Web PR Success Stories
Innovative Ways to Use Web Technologies
By Lyn Mettler
It seems you can’t turn around these days without hearing how traditional media are in a severe decline. Newspapers’ readership is declining, radio is battling iPods and satellite radio for the listener’s ear, and digital video recording has taken the wind out of TV’s sails.
I personally have been disappointed to see articles I have earned for clients in major outlets like the New York Times and Chicago Tribune yield little to no response. In the past, such a “hit” would result in countless inquiries that could almost turn a company around overnight.
So where do you go from here if you want to engage public relations to help expand awareness of a new product, initiative, or simply just to maintain your company’s reputation? Where else but the Web? The same client who had little feedback from those national newspaper “hits” actually experienced a huge response to an article posted on CNN.com.
But it’s essential that you think creatively, strategically and consider your company’s message when you begin to explore the many tools now available online to help you spread the word. Below I’ve outlined four examples of companies who creatively used a Web technology as a public relations tool and saw great results.
Blogging With a Purpose
Everybody and his brother appears to be blogging these days on everything from their favorite sports team to their pet. And many companies are jumping on the bandwagon too quickly without a solid strategy in place to use their blog to reach their target audience.
Breakaway Adventures, a company who books walking and cycling tours of Europe, worked with my public relations firm to create a blog that would engage their potential and existing clients and provide them with helpful information.
Last year, I led a group of journalists on one of the company’s cycling tours to the small island of Gozo, part of the Malta archipelago, and I suggested that I do a daily blog detailing my experience and posting photos of our trip. This allowed potential clients curious about this little-known island to follow my trip live or read it afterward and get a firsthand account of what the trip was truly like. The blog went much further than a typical brochure blurb and presented real-life issues and a taste of the culture, while providing them with photos of exactly what they would see.
The blog was a success, with several readers following it live and posting comments. To date it has resulted in more than 1200 page views. The idea is for the company to encourage future travelers to host similar blogs that will then be archived on their Web site for visitors to read.
A Video for the Dogs
For a client who wanted to quickly expand awareness about a new product they had developed, a tooth-brushing kit for dogs, my firm encouraged them to produce a video they could post online. Since brushing a dog’s teeth can sound daunting to some, we recommended they create an instructional video to walk pet owners through the process and convey the message that brushing a pet’s teeth can extend its life.
It was important that the video be conversational, simple and pleasant to watch so it would appeal to a variety of folks online. The video could also be used for a variety of marketing purposes, such as trade shows, giveaways to clients and more.
In addition to posting the video on their Web site, www.keepitcleanusa.com, we also posted it to some 20 free video-sharing sites, such as YouTube, Yahoo Video and Break.com, and sent it virally by e-mail, encouraging anyone and everyone we knew to forward it along in the interest of promoting pet health. Since its posting, more than 1200 people have watched the video on YouTube alone.
Sending Fans to Facebook
With Microsoft recently buying a stake in Facebook, valuing it at $15 billion, the current buzz is all about social networking. Millions of people are flocking to sites like MySpace, LinkedIn and Facebook to interact with friends and business colleagues by sharing photos, videos and information about themselves, as well as joining groups, communicating through messages and posts and networking.
Gillette came up with a creative contest to engage Facebook users, which number about 50 million, as part of their Gillette Fusion Power GameFace College Tour. Sports fans are directed to go to the www.gillettegameface.com site where they can watch a video of Cleveland Browns quarterback Brady Quinn offering advice on how to get your “gameface” on. Fans are then directed to Facebook where they can join the Gillette Gameface group to upload a video or photo sporting their best “gameface.”
Once you join the Facebook group, you can get shaving tips, view others’ submissions, post your thoughts on the discussion board or “wall” and more. The promotion appears to have been a success with more than 1800 group members on Facebook.
A Little Bit of Everything
One of my favorite examples of smart uses of Web tools to engage an audience is NBC’s “The Office” television show. “The Office” has created lots of dedicated fans who are truly looking for ways to stay involved with the show beyond its regular Thursday night air time.
So NBC created a whopper of a Web site, sporting all kinds of cool tools that can keep fans busy for months. One of the most creative applications is the Dunder Mifflin (the name of the company in “The Office”) Infinity site, which is a social network where you can do all kinds of fun tasks related to the show. You can "apply" to be an employee of the company and get assigned an official position. Then, you can perform various jobs, just like the characters do on the show, such as developing a local ad campaign, a task they completed on a recent episode. According to a recent article on MediaPost, this network now has 100,000 "employees." Not bad.
Two of the quirkiest characters are Dwight Schrute and Creed, and you can read their deepest thoughts on the Schrute Space or Creed’s Thoughts blogs regularly updated on the site.
The show also offers plenty in the way of video, allowing visitors to download past episodes, watch deleted scenes and Webisodes only available online, see interviews with the characters and more. They also offer a real hodge podge of other nifty activities to keep you returning, like chat rooms, silly contests, virtual office basketball and subscribing to the Scranton (the city in Pennsylvania where their fictional office is located) newsletter and more.
The same MediaPost article reported that “The Office” section of the NBC Web site has had more than 800,000 unique users visit to date. I’d say it’s a hit.
All of these examples provide great lessons and hopefully inspirational ideas for the wide range of possibilities you have when marketing yourself on the Web. So, don’t just blog to blog, post any old video on the Web, or create a profile on MySpace which you never go to again. Be smart, strategic and innovative, and you will be rewarded with new and better customers.
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