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Digital Public Relations and Online Reputation
Management
By
Celestine Achi
CEO/Chief Digital Marketing Strategist
Cihan New Media Relations = Digital PR
Group – www.cihangroup.net
Twitter: @cihangroup

2.
Your top 3 take-outs from today...
INTRODUCTION
Digital Media: Overview, Delineation, Evolution
Goals, Challenges, Myths & Trends
How it Works: Strategies and Tools
Online Reputation Management: Basics
Tips, Strategies and Tools
The World is Changing

3.
The World is Changing
The way we work
The way we shop
The way we think
The way we view the world
The way communicate
The way we get information
The way we share information
The way we interact
Communication as we know it today

4.
From static web pages To dialogue pages
Web 1.0
Web 2.0
 Internet is for the technologically
savvy
 Dominated by web designers and
developers
 Websites are static
 Numbers are still limited
 Communication is one-way
 Users are low
 Contents are monotonous
 Connection slow
 Storage capacity limited
 Explosion in internet usage
 More connection, more speed,
more storage
 Affordable and accessible
 Anyone can build a site/blog
 People actively participate
 User generated content
 Websites became dynamic
 People can openly discuss and
comment
 People can share and make it viral
 Communications became two-way
Keeping up isn’t good enough

5.
Ubiquitous Connectivity
“50 billion connected devices: 2020.”
Source: Ericcson
Who are the users?
 Employees
Activists
 Managers
Guild associations
 Customers
Communities
 Investors
Unions
 Suppliers
Opinion leaders
 Retailers
Experts
 Distributors
Media
 Regulating bodies
Public at large
Everyone is now a media outlet
Create
Consume
Publish
Interact
Transact

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Everyone is a media outlet
Same idea in 100 places has an amplifying effect
Social + Media Relations
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More outlets
Better research
New relationship-building opportunities
Bypass (some) gatekeepers
If you're not quick, you're not relevant
Tech-Savvy Journalists
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81% of journalists are on Twitter
75% of them using it for work
91% of journalists believe their reliance on social media has increased
33% of journalists use social media to find sources
80% of journalists believe their newsrooms encourage the use of social
media
All thanks to the Internet

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How Digital is Nigeria
After 100 years, technology enabled new means of communication. Significant broadband
penetration helped foster widespread growth of social media and made news an
extremely volatile industry.
As of May 2010. Needs to be updated
 1.17 billion internet users worldwide
 126+ Trillion the number of blogs
 55+ million internet users (32.9%)
 20+ million of Social networking users
 Swift changes being seen in newspaper readership habits
 Major circulation and ad revenue declines
 Newspapers testing new tactics (comments, popularity ranking, narrower pages)
 Five of the top 10 visited websites are social (source: Alexa)
 48+ million broadband internet subscribers
 110 million mobile subscribers (77%)
Source
http://www.internetworldstats.com/africa.htm#id

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WHERE DOES ALL OF THIS
LEAD TO AND WHY
SHOULD PR CARE?

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Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends

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Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends
In 2015, Social Media will move beyond
growth to saturation. This means that
digital public relations is changing quickly.
Here's a quick look at what social media
saturation and mobile growth mean for
public relations this year.
Social Media becoming dominant form of online content

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Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends
1.
The social media category as a whole is on the cusp of becoming the
dominant form of online content; it accounted for over 26.6% of
Internet time in 2012. And this year it is expected to surpass portals as
the most engaging online activity. Engagement is the key word there.
2.
People are constantly connected and consuming media, which sounds
daunting but it is great news for media creators. And now PR
professionals are not solely pitching the media, but they too are media
creators.
3.
Think like PR People and Measure. Leverage the converged media: This
means online media formats are converging. "P.O.E.M." (Paid, Owned,
Earned Media) is now really the future. (Paid being advertising and
sponsorships. Owned being content created by brands/corporations.
And Earned being press placements and media partnership). Lucky for
PR Professionals, the measurement tools for Owned and Earned are
getting better and better. Just look at how much the Facebook
Insights product has evolved since it launched.
The future of media strategy and pubic relations professionals can lead the
strategy. They have the most experience in strategic communications, cross
platform media and rapid response. The future is to think like PR people but
measure using the P.O.E.M strategy.
Comscore’s recent social media study

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Today's Digital PR: 5 Key Trends
4.
Identify and Engage Influencers: These are early adopters with
established owned and earned media. PR professionals need get
on board with their peeps. Find the people who are most
passionate about what you're doing. These are the new
“influencers.”
5.
An age-old complaint within the PR industry has been lack of
budgets and small staffs. That's likely not going to change anytime
soon. But there are new ways PR executives can make their small
teams more powerful with fewer resources.
First, embrace the machine. "Automation" is no longer a scary
word – Let your content be findable, shareable,
Finally, maximize the media hits you do get. Let it be
shared everywhere.
Because, increasingly, if it didn't happen on the Internet, it didn't happen.
Introduction to Digital PR

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INTRODUCTION!
•
 PR offline or on is about building awareness, credibility and goodwill.
 It’s about building a presence and gaining the understanding and support of your
stakeholders.
 PR has always been about creating a favorable operating climate for a company or
organization.
 Digital PR is no different. It’s about building that presence online and developing strong
relationships with all the players in your social graph. The techniques include SEO,
content development, social media, online newsrooms, websites, blogs and online media
coverage.

