Category: Uncategorised

By Ella Ford, Content Creator

Nobody enjoys delivering bad news. But there are better ways to do the deed than through an en masse thwacking via video call.

P&O Ferries is under sustained fire for sacking 800 employees without warning or consultation. Through a scripted and cold pre-recorded video call, crew across the entire UK fleet discovered last Thursday that it was their “final day of employment”. And despite references to a generous severance package being offered, full details have still not been given to newly redundant staff.

People have been quick to criticise – and with good reason. But while we all like to think our own business won’t land in a similar crisis, can we honestly say that our communication has always gone without a hitch, even when times are good? It is vital that workplaces establish a ‘norm’ for effective communication. Not only does it power productivity and build trust, but it also puts businesses and employees on the front foot when difficult conversations do take place.

Here are five evergreen tips for effective communication in the workplace:

 

1. Communicate with purpose

In today’s hybrid workplace, internal communications go far beyond the morning huddle and company-wide email. While you blend and switch between face-to-face and online communication, always be clear and precise. Think about to whom you are speaking, what you are going to say, and the core message you wish to express.

Also remember that less is more – especially now that the average professional receives over 120 emails per day! Do you have the proper digital tools to help cut through the noise?

 2. Dialogue, not monologue

Good communication is not just about getting your own point across. It really is a two-way street, built on shared dialogue and mutual understanding. And the most productive conversations happen when everybody is empowered to both speak well and listen well.

Take the time to demonstrate that you’re actively listening, even when it’s through a screen. It’s an underrated skill, but when done correctly, active listening is a superpower. Not only does it help you digest more information, faster, but it also gives you the tools to build trust by making others feel understood and validated.

 3. Keep it transparent

Open and honest communication is vital to any healthy relationship. No matter how challenging or uncomfortable it may be, make sure you’re consistently interacting with high levels of integrity. By normalising transparent communication, you are creating a culture of mutual trust and straightforward feedback in daily working life.

If there are possible changes on the horizon (good or bad), transparency is a powerful unifier. Forewarn people when bad news is on the table. Share what you know, when you know it – even when you don’t have all the answers.

 4. Own your mistakes

Even the best communicators get it wrong sometimes. Whether it’s a casual oversight or a mistake that directly impacts others, it is always important to be honest and willing to own the mistake. Showing vulnerability is not a weakness but a core strength; it proves that you can put aside personal pride for the good of the team. Being able to admit when you are wrong is a trait that garners respect and sets a great example for others to follow.

 5. Be empathetic

Remember, there is at least one person behind every email. Think about your audience and show understanding, concern, and care through your language. If you are breaking news, imagine how you would feel receiving it and what your own response would be. In face-to-face and virtual meetings, it may be easier to determine the tone of what is being said, but responses are often more instant and emotional. This is where active listening comes in. Accept and allow different perspectives and emotions from people and show that you genuinely care. A little empathy goes a long way, no matter how difficult the conversation.

If businesses treat their employees well and follow these communication essentials when things are running smoothly, they stand the best chance of riding out any potential storms before they evolve into a full-blown PR crisis.

 

By Emily Fishburn, Senior Account Manager

The enterprise technology space is a highly competitive and crowded one. As with similar marketplaces, the most successful brands are those that not only deliver a good product or service, but stand head and shoulders above competitors.

Easier said than done. But it can be done.

Increasingly, PR is being used as one of those tools to help brands in the IT space distinguish themselves from their competitors. Just how can B2B tech PR help? If you’re in this space, we’ve compiled a list:

Thought leadership

The media is saturated with articles on popular topics like SaaS, big data or cloud, which means it’s harder to have your voice heard. B2B PR (and working with the right PR team) can help strengthen your voice by refining your messaging and making sure your subject matter experts come across in the best possible way.

It’s not about shouting louder than your competitors, it’s about saying something of value; something that will resonate with your prospects and answer a question, pose a solution or open their eyes to something new.

