The Public Relations Blog

How your company should respond to a social media attack

A great illustration of mob mentality is the scene in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast when the townspeople amass and call for the Beast’s head. Can you imagine what that would be like today if the mob flocked to social media and the Beast was a company that people felt had “wronged” them in some way? The Beast would have a sea of virtual torches and pitchforks at his company’s door. Without a PR firm, that business could be doomed.

Navigating social media and the public can be tricky. A single negative post concerning even a well-established company can go viral in an instant.

Connect with more people with video summaries

One of the best ways to engage with consumers is through the use of visuals – especially videos. A video summary is a video that recaps the content of a written article. More and more websites are using them to connect with audiences. Adding video summaries to your written content is another way to connect with and engage your audience. We compiled a list of four reasons why video summaries are an exceptional addition to your blog posts, website and even newsletters.

Adding video summaries to written content is one way to attract people to the content your company creates. It’s also a great way to retain an audience. Video summaries provide readers another type of visual and continue to gain in popularity.

Depending on your focus, you could create very involved video summaries with the help of a professional videographer or you could use a webcam-equipped computer to create your own straightforward video summary. We’ve assembled a guide below that describes the basics for creating a video summary for blogs and other articles that your company produces.

Keep your LinkedIn page active

In the past, people treated LinkedIn simply as a tool for professionals to network with each other. Times are changing. Business pages are now important tools for sharing news about a company and for attracting professionals – as supporters, employees or potential employees – to the company.

Information overload can be a dealbreaker for many

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, storage online is not a problem; we can write as many words as we want without fear of eating up too much space. However, while it may seem handy at first, research has shown two things:

Consumers will actively shy away from content that’s too long.

Consumers want information as quickly as possible.

It isn’t a good idea to overwhelm your customers with too much information.

PR can show you how to take control of your online image

Have you ever watched a small snowball roll downhill? If you don’t stop it, it keeps gathering more snow until it’s too big to handle. One negative comment or bit of incorrect information about your company on social media can create the same phenomenon as that small snowball.

Therefore, it is vital to your business that you manage social media content before it develops into a crisis. With help from PR, you can take control of your image and reputation.

What to do about the swelling shooting epidemic

It’s not surprising that gun shops are doing brisk business, or that parents are turning more and more to home schooling. It’s because crisis situations like terrorist threats, criminal attacks and active shootings are becoming a pervasive headline throughout the United States.

Most people don’t expect to be at the mercy of an active shooter. Although mass shootings are rare, the number of incidents in which a gunman has opened fire on a crowd has doubled in the last seven years, primarily in businesses and schools, based on a study by the FBI.

Communicating properly results in a successful, winning team

I read one of John Maxwell’s iconic quotes the other day: “The more elaborate our means of communication, the less we communicate.”

Bill Gates’ phrase “content is king” has become a well-known mantra for all marketing professionals. To expand on that, great content is king, and it has its own stiff competition for consumers’ attention and dissemination to the right audiences through earned media.

Wikipedia defines “earned media” as “publicity gained through promotional efforts other than advertising.” In other words, earned media is online word of mouth (mentions, shares, reports).

PR can show you how to make the most of your posts

Your company probably encourages visitors to connect with you on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other sites. However, what will customers find when they get there?

Without the right messages on these pages, you are missing out on valuable opportunities to engage consumers and build brand loyalty. Here, Axia Public Relations has compiled a list of our top 10 tips to show you how to create compelling content for social media pages and get results.