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 Digital public relations is a powerful tool that will enhance your corporate
communications further, faster, wider, cheaper and more interactive,
something that would otherwise be impossible to do in the traditional
public relations.
Finally, Digital PR is the ability to…
 Spread positive and promotional messaging
 Control negative and damaging messaging
2013 Digital PR SkIlls

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2014 PR Skills
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Visual Storytelling: Images, infographics, video scripting,
shooting and editing.
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Monitoring: Listening to the right conversations
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Analysing content: So much more than we used to do with
media content, this encompasses analysing the online
conversations for tone, sentiment, share of voice and
opportunities
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Measurement: Gone are the days of fuzzy PR stats. Digital PR
measures every click and every outcome. You need to know
how to use Google Analytics, social reporting tools and how to
set up dashboards.
Get your team familiar with the tools that allow you to
effectively produce and distribute excellent PR content
GOALS FOR PR

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Goals for PR
Increase Exposure
Educate Audiences
Improve Positioning
Increase Mind Share
Increase Sales
Obtain Members
Raise Awareness for
Mission
Source: Shonali Burke – From WTF to
KPI: Measuring the Value of PR
The Role of Digital PR
Native advertising is based on
storytelling. Who better to tell brand
stories than the PR people? We know
how to tell stories well. Now we need to
learn how to:
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Present stories digitally
Tell them in 140 characters
Add the right visual assets
Distribute them online to best
effect
Track outcomes
Just as the lines between journalists and
bloggers are blurring, so are the lines
between advertising marketing and
PR. PR is not only about earned media
anymore.
Learn to master owned
media and paid media too.
•
THE ROLE FOR DIGITAL PR

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Challenges
Requirements
 What happens on the Internet
stays on the Internet – good
or bad
 It makes your client vulnerable
 The landscape is changing
everyday
 Creativity and Out of the Box
thinking is a pre-requisite
 News spreads like a forest fire
and if not controlled properly,
it can kill your brand
 Here a crisis can lead to the
end of your career, if not
handled properly
 Strategy
 Content
 Connection
 Interaction
 Integration
 Tools
STRATEGY TO ADOPT FOR
CHALLENGES

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Busting Myths
 Creating pages on social networks will get you fans/followers
 Creating a group will get you members
 Unlike offline PR, online PR does not require a strategy, it is all about sharing
stuff online
 Like offline PR, online PR cannot be really measured
TDIGITAL PR TOOLS

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AND HOW DOES IT WORK?

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IS THERE A TOOLBOX FOR
IT?
YES THERE ARE 5 TOOLS

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Digital PR Tool Box
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Press Releases(SEO & SEM Optimized)
Media pitches
Social Networking Profiles
Expert Groups, Blogs and Forums
Contributed Articles/Thought Leadership articles
Research Reports
Webinars
Digital Assets ( SEO optimized Videos, Podcasts, Presentations, Photographs)
Search & Social media monitoring (Reputation management)

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1.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
 Master SEO Basics - Keyword
optimization is the key here.
 There has to be constant
that is ripe for optimization.
News content
 Optimizing the content can help the content
rank well in the search engines.

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2.
SOCIAL MEDIA
 Engaging influencers and customers to
perpetuate a positive brand image.
 Identify & empower the brand
ambassadors.
 Proactive content optimization helps
dispel negative image and accentuate what’s
positive.

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3.

DIGITAL ASSETS
Optimizing digital assets with relevant
keywords.
 Either promoting or submitting to
vertical search engines that can provide
additional exposure to media.

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4.
BLOGGING
 Well-optimized and linked blog posts can
rank well in the search engines.
 Blogger
relations is often more successful
when the company being pitched has its own
blog to point to.

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Is blogs a threat to journalism?
Why Blogger Relations?
• 89% of journalists research story ideas on
blogs
• Social media and blogs dominate Nigerians'
time online (23%)
• Social media grew 122% year-over-year

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5.

SEARCH & SOCIAL MEDIA
MARKETING
Social: mine new ideas, keep tabs on
competitors, identify brand ambassadors and
address any negative press quickly and
directly.