Here, having a definite opinion – and not being afraid to voice it – is also one of the ways to get yourself heard through thought leadership. You’re the expert in your field, so don’t be afraid to be outspoken, or even controversial if you have the facts or experience behind you.

Proactive commentary

In the same vein, having a strong opinion or something fresh to say on breaking news stories or emerging trends will give your brand a tremendous advantage. Again, this demonstrates your expertise and helps build the credibility of your brand. Be ready to jump on those chances – whether that’s giving your PR team your views and thoughts in preparation, or being readily available when opportunities (or the BBC) come knocking.

Media briefings

The traditional media briefing still plays a massive role in brand awareness. Work with your PR team to build those relationships with key media, not just to talk about product updates, but wider strategy and industry trends — again, not being afraid to voice an opinion or have a view that’s different from the herd.

The right relationships

It’s worth saying that you won’t be courting the entire UK media. Instead, there will be a few publications and journalists that are key to your PR plans and business objectives. So it’s vital that you’re talking to them in the right way about the right things. Product updates would never be shared with national publications, but solid case studies and press releases would resonate with the channel press.

The humble case study

Nothing sells your business like happy customers. Don’t forget about the impact that B2B content such as a well-written case study or customer testimonial can have on your desired audience. Case studies with clear results and demonstrable return on investment can be used throughout the marketing funnel, but especially with prospects in the consideration and decision phases.

What’s next?

PR gives you a number of tactics that can be used to elevate your brand, grow awareness of your offering and make you stand above your competition. Working with the right digital PR agency ensures those tactics become powerful tools that can help you reach your target audiences in the right way and ultimately achieve your business objectives, whether that’s boosting awareness, M&A or expanding into new markets.

If you’d like to chat about how we can help your business, please get in touch.

By Natalia Kaczmarek, Digital Content Creator

Online user behaviour is constantly evolving, and so are the search engines. Google – the biggest and the most popular one – rolls out thousands of updates to its almighty algorithm every year to ensure the top results are the most relevant and reliable, and reflect the broader user changes and advancements in technology.

It certainly isn’t the easiest thing in the world to keep track of all the updates, let alone dissect what they mean and adjust your SEO strategy accordingly. The good news is that you don’t need to flip your SEO tactics on their head every time Google drops something new. The fundamentals always stay the same; that includes doing keyword research, not letting keyword stuffing kill your SEO efforts, using image alt text, and remembering to optimise meta descriptions and headlines.

However, just following the basics might not get you as far (or as high) as you want to be this year. Some of your competitors might be more SEO-savvy or use a specialist agency to help them rank higher, so you need to act now.

Nail these five SEO techniques and you’ll be sure to supercharge your site’s performance in 2022:

#1. Think about user intent

Google increasingly focuses on finding out the intention of the user and improving the semantic search. Instead of the individual keyword, Google will now make connections between all the words in a search term. So, when a user types a query into the browser, Google will think carefully about what they hope to find. For example, if they type ‘Tesco’, they’re probably looking for the nearest store, not the head office. One thing that will help you get on Google’s good books with search intent is to type in the keywords you’re targeting and research SERPs that come up. These are exactly the types of results that Google deems the most relevant so use them to your advantage.

#2. Consider page experience

Google now prioritises indexing and ranking of websites that are mobile-friendly. But mobile usability is only one of many elements of the page experience that the biggest search engine is looking for this year. The others are:

• HTTPS usage (secure site connection)
• Loading performance (the faster, the better)
• No intrusive interstitials (get rid of those annoying pop-up ads!

#3. Optimise for ‘People also ask’

You have probably seen the PAA boxes on Google – they are present in almost half of all searches and are continuing to grow on both mobile and desktop. Unlike featured snippets, it is possible for you to appear in the PAA box and hold a standard organic ranking on the first page. That makes them the perfect SEO opportunity. The most common types of queries that trigger PAA boxes are usually questions starting with ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’ or ‘who’. So, next time you’re writing a blog, conduct a Google search around the topic you’re writing about, find out what people are also asking, and structure your blog so that it answers these questions.

#4. Demonstrate topical expertise

Your website has to demonstrate expertise in a particular topic, whether that is manufacturing, data analytics or recruitment. High-quality content related to your field of knowledge and experience will, therefore, get you higher on Google. It will signal to the search engine that you clearly understand the subject. Not only that, but it will also help the users and prospects see that you know your stuff, making them more likely to partner with you in the future.

#5. Earn authority backlinks

Earning authority backlinks is probably the hardest thing as it remains one of the top Google’s ranking factors this year. There are many link building strategies, but one that can really help you is to leverage your digital PR and your amazing content creation. The right article or a press release will deliver a number of editorially earned links from publications that your future customers read. So, don’t forget to provide a link to your website somewhere in the copy of your next thought-leadership piece before sending it to the journalist.

Good luck!

The PR industry can be a challenging environment. With new types of media blossoming each year and the ever-growing number of PR professionals vying for journalists’ attention, it’s become harder and harder to make an impact and secure top-tier coverage for your brand.

Sure, sending out press releases en masse to hundreds of journalists may save you the headache of having to tailor your pitch to individual journalists. In the long run however, this approach will not deliver top-quality PR results for your brand. To avoid making similar mistakes please see below as I outline three top tips for worthwhile PR activity.

Build A Strong Media List: Building and maintaining a strong media list is crucial to successful PR activity. The first step in creating a worthwhile media list is to recognise who you’re going to try and reach with a story and identify which publications are going to have the greatest impact. Study a journalist’s recent content and understand if this story is relevant to them. With this information garnered, the media list will be highly targeted for your story. This greatly increases the chance of receptive feedback from journalists: cybersecurity journalists don’t want to hear the latest developments in agriculture! A strong media list is never static either. To keep its relevancy, it must be updated regularly with new journalists or editorial changes in media outlets.

Pitch Effectively to Journalists: Before you draft a pitch it’s vital that you understand what you’re trying to pitch and why it’s worthy of a journalist’s time. If you don’t understand the story yourself it will be challenging to sell the story convincingly to someone else. If in doubt, ask yourself the classic five questions: who, what, where, why and when? Once you understand your story thoroughly it’s then vital to tailor your pitch to be as attention-grabbing as possible. This isn’t about flashy fonts or images but rather making the task of reading your pitch, not a chore. Most journalists receive several pitches per hour throughout the day so it’s important your pitch stands out. Perhaps get creative or use a stat to leverage your story. If in doubt, keep it short and sweet and get to the point quickly.

Distinguish Yourself: The challenge of securing a top-tier placement for your brand is that it’s an extremely competitive environment with potentially hundreds of PR professionals vying for the same opportunity. It’s important that whilst you represent your business and story responsibly, you make an effort to stand out from the crowd. Even if you aren’t successful in securing a placement, catching their eye with something atypical can establish a connection with a journalist which may prove to be valuable in the future.

Adopting the three top tips above is sure to improve your PR skillset and help produce outstanding PR results for your brand.

By Ellie Nash, Digital Account Executive

As we all know, short-form video platform, TikTok is taking the world of social media by storm and completely re-inventing social as we know it.

Platforms such as Facebook are now having to re-think their strategy to keep up with the fast-paced world of video content and have stayed quiet until last week, when they launched Facebook reels.

What are Facebook reels?

Facebook reels, much like Instagram reels, are an opportunity for users to record a short and snappy 60-second video to share to their platform. There is a chance for followers to like, comment and ‘Remix’ videos much like TikTok’s famous ‘Duet’ option.

In the coming weeks, Facebook will begin trialling ‘Stars on Reels’ which allows people to buy and send stars while watching Reels to support creators.

What are the benefits of Facebook reels?

