Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• Multi-Channel Shopping Means Multi-Channel Customer Service
• B2B Marketing on Twitter: Turn Listening Into Social Insights and Influence
• 7 Must-Know Keywords in Services Marketing
• The Future of Video Marketing: My Top 10 Predictions
• Characteristics of a Good Leader [Infographic]
• 6 Ways To Promote Your New Pinterest Page
• 6 Factors of Persuasion and How They Relate to PR
• How A Great Story Spreads Your Content?

Multi-Channel Shopping Means Multi-Channel Customer Service Posted: 16 Dec 2013 04:00 AM PST While many retailers may have embraced multi-channel shopping, the idea of multi-channel customer service is often overlooked, despite playing a vital role. Today's consumer expects to be able to shop anyway they like – whether this means online, on the phone, or in-store. And the multi-channel shopper doesn't just expect choice, but consistent service across all channels. While many retailers have mastered a seamless shopping experience, many have not yet replicated this when it comes to customer service. Businesses may offer multiple ways for customers to get in touch, but they often operate as independent channels of communication. This creates a fragmented and confusing customer experience. The solution is delivering effective and efficient multi-channel customer service. This is particularly frustrating for your customers because as far as they are concerned, they are contacting the same company – whether they pick up the phone or start typing you an email. To avoid this disjointed experience, retailers should start thinking about customer service differently. Instead of viewing their customer service strategy in terms of individual channels of communication, retailers should consider a 'single customer view' which crosses over all channels and organises all communication by customer. The Importance of Customer Service in Multi-Channel Age With customers armed with greater choice, today's consumer demands more. They expect retailers to cater for their needs and jump through their hoops – not the other way round. So once they've shopped via the channel that suits them, they want to be able contact you however they choose. This level of service also makes sense from a business point of view, as the financial value of good customer service has increased in the digital age. With social media, the news of bad service travels fast – with one tweet reaching thousands of potential customers in seconds. According to Econsultancy, poor service costs the UK economy 15 billion a year, with the average cost per customer working out to be £248 (~$400 US). The most common reasons cited for poor service are problems which can easily arise from a disjointed customer service strategy, such as customers being forced to repeat themselves, having to wait too long for service and staff not knowing the customer's history. Retailers which allow shoppers to switch between channels as effortlessly as changing the TV channel, will create satisfied and most importantly, loyal customers. Here are the main channels of communication that form your customer services and how they can be optimized for multi-channel customer service: Mobile multi-channel customer service solution Many of us are glued to our mobiles all day long, so it has become the obvious choice when contacting a company. And one increasingly popular touch-point is apps. Many retailers have developed apps that offer on-the-go service. Mobile has to be one of the multi-channel customer service options available to customers today. The only problem with this is that many apps are developed to offer one-way engagement. For example, they allow shoppers browse, check their account and even make a purchase but they don't offer a quick way to get in touch. Usually, if you want to get in touch, you'll have to exit the app and effectively 'start again' with a phone call or email. Forcing customer to go through a different channel means that they have to wait on hold and re-authenticate who they are. Instead, businesses should develop customer centric apps which allow users to get in touch – with an option to call or instant message directly from the app. This means the customer service team will already know who they are and perhaps even why they are calling. Telephone is a core offering of multi-channel customer service The telephone is the one of the most traditional methods of communication and is typically seen as being slow and frustrating. However, despite the rise in other more high-tech ways to get in touch, the phone remains a popular choice for complex problems and remains the backbone of the customer contact service channel. While new emerging multi-channel customer service options are gaining strength in their use by customers, phone remains the most requested customer service channel and organizations today can't ignore it when it comes to their customer service delivery. Therefore, it is important to invest the same amount of time and energy in the telephone as you would digital technologies. Many websites encourage live web chat