June 13, 2016 Issue 24 prnewsonline.com CONTENTS Web Tools .......................1,3 Writing Well .....................1,4 Data Dive ..........................2 Events Calendar .................2 SEO ...............................5,6 Employee Engagement ........7 The Week in PR ..................8 2 7 8 WEB TOOLS Snap to It: Tips for Brands to Get Started on Snapchat or at Least to Think About Now Like all social media platforms, Snapchat is tweaking itself, and and it now says it is averaging 10 billion views daily. While the social community responds with changes of its own. Just those first two points are important to brand communicators, weeks ago it was accurate to say Snapchat contained no e-com- especially those interested in speaking to a millennial demo, merce ads, that it averaged 8 billion daily views and that curated the curated content piece may be the most important. content on the evanescent platform was strictly verboten, a liabil- Instead of depending on influencers to snap appropriate ity for brands intent on having maximum control of the message. photos and videos, brands using a tool like Mish Guru have Each of those statements now is untrue. Quickly to the control. “The influencers send snaps directly to the brand’s first two: Snapchat began accepting e-commerce ads May 1 account, allowing the brand to repurpose any of the original Continued on page 3 WRITING WELL BY KELLY MAHONEY, MANAGER, SOCIAL MEDIA, COMPTIA How to Use Old-School Journalism to Help Your Brand Stand Out on Social Social media is a green field for PR pros. Virtually every per- will make you indispensable as son you want to market to spends time online engaging with this niche grows in professional a social media platform. The catch is you must stand out. relevance. In a world where everyone wants just a minute of your time, At the heart of social media asking for the mere seconds it takes to read and like a post is communicating quickly and is a tall order. clearly. The challenges you face in crafting the perfect up- The nonprofit association CompTIA faced this challenge. date are similar to what a reporter working on an article must To get results it failed to attain previously, the association overcome. You have to distill the facts for your audience and had to do things it hadn’t done before. By going back to remove extraneous material. The more work you leave for journalism basics it rebooted its approach to social media, readers to do, the more likely it is they will opt out and skip and increased engagement by as much as 180%. Thinking your messaging altogether. like a journalist will not only help you achieve your goals, it Traditional journalists operate by a series of rules to Continued on page 4 ©2016 Access Intelligence LLC. Federal copyright law prohibits unauthorized reproduction by any means and imposes fines of up to $100,000 for violations. DATA DIVE Vol. 73 ISSN 1546-0193 Editor, Seth Arenstein, Revenue Grows, But Labor Costs Stop [email protected] Editorial Director, Steve Goldstein, [email protected] Firms From Reaching 20% Profitability Graphic Designer, Yelena Shamis, [email protected] Assistant Content Manager, Mark Renfree Confucius said, “Life is simple, but we insist on U.S. firms provide staff with raises and incen- [email protected] Managing Editor, Guidebooks, Ian Wright, making it complicated.” The same holds for PR tives, billing rates remain relatively stable, which [email protected] firms and profitably. Data supplied exclusively to cuts into profitability. The goal for labor costs is Director of Marketing, Laura Snitkovskiy, [email protected] PR News Pro by Gould + Partners reveals none 55% and 25% for overhead, Gould says. Assistant Marketing Manager, Rachel Scharmann, of the 106 PR firms, which were grouped by net Why are U.S. PR chiefs averse to raising [email protected] Publisher and VP of Marketing, Amy Jefferies, revenue, reached 20% profitability, the industry client fees? “They fear client pushback,” says [email protected] SVP/Group Publisher, Diane Schwartz, benchmark. Individually, some firms polled for Gould, who’s been monitoring the industry for 30 [email protected] this 2016 study had 30% profitability, others years. He advocates firms employ CFOs, even Chief Operating Officer, Heather Farley President & CEO, Don Pazour were far less. The groups failed to reach 20% part-time, to monitor labor costs. profitability in the ’14 and ’15 surveys, too. Nearly 85% of firms surveyed return annually, The group of 6 Canadian firms (Line 10) was Gould says, naming Edelman, Finn Partners and Group Subscriptions — Laurie