Blog & Event Recaps

In June, PRSA Austin hosted an informative and engaging conversation with Chis Ferris, Ph.D., senior vice president of digital strategy for Pierpont Communications about the intersection between public relations (PR) and digital marketing. 

Digital marketing involves leveraging digital channels such as social media, search engines, email, and websites to connect with current and potential customers to our brands. It includes a spectrum of tactics like content marketing, SEO, social media marketing and paid advertising. Communication professionals have all had to learn this space and ensure alignment with their public relations planning. This intersection demands a unified brand message. A seamless integration ensures that the story told by PR aligns with the content produced by digital marketing. This consistency fosters brand trust and recognition across diverse channels. Ferris discussed strategies for success and shared insights from his years of experience. 

A recap of those insights are below as well as his powerful presentation which he graciously  provided. This is a definite read! 

To stay up to date on new trends, be sure to use reliable resources such as data from Pew Research and YouGov.com’s Trustworthiness Report. These reports reveal data about where Americans are getting their news. In a current trend report, we see it is Instagram and TikTok but we also note that they trust those channels less and less. No surprise here but X is no longer a trusted or used source as before. 

Important points from Ferris’ presentation: 

• Earned media and PR still matter – maybe more than ever because of AI 
• • As PR pros, we are the ones developing messaging for our leadership
  • Media train your spokespeople
• Track your website’s traffic sources and impact on digital channels
• • Tracking the impact of digital channels - there is a correlation with earned media and the sustained web traffic on a page that you can show value of your media relations efforts
• Measure and report the online reach and impact of your PR successes to your leadership
• Follow and engage with journalists online 
• Be sure to plan and manage for a crisis, as they are inevitable. 
• • Monitor and contain crises online.
  • Plan and prepare for PR crises to spill over into social media 
• Use online tools to listen for emerging trends 
• Amplify your earned media successes through shared and owned channels
• Explore paid options, like contextual ads, sponsored content, OpEds and influencer marketing
• Invest time in learning about generative AI 

Download Dr. Ferris Presentation

As PR pros we need to be aware of the issue of fake news and stories. PR practitioners can play a vital and important role in managing any fake news crisis. If your C-suite or a major announcement is produced by a deep fake, have a crisis plan in place. 

When you do the job right and ethically, as a PR professional you are helping journalists do their job well. Earned media is great for SEO and also used to power openAI.

Tools to Use:

• Google Trends for analytics of your website traffic, 

• PR tech stack such as media monitoring software

• Using UTMs to your outbound links

For all our members and frequent attendees, you may begin to see a trend in our sessions. From the great discussion of SEO and Wikipedia strategy from John Green at The Mather Group, to our amazing panel in May who discussed using data for storytelling. They all weave an important thread across the spectrum of our profession. Don’t miss these opportunities to keep your skills up to date and in the know with trends. Become a member and attend our events! 

In May PRSA Austin and AAF Austin hosted a dynamic panel on data and storytelling. Our panelists from the advertising and communication industry,  Chris Boyle, Senior Director, Data & Insights at Hero Digital and Talan Tyminski, Senior VP at Mach 1 Group, joined our guest speaker Tony Cheevers from Researchscape to discuss how to tell strong data backed stories using research and data.

The panel discussed the tools used to capture the data, where the data can be sourced and how surveys help to inform campaigns when there is data missing. 

Key Competencies for Data-Driven Storytelling/Campaign Building:

• Ability to derive strategic insights from data/Data interpretation skills
• Explaining complex data simply to reporters and stakeholders
• Utilizing public opinion polling research
• Ensure your organization is equipped with the tools to derive the data

Content marketers, publicists, and lead-generation specialists are increasingly turning to survey research to generate credible data to support their storytelling and more accurately target customers while providing metrics to their leadership team. Business leaders need feedback from their customers to make key decisions. 

We know that measurement and analytics are key for telling the story. What measurement and analytics are you using? The panel mentioned the importance of  sales data, social media data, open rates in your outbound marketing, website optimisation and more. We recap some of the highlights from the event below. 

Using research from surveys can help to shape or build a story or find the data points to tell that story, but shouldn’t be the sole purpose of a story. The research and data should be what supports your story. Data informs and validates why your campaign will be successful. It gives you the tools to segment an audience or shift when necessary. But to understand how and when to shift you must have the tools built to get the data.  Our panel shared some key tools that should be used:

• Importance of Tagging/Website Optimization — Tagging elements on your website can tell the story of what people are looking at/for to help form the response to your marketing or PR campaigns; not what you can do in the moment but using it as a learning experience and the data can build a playbook. 