during checkout process and while this can be useful, it's important that this is not the only method of communication offered. Always offer a phone number for online shoppers, as real conversation might just be what they need. Email as a support service Email is very popular as you can just send off an enquiry and then carry on with your life while you wait for the problem to be resolved. However, email customers often find that they don't receive the same level of service as phone customers with some emails left unread for days. In fact one study of American small to medium-sized businesses found that 51% of emails never got a response. While customers do not expect an immediate response, they don't expect to be kept waiting days – and certainly don't want to have to chase the email. When a customer takes the time to send an email, they are starting a conversation and if the problem needs to be resolved over the phone, the web-based beginning of this conversation should be visible to the agent. This way it feels like the email and phone call are going to the same place, and are not lost in a babble of disjointed emails and chatter. Whatever a customer writes online should be connected to any phone calls they might make, to create a complete conversation. Live chat customer service solution Live chat has grown in popularity primarily as a way to ask a quick query during the checkout process online. This does not mean that it should be seen in isolation to the other channels of communication. Service channel support through live chat is also an effective way to overcome language barriers as translation services can be added to translate foreign languages in real time. If the enquiry is too complex to be resolved over live chat, the agent should be able to offer to call the customer, instead of expecting the shopper to leave the chat and open up a new channel of communication (and probably have to wait in queue to speak to a completely different agent). Social Media, the fastest growing channel for customer service Social media for business began with marketing in mind. The opportunity to speak to millions of people around the world was too tempting to refuse. However, social media is much more than a one-way conversation – it is the opportunity to engage with customers and this meanings listening as well as talking. Social media is a great place to engage with your customers and deal with their complaints. Yes, their complaints may be visible to all, but so is your support and service. What could be seen as a negative can be transformed into a great PR tool, if it's used effectively. There are two common problems with social media in business: it's either not used effectively for customer service, or when it is used, it's not linked up with other channels of communication. Social media works as a good point of engagement for customers. Some problems can be solved online while others need to be resolved over the phone. The conversation should shift to another channel seamlessly – ideally with the same agent calling the customer and if this is not possible, that agent should be able to arrange for a colleague to call right away. Multi-channel customer service happening in store A common misconception is that in-store customer service assistants are only for high-street shoppers when in fact your staff on the high street should help to join your online services with your in-store experience. Multi channel customer service means real service across multiple channels. Live person, in store is certainly an important channel to consider. Services like 'Click and Collect' and 'Buy Online and Return In-Store' bring the high-street into the 21st century, by allowing customers to mix and match their shopping experience to suit their individual needs. Not only are customer service and customer experience critical for the online portion of the shopping experience, but if it isn't backed up and equally matched by a live person, in store shopping experience or fulfillment experience, the entire process can come crashing down, leaving customers with a sour taste of working with your organization. One Customer, One Conversation If you can merge all your channels of communication into one fluid and effortless conversation, then you have mastered customer service in the multi-channel age. Your customers do not think of your business as separate channels, so neither should you. Retailers should aim to create fluid service and you can use your customer service communications as a way of joining the dots between separate channels of retail. Just like you'll need multi-channel retail software to keep track of your business across multiple channels, you'll need the equivalent in CRM software to keep track of your communications – whether they happen to be over the phone or online. Providing this kind of service is a good long-term strategy, as great customer service creates loyal customers and the loyalty of your customers will save you money in the long-run. How do you think retailers should approach multi-channel customer service? Share your thoughts below.

