Having a social media presence as a brand means that at some point, we’re more than likely going to receive negative comments or criticism of some sort on our online channels.
It could be a simple misunderstanding that has gone public or an unhappy customer leaving a negative review but it’s important to respond and act quickly to ensure it doesn’t turn into something bigger. There are many well-known brands that have led the way in dealing with negative comments and so in this blog, we’ll take a look at a few of our top tips that make your work a little easier!
1. Firstly, never ignore a negative comment online.
Your business is likely to be something you have worked incredibly hard on building and it’s easy to take negativity personally. Not every troll comment online will be worth a response, however, it’s important you consider each comment carefully and think about whether you can improve in some way. Be critical of your business so it can be better.
Not replying to a negative review that calls out poor customer service or something similar will only make your brand look disengaged and put off potential leads.
You should always reply thoughtfully to comments online, whether that be a positive or negative comment. It’s all about maintaining that relationship with your audience and showing you are willing to adapt and assist, it shows you care.
2. Be understanding and polite, and apologise!
Okay, now you’ve considered the negative thoughtfully and critically you need to show understanding and apologise for the situation. This is the first step in gaining control of the matter and resolving any bad feelings or conflicts.
Reading negative comments online can be frustrating but it’s important to stay calm and be polite to maintain your reputation and humility. Be respectful. You want your audience to see you care and this will help to keep your followers on side.
3. Reply in a timely manner
Though it’s important you take the time to consider negative comments properly and reply in a thoughtful way, you also need to respond in a timely manner. Be responsive. Show your audience that you hear them and are engaged with their experience. Keeping them waiting will only leave time for festering grudges and misunderstandings to spread.
4. Take the conversation offline and be personal
Although it’s key to show a response online, you don’t want to have the whole conversation in full view of all your customers. Reach out privately and deal with what you can behind closed doors. This gives you and the source of the negativity the privacy and space to deal with any issues. You can share a public statement regarding the resolution publically when you’ve come to some kind of conclusion.
5. Be willing to offer solutions
Once you have taken the matter offline, make sure to listen to the feedback you’re getting and be willing to offer positive solutions. Demonstrate you and your company’s willingness to come to a resolution that puts your customers first.
6. Learn from your experiences
It may be that the whole situation was simply a misunderstanding but if you have made a mistake, don’t worry. We’re all human and we will make mistakes along the way. There will always be something we can learn from a negative comment or piece of feedback.
Analyse the negative comments online, and try to find out what it is that your customers aren’t happy with. Is it a specific product? Or is it a company policy? Whatever it is, take the comments as constructive criticism and adapt so that you can move on from this and avoid similar mistakes in the future. Make sure you put a plan in place for how you’re going to fix this and ensure to inform your audience of the actions you’re taking to resolve the problem, build back that trust and show you care.
Having an online presence means that negative comments are pretty much unavoidable but there is always a way to minimise any impact on your brand and that is by generating lots of positive comments! A positive comment will always out-way a negative so just keep working hard to build on these.
We hope these tips will help you if you ever need to respond to any negative comments online. You can also find more great advice on dealing with negative social media comments here.
If you’re looking for more tips on letting your guard down and earning your audience’s trust then take a look at another blog from Carnsight Communications on why PR only works when you keep an open mind.
Writing for marketing purposes is a little different from other types of writing. You can forget some of the rules you were taught at school, but that’s not to say grammar and fact-checking should go out the window. Longer pieces such as feature articles and business blogs might be a bit daunting for those new to marketing, or even those who are suffering from creative block, so here are a few top tips that might not only help get you started, but also keep the words flowing.
Have a plan – For longer pieces it’s helpful to start with bullet points. Map out what you want to say to make sure there’s a sensible flow to the whole piece. You may be perfectly confident in everything you want to say but pouring out what’s in your head onto the page, without planning the structure first can be a costly mistake. Bullet points don’t need to be massively detailed, and don’t need to take hours of your time, but they might save you hours of editing, so they’re a worthwhile investment.