Search: news optimization efforts and
provide insight into search
traffic effectiveness.
Social Amplifies Media Coverage

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Digital PR = Engage, Involve, Collaborate
OWN YOUT OWN STORY
• Social media release
• Add social sharing to the launch timeline:
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–
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Facebook and Twitter “drip” campaigns
Identify when & how news can be shared online
Provide sample posts
Internal communication is critical
• Coordinate with high-profile supporters
• Update closed/secret Facebook groups
• Monitor online conversations on FB, Twitter,
Quora, blogs, etc. Respond as appropriate.
Digital PR checklist

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DIGITAL PR CHECKLIST
Decide on what is the objective of your Digital media
campaign. Is it creating awareness or lead generation?
Depending on your objective, select the digital
channels that would be relevant to achieving your
goals
Understand what motivates people to follow brands on
these channels, your campaigns for each of these
channels should be customized to meet the needs of
your target audience. The reason why people follow a
brand on LinkedIn is different from why they follow on
Facebook
Be creative in your approach and plan on sustaining
the momentum

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DIGITAL PR CHECKLIST
 Decide on what kind of collaterals you will need
 Create your Content Strategy
 Use your social networks to follow your target
media, to understand what they like to write
about, what story angles intrigue them and how
best can you pitch to them
 In addition to your traditional mediums like
emails, use social networks like twitter to pitch to
your target media
 Social networks are great for building
relationships. Focus on the relationship and not
on marketing to an individual, rest will follow
 Online media is about give and take and not just
for telling your side of the story always
What’s Your Content Strategy?

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Don’t Leave
Content To
Chance.
Develop a
Content
Repository
System
WHAT IS DIGITAL PR WITHOUT
ORM

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People are going to talk about your business, whether that
conversation is positive or negative can come down to how
involved you are in those conversations.
Online reputation is quickly becoming as important, if not more
so, than real world reputation since the internet makes a lasting
impression and creates an on-going record for people to view
over and over again.
If a business fails to cultivate a positive online image they are
likely to suffer from it. Cultivating digital conversations
requires proactive involvement and unique digital public
relations skills with a unique optimization understanding not
familiar to most traditional PR experts.
ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

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Do You Know What People Are Saying
About Your Business Online?

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ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT:
DEFINITION
Online reputation management (or monitoring) is the
practice of monitoring the Internet reputation of a
person, brand or business, with the goal of suppressing
negative mentions entirely, or pushing them lower on
search engine results pages to decrease their visibility.
Wikipedia Definition

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Online reputation management:
What are you already doing?

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WHY IS ORM IMPORTANT TO THE DIGITAL PR
PROFESSIONAL?
Your Prospects Are Online
Your Competitors Are Online
Your Customers Are Online
… That Includes Your UNHAPPY Customers
IDENTITY VS IMAGE

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WHAT ARE PEOPLE SAYING ABOUT YOUR
BUSINESS

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LISTENING: AN INTEGRAL PART OF DIGITAL PR
NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF ORM

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NEGATIVE ORM
Bad Customer
Experience
Unresolved
Customer Issues
Bad Reputation
MAINTAIN YOUR REPUTATION
 Manage Your Digital Footprint
 Be PROACTIVE instead of REACTIVE
 Monitor Online Conversations About
Your Business
 Respond and Interact with Consumers
Online
 Create and Distribute POSITIVE
Content Regularly
 Understanding the mechanisms
through which content and search
define your organisation’s reputation
 Designing monitoring systems to
deliver
intelligence
about
your
reputation in social media
 Influencing what Google says about
you including the science of SEO
 Creating
engaging
Web
content
designed to catch the attention of
Google, including online news releases
Design a content strategy for your
organisation
Give adequate provision of timely and
helpful information
HOW TO MAINTAIN YOUR ORM

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Online reputation management basics:
Can reputation really be managed?

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 Crisis response using social media
1.
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6.
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Scramble your Rapid Response Crisis Communications team,
and alert senior management to the crisis that is unfolding
Go public as soon as possible by making your crisis blog live
and visible with latest information, updates and instructions;
promote with Google Ads
keep information true, helpful and brief, explain how you are
resolving the situation, respond to legitimate questions
honestly - this is not the time for spin.
Be Responsive and Responsible
Update staff on the situation, and on any changes to
traditional and online communications during the crisis
Reach out to key online contacts (bloggers, journalists,
page/forum moderators)by email and text with a personal
message and a latest update, pointing them to your crisis blog
Pay particular attention to monitoring your reputational health
(e.g. NPS) post-crisis
WHAT WORKS

42.
What works
1... Expectation-beating experiences:
Reputation Management = Experience Management
“80% of variation in reputation is accounted for by the
degree experience beats expectations”- (Weber
Shandwick Research 2009)
2...Managing visibility
Google loves Social Media
3... Real-time information service (crises)
WHAT TO MONITOR

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Reputation management basics:
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website popup / online survey
online sentiment monitoring software
reach of mentions (Net sentiment (positive - negative mentions)
Google Alerts
What to Monitor
 Organisation name
 Online Conversations
 Trademarks
 Key personnel
 Sector issues
 Key competitors / partners
SUMMARY

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GOOGLE

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Set up an alert
• I set up a
notification
system with
Google Alert to
notify you of
postings related
to your name.

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Mobile: 08037197175. Email: celestine@cihangroup.net