B2B Marketing on Twitter: Turn Listening Into Social Insights and Influence Posted: 15 Dec 2013 08:28 PM PST I was at dinner the other night with a group of B2B marketers (sounds fun, I know). And guess what we talked about? Well, in-between discussing food delivery startups and ride sharing services, it was all SaaS pricing, marketing automation, and demand generation. Now imagine you sell to B2B marketers and happened to be sitting nearby and listening in. Wouldn't you have loved to pull up a chair and join our conversation? Sure you would. And maybe you'd have also wondered how to influence me or someone else at the dinner, so that your company was recommended. These days you don't need to hang out at San Francisco restaurants to listen in. You can just tap into your favorite social media news feed to discover what's being talked about and shared at that very moment. The problem is you'll get overwhelmed pretty quickly. Why is that? Because you need to know which conversations to join, who to engage with, and how to influence them. Social Listening Isn't Enough… You Need Social Insights Social listening without context isn't helpful. Instead, you need to tune out all the noise to make social media more relevant and actionable for you. Or a said another way, you need to turn social listening into social insights. For example, let's say you’re a B2B marketer and want to know what other B2B marketers are up to on social media. Or maybe you work for a company that sells to these highly coveted marketers. In either case, you're looking for social media insights about B2B marketers. How B2B marketers engage on Twitter My company, in collaboration with DNN Software, recently put out a report: How B2B Marketers Engage on Twitter. This report summarized how 500 North American B2B marketers participated, engaged, and were influenced on Twitter, during the period June – August 2013. During that time, these marketers generated 113,039 tweets, 70,245 shared links, and had a total of 1,156,532 followers. Why look at Twitter activity? Because it’s a good proxy for social media, and has a leg up on other data sources such as surveys, polls and focus groups… since it shows what people really do, versus what they say they do. For example, at the top of this post is a word cloud of the people most retweeted by the B2B marketers we analyzed: This report also provides other useful social insights including: most popular hashtags, most shared content sources, and the top 50 vendors most mentioned by B2B marketers. Best Practices of Top Influencers Exclusively for this post, we did an even deeper dive into the Twitter activity of five of the top influencers in the report. They are: @valaafshar (Vala Afshar, CMO, Extreme Networks) @brennermichael (Michael Brenner, VP Global Marketing, SAP) @jonmiller (Jon Miller, VP Marketing and Co-Founder, Marketo) @jchernov (Joe Chernov, VP Marketing, Kinvey) @jill_rowley (Jill Rowley, Modern Marketing Expert, Oracle) What did we find out? Influencers tweet a LOT.  4 out of 5 of these top influencers tweet 7+ times a day. (@ValaAfshar tweets an average 36 times a day!) Influencers develop a "brand" of their own.  Each influencer has a style and focus that's consistent across their tweets. For instance, @Jill_Rowley is an excellent curator of social business wisdom, while @jchernov is more likely to be tweeting it up with other B2B marketers. Influencers don't rely too much on retweets.  All 5 of the top influencers go light on the RT, keeping them to less than 25% of overall tweet volume. Instead, they share lots of links and often mention other folks. While these "best practices" come from observing the Twitter activity of these five top influencers. They also provide insights into how you may want to consider approaching Twitter and social media. Start Generating Your Own Social Insights How can you move from social listening to social insights? (And maybe become an influencer for the audience you want to reach and engage!) Here are five ways to start: 1.  Listen to your target audience.  Who cares what anyone and everyone is saying? Instead, listen to what customers, prospects, and key influencers are talking about. 2.  Be where the right conversations are happening. So many social networks, so little time! Invest your efforts in the social platforms where your target audience participates. 3.  Talk about what's being talked about. What topics, news, and events have captured the attention of the folks you're looking to engage? Shouldn't you be talking about those, too? 4.  Discover who's doing the influencing. Which publications and people are your buyers reading and sharing? This is a great starting point for understanding who is popular and influential. 5.  Become an influencer. Just participating in social media is not enough. You need to build an audience, a channel, a following that you can influence to take the actions you care about (like the influencers do!) Imagine we're now back in that San Francisco restaurant with you listening in. And you decide to introduce yourself. Wouldn't it be great if I said, "Thanks for coming over, I actually follow you on Twitter and love your comments and the content you share."? That means you did a great job influencing me… before our conversation even begins! Now It's Your Turn How are you generating social insights today? What strategies have you found successful in becoming more influential on social media? Let us know so we can share! (This post was first published in CMSWire.com)