• Segmentation and personalization — Building out personas using research tools; leverage google analytics to help you determine if a page or button is popular (needs to be tagged properly) and gives you insights on a customers journey on your website and allow you to customize your site.

• Customer acquisition journey — can you observe their journey to help get more info on telling the story/predict their behavior? This is where tagging, segmentation, surveys can help you as well as tools like GA4, SEO, and more. Challenging assumptions about customer demographics using surveys which can allow you to build Customer Personas. This is especially useful during a crisis. Auditing your audience's perceptions of a crisis using surveys can help determine your brand's response. 

• Story validation— When building strong stories, developing and testing headlines, ensuring story coherence and relevance, implementing UTM (Universal Tracking Metric) for better analytics and evaluation of the story will lead to more accurate measurement and evaluation for your KPIs. 

Lastly, the panel shared some skill sets important for professionals and students coming into the profession should have or build to be successful. They are numerous. Below is a general list shared by all the panelists. 

Data skills/software recommendation for new job candidates 

• Google Analytics (GA4)
• Google Ads
• SQL
• Python
• YouTube
• SEO/YOAST
• MOZ
• PR and MAR TECH STACKs (CRMs and Media Monitoring software)
• Wordpress, Website developer software
• Social planners ie Sprout, Sprinklr, Hootsuite, Buffer, etc. 
• Brandwatch for social listening 
• Know the lingo for the programs 
• YouTube 
• Certifications of any software even just online certs are always good 
• Google ads 
• SQL
• EXCEL
• Python
• Ability to interpret data - basically, why do we care about the data points? 

The New World of Online Reputation Josh Greene, CEO and founder of The Mather Group, shared insights on how to navigate the new world of online reputation at the PRSA Austin Masters’ Breakfast in April. Here are some of his top tips on what you can do to improve your organization’s online reputation, both immediately and for the future.  1.    Google is your business card   Contacts will Google you and your organization before they ever meet you, and you can control the results more than you think. Take stock of how you or your organization are showing up on Google. At a minimum, people want to see a LinkedIn profile (personal for people, business for organizations) and a website. Also check to see if the information that pops up in a search is accurate. If not, you have work to do.    2.    Keep your website current   We are all familiar with the facts that we see when we search for a favorite restaurant or business. Google grabs much of that data – including location, business hours, and other important details – directly from your website or Wikipedia page. Be sure to make updating your website a top priority because that information will show up in searches.   3.    Use the tools the platforms give you Google Business Profile is often overlooked by organizations. Make sure to claim your free profile and populate it with accurate information. Google uses this information in other places. Also make sure that you keep track of who has access to your accounts and record passwords for all platforms, including social media and Google Analytics. It is surprising how often a business does not know how to access its own accounts when an employee leaves the company.   4.    Be consistent across platforms  Make sure that the description of your organization is consistent across all platforms. Even though you can alter your tone and voice, your bios and basic information should be the same across Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X and Threads.   5.    Leverage the power of LinkedIn  Be sure to keep your LinkedIn profile up to date because contacts will be looking at it and Google also pulls information from this platform. It is amazing how often the About section for many companies sound like they were written by an intern years ago. LinkedIn is also great for credibility and brand awareness. Try out the LinkedIn Live or LinkedIn Newsletter functions to increase visibility for your organization.   6.    Track customer reviews  Keep track of reviews of your organization on Google, Yelp and any other site that is publicly viewable. You can influence whether a review gets traction by flagging negative reviews, and you can also ask customers for positive reviews. Glassdoor wants organizations to ask for reviews. Google reviews are especially powerful, so be sure to assign someone in your organization to watch and respond to them.   Bonus Pro Tip: If you would like to complain about a review and can’t get through to a real person, try sending a message to the investor relations department because that sometimes gets more attention.    7.    Don’t edit Wikipedia unless you know what you are doing  You should not be editing your own organization/company Wikipedia page. Editing Wikipedia is a complicated process, and some organizations do more harm than good by diving in to alter entries on their organization. There are many roadblocks and danger zones to avoid, so rely on an expert to guide you through this process for best results. Important to know: Wikipedia is one of the top sources for AI.  If you want to become a Wikipedia editor, start small with a topic or posting of something you know about but isn’t related to your business.   Check out Josh Greene’s recent book, Wikipedia for Business, for all the tips and tricks you need to be a Wikipedia expert.    Bonus Pro Tips on SEO rankings:   1.    Earned media will play a big role in your SEO standing because it is considered the most reputable by Google  2.    Owned content platforms are great for feeding content and for AI to crawl and utilize as source material  3.    Trade and analyst reviews are also key to SEO rankings  4.    Podcast and videos – be sure to publish transcripts as they get indexed    About The Mather Group The Mather Group is a digital agency that solves marketing challenges for companies of all sizes. With over 20 years of experience creating and implementing digital strategies, Josh Greene empowers top brands and individuals to shape their online presence to support their bottom line. He has worked with some of the largest Fortune 1000 companies, five of the largest nonprofits in the U.S., popular media channels, the third largest network provider in the U.S., two of the largest manufacturing companies in the U.S., and many software companies.

