An attention-grabbing headline appeared late last month courtesy of TNS Canada. According to a global survey conducted by the company, 54 percent of Canadians did not want to engage with brands through social media. While that may seem like a high number, Canadians are actually more accepting of companies infiltrating their social media networks than our American and British counterparts at 60 and 61 percent respectively.

The Digital Life survey looked at how 72,000 consumers (including 1,000 Canadians) behave online and how brands across Canada and around the world are faring when it comes to engaging consumers through social media.

Some interesting findings as they relate to Canadian consumers include:

• Only 28 percent of Canadians comment on/engage with brands online compared to the global average of 47 per cent.
• Although only 44 per cent of Canadians see social networks as a good place to learn about brands, this goes up considerably – to 81 per cent – when a friend recommends or endorses at brand.
• 39 per cent of Canadians who post comments on companies do so because they want to share advice.
• Findings show that more Canadians like to praise than complain online (16 per cent vs 12 per cent).
• The adoption of shopping via mobile is also on rise in the Canada – 13 per cent of mobile Internet users in Canada shop on their phone.

So what can Canadian brands learn from this survey?

According to Ron Caughlin, Vice President, Marketing and Digital at TNS Canada:

“It’s a ‘Digital Wasteland’ out there – winning and maintaining brand loyalty is now harder than ever. Misguided digital strategies are generating mountains of digital waste, from friendless Facebook accounts to blogs no one reads, which is polluting the digital world and making it harder for brands to be heard. While the online world presents massive opportunity for brands, this requires tailored marketing strategies to realize this potential.”

As with all communications efforts, understanding your audience comes first when determining what strategy and tactics a brand should use to reach the consumer effectively. Listening to what consumers are saying about you and your industry is the best place to start.

Many Canadian brands have been able to successfully engage Canadian consumers by offering unique and tailored content through social media.  The key is to create an online space that offers customers and potential customers something above and beyond what they gain though other marketing efforts and purchase experience. One excellent example is Mountain Equipment Coop who has done a great job of creating a place where adventure seekers can post photos and share travel tips on the MEC Facebook page.

By Cathy-Anne O’Brien

We’ve been doing this PR thing for a while but to avoid becoming complacent, I found these tips to be a great reminder of how to help ensure a successful new business meeting.

1)   Go beyond the company website and LinkedIn profile. Really do your homework.  Do we clearly know what the prospect is looking for?

2)   Forget your agency-branded four-step process to developing a communications plan. Focus on the client benefits. What’s in it for the client is all that matters.

3)   Speak simply. Every communicator intuitively knows this but even we fall into that trap of overly using jargon and acronyms in an effort to look savvy and sophisticated.  This is not the way to impress someone – it’s a way to get them to tune you out pretty quickly.

4)   Establish an emotional or personal connect. And the sooner in the meeting, the better.  People want to work with people they like and creating a relationship and making a real connection will put you in a better position to win the business.

5)   Get the client to speak first. Avoid launching into a detailed overview of your firm and listing all your capabilities.  Instead, focus on getting the client to speak about their company, his or her responsibilities and pain points. The information learned here is invaluable and you’ll be able to tailor your pitch accordingly when it’s your turn to speak.

6)   Story tell.  This can be an art form.  And those who do it well will captivate their audience. It makes the pitching interesting and memorable – but ensure it’s brief and relevant.

7)   Leave the PowerPoint at home. I love this one. We often feel naked without our presentation.  But that’s the issue.  The PowerPoint presentation has become a crutch and creates a barrier between you and the client. It’s a sure way to prevent establishing a personal connection, not to mention boring them.  Know the presentation intimately but speak authentically and establish a dialogue.  Better to be imperfect and conversational than speaking verbatim and losing the chance to connect on a human level.

We are moving toward a world of mass customization.  We want our own personalized version of the news to arrive in our email each morning.  We rely on LinkedIn and Facebook for status updates from our friends and professional network, reading the articles they’ve chosen to share. We browse the tweets of those we follow. With the mass amount of content available to us at the push of a button, it’s no wonder we need help sorting through it all, with our preferences taking precedent.  But what are we losing in our pursuit of customization? Will mass media even have a role in the future?

This thought came to me as I was watching MuchMusic. A new evening routine after dinner, my three kids and I switch on videos and dance around the living room.  (At the risk of sounding ‘ancient’, videos these days are really pushing new boundaries! And that’s when we switch back to TreeHouse.) I haven’t watched videos since probably my university days.  And at that time, you’d sit and watch video after video  - some creative “cinematography” if I can call it that, but mostly just junk.

As my kids and I wait in anticipation for a fun dance tune to come on, we often come across new music that is actually quite enjoyable, and we’ve since added new songs to our list of dance favourites. But in a world of iPods and content customization where we only see the music genres or artists we like, we never would’ve come across these new songs.

Political leanings is another area where I see the danger in too much personalization of information. As a former political science major, I recall one professor advising us that we should regularly read perspectives that are counter to own. A left-wing supporter would do well to read the National Post on a regular basis.  A conservative may want to tune into CBC Radio on occasion.   This helps us understand another viewpoint, either giving us a broader perspective on an issue or perhaps even reinforcing our original point.  Otherwise, is it possible that engaging in media that too closely aligns with our position or preference will in fact limit our understanding and acceptance of other viewpoints?