7 Must-Know Keywords in Services Marketing Posted: 15 Dec 2013 07:32 PM PST Services marketing covers the marketing of both goods and services and typically refers to the marketing of both business to consumer (B2C) and business to business (B2B) services. This article will give you an overview of services marketing with seven simple keywords: quality, organization, knowledge, planning, pricing, communication and relationship. Quality In services marketing, quality is not only about the product, but also related to the service delivered. In a highly competitive industry such as professional services, good product is just an entrance ticket. What's more important is the customer satisfaction level of your daily services. In fact, the products customers like most are those which don't even need any support or service. If this cannot be met, customers then want professional services which can get issues solved to their satisfaction really fast. Customers will review the whole service process. So it's imperative for professional service providers to look at the service delivery process and result from customers' eyes. When defining service quality, we should take the following two aspects into consideration. Firstly, the service quality of a professional service provider should go beyond customers' expectations. Secondly, service quality is determined by how customers feel. Therefore, service providers should pay close attention to the elements that affect customer expectations, which include commitment to customers, customers' past experience, public reputation of the company, etc. Here's an example on how customers' expectations are neglected. A friend of mine brought a new air conditioner. Three days later, my friend found that the cooling system of the air conditioner stopped working. So he called the service center and was told that they had recorded the case and would send someone in the maintenance team to his home at 2 o'clock that afternoon to get the issue fixed. My friend waited for several hours that afternoon, but neither anyone showed up nor anyone from the company called in to offer an explanation. My friend called the service center again. The answer was that the maintenance team was too busy that day. So they rescheduled the home service time to next morning. Still, no one showed up that morning. Helplessly, my friend called the service center again, and again, they said they were too busy and finally, they moved the home service time to next afternoon. Someone did show up that afternoon. However, after confirming the issue was a quality issue instead of an installation one, he said that it was out of his responsibilities so he couldn't help. What followed was even crazier. The service center called in later saying that a key component of the air conditioner was broken and need to be replaced. My friend didn't agree and requested a change or refund. The service center said they need to submit the request for approval, but then there was no response at all… What a nightmare! With such a terrible experience, who dare to buy from the company anymore? Delivering quality services sounds obvious. But there are still many companies making simple mistakes. Organization Delivering quality services is an organization-level activity. Everyone in the organization is involved. Once I went to a bank, which was doing quite well in both physical image and banking services. One thing not so perfect was that the security guard, who ran into your eyes immediately after you stepped into the bank, stood there casually leaning on the door in not so tidy dressing. As a suggestion, I told the bank that the code of conduct of their security guards can be improved. The bank responded that the security guards were assigned to the bank by another company. They weren't direct employees of the bank. Sounds reasonable. But customers won't know that and even if they know, they won't care. They want a perfect service experience and we are responsible for delivering it to them, no matter how. We should commit ourselves to deeply understanding customers' needs and wants, so as to provide services that can not only satisfy customers but also exceed their expectations. This requires us to build a customer oriented organization with the employment of services marketing principles. Knowledge A rigorous marketing plan is usually based on information or data, where industry knowledge is essential. We can make comprehensive and systematic market researches to define the customer base to be served as well as the marketing questions generated around them and then use the data to guide marketing activities. For instance, who are our clients? What really matters to our clients? How do our clients review and choose their service providers? In which ways should we reach out to them? Or what is the motivation or goal of our service? Planning No one is willing to make a random choice at the cost of possible waste of time and money or even risking the company's future. Strategic planning functions like a gear which can be used to match our goal and capability with the ever-changing environment. And to make a good plan, we need to take a lot of elements into consideration, such as internal environment, market environment, public environment, competitive environment and so on. Pricing When offering paid services, we need not only develop services that attract customers, but also price them appropriately. Pricing of services is slightly different from that of physical goods. Customers may also have non-financial costs so they tend to be more cautious when purchasing a service. There is an interesting story. When a coat is priced at $30, for a month, no one buys it. However, when the price of the same coat is increased to $100, it's sold out in a week. Sometimes, higher price may become an advantage. This is especially true in service-based businesses, where customers can not see or touch the final delivery. For many customers, pricing indicates the quality of the service in a large degree. Low price may cause customers to doubt about the professionalism. Communication Professional service is often about delivering information to customers. The challenge, therefore, is to make sure the information delivered is correct, accurate and effective. Multiple tools can be utilized for customer communication, such as advertising, field sales, promotion, publication, direct marketing and so forth. We must ensure that every member in our team has the same answer to questions regarding the communication, such as what to be communicated, to whom, how, the expected results, etc. In-person sales may be the most important sales tool for most professional services agencies, as personal communication is very helpful both in converting potential customers and in retaining existing customers. Relationship Most people enjoy working with others and yearn to build solid relationships, which is especially obvious in the professional services area. Having a strong connection benefits both parties in the relationship and simplifies the job, as it saves clients from continue seeking, evaluating, selecting and developing new providers.