Just write – Once you have your broad structure, start writing. I have worked with many copywriters in the past and some feel the need to agonise over every sentence to make them word perfect as they write. But when you have finished the whole piece, sentences will get cut and you will find better ways to phrase the points you’ve made. So, the important thing is to make a start.
An empty page is so much more intimidating than a page full of copy. You can and indeed should always edit when you’ve finished anyway, to make sure the piece works as a whole and flows as you intended, so you don’t need to aim for perfection on your first draft. I’m not suggesting you produce substandard work, but if you spend an inordinate amount of time trying to perfect every sentence as you go, you will leave yourself no time for the all-important editing process. I have witnessed deadlines being missed before because a writer was so determined to achieve perfection, which obviously isn’t going to meet anyone’s objectives!
Get your facts straight – Whether you are writing a profile piece on your business, or a blog about an important issue in your industry, it’s often useful to include some facts and figures to provide context. To give you an example, when I write an article about blogging for business, I might start with a statistic about how many businesses blog. With some words wrapped around this figure, it shows readers why it’s important that they read on. Or why I am writing about that topic. It also demonstrates that you have done your research and what you say can be trusted, building authority for the brand you’re writing for.
Be useful – It can be tempting to make your copy all about you, but the most interesting copy offers thoughts, opinions, advice, or market information that are useful to your target audience. It’s sometimes helpful to think about one person – someone you would really like to work with – and write for them. What would they like to know? What would make their lives easier? Don’t take your experience for granted – other people want to know what you know. If you identify who you’re writing for at the beginning of the process and keep them in mind throughout, it will also help you ensure you stay on message for the entirety of the piece.
Edit. I read any piece of written work I create multiple times once I’ve finished it, making sure I have a break in between readings too. It is possible to stop seeing what’s right in front of you when you are constantly looking at the same piece of work.
Sometimes you get so caught up trying to get just the right phrase and then fall in love with the way you’ve said something that you lose sight of the fact it doesn’t fit in that spot or isn’t relevant to the overall argument of the piece at all. This is less likely to happen if you have written your bullet points up front, but we all veer off course sometimes.
Read your copy through on completion by all means – I always find reading it out loud helps identify any glaring errors – but then move onto something else, go for a walk, have your lunch, or ideally come back to it the next day. Take a break from the copy before completing your final one or two edits. The more changes you make, the more likely you are to need to take a break before reading it through again.
Writing longer copy can be a daunting task, especially if you have to do it consistently with regular marketing features or business blog posts. But if you take it one step at a time, plan it carefully, remember who you’re writing for and why you’re writing it, and edit it at the end, you will soon have the pages of copy you want.
In our increasingly data-centric world, organisations now have the ability to apply an intense focus on the changing motives and preferences of its current and potential customers in a bid to attract, engage and retain.
Growth marketing applies to the highly personalised approach of using a multitude of channels to deliver individualised messages aligned to customer needs.
A growth marketer employs the full marketing funnel to spot trends, hone tactics, and achieve sustainable growth. The customer-centred, data-driven strategy that takes into account the entire customer journey, from awareness to activation. Public relations compliments this approach.
Traditional PR and marketing strategies are acquisition-based rather than retention-based, with a focus on the firm or organisation. Growth marketing, on the other hand, focuses on both acquisition and retention while being totally consumer-centric.
Growth marketing tries to collect and analyse as much data as possible by utilising engagement tactics like A/B testing. The most effective strategy to consistently target the right audience and accomplish growth is then determined using this data.
Where does PR come in?
Public relations benefits growth campaigns by fostering strong relationships with the public, expanding a brand’s reach, and connecting more people with the company. It works well with growth marketing because both approaches are customer-centric. Additionally, they both work to engage clients through a variety of channels to establish long-lasting, solid partnerships.
Benefits of using PR as part of a growth marketing strategy:
Public relations fuels marketing activity by making sure your brand appears in the optimal locations to reach your target audience. There are several ways that public relations professionals achieve this including increasing online presence, strengthening connections with the media, and leveraging the influence of events.