In March, we held our PRocktails event at Red Fan Communications, where April Barthold, Director of Brand, Content, and Customer Marketing at ESO, and Emma Chase, Supervisor of Client Services at Red Fan, held an insightful discussion on branding. 

Check out April's top six expert tips for building your brand, which can help you establish a strong brand presence that effectively engages your audience and drives meaningful business outcomes. April’s perspective centers around B2B brand building – specifically for fast-growth software companies – and builds upon her experience at an Austin-based branding agency.

1. A brand is more than just the way you look: This is one of the most common misconceptions in branding. Your brand is not just your logo, your typeface, and your color palette. It’s what you say (your messaging), how you say it (your tone, personality, values), where you deliver it (your omnichannel strategies), and how it looks. Build your strategy to include and connect all of these areas.
2. It’s all about consistency: The traditional advertising lore says it takes an average of seven interactions with your brand for someone to remember you. But today, if you take into account the full digital customer journey, new buying behaviors, and even more distractions in the market, you might not get seven chances. Whether it’s two or twenty touchpoints with a person, you HAVE to be consistent so they understand who you are and what you stand for. Consider every channel an opportunity for your brand, and make sure you reinforce the value consistently to resonate with your target audience and encourage recall of your offering later.
3. Connect your brand to your customer (and non-customer!) journey: Every single action and interaction with someone (whether it’s a future customer, current customer, or complete stranger) is a reflection of your brand. Consider the entire journey and how you’re delivering consistent, quality messaging across all touch points to build loyalty and trust. Brand is not just top-of-funnel activities – it exists in your customer service and support, how you treat your evangelists, and even the experience with a customer should they decide to end their relationship with your brand.
4. Measure to reinforce impact (and consider a brand score): Measuring and proving the ROI of your brand can be challenging, especially when trying to make the case for your top-funnel tactics to your C-Suite and executive stakeholders. Here’s the thing: Every metric is a brand metric – from volume of media hits to your customer Net Promoter Scores. Consider building a brand score that tracks various metrics to paint a brand picture – including web traffic, social growth, and your traditional PR metrics (share of voice, media hits, backlinks, etc.). When you can, include and highlight metrics that directly correlate with bottom-line impact, like revenue growth over time, customer retention, and product adoption. One quick tactic to consider is asking the age-old "How did you hear about us" question when a lead is generated, and make sure you're including traditional brand tactics as an option (“My local news station,” “An article in an industry publication,” “social media,” etc.)
5. Pick partners intentionally: Agency partners can be absolutely essential to bringing your brand to life – especially if you’re on a small, scrappy in-house team. When selecting an agency partner or contractor, look for those who demonstrate curiosity, adaptability, and eventually a balance of best practices from their myriad experience with a true understanding of your brand's unique needs. Look for partners who can seamlessly integrate with your team and contribute to your brand's growth.
6. In B2B branding, remember you’re still talking to humans: Above all else, ensure your communication – whether it's with customers or the market at large – is authentic and human in its tone. Speak empathetically and address the needs and aspirations of your audience – after all, even if you’re target audience is making a business purchase, they’re still just a person trying to solve a problem for themselves, their teams, or their organizations. Speak to them as such.

Thank you, April and Red Fan Communications, for your hospitality and sharing your expertise!