The Future of Video Marketing: My Top 10 Predictions Posted: 15 Dec 2013 05:41 PM PST A few weeks ago I shared my ideas as to the current state of video marketing with a small glimpse into the future, but in today's post I want to bust out the crystal ball and tell you what I see coming in the next year onwards. In order to invest in video marketing, you have to know it's serious business and that it'll be around in the years to come. I can assure you, not only will video be around, but it's going to be one of the top ways major companies reach their target audience and drive revenue. Without further ado, here are my top 10 predictions for the future of video marketing: The future of video marketing from Vidyard 1. The future of the Internet is television There has been a shift in living room media. Starting with print, the evolution has included radio, then   television, and now we have the Internet, which is actually becoming increasingly like television as brands produce episodic content on a regular programming schedule. While TV took a while to become mainstream, most millennials don't subscribe to cable or satellite, so the Internet has become the way to reach a new generation. That said, brands are definitely looking to have a video presence online to take advantage of the shift. You can look forward to top brands partnering with entertainers in the near future as episodic video content makes a major impact. 2. Every company will become a media company Five years ago you knew the Home Depot as a big box hardware store and Red Bull as an energy drink, but now brands have become publishers and they're creating channels filled with their own video media. Whether it's power tools or caffeinated beverages, companies are finding the why that fuels the brand and marketing that with dedicated video experiences on their websites. In the upcoming year, everyone will be following the lead of these video giants and websites will feature more targeted video than ever. 3. Every employee will become a content producer With the introduction of Vine and Instagram, your employees have video tools at their fingertips and can create brand content instantly. This can be both good and bad depending on your overall video strategy, branding, and your industry. You're going to want to round up your content marketers to determine what kind of stuff you want representing your brand in order to control and make the most out of these video tools and their widespread availability. 4. Every company will employ a Director or VP of video strategy With the demand for video content, you also need people to manage the medium. Major brands are already hiring VPs of video strategy and you can expect to see a lot more of these opportunities pop up. Marketing departments need someone to take accountability for video content and they need an overall plan that this type of dedicated leadership can implement throughout the entire organization. 5. Sales teams will crave video resources The majority of your content may be text at the moment, however, with the current shift toward easily consumable media, your sales teams will be begging your marketing team to create more video assets to share. Visual media tends to perform better on social channels and, when selling, a video is the next best thing to being somewhere in person to guide a lead through the sales funnel. If your sales team isn't already asking for video, it's only a matter of time before they realize the benefits, the tools available, and ask for an in-house production manager. 6. The press release will become a video! When you think about it, there are three things a press release needs to do: 1. Inform the media of an event 2. Educate the press about your business, and 3. gain publicity based on interest Most B2B company news can come across as a bit boring on paper, but it's amazing what a well scripted, visually interesting video can do to communicate your message, make people understand your actions, and get excited about what they've seen explained. In the future, there will be tools to include video within a press release because it'll be a very popular thing to do. 7. Your nurturing campaigns will center around video assets Whether it's a recorded webinar you send out to attendees or non-attendees in annotated chapters, or a video announcing to relevant contacts that you'll be attending an industry conference, your email nurturing campaigns will contain customized videos you create to personalize your message. Similar to a trailer for a movie, you'll release a teaser video to current customers in email to announce new products and your attendance at events. 8. Marketers will be able to reach audiences in living rooms Set-top boxes are bringing the Internet into the living room. Gen Y'ers aren't buying cable or satellite subscriptions, they rely on YouTube and the Internet. A well placed video campaign will find your customers as YouTube takes them down the rabbit hole from the comfort of their couch. In addition to making your website and videos mobile friendly, you'll have to start considering how your videos will be accessed on television and how you can optimize that experience. Internet technology has changed how we view and optimize video on the web, so it's only a matter of time before we optimize the television experience and collect data there too. 9. Contextually relevant video will find your prospects Ever read a Forrester report and find that the suggested content seems really really relevant, and then you click it? We're working with a major company to make it possible for you to include video in that recommended listing – optimized thumbnail and all! Soon you'll be creating highly targeted video for sources your target market trusts and you'll offer contextually relevant content at the perfect moment. 