Growth marketing focuses on increasing a user’s lifetime value. To engage and keep your audience throughout the entire funnel, content creation and content marketing are essential. Growth marketing strategies use a variety of marketing channels to get the correct audience to see appealing content.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an essential part of a wider marketing approach. SEO encourages more website visitors and offers opportunities for lead generation by ranking your content higher on Google. Public relations can impact SEO results by creating newsworthy content, creating referral traffic and building links.
Growth marketing benefits
Organisations can gain clients, reach milestones, and experience growth at a rate that is unheard of by using a growth marketing strategy. To obtain client information, growth marketing teams engage in creative innovation. They then create optimised plans for each user category using this data.
Growth marketing, with a focus on whole funnel marketing, may hold the key to creating long-term success in a shifting market. In effect, full-funnel marketing methods see up to a 45% higher ROI and 7% increase in offline sales. It has the benefit of producing more informed decision making as well as generating loyalty and repeat customers.
What does a growth marketing strategy look like?
Growth marketing experts have numerous in-demand skills, such as data analytics, optimisation, analytical thinking, experimentation and even creativity.
Here are just some of the tactics and strategies used by growth marketers today:
Conversion rate optimisation: This is a powerful digital marketing strategy used to draw new visitors to your website or landing page. Your website will be optimised and improved by a growth marketing team to maximise the number of leads you produce.
Split testing: Growth marketing campaigns are all usually rooted in creative experimentation. A/B testing is fundamentally about experimenting across a number of formats, such as social media ads and emails. Split testing divides your audience into two varieties so that you may compare a website or marketing campaign. You can collect statistics by dividing your audience between the two versions and analysing the results to see which version performed better.
Referrals and customer acquisition: A referral programme is a word-of-mouth marketing tactic that involves gaining clients by way of referrals from existing clients. It’s a reliable growth marketing strategy that aims to generate recommendations using straightforward tools like referral links or codes. Word of mouth will automatically start to have an impact as you establish your brand and raise awareness.
Paid advertising: Paid advertising campaigns using tools like social media or Google ads, provides some of the best methods of experimentation. It’s one of the best ways to bring in a new audience while increasing the lifetime value of your customers. Generally, paid campaigns are often the best way to reach people when organic reach is down.
Customer experience is a critical component of your approach. Potential customers want to feel connected to your brand in addition to feeling like they are getting an excellent product or service. Customers who stick with a brand are just as important to a company’s growth as new ones.
Experts in growth marketing are always looking for ways to gauge client satisfaction and enhance the customer experience. And there’s a valid justification for it. It seems that it could cost around 5 times more to acquire new customers than to retain old ones. According to Harvard Business School, profits could also rise by a startling 25-95% with just a 5% retention increase.
Growth marketing can provide brands with a way to stand out from the competition and build a sustainable future.
Pretty much every client we work with comes into PR with an idea in their head of what kinds of opportunities they are looking for when it comes to promoting themselves and their business. This is great! It’s a solid foundation to work on, but today I want to talk about how being open to PR opportunities you may not have previously considered will benefit you much more in the long run.
It’s worth clarifying that I’m not suggesting you say yes to anything and everything. Good PR is targeted, of course, but we’ve seen time and time again that clients who are open to trying things out and embracing slightly more unusual opportunities get better results overall.
Some clients can be reluctant to go for opportunities with smaller or more niche publications. Some sit on the other end of the spectrum and push back on opportunities that are a bit more generalised. The truth is, both have their place and depending on the circumstance can be wonderful opportunities to get your name out there.
We’ll always have a conversation with our clients around why we’ve suggested a particular publication or press opportunity. And of course, clients are welcome to feed back on which best suit them. Over time, this will help us understand what kinds of opportunities to send through and which we know won’t quite hit the mark. However, we always encourage clients to keep an open mind.
The reality is that those small, general opportunities that might feel a little more nebulous can actually be a stepping stone to the more specific wider spread content platforms, as well as great content in and of themselves!
