As a leading online and social marketing agency, customer insight is at the heart of everything we do.  Using our unique revenue potential model and persona insight tool as part of a strategic planning phase, we identify the most lucrative keyword areas and ensure we build a holistic view of our clients’ brand, their customers and their journey.

How does this influence how we create an online PR campaign?
Persona insight is a crucial part of our strategic planning phase and shapes our clients’ overall marketing strategy, but it also determines so much more in terms of online PR.

Our online targets, the tone of voice we use, what content we create and what messages we put into a campaign are all determined by the results of the Persona Insight research.  So before we develop any content for online we always conduct a media audit and evaluate this back to our client objectives and targets.  This ensures the content we produce for online not only captures the attention and interest of the target audience but also the media we are positioning it to as well.

What are the potential volumes for the content?  What value can we place on this piece of coverage? How has this impacted SEO?  These are questions we have to consider to ensure the final result is a success.

There are many different ways to create a successful online PR campaign and what we do depends on the objective of the campaign.  Some clients want to increase brand awareness, others encourage footfall and some increase visitors or search positions.  Depending on the outcome of our strategic research and the aim of the campaign, the opportunities and the approach we take will differ.

So in summary, online PR is not just writing an article or creating a Facebook Group, it’s about thinking creatively and using the right online channels that are going to connect with your target audience and deliver the required results.

With this in mind I’d like to share 3 of my favourite examples where brands are thinking creatively and connecting well with their target audiences.

SPOTIFY: The Flavourhood Campaign

Spotify is a relatively new, free online music streaming service but its popularity is growing fast and marketers have already caught on to this fact.  If you’re a Spotify listener you may have heard that McDonalds have just run a 4 week competition called: The Flavourhood.  Each week Spotify users submit their favourite tracks for a different themed playlist with the hope of winning the chance of tickets to a gig of their choice.

There are 4 playlist categories:

• The Big Mac, Big Track Playlist – with a selection of users biggest tracks of all time
• The Sausage & Egg McMuffin, Morning Mix – with users’ favourite morning tunes
• Chicken Mc Nuggets, Little Moments of Greatness – with users favourite pop classics
• The Mc Flurry Mix – with users coolest chill out tracks

The most popular tracks are then published at the end of the week on: www.theflavourhoodonspotify.com where users can listen to through Spotify.  The campaign is a combination of advertising, social media and online PR – but the success lies in the fact that the audience are being targeted as part of their online life.

McDonald's FlavourHood Website

For any brands creating Spotify playlists, check out www.sharemyplaylists.com for a great way to share them with the masses.

TWIBBON

Twibbon describes itself as ‘the easiest way to promote your cause through Twitter’.  However, it hasn’t taken long for brands to spot the channel is a potential PR tool too!

A Twibbon is like a small sticker for your twitter avatar to show your allegiance to a Twibbon cause.  It began as a way for twitter users to show support to causes such as: Breast Cancer Awareness and Remembrance Day, however, since its launch in July this year, Twibbomania has grown and grown and Twibbons can now support anything from a protest, memorial, event or even a popular person, brand or television show!  There are over 23,675 causes and a huge 777,248 supporters!

Breast Cancer Research is currently the most popular trending Twibbon with over 47,615 supporters followed by Breast Cancer Awareness which has 45,745 supporters. Popular Television shows, Trublood, Xfactor and I’m Celebrity are the 3 most popular trending Twibbons under entertainment.
Whatever you choose to support, your avatar is overlaid with the Twibbon supporting that cause and a support Tweet is then posted on your Twitter feed on your behalf for all your followers to read.

Twibbon.com

With all this in mind it’s not surprising that some of the biggest brands out there have created Twibbons to increase their brand awareness online.  Although there’s a real variety of branded Twibbons, it seems that some brands have a greater following than others.

For example: Starbucks currently has 530 followers, compared to Coca Cola which only has 39!

FACEBOOK:  The Bring Wispa Back Campaign.

When the choc giant, Cadbury’s ceased production of the popular Wispa bar in 2003, fans were up in arms and set about saying so online.  Before long online petitions and campaigns on social networking sites were popping up all over the internet.  93 Facebook user groups were identified in support of the resurrection of Wispa, with the main Facebook fan group totalling a huge 791,441 fans!

The Cadbury Wispa Facebook fan group

Cadbury bowed to public pressure and agreed to bring the popular confectionary on a trial basis.  1.2m Wispa bars were sold in one week after the product’s re launch in September 2008 and the chocolate firm saw an overall rise in UK sales of 11% in the quarter from the 30th of September.

Although the original Wispa campaign was ‘apparently’ initiated by the consumer, Cadbury’s didn’t take too long catch onto the PR opportunity. Before long online and offline media everywhere were talking about the Wispa campaign and how it demonstrates the huge power of social networks and of course your customer’s voice! Wispa even created a dedicated microsite for the campaign: www.fortheloveofwispa.com.

So there you have it, three great examples of how brands are using online to connect with their target audiences online. The Wispa campaign especially is a great example of how a big brand has listened to their target audience online and developed a successful campaign off the back of consumer sentiment.