10) Video data will be integrated across the organization With a lot of talk surrounding big data, companies are looking to refine what they learn with metrics and sort through the clutter. Video marketing platforms can help  with detailed, accurate information about your video assets and soon every marketer will consolidate their video analytics with marketing automation and CRM data. The combined data on audience engagement will dictate initiatives from service and support, to engineering and R&D. What are Your Predictions? Where do you think video marketing is going? What are you learning as you develop video assets of your own and how do you plan to distribute your video 3 years from now? Make your own predictions with a comment and I'll take a look. Can't Get Enough Great Content? The Vidyard blog is a great place to get a regular dose of video marketing tips, inspiration, and resources. Subscribe to the blog or bi-weekly newsletter so you'll never miss a post!

Characteristics of a Good Leader [Infographic] Posted: 15 Dec 2013 05:10 PM PST Effective leadership is paramount for any organization in today’s world.  As innovation and connectivity make the world more competitive than ever, leadership can be the determining factor in which organizations make it, and which don’t.  Good leadership can make or break an organization no matter what industry you’re in.  If a leader is lacking more than one of any of the key leadership attributes, teams will become unmotivated and productivity will suffer. Characteristics of an Effective Leader • honesty • ability to delegate • communication • sense of humor • confidence • commitment • positive attitude • creativity • ability to inspire • intuition Against the widely thought notion that you’re either born a leader or you’re not, leadership is something that everyone must work at to be more effective.  If you feel your leadership skills are lacking, make an effort to to focus on a few key areas: • improve ability to motivate • improve communication effectiveness • set a good example • encourage cooperation over competition • develop a broader perspective • share knowledge and expertise • recognize when change is needed Norwich University’s Online Masters in Organizational Leadership program researched and compiled data from across the internet to define the definition of a good leader, how to tell if you’re an effective leader, and provide a few ideas on how to become a better leader. Checkout the infographic below to see the results! To view the  infographic in its entirety, click here.

6 Ways To Promote Your New Pinterest Page Posted: 14 Dec 2013 09:09 AM PST You've listened to all of the buzz about how great Pinterest can be for your small business, and took it upon yourself to set up your very own Pinterest Page. You may have even gone as far as to post your first board! Job well done. But now what? Tell everyone about it! Here are six ways to promote your new Pinterest Page: 1. Spread the word. Leverage all of the social channels you currently use to tell your friends, family, and customers about your new Pinterest Page. Also, be sure to include visually-enticing pins from some of your favorite boards within your posts to really get people's attention. If you have a business blog, you can actually embed a pin or an entire board using Pinterest's widget builder too. This is a great way to drive people to your page. You'll also want to take your efforts offline as well. Just because Pinterest is an online social network doesn't mean that you shouldn't promote your Pinterest Page within all of your print marketing materials, including business cards, menus, flyers, signs, t-shirts — anywhere it can be visible. Tell every customer who walks through your doors about it. This is all part of getting the word out. 2. Use hashtags. Yes that's right. Similar to Twitter, Pinterest has a tagging system using the same hashtag method. Use hashtags in the descriptions of your pins so that even more people can find them. It's a great way to have your Pinterest account and pins discovered by people searching through related content. Keep in mind that the people who find these pins will be very interested in them too because of the way they found them. 3. Send out a special email. Create an email specifically dedicated to encouraging your customers to follow your boards on Pinterest. By doing so, you'll be able to tell all of your customers about your new page quickly and they can start following you straight from that email. Remember to include some great images in there also. Afterall, Pinterest is all about the visual appeal. 4. Link to your website. 80.5 percent of small business websites do not link to social media networks. Don't make this common mistake. Not connecting your website to your social networks is a bad practice for all social networks, and especially for Pinterest. Adding a Pinterest logo to your website will not only help drive traffic to your page, but will act as a reminder to people who visit your website to pin your content. 5. Follow other businesses. The nature of Pinterest is based on collaboration. Find other local businesses in your area to engage with and stay updated on what your customers are pinning alongside items from your business. Also, look to other businesses similar to yours on Pinterest for inspiration. 6. Make it easy for people to find you. Update your "Search Privacy" to allow your boards and profile to appear in search engine results. Be sure you fill out the description sections of your boards and pins so that users searching can find you too. Feeling like you need a few more Pinterest resources? No worries! We have you covered. Here's a helpful guide about how to drive social visibility and new business with Pinterest. It's also good to know what not to do on Pinterest to avoid looking dumb. Other than that, have some fun! Happy pinning! If you have any additional questions about promoting your Pinterest Page, feel free to leave them below.