The main idea behind Reels is for creators to get discovered and connect with their audience, all while earning money. Meta wants creators to reconnect with the platform and steer away from TikTok so Facebook becomes an application of entertainment again.

Making money from Facebook reels

Facebook has launched a ‘Reels Play’ bonus programme that grants creators the opportunity to earn up to $35,000 a month based on the views of their reels. This is currently only available in America but after the success of creator, ‘Jason The Great’, Facebook will soon begin trials to develop this worldwide.

Unlike TikTok, there are two advert formats available for creators on the platform.

1. Banner ads: Banner ads sit at the bottom of a Facebook reel and as a semi-transparent overlay.
2. Sticker ads: Sticker ads are static and can be placed anywhere on top of the reel.

How to set up a Facebook reel

1. Open your Facebook app and look in the top left corner, underneath the Facebook logo.
2. Click on reel.
3. Add your video by either selecting pre-recorded videos or hold down the record button.
4. You will see you can add audio, select the length, speed, add effects, set a timer or add a green screen on the right-hand side of the screen.
5. Tap next once you’ve finished editing.
6. Write a description for your reel and select who you’d like to view the reel. This can be anyone on or off Facebook or just your friends.
7. Tap share to publish your reel to your Facebook stream.

In the opinion of the Digital team, we’re not sure whether Facebook reels will catch on. TikTok is already the number one platform for short-form video viewing and is used by billions … Maybe Facebook were too late to jump on the band wagon?

By Millie Goodwin, Business Development Executive

As someone who spends a lot of their free time on social media, as most people seem to do nowadays, I wondered to myself what am I even getting out of this? What is it that’s keeping me drawn in for hours upon hours? Lockdown was an excuse for a ridiculous amount of screentime, and according to Ofcom an average of four hours a day were spent online in April 2020.

Social media apps benefitted hugely from the pandemic, too. TikTok experienced huge growth during the pandemic – from 3 million UK adult visitors in September 2019, to 14 million by March 2021.

When I really thought about why my mind gets so caught up in the whirlwind that is social media, I realised it really does come down to 3 simple things:

The first one being FOMO or fear of missing out. For a lot of people Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, etc… are where we build our links with most people. It’s where conversations start; it’s where we build links with people who share the same interests and values as us; it’s where we get the new ideas of places to visit, eat, see, and what to watch on the telly. I know I would have never tried Squid Games off my own back but the influx of tweets raving on about it sparked my interest. We use social media to share the best parts of our lives. If we didn’t have social media, these connections would be lost, and we would be left wondering what connections and shared experiences people are having without us.

The second one being validation. When we post a picture, we get notified about how many people have liked the post, the more the better. If you were to post on someone’s feed who had a large following and they responded or just even liked the post, you would feel proud. As adults we all need validation. It’s just part of human nature and social media enlarges that – we don’t have to do anything amazing, just sit behind a screen and hope a few people press the like button. When lockdown limited our opportunities to engage with family and friends in person, social media offered us the virtual alternative.

The third and final thing is comfort. I know it sounds ridiculous; how can you find comfort in something that nine times out of 10 gives us a headache. But when you think about it, it’s giving us comfort and familiarity in an unfamiliar setting. Sitting in a restaurant waiting for a friend, attending an event with strangers, social media gives us a way to connect to social objects and to people that we know, so we feel less alone or uncertain.

I do believe lockdown had a dramatic change on everyone’s intake of social media so maybe that’s harder to let go of. But it’s important that we establish relationships outside of social media and that we realise we might be so busy obsessing over what we are missing out on social media, that we are actually missing out on what’s going on right in front of us.

Since the birth of the internet, cyber security has been a growing concern for businesses around the world. The number of cyber attacks has steadily grown year-on-year and experts predict it will carry on this way for the foreseeable future. In addition, cyber criminals are becoming increasingly sophisticated – they can find the smallest weakness in a network and exploit it without the company even knowing.

But it’s not all bad news. There has been a boom in the cyber security industry and companies reinforcing their cyber defences. Reports suggest that the UK cybersecurity industry is growing at a rate of over 20% a year with the global market projected to reach $258bn by 2025. With such a competitive landscape – how can cyber companies stand out from the crowd?

One of the best ways is to invest in cyber security PR. This helps increase brand awareness, showcase expertise and drive leads. But with such a crowded marketplace, how do you stand out from the rest?

Here are my three tips for developing an effective PR campaign in cybersecurity:

Understand your audience

The first thing you need to do when considering PR is to understand your audience and who you’re trying to influence. In the past, cyber security was not considered a board issue, it was left up to the IT director or manager to control. But with the ever-growing threat to companies and the risk of hefty fines from regulation such as GDPR, it has now become a top priority for the C-Suite.

There are now multiple decision-makers involved in cyber security strategy and purchasing decisions, so you need to create messages that suit each audience. Messaging that resonates with IT leaders isn’t going to have the same impact with the C-Suite. Your IT audience will be able to understand the technical jargon, whereas the C-Suite will be looking at the overall importance to the business and how it impacts the bottom line.

Once you understand your audience, you can then identify the target media you need to engage with to reach them. For example, while tech and cybersecurity titles may be best for your IT decision-makers, you may want to consider broader business and national titles for business leaders, adjusting your messaging (and tactics) to ensure the content engages and resonates with the right pain points for that audience.

Define your PR strategy

Cyber security dominates the media headlines; whether that’s a company experiencing a breach or another receiving a fine for misuse of sensitive data – there’s rarely a week that goes by without some form of cyber attack in the news. When appointing a PR agency you need to know that they have the right relationships with the media so that they can get you to the front of the queue when journalists are looking for experts to comment. Speed is key when reacting to breaking news, but some groundwork needs to be done so you can make the most of this PR opportunity when it comes about. This could be through building the profile of your spokesperson with the media so that journalists think of you when an opportunity to comment comes up or having the views of your subject matter experts documented to help with drafting comments.

As well as developing a process for reacting to breaking news stories, you also need to consider your proactive PR strategy. Ensuring the agency truly understands your business objectives will be critical in defining a compelling content strategy, storylines and PR programme that will resonate with your target audiences. It’s also important to identify which areas of the industry you want to target and have a voice in. Then you need to ensure that you are creating content with intent in these areas to establish yourself as an expert.

Be bold

Finally, there is a lot of noise in the cyber security industry. Most industry players are saying similar things and it can be hard to stand out from the crowd. It pays to be bold with your statements; just because 90% of cyber security professionals are saying the same thing doesn’t mean that you should follow. By developing an alternative perspective on an issue, challenging misconceptions or making predictive or bold soundbites, you can stand out in the media and increase your awareness. The important thing here is that your PR agency should be able to help you find your niche; balancing your messaging and objectives with what your audiences (and the media) need to hear.

If you’d like to hear more about our approach to cyber security PR or how we’ve helped similar clients, then please get in touch.

By Ellie Nash, Digital Account Executive

Whether your business goals are growth, boosting customer engagement or reaching new audiences, social media has a definite role to play – especially used in concert with your wider PR and marketing plans.

But where do you start?

Here are our four tips on improving your social strategy, reaching your social media goals, and improving your online presence.

 

Connect with Industry Influencers:

Connecting with industry influencers/creators is an important part of enhancing your online presence. You can do this through engagements.

Engagements are where you or your organisation will interact with an industry expert in your field of work who is currently discussing a hot topic that has relevance to your organisation/the services you provide. For example, if you were a healthcare organisation and the Minister for Public Health tweeted something that you feel you could contribute to or provide a valid solution to, don’t hold back, get involved!