Lewis Reeves, CEO and Founder of Walr, was recently featured on a running podcast. Now, this might not seem immediately relevant but Lewis is a keen runner and on the podcast was able to talk about the parallels between leadership and running, how he supports his employees at Walr and his business ambitions for the future. If Lewis had turned down the opportunity based on the fact it wasn’t explicitly linked to the market research sector (the sector in which Walr operates) he would have missed out on all of the fantastic feedback he’s received since his podcast interview aired.
We’ve had clients who have been everywhere – from very small-reach industry publications to the BBC – sometimes within 24 hours of each other! And we’re able to achieve success with them because they are open and welcoming to all kinds of opportunities. They have fun with whatever is presented to them and they’ve been able to reap the benefits because of that, including great reach, meaningful connections and plenty of interesting content.
PR opportunities you might not have considered or expected can lead to fantastic benefits you might not have considered or expected. For this reason, to get the most from your PR it’s worth being willing to try things out and allow yourself to explore what works and what doesn’t. You can use your PR agency as a guide, and should always feel free to ask them why it is they think a particular opportunity could benefit you. Embrace a challenge and be open to trying something new. If you do this, you’d be surprised how much you will enjoy it and your PR presence can really soar!
Welcoming an external team into your business can be challenging. As a PR agency, we understand that we have to earn our client’s trust and we’d like to think we’re pretty good at doing that, with a number of retained and returning clients acting as proof of this.
Therefore, we put a lot of time and energy into building those relationships with our clients. We respect and value them and what they do, both as individuals and as a business. We work hard to understand them (see our messaging session blog to learn more about how we reach this point).
For us to deliver the best PR results possible, our clients have to be able to let their guard down.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
Think of it like a relationship
Any relationship needs to be built on the foundation of mutual trust, respect and understanding – a PR/ client relationship is no different. As a PR agency, our job is to get to know the business inside and out, pretty and ugly. If things are being kept from us, we can’t do our job. We can’t address issues and we can’t control the message.
On a bad day
One of the things we cover in the very early stages of working with a client is what they are like ‘on a bad day.’ Basically, we talk about the negative bits – the gaps in the business, the places where things have been overlooked, the experiences that were handled poorly, the challenges faced internally. It is absolutely vital that we lay that stuff out on the table in order for us to do the best job that we possibly can.
We’re not here to judge. We’re here to help! It comes back to developing trust.
We can be off the record
Although we never advise off-the-record conversations with journalists – we have many of these with clients
We need to know the full picture so we can understand what to focus on.
We are happy to sign NDAs if the information is challenging.
It will help us to prepare and focus on the good stuff
It also helps us to prepare lines for the questions that you don’t want to answer or the eventualities that will hopefully never happen – such as:
The event we were helping to plan where someone with a vendetta could have turned up
The disgruntled ex-board member who was a loose cannon
The unhappy customer who was threatening to go to the media
An outside perspective
Your PR agency is ultimately on your side, but they’re also an outside perspective. This is a positive thing! They can look at things from a different point of view and may be able to shed light on some of your business blind spots.
UWE Bristol has unveiled its new immersive Sound Shower experience at Bristol’s Cribbs Causeway and Cabot Circus. Showing a mesmeric snapshot of campus life, the film was created by Skylark Media.
Filming took place at the university’s Frenchay campus and city with the support of student contributors. Multiple locations include the Atrium cafe, Centre for Sport, student union, library, as well as at the Arnolfini in the city centre.
The UWE Bristol sound shower experience at the Mall at Cribbs.
Stephanie Lee, Marketing Communications Manager at UWE Bristol says, ‘This is a really exciting film project with Skylark Media where we’re creating a film for a specific sound shower unit which will sit in Cabot Circus and Cribbs Causeway shopping centres to promote the university and bring campus life to the people of Bristol, so they can get a real immersive experience and sense of what it’s like to study here on our campuses.’
Skylark Media MD Jo Haywood adds, ‘For a unique out of home experience, we came up with a fully immersive concept using an Insta 360 camera on an extendable pole. It sits within the stitch line which then becomes invisible in post-production. The result is a fully immersive film that mimics a FPV drone – flying around from location to location or locking into subjects for detail. Diegetic sound is added in so that the viewer can eavesdrop into those private moments.’
You can experience UWE Bristol’s immersive Sound Shower at Cribbs Causeway or Cabot Circus this month.
Originally posted on: www.carnsight.com
I love a saying. I find myself increasingly trotting them out – probably more so the older I get. I can almost see the eye rolls from here! The thing is, the news agenda might constantly change (minute by minute, at the moment) but certain PR principles remain the same. Here are the most useful sayings in PR you might hear me utter.
Forewarned is forearmed
Preparation is vital in all aspects of PR. It’s why we start off with a deep dive into your business with our Three Lens Messaging Session – so that we’re ready to answer quick questions from journalists and respond to media opportunities proactively.
The same is true for media interviews. If you can prepare answers to the most common questions – including those you don’t want to answer – you’ll feel a lot more confident going into an interview and representing you and your business well. We always offer a call with clients before an interview and written notes where it would help. Even if they’ve done interviews many times before, we need to bear in mind what’s going on in the news and what fresh questions might come up. We have some top tips on preparing for a journalist interview on the blog.
It’s an art not a science
This was one from my sister, who also works in communications, and has been a very useful sounding board for me (thanks, Char). Sometimes I wish PR was a science with a proven formula, and that effort in always equalled effort out. But mostly, I embrace the fact that PR is an art and sometimes things come off that you couldn’t have imagined working. That’s why, as business you should work with creative people who can quickly adapt and fully understand the media process.
Success breeds success
I found myself saying this just last week. If you’re building a profile from scratch, be realistic and allow time for this to happen. Your PR consultancy could land a stellar piece of coverage immediately, but often it takes time. Once you have a few pieces under your belt, it’s much easier for you to be sold in, as any journalist will do due diligence on an expert commentator.
We talk to clients about the building blocks of content – even featuring some interesting, pithy pieces on your blog giving your views is a great place to start. We’ve sold people in on the strength of a good blog before. There’s much more about building profiles through PR on our blog.
You can lead a horse to water
This is another key one – with PR, you can do everything well, and provide a publication or a journalist with exactly what they’ve asked for – but ultimately, the end result is out of your hands. It’s sometimes even out of their hands, as it might fall to an editor above them. The skill is in getting the best possible results in every situation, and managing everyone’s expectations along the way.
At the end of the day (there’s another saying, creeping in!) our jobs are important, but we shouldn’t ever be anxious about them. I don’t want my team (or me) to be up all night worrying about work. We keep things in perspective, and we try and work people who do the same. PR is responsive and can be hit and miss, but we have to understand what’s within our control and what’s not within our control.
So there you go, some of the most useful sayings in the world of public relations, and no doubt, I’ll be using at least one of them again soon.
JonesMillbank, Bristol-based video production company, were commissioned by leading engineering consultancy firm Hoare Lea to celebrate the arrival of the National Satellite Test Facility (NSTF).
As unseen stewards of communication, man-made satellites keep us safe, informed and entertained, and their voyage into space demands phenomenal technical skill at every stage.
World-class science research, expertise and innovative testing transports them from concept to lift-off, and the unique design of the NSTF’s ‘cathedral-like’ facility means the chaos and challenges of space can be recreated here on earth.
Specialist equipment shakes, bakes and blasts satellites in the final phase of their ground development, testing them to their limits and arming them with the best preparation possible before their final journey into the unknowns of the cosmos.
JonesMillbank worked with Dr Jackie Bell, PhD, an aspiring astronaut and theoretical physicist who featured on BBC’s Astronauts: Do You Have What It Takes?, whose own journey through the space industry has tested her in every way imaginable.
The film was shot on location at the facility in Oxfordshire with support from RAL Space.
JonesMillbank are a passionate full-service video production company
They work in-house with a talented team of multi-disciplined creatives, all the while telling authentic stories long before it was cool for a range of clients such as University of Bristol, IDLES, NHS England, The Royal Mint and Battersea.
