The benefits of one agency managing your PR and Social Media
Many businesses are recognising the value of bringing their PR and social media campaigns together, with one agency running them both. There are distinct advantages of this approach, as the PR agency has the ‘heads up’ on content being generated for the website, what is appearing in the press and will already know the media that the client may like to be engaging with on social.
Dragonfly PR has recently successfully secured a social media campaign for Velux Modular Skylights, whilst we also take care of their Public Relations activity for the commercial side.
The first question we always ask of our clients is: what do we want to achieve with your social media platforms? This needs careful consideration and this is why we devise a social media schedule with key themes, seasonal activities, national awareness days and content relating to the client’s business.
When it comes to social media there is always the temptation to simply input posts such as ‘look at our great new website’, which is never going to generate much, if any, engagement. Why would it? What many don’t consider is that the whole point of social media is interacting with people. So for example, and this may not be relevant to all businesses, a series of human interest tweets and pictures about the highs and lows of preparing for a charity event like the Three Peaks Challenge is always going to get more engagement than a bland statement about changing your website.
As the name indicates, social media is all about being sociable. Sharing interests, liking, retweeting, commenting and posting authentic and interesting content. Mind you, we’re not saying that talking about how your business can help customers is a no-no, we’re simply saying that you have to develop the business relationship before moving onto a more commercial footing. It’s the old motto ‘people sell people’, which means that if a potential customer feels as though they have made a connection through a non-business related subject, they are much more likely to engage with you when it does get to brass tacks.
Here’s an example. We have a client that is an enthusiastic support of dog shelters and once tweeted how they had rescued a dog on the way to the office. The story, which ran for several weeks on social media and not only resulted in the dog finally finding a new home, but also in the largest engagement of any post during that year! And in turn the largest number of new business enquiries for the company.
Getting your social media right from the start and remembering that it’s no different to a networking event is important. If you know what your strategy is from the beginning – to engage with customers and generate sales leads – then a friendly, informative approach works best.
That takes us to where we began and the point of whether you should be getting your PR and social media done by separate companies or the same one. In reality, it should be done as a whole by one agency because the high quality content generated during implementation of the PR strategy provides ample information that can be used to create a friendly, ‘social’ interaction via Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
We work with many of the UK’s leading brands in the construction and manufacturing sectors. To find out how we implement a joined-up PR and social media strategy for them, take a look at some of our recent case studies.
Alternatively, if you are looking for an integrated PR and social media communications strategy, call: 01709 300130 or email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk.