Digital Public Relations

Hey, listeners! Hannah and Lea here. This podcast is an interview with an editor from North Coast Media, a trade magazine publisher in Cleveland, OH.

We reached out to Heather Gooch to get the inside scoop on how public relations professionals can better communicate and connect with other people outside of our industry.

We chose someone that was not a public relations specialist to get a better understanding of what is expected from public relations professionals from a different perspective. Heather works closely with both a digital team in her industry as well as public relations firms and corporate public relations specialists outside of her company.

We learned about some useful social media posting tools, ways to grab the attention of a journalist and what to avoid doing in the corporate world. Heather was able to give us real examples and go through her experiences working with public relations specialists.

This is our first ever podcast and we are so excited to share it with you. We hope you will stay tuned for more!

To give you some resources, check out these links:

northcoastmedia.net/

mention.com/en/blog/pr-tools/

muckrack.com/blog/2019/01/08/ar…embargoes-relevant

On this episode of B & B: Food For Thought, Bridget and Brady dwell into fun, fancy, digital food trends and everything you need to know about building up a food community.

Our hosts discuss influencers and how they represent their personal brand or the company, and whether they are concerned with content creation or metrics. They also take a long dive into TikTok as a new platform for food influencers and how their success translates over to other social media platforms. Bridget shares her experience as a food blogger (@bridgetlikestoeat on Instagram), how community is created through Thanksgiving and shared interests, and how influencers create community through food. By the end of this podcast, you will probably be starving for some munchies and that is exactly what we hoped for!

Check out some articles and videos to learn more about food blogging and food influencers:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbpMy0Fg74eXXkvxJrtEn3w

https://www.gordonramsay.com/

https://www.stellarising.com/blog/infographic-the-impact-of-food-bloggers

https://mediakix.com/blog/best-food-youtubers-channels-cooking/

This week on the digital PR Podcast, we will be discussing influencers. We are not just discussing any influencers though, we will be telling you about brands that use influencers in an innovative way!

Influencers are extremely important in today's world of PR. Influencers can drive new customers to a brand and make people think about a brand in a different way. Influencers hold a lot of power.

One brand we will be discussing is Gymshark. Gymshark sponsors a ton of gym-goers, but one athlete became extremely popular. Whitney Simmons is huge in the fitness world and has been with Gymshark for years. She grew in popularity as Gymshark did. In fact, Gymshark came out with two entire collections based on her. You do not see many brands doing that. She is so well liked in the Gymshark space that they used her likeness to create a collection.

We also talk about Patagonia. Patagonia uses their influencers to promote their clothing. However, they also use their influencers to promote social movements which are unique.

Many brands are coming up with new ways to use influencers to increase awareness. We are excited to discuss that with you all today.

Research:

https://influencermarketinghub.com

https://www.instagram.com/patagonia/?hl=en

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/49124484

In this episode of the Digital PR Podcast, Katie, Lauryn and Sam delve into the topic of authentic brand advocacy. We talk about how social media has really set apart brands that are authentic advocates versus brands that may be jumping on the bandwagon.

We discuss popular brands that are B-Corporations and how these companies prioritize a triple bottom line of people, purpose and profit. Each B-Corporation is scored out of 200 in five different impact areas being governance, workers, community, environment and customers. A certification can be granted to organizations in many different industries. Some of the popular B-Corporations we mention include Ben & Jerry’s, Patagonia, Klean Kanteen, S’well and Athleta. We also talk about brands that are not B-Corps such as H&M and Whole Foods that hopped on the social justice bandwagon, yet fell short.

Companies need to be authentic and transparent with their consumers more now than ever since the new generation, Generation Z, wants to support brands that stand behind ethics and morals. Social media has put a spotlight on brands who advocate for causes, and we believe other brands will follow by example. It’s not just a trend, it’s a new way of doing business.

For more on B-Corporations, check out https://bcorporation.net/

In this episode of the Digital PR podcast, we talked about how Aerie has paved the way for the body positivity movement. We talk about how Aerie got its boost in the digital world that set them apart from their competitors and changed consumers’ expectations.

We discuss the #AerieReal campaign launched in 2014 when Aerie stopped retouching their models' images to show their authentic selves. Aerie Real began as a social media campaign to encourage women to post their untouched, unfiltered photos of themselves and use #AerieReal. We talk about the impact that this campaign had on us at the age of 15 when we started to get into the social media world.

The Aerie Real campaign opened the door to grow their social media influencers. Aerie has two different types of influencers, the Aerie Ambassadors and the Aerie Role Models. Both of these influencers are diverse groups of women that demonstrate an authentic view of body positivity. We talk through the differences in these two groups of influencers and how these influencers impact the digital world differently, and our personal experiences with Aerie’s influencers. We talk about the body positivity movement as a social issue. Is Generation Z the reason we are pushing for this change? How does social media play a role in that?

Aerie was one of the first brands to hop on the body inclusive movement, making other brands follow suit. We discuss how Gymshark, previously stereotyped as a “gym rat” brand, has made several steps in the right direction to break that stereotype. We also talk about Victoria’s Secret and how, as one of Aerie’s biggest competitors, they lack body inclusivity.

We share our experiences of how body-positive brands affect us as consumers, as well as people. The future of the body positivity movement is unknown, but we share our predictions on where this issue is headed and what we hope to see of it in the future.

Resources for further reading:

https://www.instagram.com/aerie/

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/22/aerie-is-a-standout-with-body-positive-ads-and-real-models.html

https://levick.com/blog/brand/marketing-women-aerie

Gymshark's viral photo: the body confidence influencer behind it: https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/body/health/a34071513/gymshark-model-nelly-london-picture-body-confidence-influencer/

In this podcast, Public Relations students Nathan Mehring and Rhonda Baldwin discuss how influencers are faring during the Coronavirus Crisis.

