What's in store for this edition:

• Social Media Best Practices

• NEWSWORTHY: Candy M&A

• COOL or CRINGE: Mattel’s ‘Wicked’ doll packaging leaves parents in shock

• TOOLKIT 🧰 — Similarweb

• Attention Seeker of the Week 🐶

Social Media Best Practices for PR

Social media is considered "shared" media because platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram allow anyone with an account to use it, including companies engaged in public relations. How nice that they “share” their technology.

However, many companies fear the lack of control associated with social media.

For example, Goodyear's stock price dropped by 3.1% due to a negative tweet from a prominent politician.

But not to fear, here are some social media best practices for your communications department.

Social Media Basics

Start with your brand kit, review these to guide your work.

• Brand Voice: The consistent voice, or personality your brand uses across all channels. This should remain unchanged.

• Brand Tone: The tone can be adjusted based on the audience, topic, situation, and social media channel.

💫 Pro Tip: If you don't have a defined brand voice, list 4-5 adjectives that should always be present in your messaging. For instance, Attention Seeker’s brand voice includes Candid, Guiding, Fun, Positive, and Simple. I hope I’ve done it justice!

Communications

Communication is a two-way street. Consider social media as a conversation. It is the best way to connect directly with your community, the people you want to build relationships with.

This means you need to be social on social media. No matter how annoying it is.

Authenticity

Another social media basic is you must be authentic!

Engage with your audience authentically. Excessive self-promotion can lead to unfollows, as can automated responses. People crave authenticity—don’t you?

While were talking social media best practices don’t forget…

Visual Content

Visual content is in high demand. Photos and videos capture attention better than text in today's fast-paced consumption environment.

A Partial List of Skills for Social Media Management

• Copywriting

• Graphic Design

• Video Production and Editing

• Blogging

• Podcasting

• Infographic Design

• Content Curation

• SEO

• Blogger Outreach

• Media Buying

• Metrics Measurement and Analytics

• Social Customer Service

• Social Monitoring

• Content Distribution

• Crisis Communication

• Brand Management

As you can see, there is a lot to know and do when it comes to social media for use in your public relations plan. However it is worth learning and doing on your road to PR success.

Do this now: Tell me about your brand voice. What adjectives do you use to describe it?

1)________
2)________
3)________
4)________

Next Time: Just as public relations requires a strategic plan, so does social media for successful execution. Stay tuned for our next discussion on mapping out your strategy!

Get PR techniques from recent news.

Newsworthy

Candy News - Hammond’s Candies is acquired by Lolli & Pops

Mergers and Acquisitions are usually big news, and will garnish the attention of many. For me, I love, love, love candy news. Especially when it comes from fellow candy masters.

In this particular case, I saw this news in a candy industry publication, a variety of financial publications, food industry publication, local news outlets, and more.

When you have news, try to think of all the different industries and types of publications who’s audience would be interested in it. Obviously you’ll remember newspaper and television, but don’t forget trade or industry publications, newsletters, blog, and radio.

To review how to write and send a press release read the “For Immediate Release” issue of Attention Seeker.

Here is the official press release from the exclusive financial advisor to Hammond’s Candies. No doubt Hammonds, Lolli & Pops, and TerraMar Capital all had press releases. However I couldn’t find them, since they have no press rooms on their sites.

💫 Pro Tip: Have a press room set up on your website to make it easy for a journalist to get in touch with you, and download any press releases or other assets they can use for their articles.

Learn from others.

0% Cool : 100% Cringe

Very wicked indeed, Mattel’s ‘Wicked’ doll packaging leaves parents in shock

Mattel, released a special edition “Wicked” movie-themed dolls and it’s packaging links to a pornographic website.

Social media users were more than happy to point this mistake out online, where it gained much attention.

Mattel has done what it should to stop this from becoming a bigger crisis with the following strategy.

• Issued a statement

• Take responsibility

• “taking immediate action to remedy this.”

✍️ Key PR Takeaway: Use of social media monitoring tools is a must for companies that need to keep tabs on what the public is saying. It allows for companies to act faster, because they know what people are saying in real time.

Useful PR Resources.

🧰 TOOLKIT

Similarweb

Similarweb is a web analytics tool that provides data on website and app traffic along with valuable user behavior insights.

There are many ways to use this tool. You can use it to see how competitors are doing, market research, and much more.

For example, if an outlet(s) ask for a client interview, I use it to vet the outlet and see how many viewers their site gets.

They offer much for free and have a free 7-day trial, which I get to keep extending. This is a robust tool that I haven’t even figured out to the full how to use. Take a look!

Attention Seeker of the Week

@tommiieann

her daily manifestations #fyp #cats #dogs #dogsandcats

Many pets across social media are “taking over” For You Pages (FYP), with various cute posts. The front camera shows the opinion in text, then the camera accidentally flips to the user creating the post, which reveals that the video was made to advocate for the creator themselves. Watch this video and see.

Can I feature your furry attention seeker in next week’s newsletter?

I’m always a fan of candy… and candy news is oh so sweet! 🍭

Until next week, keep your shades on and stay cool.

Your fellow Seeker,
Keren

🕶️