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MARKETING A SUPPLEMENT OF THE ZWEIG LETTER Visually based social media More and more companies are using image-based social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat to attract interest.
By LIISA ANDREASSEN Correspondent
KEY TAKEAWAYS ... Here are some tips for using Instagram and Snapchat from PR News ’ Big 4 Conference in San Francisco: Instagram success Your visual media is the face of your brand. Find your approach and stick with it. Build relationships with users. Provoke your subscribers. Post content that begs a question and elicits response. Controversy can be a recipe for PR success. Offensiveness usually is a recipe for disaster. Success with Instagram requires strategy and timing. Plan ahead and anticipate ways your message could be negatively changed. Have a plan to refocus the conversation. Don’t just showcase your products, showcase the people that bring your brand to life. Be honest. Leverage your partnerships. Tie your posts to an upcoming holiday, observance, anniversary, etc. Using Snapchat as an emergency communication tool Meet with your emergency response team to coordinate possible messages. Have a plan for foreseeable disasters, such as severe weather, and have a plan for immediate threats, such as an active shooter. Once you and emergency responders have agreed on the messages, print a summarized version of each possible message. Also print a page with the message to announce when a threat has passed. Keep a set of these printed messages at your office, home, and in your vehicle. Upon learning of an emergency situation, take a photo of the printed message and add it to “MyStory.” If you have a manageable number of followers, you should also send each the message individually. If you have thousands of followers, consider your options, as it might not be efficient to select each recipient individually (by the time you do, the threat might have passed). Handle feedback the same way you would treat feedback from other social media sites. Prepare yourself with a set of anticipated questions, and a list of responsive people to contact for answers. If you receive feedback via Snapchat, you may respond in like form, but don’t hesitate to tell users where to find more information (website, inbox, etc.). Be sure to screenshot any outgoing messages so you can display them later, and your team can analyze how the emergency was handled.
F acebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are pretty much a given these days when we talk about social media. But what about other up and comers, such as Snapchat and Instagram? How are AEC firms using these visual channels? At the recent PR News’ Big 4 conference in San Francisco this was the topic du jour. Greg Kanz, marketing director at Shive- Hattery (Bloomington, IL) – a 400-person architecture, engineering, and full-service design firm – attended the conference, and he returned ready to hit the ground run- ning. CLOSING THE GENERATION GAP. When you visit Shive-Hattery’s offices, you’ll likely see high school students who are part of proj- ect-based learning programs from local school districts doing real-world projects as part of their high school curriculum. “This younger generation embraces social platforms like Snapchat,” Kanz says. “As we learn from the younger generation and understand how they want to communi- cate, we’ll embrace those technologies. If Snapchat continues to grow, we’ll add it to our social media mix to build relation- ships with future employees and clients. I think that’s why you see General Electric and other corporations launching Snap- chat channels to build relationships with future employees and customers. Our in- dustry should be open to the idea, too.” Kanz adds that Snapchat allows design- ers to share a beautiful design, to fea- ture employees and inspirations, to post understand how they want to communicate, we’ll embrace those technologies.” “As we learn from the younger generation and
See SOCIAL MEDIA, page 8
THE ZWEIG LETTER OCTOBER 26, 2015, ISSUE 1125
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