It is no secret that in order for a
business to succeed in today’s market, it must successfully converge their
enterprise onto the internet. The one major factor that all online businesses
must understand, and accept, is the power of online public relations. A company’s
online activity of posting messages, comments, advertisements,
and marketing, along with their every action or inaction have the power to exponentially
affect their public relations much faster and with greater impact than any
other time in history. The information and the communication that a company presents
online must be planned, managed and monitored with great care.
 |
| If you don't Outstory, the Outstory will be you. |
Users of the internet have a much greater
advantage over the older public relations marketing methods. In the past
company’s had to use media intermediaries, and media gatekeepers, known as
journalists, in order to get their messages to the public. Today, the internet
allows every user to perform the role of public relations practitioner, no journalist
or publicist required. However, the downside of this; is that everything you do
online must be performed in a manner that considers every activity you engage
in as a public relations activity. Once your message is entered onto the world-wide-web,
there it will stay for all eternity, and everyone will have the opportunity to
develop their own opinions about you, your company, and products/service. To
ensure that your every message, and your every online communication activity is
ideal for all eternity to come, requires just a little pre-planning.
In the public relations business,
pre-planning for everything is a vital function for successful outcomes. I have
developed a few daily routines to continually keep my mind sharp in my practice
of public relations. One of those routines involves only 1-hour per day, 7-days
a week searching social media sites for messages. I’m looking for many things, but
especially for messages that offer creativity, uniqueness, and positive impact.
In just 1-hour time’ I can successfully investigate over 200 messages, that’s over
1400 messages per week. It is an absolutely illuminating process; I find new trends,
plagiarisms, bad spelling, bad grammar, the strange and the unusual, and most
importantly learn what works and doesn’t.
When I find a message that has the potential to be creative and may present a positive
impact, I run it through a series of impressive message
testing parameters exclusive to Outstory PR Group. If they pass the test, the message
structure gets added to a list of messages that have the potential to sell. Any
message that presents a single word misspelled, or is grammatically wrong, gets
tossed out immediately. Here’s the big shocker folks, over 85% of the messages I
investigate daily, get tossed in the trash. Most messages are found to have
misspelled words, have no interaction or human interest appeal, and are grammatically
wrong. Why is it so difficult for people to spell-check or edit for grammar? I
have found that over 93% of social media messages were created spontaneously,
and without pre-planning. Why would a potential customer ever consider a
business seriously when that business can’t even spell-check their message?
Creating a business message that the
whole world can see and who form opinions on, requires first having the right
perspective. With the increasing amount of business taking place online today,
it is important to understand that over half of the success that a business achieves, will directly come
from the power of their words. Misspelled words and bad grammar within your messages are a sure fire way to eliminate yourself
from achieving online success.
Another important aspect to
understand about the internet and with an online
business is that internet users have all
of the control. The internet is an information “Pull in” medium. Meaning that
unless a user decides your information is relevant to them (within 3-seconds or
so,) then your message will be irrelevant and bypassed. The word “information,”
is one of the important elements required to successfully create a message for successful
impact. If your message doesn’t contain the information users expect or if it neglects any relevancy of
information that would interest them, then it will be lost.
What is it exactly that you are
trying to sell, inform about, or say, this is another huge mystery within so
many messages? I find a lot of opening sentences saying how wonderful something
is, and that they had even used the product or service personally, but yet, the
product/service was never mentioned in their beginning (hook) sentence. You
have to read below or click on a link to
find out what was so amazing. How does that make any sense? You lost me in the
first sentence. This is sometimes used as a strategy, where some marketing agencies
believe will generate a better customer. The idea behind this method is designed
to attract people who are generally already curious in finding out more about
that product/service, so they continue down that pre-planned marketing path.
However, with so much information overload on the internet today, it is risky,
and I personally believe messages like that are missing out on creating new
customers who potentially would be interested
if they were simply informed earlier on.
Credibility and trustworthiness can
be realized immediately from messages. The internet is full of scams, con artists,
and untrustworthy people. If your message presents any doubt, it will be
realized immediately and dismissed. People are not uneducated when it comes to understanding
false statements. When you make a statement, back it up with some credible
proof. Make it undeniable and alleviate any doubt. Men are the perfect example
of this; it is in their nature to say no before learning the truth.
Message images can present some
serious public relations concerns if not pre-planned. I find a lot of home photography
inserted into business messages. That’s fine, and I positively agree that
keeping things simple and more down to earth creates better relationships, but
some images are simply just bad ideas. The spontaneous images of selfies for a
business image is probably not a good idea. I see a lot of this happening in
the small business cosmetic and beauty
industry. The images look unprofessional at best. It doesn’t take much effort
to plan for a good business image. Another industry that seems to be suffering
from bad images is the construction and home cleaning businesses. A before and
after photo image of a carpet that has been shampooed is not that appealing to
most people. I would suggest not doing that. There exist many other image ideas
that can present a clean floor and would
be more effective for appeal. Images can help, but they can also devalue a message
very quickly. Choose wisely.
Thank you for spending your time
reading about this subject. The internet as great as it is; is chock full of people not professionally trained in all
aspects of business. This is a huge learning curve for most start-ups. Time and
trial by error will definitely sort out the successful and the unsuccessful. I do highly encourage everyone engaged in
online business today to have a public relations consultant on speed-dial. It
is just a phone number and it usually only takes just a few minutes to explain
the important aspects of a subject, before making a commitment on the internet.
Yes, every word you enter is a commitment lasting an eternity. Public relations
counselors are business masters and can guide you and your business towards
success. Remember, it is through people that businesses exist at all.
Establishing ideal public relations practices is a how businesses realize
success.
For
more information or to have your product/service message crafted and/or tested
Contact:
Outstory Public Relations Group
A
Modern Public Relations Agency
Solving
Problems, Changing Attitudes, Creating Understanding, and Influencing Behaviors
Outstory
PR Group solves business and public relations problems. We serve organizations
of for-profit, non-profit, governmental authority, and well-known persons. We
develop and manage creative problem-solving campaigns for businesses small and
large, both nationally and globally.
Call
Outstory PR Group Today: 704-904-0682
Website:
http://outstoryprgorup.com
Shawn
Stoffel
Shawn@outstoryprgroup.com
No comments:
Post a Comment