6 Factors of Persuasion and How They Relate to PR Posted: 14 Dec 2013 06:15 AM PST Our CEO recently broadcast a link to Secrets of the Science of Persuasion, a whiteboard presentation by Robert Cialdini and Steve Martin (no, not that Steve Martin). In it, Cialdini and Martin discuss six factors of persuasion and include scientific validation of the concepts. As I watched, I wondered how these factors might relate to PR and media pitching. Here's what I came up with: 1. Reciprocity People feel an obligation to give when they receive. Favors and partnerships abound in the business world. The key to reciprocity is to be the first to give, making sure it is personalized and unexpected. In the PR realm, this can manifest in many ways. For example, you could share contacts with a media outlet to help them find the story they are searching for. When you do get some juicy media coverage, put some money behind it to help promote the piece socially and be sure to let them know you'll be doing so! This type of converged media can go a long way toward building a relationship. If you can help the piece reach a larger audience, you'll not only help your client but the media as well. And they will remember that the next time you get in touch. 2. Liking People say yes to people they like, and we tend to like similar, complimentary and cooperative people. Before you start pitching to the media, take a moment to research them. Read a couple articles, learn their voice, identify a few similarities you may have and compliment them on recent posts. But don't be creepy about it! No one wants to feel like they're being stalked. And most importantly, be sure you are genuine with your compliments. 3. Scarcity Simply put, people want more of the things they can't have or have less of. In media pitching, the classic "First Look" approach takes advantage of those feelings. When pitching the media, identify your "home run" sites, the ones that will be the most beneficial. Contact them personally before any other sites and offer your product or story ahead of schedule. The key is to make them feel special. The following formula is a good communication strategy: Benefit + Uniqueness + What they stand to lose. 4. Authority People follow the lead of experts. You won't always be authoritative in your client's field, so let others prove your worth. For example, contact some influencers or thought leaders in the space and get their thoughts to include in your pitch. Better yet, if your client employs a well-known authority in the space, pitch an exclusive interview. Become the outreach specialist who links the media to those in the know and use their authority to your advantage. 5. Consistency In this case, consistency is looking and asking for commitments. If you're asking for something big, try an incremental approach: score small commitments, stay consistent and move toward more voluntary, active and public commitments in the future. For instance, if you're trying to gain coverage for a overlong and boring white paper, first ask the media if they would be interested in seeing it instead of flooding their inbox with a 37-page attachment. Once you have the go-ahead, send the white paper with the request to have it covered. They will be more willing to act on your request because they have already committed in some fashion. 6. Consensus People look to the actions and behaviors of others to determine their own. Of course, as PR professionals, you don't want to say, "Hey, the Huffington Post covered this, you should too!" Nothing will turn off a media person faster than getting seconds. But think of it this way: If you're struggling to come up with an idea or pitch for a specific client, research what other web publishers and bloggers are covering in the client's market. There's a good chance that a similar angle will work for you as well. Find out what's working in the space and try to formulate your pitch around similar factors. There you have it. Secrets from the science of persuasion and how it relates to PR and media pitching! Is there anything missing, or do you have other ideas? Post them below!

How A Great Story Spreads Your Content? Posted: 14 Dec 2013 06:10 AM PST A great story always had the power to drive engagement, promote word of mouth, and help spread your message. Remember the old commercials for Country Crock Margarine where you only saw the hands of the actors. Over a series of commercials we saw the couple move from dating to marriage to parenthood. We almost felt we were part of their lives. What makes a good story Well, for 1 thing, emotion. Take a look at this infographic and you'll see how much emotion spreads your content across social networks. In fact, a study shows a single emotions drives 2.9 more hours on your content than a similar post lacking such emotional charge. But, why does emotionally charged content drive more sharing than other types of content? The answer lies in understanding WHY users choose to share content. Users share content because it makes them look good in the eyes of their social network. So, content that is interesting, insightful, useful, informative, surprising, or unusual get shared more because it makes the sharer look good to their social graph. Content also gets shared based on WHO posted the original content. Users use sharing as a way of building engagement with the original poster, to pay them back for help they received from the poster, or to show everyone that they are like the original poster as they believe sharing these posts repays to poster or makes them look like they're as important as the poster. How to create a great story Create a killer headline As reported on this infographic, most people read your headline, but only a few read the content. Having a killer headline attracts attention and gets spread more, which translates into more readers. Create killer visuals Visuals drive emotional engagement much more than words — remember a picture paints a thousand words. It's especially important to use an intriguing visual as your feature image as this image gets shared with the headline on social networks, except Twitter. On Facebook, it makes sense to post manually by sharing the IMAGE with a link to the article rather than simply sharing the link. This ensures your image is prominent in your post. For example, take a look at the feature image for this article. It's a great example of a visual that begs folks to read and share. The pimpled out john is from a campaign by Roto Rooter to celebrate the birthday of John Crapper — inventor of the modern toilet. The image, which showed the fancy john being given away to those entering the contest. The image was SO intriguing, the company garnered tons of free publicity when they appeared on morning talk shows, in the Wall Street Journal and other places where folks couldn't resist sharing the image. Content length Folks share longer articles more than short articles, according to the NY Times. Just make sure to chunk your posts to make it highly scannable so readers can skim through the post and only read what they find interesting. Emotion Notice results from a Moz survey showing which emotions tend to generate the most sharing. I think it's a little dangerous to generate negative emotions, since the halo effect might case the emotion to transfer to your brand, but positive emotion is good thing. Other factors The amount of engagement a post generates correlates with more sharing. Folks like to run with the herd plus a lot of sharing is social proof that the post is a good one. Content also determines sharing. Folks share science articles the most, so taking a science slant on something is always a good strategy. Failing a science article, post things folks find surprising. Keep storytelling in mind People love stories. Especially when they can relate to the folks in the stories. So, use people to tell their stories. Make the people multidimensional, so they're not just sharing stories related to the brand. Go back to what made the Country Crock stories so engaging — the people were real (even though we only saw their hands) and their story resonated with us. This brings up an interesting question I raised on the Social Media Marketing Tribe Facebook group (BTW, this is an open group and I invite you to join) — should you share personal information or just brand information on your social networks. I didn't get a lot of votes (please add your votes), but the majority said, "Yes, its ok to share some personal stuff". I think sharing personal stuff helps build engagement and create a good story about you and the brand. Now, that doesn't mean I want to see what you had for lunch or your cute cat pics, but I'd like to learn about YOU, not just your brand. I encourage my community managers to be "real people" when managing social networks for my clients. They should share personal stuff, then try to relate it back to the brand. So, when one of my community managers got engaged, I suggested she share it on the pages she manages for our client — a meme t-shirt brand. We brought it back to the brand, but also sharing some memes related to marriage and relationships with the post. Keep the selling very soft and the storytelling very large!

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