“I feel like we’re saying the same thing over and over.”
This is something we hear a lot from our clients. And it’s a valid concern. No one wants to be banging on about the same thing forever. That being said, you’d be surprised how important repetition is when it comes to PR.
PR is all about spreading and emphasising your key messages. That means repeating the message more than once and in more than one place.
What might feel like a simple and obvious thing to you – a message that forms the very basis of your business and the problem it solves – is likely not as obvious to the wider industry, hence why your business exists, right? Though it may feel redundant to you internally, externally it’s those very messages that you need to repeat. That’s how you become known and that’s what you become known for.
For example, at Carnsight Communications, we’re always talking about how important PR is for your business. Even more specifically, we’re always talking about why PR is so important for SMEs. We’re always repeating that message, and we repeat it because that’s what we do and what we want to be known for. There are number of key messages we push:
They’re not revolutionary ideas, especially not for us internally, but they’re messages our target clients need to hear and be reminded of. And we have our own special take on them, our own expertise and insights.
There will definitely come a time when you need to vary your messaging, but I can almost guarantee that that time will come much later than you think. Also, evergreen content will always be needed and this is where your key messages can come in yet again.
Revolutionary, unique and groundbreaking comments and takes are fantastic. Of course, we love those in PR! But they’re rare by their very nature – and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no such thing as an original idea, right? We’re all building on those that came before us.
Sometimes it’s not about saying something that’s never been said before, it’s about saying something well and in enough ways to reach someone new and have it resonate.
JonesMillbank, Bristol-based video production company, worked with independent marketing communications agency Golley Slater to bring its campaign for Save a Life Cymru to fruition.
It comes as data reveals that every year in Wales more than 6,000 people will have a sudden cardiac arrest and around 80% of those will happen in the home. New data shows that almost one in four of us (24%) have witnessed someone collapse and possibly need bystander CPR and defibrillation intervention.
Yet, less than half of adults in Wales are confident in performing CPR: however, when people understand that on calling 999, the call taker will talk you through CPR and direct you to the nearest registered defibrillator, 73% of adults said that they would feel more confident to intervene.
Survival rates fall by 10% every minute without CPR or by using a defibrillator, can improve a person’s chance of survival.
Golley Slater developed the campaign strategy and creative for Save a Life Cymru – Help Is Closer Than You Think – which aims to show that if you see a cardiac arrest, there is more support around you than you might realise and commissioned JonesMillbank to produce and create content across the campaign, including bilingual TV commercials, radio commercials and social adverts.
Supporting studio photography was also captured to roll the campaign out across digital, print and OOH.
“Working on the production of such a holistic campaign, let alone one for a good cause, was a fantastic opportunity and allowed us to add a huge amount of value and experience” said Russell Jones, Co-Founder at JonesMillbank.
“We already work with NHS England and a number of individual Trusts and we understand the importance of that value alongside impactful messaging”.
Dave Warfield, Creative Copywriter at Golley Slater said “the team over at JonesMillbank built a fun, creative relationship with us from the off which made treatments of scripts and finding inventive solutions enjoyable and painless.”
Lewis Clements, Senior Art Director at Golley Slater added “being so well organised on shoot days and accommodating in post-production kept the atmosphere upbeat throughout the process and made all the difference in bringing our ideas to life, exactly as we imagined them. Real patience, craft and willingness from start to finish.”
Production was shot on-location in Wales at Little Man Coffee in Cardiff and Firebug Studios in Barry.
Save a Life Cymru is Wales’ national organisation which aims to improve cardiac arrest survival rates in Wales. The Welsh Government-funded organisation promotes CPR and defibrillation within communities and encourages everyone in Wales to learn or to top up their CPR skills.
JonesMillbank are a passionate full-service video production company
They work in-house with a talented team of multi-disciplined creatives, all the while telling authentic stories long before it was cool for a range of clients such as University of Bristol, IDLES, NHS England, The Royal Mint and Battersea.
