Lewis PR Release Digital Book on Digital PR Techniques

Lewis PR have recently released a book about the importance of digital PR and digital PR techniques that work well. This is really key to marketing and PR professionals as well as companies in general who are looking keep themselves updates in this digital age. i’m sure you’ve witnessed social media evolve and emerge in communications more and more.

How to make the case for social media

Marketers are becoming savvier, with good reason. The web creates marketing accountability at levels previously not possible, enabling sophisticated companies fluent in analytics to see marketing as a revenue generator, as opposed to a cost center. Further, as influence shifts to the web (for those of you who slept through it, the Internet eclipsed newspapers as a source for news in 2008) digital marketing tactics have become more than a ‘nice-to-have’, they’re becoming the new marketing engine..

 And yet, even with 70 per cent of marketers planning to increase their social media budgets in 2011, there are still some organizations which are reticent about embracing modern marketing. In these cases, part of our r ole as marketers is helping decision-makers make a business case to move forward with new marketing tactics.

 Following are just a few approaches we’ve found are effective:

 

Educate your team on modern marketing

If decision makers at your company still aren’t bought in to social (i.e. they don’t use it themselves or just don’t get it) it may be time to start at square one. Illustrate how social touches users at every point in the sales cycle, existing customers, partners and media. Share samples of how other brands, or better yet competitors, are taking advantage of social technologies to position themselves as more appealing, relevant and connected.

 

Make the case with data

Showing success metrics of a competitor in social channels is a great initial motivator for any brand with a competitive spirit. But, go beyond competitive metrics. Analyze your brand’s organic results from social. Now, run the numbers and forecast results based on how a managed effort from your brand would trend this up. And, not just KPIs: create a marketing forecast showing anticipated economic value of your efforts based on the projected resources available.

Illustrate how social impacts existing online marketing tactics

If executives at your company historically shut down when they hear about social media, they might perk up when you’re able to show how social impacts the existing online marketing metrics they understand.

 For example, most brands see consistent valuable, high-conversion traffic from search engines. And, with the major engines continuing to integrate social with Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) as well as taking social signal into account when finding and ranking content, social is critical to all brands who value search visibility.

 

A combination of the above may be necessary for companies with marketing mindsets of a previous generation. Overall, however, we see needing to make the case’ for social decreasing as it’s not a question of if, but when a company gets involved in the social web.