starting conversations.
5. Separate Business and Pleasure:  Do you blur the line a bit between business and pleasure on Facebook, but don’t like spamming your pals with corporate promos? Facebook Pages (rather than Profiles) let you keep personal it its place so you’re not mixing biz speak with photos of your kids.

So yes, this content is all on our Website, but you’re all on Facebook. We still love our Website, as we do our blog and LinkedIn profiles and Twitter feeds, but Facebook is dynamic and interactive and allows for easy updates and conversations. We’re  excited to engage with our friends, colleagues, clients and prospects through another channel, and show potentially the world what it is we do. We do realize “the world” will not be Friending our Page — but it’s there for them regardless, and that’s the point.

Now don’t worry, blog, you’re the first one I turned to for this post — but only because you so smoothly populate our Facebook and Twitter feeds automatically. If you didn’t do that, well, our parting would be such sweet sorrow.

AdAge: As Media Market Shrinks, PR Passes Up Reporters, Pitches Directly to Consumers

Michael Bush at Advertising Age published a very interesting, poignant article today about the shrinking media market and the direct effect it’s having on the PR industry as a whole. Specifically, the way in which we garner coverage for our clients, engage customers and communicate key messages.

With roughly 30,000 reporters leaving the U.S. newspaper industry in 2008 alone, it’s a sure thing that marketers are looking for new ways to communicate directly with end consumers and disseminate their product messages. We can no longer rely solely on the traditional new product pitch to a targeted list of media in hopes to secure coverage. PR professionals need to be looking at other outlets and platforms (à la Facebook, Twitter and YouTube) to engage their clients’ customers in creative, sticky ways.

The article sites great examples of how companies like Coldwell Banker, Best Buy and Mastercard are using social media tools and original content to reach customers and share messages without having to rely heavily on traditional media write-ups or reviews.

My two cents…Embracing new communication channels is an inevitable and important part of PR this day and age, however it does not lessen the importance of maintaining relationships with traditional media and news outlets. After all, that is what our job is about – relationship building. “Earned media” will always provide a company with a higher level of credibility and help them achieve leadership in their respective industries and we simply can’t forget that.

Click here to read the full article on Advertising Age.

Oh, and Happy Birthday to Digital Advertising! The first digital banner ad ran on October 27, 1994 on Hotwired.com, the first commercial digital magazine on the Web and the offshoot of popular Wired magazine. Great walk down memory lane by Frank D’Angelo at AdAge here.

What Two Years Has Done for Public Relations

It’s been two years since I started at Concept Communications and it’s just remarkable to think about how much the public relations profession has changed. Web 2.0 and the social Web have driven a significant shift in PR, taking our jobs way beyond press releases and traditional media relations.

The burgeoning use of social media tools by major media outlets, brands and business professionals, coupled with the necessity to leverage networks like Twitter and Facebook to reach customers, read news and form active communities – I’d say PR has taken on a new, hybrid role. We now support elements of business development, customer relations, marketing and community management. It’s exciting, it’s challenging and it presents new potentials every day for our clients.

Blogs, social networks, video/photo sharing sites, and social bookmarking are no longer trends or a nice-to-do-if-time-permits as they once were a couple years back. They are now an essential part of any effective communications plan and most organizations are starting to realize this. For instance, I can’t seem to watch a TV commercial or news broadcast these days without a Twitter or Facebook URL popping up on the bottom of the screen! And when I griped about an over sweetened vanilla latte from Starbucks on Twitter, I was promptly answered with an apologetic tweet and coupon. The social Web is no longer a novel idea that start-ups and entrepreneurs are using to promote their businesses on a guerilla marketing budget. It’s how brands, businesses, individuals and the news media are sharing content, influencing audiences and affecting behavior.

With all of these social tools at our disposal, it has become essential to be on the “front lines” listening to our clients’ existing and potential customers’ needs. Also, establishing trust in online communities through consistent engagement allows customers to turn to us as a knowledgeable resource and has become a key part of our jobs. The social Web has also made it very easy to stay current by following journalists and publications that report on our clients’ various industries.

So, when you think about it, our fundamental responsibility of fostering relationships and managing communications for clients hasn’t changed, but the way in which we develop and maintain those relations has dramatically changed. We now have so many different avenues to engage in conversations for our clients, reach new audiences and communicate our messages through fun, immediate channels that can spread from one to millions in a matter of minutes.