Can China keep pace with soaring digital PR demands?

China’s PR industry is a sector being forced to confront change. Several trends are coming to the forefront, primarily the demand for creativity and an increase in digital and integrated capabilities, fuelled by the meteoric rise of social media in China. Greg Paull, principal at consultancy R3, says these trends are causing problems for agencies, with many having trouble hiring and keeping the digital experts necessary to stay competitive. A recent study from R3 found that the main factors influencing companies’ decisions to change PR agencies are poor integrated and digital capabilities. With the how to do social media marketing number of marketers in R3’s study who stated that they did not do any digital marketing falling from 13.5 per cent in 2013 to just 3.5 per cent in 2015, it is becoming increasingly crucial for agencies to hone these digital skills. High turnover rate is a major issue, says Elan Shou, senior VP, managing director China at Ruder Finn Asia. The industry may be growing fast, but the talent pool remains small, she adds, with in-house departments and agencies fighting for the same talent. The role of procurement in agency selection is also on the rise in China, a trend driven by the recent austerity crunch in the country. R3’s study found that more than 72 per cent of companies have procurement teams involved in some stage of negotiations. So how are agencies responding to these challenges? Scott Kronick, president social media marketing trends and CEO at Ogilvy Asia-Pacific says it is not uncommon for the agency to form one client team made up of PR professionals, advertising experts, CRM advisors and activation specialists. Clients are influencing this move towards integration because their teams are also restructuring along these lines. But, he adds, agencies must do a better job of retaining their people and creating service teams that are sustainable. And the rise in procurement is making the agency work harder to engage and deliver value.

Make Smart Decisions about B2B Social Media

Every business is diving into social media these days, most without any idea of why they’re doing it. Social media isn’t a solution for anything. It’s a set of tools. A smart strategy begins with business goals and works backwards to select technologies and tactics that make sense, including both social and traditional media. You can figure out the formula by trial and error, or I can help you shortcut the learning process. I help organizations social media marketing new york of all sizes understand the tools and tactics of social media. My background combines 15 years of traditional media experience with more than a decade of online-only focus. I’ve written four books and hundreds of articles about social media marketing. I know how organizations of all sizes are making social media work for them. It all starts with having a strategy. My services can cut hundreds of person-hours off your learning curve and get you to market quickly. I’m not an agency or a media buyer. I work with businesses at the front end so they can make their own decisions. Smart decisions. A lot of consultants are hanging out the social media shingle these days, claiming that their general marketing background makes them experts on the new paradigm. While they were busy printing business cards, I was writing four books about the topic. My award-winning book, The New Influencers: A Marketer’s Guide to the New Social Media (2007), has been called required reading by scores of media, bloggers and social media experts. My second book, Secrets of Social Media Marketing (2008), is a hands-on manual that educates marketers about how to extend their brands, social media marketing pdf generate leads and engage customer communities using online tools. Social Marketing to the Business Customer (2011), co-authored with Eric Schwartzman, was the first social media how-to guide for B2B marketers. My latest book is Attack of the Customers, an analysis of why critics assault brands online and how to avoid becoming a victim.

New Media Demands a New Kind of Media Company

The media like nothing more than to cover the media. For that reason, there has been near-endless coverage of the struggles of “old media” companies trying to succeed online. Pundits debate the possible return of “pay walls” to the web, the prospects for “freemium” products that coax some subscription revenue from a larger pool of non-paying users, and the like. All of these are appropriate and necessary discussions of media products and business models. But it’s time to start talking more about the media companies themselves — not what products they should offer or how much they should charge, but how they should be social marketing media organized and managed. The barriers to entry in media have fallen. That means successful media companies will start many more ventures than they have in the past. New opportunities arise all the time, and the capital requirements are typically minimal. Fortunately, the barriers to exit have fallen, too. Without sound stages, broadcasting facilities, or printing presses, a new media company can shut its doors with minimal asset losses. The diversified media company of the future will enter (through startup and acquisition) and exit (through shutdown or sale) businesses very rapidly. The line between an operating company and an investment vehicle blurs, but shareholders can benefit despite, or because, of this rapidity of business creation and destruction. The evidence of disruption in the U.S. media business is hard to miss. It’s worst in print, of course, with newspaper and magazine circulation and advertising revenue continuing to plunge. In Hollywood, this year’s rise in box-office receipts can’t undo the damage of years of soft DVD sales and the failure of Blu-ray (subscription required) to move beyond a niche product. Even the television business, supported by continued increases in viewing hours, is struggling to adapt as advertisers lose interest in the up-front sales model that propelled the industry for years. Meanwhile, social media for marketing the display ad market online remains soft. (Ironically, the only secure business seems to be the newest: the sale of sponsored links on Google.) Lately, yet another trend has left media strategists puzzled: “Social distribution” — most visible in the increasing roles of Twitter, Facebook, and other media as ways for users to share links and discover interesting content in real time — may well become more important than search as a driver of traffic. While social distribution won’t threaten Google’s revenue for some time, if ever, it complicates media companies’ efforts to build traffic through search-engine marketing and optimization techniques.