Brand identity is critical in influencing opinion, maintaining solid engagement with a selected audience, and retaining awareness in the marketplace. What was once an easy objective – get people to like you and have a brand advocate for life – has become far more challenging in the age of social, digital and mobile technology. Brands must now connect with their audience visually as well as emotionally to garner brand loyalty. Brands are now being forced to tackle the big issues, turn obnoxious customer reviews into a strategic play and sometimes rebrand completely as a way to stay fresh with younger generations.

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary —we take a look at what some brands are doing to remain relevant and the creative strategy they’ve employed to reach new audiences. We look at the concept of brand loyalty and explore the challenges brands face to remain in good graces with consumers.

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Social media plays a crucial role in the relationships created between brand and customer. Like any relationship there are ups and downs. Unfortunately for brands when the “downs” happen, it is usually in the form of biting customer reviews or criticism. Social customer service was developed for brands and customers to connect on a number of issues related to products, inquiries, leading trends, or even just for customers to express gratitude over a satisfying experience. Brands are being recognized for successful engagements with customers and more so their ability to increase brand awareness through brand advocates. The overarching message to brands is that social customer service is here and it’s time to get on board and start listening to online conversations to get a better pulse on what your customers truly value in their brand experience.

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we look at how brands are integrating social customer service in their everyday social business practices. We will also look at how some brands are inadequately prepared to take on the responsibility. In our discussion we will discover engagement factors that come from social customer service and offer helpful tips on how brands can better meet their customers’ needs online.

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When you water down your content to try to appeal to a mass audience, you are doing a disservice to your pitch, your messaging and your potential reach by way of earned media. You are trying to appeal to everyone and, in the end, you reach no one. Today’s public relations professional has become somewhat of a social composer, where they create meaningful content for their audiences as a means to engage them and hold their interest over time.

In this week’s PRSA “Friday Five” post — an analysis of the week’s biggest public relations and business news and commentary — we explore the benefits of creating meaningful content for a target audience and the increased opportunity for earned media as a result. We look at how tailoring your message according to a specific audience can build relationships that lead to earned media, can help build a brand’s reputation and engage consumers in a way that keeps them coming back for more. A great example of targeted messaging is the “Latinos for Obama” initiative, which we will look at closer.

Obama Campaign Courts Latino Voters With Ads, Outreach (ABC News)

President Obama’s re-election campaign is stepping up efforts to mobilize Latino voters, launching its first Spanish-language TV and radio ads of the 2012 election and a new grassroots organizing group, “Latinos for Obama.” The campaign says “Latinos for Obama” is the “largest-ever national effort to communicate to Latino voters and organize and mobilize the Latino vote.” In 2008 Obama won 67 percent of the Latino vote. Most independent analysts say the Republican nominee will need to get around 40 percent of Latino voters in 2012 to win the election. This is an example of the Obama campaign developing focused content targeted at a specific audience. Understanding the target audience allows the Obama campaign to tailor their messaging to the Latino community, successfully gaining their attention and trust.

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To paraphrase one of my favorite advertising slogans: “We build our image and credibility the old-fashioned way . . . we EARN it!”

And, if industry projections are any indication, “earning” is gaining greater recognition as the most cost-effective means of building brand credibility. Recent findings from eMarketer indicate that U.S. spending on earned media across advertising, marketing and PR is set to rise significantly in 2011.

eMarketer’s survey of brand marketers, agencies, technologists and digital industry insiders projects that 24 percent of agencies play to significantly increase unpaid or earned media investments for 2011. Meanwhile, only 15 percent of brand marketers plan to do the same.

Continue reading " The Rising Ranks of Earned Media "