M. Hofmann, more profitable than its U.S. counterparts. The Taylor. On the upside, Gould is “thrilled” with [email protected] Additional Copies & Article Reprints — reason is simple: “The Canadian CEOs keep PR’s growing net revenue of 8-10% annually. “I Contact Wright’s Media, 877-652-5295; [email protected] a closer eye on base labor” costs, says Rick thought with that sort of growth, we’d see profit- Gould, managing partner, Gould + Partners. As ability come closer to 20%, but we didn’t.” Published weekly by Access Intelligence, LLC PR Firms’ OperatingExecutive Profits Summary Grouped by Net Revenue 9211 Corporate Blvd, 4th Floor Rockville, MD 20850 Client Services: Operating Phone: 888.707.5814 • Fax: 301.309.3847 Size of # of e-mail: [email protected] PR Firms Firms Total Expenses/ Operating New York Editorial Office: by Net Revenue Responding * * 40 Wall Street, 50th floor, New York, NY 10005 Labor * Overhead Profit Phone: 212.621.4890 • Fax: 212.621.4879 For subscribers only: full access to PR News article archives at Size # www.prnewsonline.com <$3 Mill 23 60.6% 25.9% 13.5% $3 Million to $10 Million 52 58.1% 27.5% 14.4% UPCOMING >$10 Million to $25 Million 19 58.4% 23.7% 17.9% EVENTS AND > $25 Million 12 55.9% 24.8% 19.3% WEBINARS All 106 58.5% 26.2% 15.3% PR NEWS’ Regions PUBLIC SPEAKING 1. NY & Metro 26 58.4% 27.0% 14.6% WEBINAR 2. D.C. & Suburbs 9 59.8% 23.7% 16.5% JUNE 23, 2016 3. NE 10 58.1% 28.1% 13.8% PR NEWS’ SNAPCHAT 4. SE 10 58.6% 24.8% 16.6% BOOTCAMP 5. Midwest 22 59.5% 25.4% 15.1% JULY 12, 2016 6. SW 10 59.6% 25.1% 15.3% NEW YORK CITY 7. Southern CA 4 58.8% 31.1% 10.1% BIG 4 SOCIAL MEDIA 8. Northern CA 6 60.0% 22.2% 17.8% SUMMIT & VISUAL 9. NW 3 52.3% 26.0% 16.7% STORYTELLING 10. Canada 6 52.3% 29.0% 18.7% BOOT CAMP AUGUST 9-10, 2016 All 106 58.5% 26.2% 15.3% SAN FRANCISCO, CA Source: 2016 Best Practices Benchmarking Report: By Agency Size (2015 Results), Gould + Partners * As a percent of net revenue, which is defined as fees plus markup. 2 prnewsonline.com • 6.13.16 Continued from page 1 Curation Comes to Once-Informal Snapchat photo or video snaps into the brand’s own snap story,” says White House’s reasoning for starting a Snapchat account, Laura Wilson, director of digital engagement & social media, “It’s about meeting people where they are,” Wilson said. Georgetown University. She does this with 12 paid influenc- So, if you dive in, “A Day in the Life” makes for strong con- ers, who also are Georgetown students. “We don’t have to tent, she says, and it’s a good way for brands to get started give away the keys to the kingdom,” she says. It also allows on the platform. Amazon has done something similar, show- Wilson to “create really interesting snap stories using con- ing staff members doing fun things at their office, she says. tent we select from a number of different students.” Another winner is live events. Wilson shows Snapchat con- Another platform, Snaplytics, allows brands to upload tent featuring a Georgetown cheerleader. The cheerleader and schedule Snapchat content from a laptop, so it could took viewers behind the scenes at the Verizon Center hours be used to curate, but would be more difficult, Wilson says. before a Georgetown-Syracuse basketball game. “This is a Now what about the pesky measurement issue with Snap- view most people won’t ever see,” Wilson says. chat, which is off limits to 3rd parties and requires a lot of Wilson also touts using coupons and incentives on Snap- work by hand? (PRN, May 9). Well, that might be changing. chat. For example, GrubHub did a series of snaps where a Yet another platform, Delmondo, is “part agency and part pizza pie was slowly disappearing, slice by slice. At the end tech platform.” It provides a platform for brands to find and of the series the bottom of the pizza box showed a coupon contract with Snapchat influencers to produce content to- for a discount on GrubHub. gether and a proprietary analytics tool to measure results. A few creation hacks she recommends that will greatly im- So, should your brand still ignore Snapchat? Probably not. prove a brand’s snaps: 1. It seems basic, but have a backup But perhaps your brand isn’t ready to dive into the Snapchat battery for your mobile phone. “Snapchat really drains your bat- foray today. Fine. That might be reasonable, Gavin Donovan, tery,” she says. 2. A simple stylus, costing about $20, allows you digital strategy lead, Mission Foods, says. Still, even if the to write on your snaps. 3. An extra snap-on lens for your mobile brand is on the sidelines, decide today on a Snapchat handle phone will help the quality of your snaps.