What does this trend mean for public relations? As a communicator vying for the consumer’s attention, is a mass media strategy even effective anymore?  It’s interesting that many companies say that they want a more targeted approach in their PR programs, yet they still go ‘ga-ga’ over coverage in a major daily paper.   Social media is no doubt driving this pursuit of content customization, but what is interesting are the stories that still rise to the top.  From my observations, no matter how specific and customized you’ve made the information you receive, there’s no avoiding mass media stories. Even my Dad, who reads little more online than what’s happening in the stock markets will know that the Prince William and Kate Middleton wedding was the hottest celebrity story last year.   And everyone still finds cat videos on YouTube hysterical.

And good thing.  Not to mention how boring a family dinner would be if the stock market was the only topic of discussion, but we don’t want to become a society of specialists.  If we only read what interests us then how do we develop new interests? How do new artists, innovative political policies, or companies with great products breakthrough? Maybe if you were Steve Jobs, you could “tell the customer what they want” but this enviably position doesn’t happen overnight.

For the communicator, the revelation here is not new.  The onus continues to be on us to tailor the message; but we need to play in all forms of media – we no longer have the luxury of only strategizing around how to make the news of the day. We have to develop an authentic, meaningful voice that engages a niche audience.  Our PR plans need to take this holistic approach into account more than ever and trust that quality content, regardless of how customized our information preferences become, will reach that mass audience.

(For more on this topic, read this interview with Eli Pariser, Author of The Filter Bubble)

1. Toronto Mayor Rob Ford approached in his driveway by CBC’s Mary Walsh “Princess Warrier” of The Hour Has 22 Minutes. Ford dials 911.
2. Peter Mackay treats himself to a helicopter ride and misleads parliament that it was to observe a search and rescue demonstration.
3. Drunk RIM executives let their frustrations out and are thrown off the plane.
4. Taken by surprise by the Stanley Cup riots and facing sexual harassment charges, the BC Mounties need some serious reputation building.
5. Liberal Michael Ignatieff flunks communications 101: know thy target audience.
6. The Occupy movement struggles with clarifying the message.
7. Elected NDP Member of Parliament Ruth Ellen Brosseau never stepped foot in her riding before – a fact that became a media story suggesting the NDP were caught off guard.
8. For a network that is strongly committed to the integrity of journalism, it’s surprising that the CBC denied numerous accesses to information requests.  Now that we know that the George Stomplos party cost tax payers $72k, will we stop watching?
9. The federal government’s mishandling of the G20 issue – the government was incapable of making this story go away.  In November of this year, a full year and a half after the July 2010 event, it still makes the news.
10. How the NHL is handling the head injuries issue, which we are now calling a “concussion epidemic”- a hot story that tops the list of headlines for the year.

We are thrilled to announce that BlueSky client, DeafBlind Ontario Services (DBOS) was selected as one of the top five VRSA finalists out of over 100 Ontario charities nominated for the running. We worked closely with DBOS to develop an original concept and design, showcasing the organization’s successes and challenges for the past year.

Knowing that numbers and statistics have powerful impact, we decided on a concept that emphasized numbers within the report.  The numbers concept was a great way to express the organization’s efforts to be transparent and open about how many people were helped and how many projects progressed over the past year, while also drawing attention to the financial information within the report.

We believe that transparency is an important ingredient in ensuring the growth of a charitable organization, as sponsors and donators need to see where their money is going and how it’s helping the cause they have invested in. We hope that winning this award has opened new doors for DBOS, as now Ontarians can see the hard efforts that have been in effect at the organization.

Our generation has seen few like him.  Steve Jobs has become inseparable from the many things that give us entertainment, joy and connectivity in our lives. And beyond tools of enjoyment and creativity, Apple products have become a fashion statement.  The iconic apple with a bite out of it on your cell phone or laptop said a lot about you as a hip, progressive, creative person who desires functionality balanced with good design.  (While others bought Apple products just because we heard they were easy to use.)

Few individuals have accomplished so much with what the cynic in us would classify as simply consumer products — a gross understatement for sure.  If the iPod or Apple TV were just consumer products and not the revolutionary, behavior-changing instruments they are, Steve Jobs would’ve needed PR, and a lot of it.

Beyond being a visionary and designer, Jobs was a marketer. He was his own publicist.  He didn’t need to be, but he was, and that made all the difference. One of Jobs’ beliefs that stand out for me, flying in the face of any Marketing 101 class, was that to create the future you can’t do it through focus groups. Customers don’t know they want something they haven’t seen. Public opinion stifled creativity according to Jobs, who was more focused on bringing us the future while his competitors did their market research.

