Driving Discovery of Your Organization’s Stories

Sarah Skerik VP Content Marketing

PR Newswire

Driving Discovery of Your Organization’s Stories

Sarah Skerik VP Content Marketing

PR Newswire

Hello.

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

Overview

• Evolution of media• Subsequent changes

in audience behavior • Conversational

search & the social media connection

• Tactics for driving content discovery

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

For news & info traditional media have lost to digital.

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

AUDIENCE BEHAVIOR HAS CHANGED

So what does this mean to me?

We’re looking for really granular stuff

And we’re OK with branded content.

Excerpt from Sharethrough infographic

B2B customers contact a B2B customers contact a sales rep only after sales rep only after 70% of 70% of the purchase decision the purchase decision has has been made. – been made. – Sirius Decisions Sirius Decisions 2012 2012

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

Brands that haven’t published supporting content are eliminated from consideration right out of the gates. Is your organization capturing their interest?

Brands that haven’t published supporting content are eliminated from consideration right out of the gates. Is your organization capturing their interest?

Influence isn’t linear -- it’s a continuous loop.

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

The new communications reality:We’re competing for finite audience attention against an infinite ocean

of content.

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Social popularity drives content visibility in search engines.

MEDIA OUTLETS ARE RETOOLING.

So what are the big guys doing?

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

In the coming days and weeks, we'll be working with all editorial employees to train and outfit you as much as possible to produce the content we need.

These sessions will be mandatory and will concentrate on several areas:

• iPhone photography basics• Video and basic editing• Transmission and social media

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

This is what a “radio guy” looks like today.

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TACTICS FOR EARNING ATTENTION (& MEDIA)

Ripped from the headlines! (… and the Twitter feeds)

Popular stories = audience preferences

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Using the attention current events generate

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Pro tip: These are trackable URLsPro tip: These are trackable URLs

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Tie thought leadership to timely events

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Promoting blog posts drove increases in visitors, visits and views.

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Use edcals to guide your marketing team’s content calendar in terms of both TOPICS and TIMING

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Leverage sponsored/owned content

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They developed a great news hook

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And earned a little media …

Market your marketing: distribute the content you publish.

Content distribution seeds visibility within new audiences

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Mind the long tail!

Granular search means more qualified interest will build over time.

And if you do a good job of surfacing content in relevant ways, the tails will grow longer and longer.

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

Formatting tips that my-hand-to-my-hand-to-GodGod will improve your message visibility.

• Keep them short. Why? – Our data. (80-130)– Search engines (65) – AP in newsrooms (80)– Twitter (100)

• Use a subhead to keep peers happy.

Headline length REALLY matters.

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Shoot for about 100 characters in your headline, and lead with the most important ideas (or keyword.)

Employ multimedia elements.

• Visuals have their own distribution networks

• Visuals draw eyeballs• Algorithms value

visuals• People like pictures. • Better results accrue

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Dump the speed bump. Give the reader a reason to keep reading.

September 11, 2013/Cleveland/ -- XYZ Corporation, a leading global provider of world-class, end-to-end cross-platform scalable enterprise cloud solutions designed to deliver comprehensive process-improvement outcomes for customers in various vertical sectors including manufacturing, mining and procurement today announced …

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Format content deliberately to maintain (and re-capture) attention

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@sarahskerik @prnewswire

Embed a CTA near the top of the page.

Link strategically. Think reader service, not SEO. •Link to profiles of key people quoted in the message. •Embed calls to action for prospects

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Keywords aren’t just search friendly, they’re relatable.

200%200%!!

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Final thoughts

From your calendar to your content, build an element of distribution into every information component you publish.

Driving ongoing discovery of your content is crucial.

@sarahskerik @prnewswire

Thank you! Sarah Skerik

Vice president of content marketing, PR Newswire• @sarahskerik • Linkedin.com/in/sarahskerik

Discovery is a recurring theme on the PR Newswire

blog. Stay up to speed with what we’re thinking (and

my latest experiments) here:

http://blog.prnewswire.com/tag/discovery/

http://promotions.prnewswire.com/discover.html