First, Rhonda explains her grad-student project focuses on nano-influencers, so she authority on the subject. Look out for Rhonda's project on her social media (rhonda_denise1 on Insta), but in the meantime, here's some more information on nano-influencers: https://mediakix.com/blog/what-are-nano-influencers/

After discussing her project, Rhonda and Nathan go into the current state of influencers amid the Coronavirus crisis. Sales are down, which means money spent on online advertisement is down. This means influencers, who rely on this ad money, are struggling to make money - or at least some of them are. Travel influencers lost many opportunities, but, as Rhonda made the case for, other influencers are thriving.

Some influencers are thriving because of their resourcefulness (making diverse content), while others are essential to spreading health information. This is often where governments rely on influencers; however, all influencers during this time have to make sure they are being responsible. Nathan brought up the example of one who was not, because she put lives at-risk by traveling with her family while having the virus (more details on her story here: https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-covid-19-influencers/).

Lastly, they discussed the future of influencers. They both have optimism that influencers will thrive after this is over, but no one really knows what will happen. Will popular influencers continue to be relevant? Will they become irrelevant? Will nano-influencers take over the market instead? You just need to keep an eye on the trends.

Here's where some of the statistics used in the episode can be found:

https://www.chiefmarketer.com/majority-marketers-use-influencers-survey/

https://influencermarketinghub.com/coronavirus-marketing-ad-spend-report/

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-04-17/coronavirus-has-wiped-out-these-influencers-brand-deals-but-are-finding-new-ways-to-engage-online

Here's some resources for further reading on the subject:

https://insights.digitalmediasolutions.com/social-media/influencer-marketing-krasinski-covid19

https://www.vice.com/en_asia/article/5dmvzz/coronavirus-social-media-influencers-effect

https://wwd.com/business-news/media/influencers-coronavirus-escape-social-media-1203550224/

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/influencers-coronavirus-arielle-charnas-escape-new-york

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/how-influencers-have-adapted-to-the-coronavirus-lockdown.html

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-influencers-are-milking-the-coronavirus-for-clout-and-money

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/10/coronavirus-instagram-influencers-try-to-slow-covid-19-spread.html

Wash your hands everyone!

Jade, Caroline and Libby pay tribute to Earth Day. They discuss companies who use best practices to be sustainable and include that in there public relations and brand reputation. Additionally, they discuss companies who don't use best practices in sustainability and ways they could improve this through digital PR strategies.

Lastly, the three talk about the importance of social media influencers speaking out against PR boxes being environmentally bad. The girls finish the podcast talking about there generation and ways they can individually contribute to the environment, especially when considering PR. Oh and enjoy the beginning blooper and joy of technology!

The following is a piece written about one of the companies we talk about with best practices in the environment, Patagonia: https://goodonyou.eco/how-ethical-is-patagonia/

Bel and Bryan look at Whole Foods' blog to find out how it helps their consumers, their brand and the business. To start, there are many ways a blog can help any business. Blogs create organic content that helps you tailor the audience you bring to your website, build trust with consumers, build traffic to your website and most importantly helps your website's search engine optimization. New page URLs rank you higher on Google's search results as the search engine has more information about your website to sift through and lead consumers to.

Whole Foods' blog does a great job of making organic content their consumers will want to click on. They take problems consumers have brought to their attention and answer questions they might have. This is solving the problem and engaging the consumer in a fun way. They're also reaching potential consumers with targeted content. Blog posts like their food guides provide content tailored for their audience like vegan cheese and 9 ways to add plants to your routine.

Links:

Why Business Blogging Works - https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/why-business-blogging-works

Whole Foods blog - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/

The truth about farmed salmon - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/truth-about-farmed-salmon-whole-foods-market

How to Not Kill Your Succulent - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/departments/floral/how-to-care-for-your-succulant

Food Guides - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/food-guides

9 Ways to Add Plants to Your Routine - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/how-to-eat-more-plants

Vegan Cheese - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/fine-vegan-cheese

Vegan Beauty Products - https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/tips-and-ideas/archive/try-our-top-10-vegan-beauty-products

COVID-19 has impacted our lives in a million ways; in this podcast, Maddie and Sophia talk about its impact on social media and the digital realm. With "non-essential" employees working from home, many social media moderators are off the clock and leaving monitoring to automated systems. We ask ourselves, "is fake news and misinformation slipping through the cracks?". We delve deep into what this human absence means for users and brands.

Check out some of these articles to learn more:

https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/3/17/21183557/coronavirus-youtube-facebook-twitter-social-media

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/23/facebook-moderators-coronavirus/

https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-social-media-automated-content-moderation/

In this episode, Sara and Jake are quarantined like everyone else in the world and have been spending too much time on Instagram Live watching celebrities and musicians to keep them busy. Instagram has always been a hub for engagement for artists, but while everyone is stuck at home and sitting on their phones, it's created an opportunity to bring people together in a unique fashion. Artists are playing their own music, holding fan Q&A's, and even holding #ClubQuarantine and partying with Instagram followers like DJ D-Nice.

When Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson is jumping on the trend, you know that it's something that people should be paying attention to. The Rock is just one of many celebs taking advantage of their time at some to engage with his fans and look how big that French Toast is! How should musicians and other artists take advantage of this unique time to connect with their fans? What are some best practices happening now? What are some things that maybe should be left alone for now? SHOULD YOU BE CHARGING MONEY DURING A PANDEMIC!? Find out on our episode!

Link to Rock story: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/entertainment/dwayne-johnson-instagram-live/index.html

Link to DJ D-Nice story: https://variety.com/2020/music/news/dj-d-nice-club-quarantine-rihanna-michelle-obama-interview-1203541666/