With the bar set this high, and with every product innovation raising it higher, who needs PR? Jobs used it, and it made Apple even better. It helped him raise the hype before a product launch making the blogosphere a-buzz in anticipation; it filled news conferences to over-capacity when only product enhancements were announced — hardly newsworthy for other companies — but turning them into huge theatrical events nonetheless.  Its PR efforts elevated Apple to almost a religious status, creating a culture of cool, hip and confident among its droves of loyal customers.  In fact he himself concluded that PR was more important to him than advertising: “Ad campaigns are necessary for competition,” he said. “IBM’s ads are everywhere. But good PR educates people. That’s all it is. You can’t con people in this business. The products speak for themselves.”

So did the products speak for themselves? Absolutely. Did he need PR to sell them? No, but it sure helped.

Does any company have the luxury of turning away business these days? If a prospective client approaches you for public relations services, how do you evaluate if it’s a good fit? And as the client, how do you know if PR is what you need in your current stage of business?

This is a dilemma we’ve found ourselves in many times over the years, as have our clients, no doubt.  Our strategy to date has been to do what we know best – which is strive to understand our clients’ businesses and their marketing objectives, and then uncover their interesting stories. And we haven’t met a client yet where we haven’t discovered something compelling to talk about.

But is that enough? As we enter our 10^th year of business, I’m evaluating this approach. It’s worked well for the clients we’ve been fortunate enough to work with for years – and they are typically established companies with an understanding of PR and its benefits, who are dedicated to seeing it succeed, and view us as a partner, not a supplier.  And because they’ve been with us for a period of time, they see PR as a worthwhile investment.

Many businesses, either at the launch stage or with a few years under their belt, want to create brand awareness. They know sales and marketing are keys to success, and they see PR as part of that plan.  Some companies know what PR can do for their business and hire a firm with a clear mandate in mind.

Others do not.  Public relations has been recommended to them as a ‘must-do’ to have a successful business.  They are told by investors or business advisors, “If you are a start-up, you need to do a PR launch” or  “If you want more traffic to your website, you better have a PR strategy”.  As owner of BlueSky Communications, I would certainly agree that PR can play a vital role in meeting these goals – we wouldn’t be in business if it didn’t.  But it’s most successful when it complements a larger business strategy with which your PR firm should be well acquainted.

So when is PR a worthwhile investment? One important question to consider is what does a business hope to achieve with PR and are these expectations realistic? If you are launching a company and you are relying heavily on PR for sales, then you may want to re-evaluate your strategy. Sometimes one TV appearance or ‘the Oprah effect’ can make your business an overnight success, but this is rare.  It’s the ongoing media coverage in a variety of outlets over a period of time that builds awareness, and it needs to complement other marketing and sales initiatives.

For the company looking to engage a PR firm, communicate what you want to accomplish and allow the firm to recommend an overall approach. A press release or one-time campaign is often not worth the investment.  If you really want to get mileage out of your budget and have an impact on your business, a larger strategy with various tactics over a period of time offers a much better ROI.

It’s these clients with whom we are the most successful. It’s the client who sees where PR fits into the business as a whole and has a healthy view as to what it can achieve who will see the results. And our commitment is to understand the client’s business goals and offer an honest assessment of whether PR is the best approach. Then both parties are entering the partnership with their eyes wide open and expectations are aligned.

We are now at a stage in our business where we quickly know what tactics work to achieve certain objectives.  It’s our responsibility to educate clients on what is realistic and identify those who may not be ready to invest in PR.  As communications professionals, we need to be straightforward about what PR can and cannot accomplish.  We need to strive for the ideal client-agency partnership based on a long-term commitment to one another; an agreed-upon set of objectives; a fluid exchange of information on a regular basis and a respect for each other’s expertise.  And if these criteria fall short for either party, we may not be the best fit.

“Jamie has a very keen eye for seeing trends in the media that are relevant to our growing client base,” says Cathy-Anne O’Brien, CEO of BlueSky. “BlueSky’s commitment to exceeding client expectations is paramount, and Jamie’s passion and creativity will ensure that our tradition of delivering results continues.”

Jamie graduated with a degree in Sociology from York University and then went on to complete the certificate in corporate communications at Seneca College. With experience in entertainment, consumer and business-to-business PR, Jamie has a thorough knowledge of the Canadian traditional media as well as the social media landscape.

Click here to listen to the Talk1010 interview, and see below for the full article from the Toronto Star.

The Gala honoured notable individuals who have made significant contributions to UWI and the Caribbean and Canadian communities.  Outstanding individuals who were honoured include: Donovan Bailey, Michael Lee-Chin, The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, The Honourable Justice Dr. Irving André, Keith L. Forde, Kamala-Jean Gopie, Dr. Karl Massiah and Dr. John Stewart.  Two organizations were also honoured including Ryerson University for its contribution to the advancement of Caribbean people through its joint programs with UWI, and GAP Adventures for its role in pushing the boundaries of sustainable travel.

The Gala was under the patronage of Dr. G. Raymond Chang, immediate past Chair of CI Financial, Chancellor of Ryerson University and himself, an honorary graduate of UWI.  Proceeds from the Toronto gala will benefit students through the UWI Scholarship Fund and the UWI Haitian Initiative.

Please see the photos included from andreasphoto.ca for a closer look at the Gala.