Here are some of the benefits:

• Engagements drive more conversation. Especially when reacting to a post with a question, you leave the door open for not only the author of the post to answer but also others viewing the post.
• Engagements pose a greater opportunity to grow followers. If the author responds or others respond to the engagement, they may follow you, especially if they agree with what you’re saying about the topic.
• If your organisation links a blog or whitepaper to the conversation as a solution, this increases the chance of more views and overall engagements.

At Whiteoaks, we would recommend making most of these engagements on Twitter. Twitter is more conversational, casual and is more seamless to find trending hashtags that apply to your industry. If you are planning on engaging with an influencer or creator, possibly consider ending your engagement with a question, such as, ‘What are your thoughts on this?’. This encourages more opportunity for the individual or others to get back to you and get involved.

Use MORE Video:

As the millennial and Gen Z attention span decreases, the demand for short and snappy videos increases. According to a recent infographic by Social Media Today, the average attention span of this generation ranges from 8-12 seconds… And that’s why short-form videos are key!

Now, we’re not pleading with you to set up a TikTok account but keep in mind that short, snappy videos are the way of the future. Videos are becoming so attractive to audiences as it allows them to digest information from videos that are long enough to catch their attention and short enough for them to leave them wanting more.

For the most part, this is a chance to show off the personality of your business, the talent of your team and the fun you have within the office.

Here are a few examples of content that we would recommend you post, depending on the type of business you are:

• How to’s
• Meet the team
• Product highlights
• Humorous videos (get involved in World Hot Dog day or April Fools!)
• Influencer marketing

… These are only a few examples of some of the content that could make your business go viral, be creative!

Implement Paid Social:

Why should you use paid social? It’s not just used to boost organic content. It’s a lot more targeted than that.

So think about targeted content like eBooks, webinars, and whitepapers, leveraging your best content. You can use these to fuel your paid campaigns across platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. With LinkedIn specifically, there is the opportunity to be really targeted across personas, industry, job title, age, geography, company size… the list goes on. You can use it to find and engage with new audiences.

The key thing about these types of targeted campaigns is that they can be measured, and you can determine your ROI. While paid gets the quick-fire results based on specific campaigns, having organic running concurrently building your brand story and presence provides longevity.

Using both paid and organic social media together makes sense. And when you’re using social as part of a larger PR and marketing strategy, they pack a powerful punch for reaching those objectives – be it lead generation, brand awareness or expansion.

Start using a Social Media Calendar:

Social media calendars are essential to keep your team and content on track and heading in the direction you want it to.

Google sheets is great for hosting your social calendar.

Here are a few of the benefits of implementing a calendar to your strategy:

• Ahead of the next month’s activity, you will go into the document and write in the note tab what needs to be promoted and on what day throughout that calendar month. This keeps everyone aligned with what needs to be pushed onto social, at what time, and on what platform.
• If the social media ideas/blog links are provided a week in advance of writing the schedule, it gives the team time to look through the link and formulate a post. This reduces stress and improves efficiency.
• You will gain more engagement and interaction on posts that you have crafted for specific channels. Rather than copying and pasting the same post over to all of your platforms, use the calendar to review what was posted last week, what went well and what to post the following week. Taking time to fit within the character limit of Twitter whilst also developing the information for LinkedIn.

Social media is an ever-changing world so expect to see a lot of new development in 2022 and make sure to take note of the brands that are harnessing these trends.

By Angelo Suanno, Junior Account Executive

In an ever-thriving technological world, the hybrid working model has forever changed the foundations of office-based jobs. The impacts of hybrid working are a point of discussion for many, predominately concerning physical and psychological wellbeing. However, according to recent news headlines, energy bills are set to slowly rise in price over the coming year. How will this affect people’s decision to work from home? Will this see an influx of people returning to the office? Is there anything we can do? – yes there is!

Here are the three tips to lower energy consumption in your home without impacting your quality of work.

#1 The sun is our friend.

The overwhelming desire to instantly turn on the lights in the morning, or at the first sign of impending darkness may be powerful, especially during the winter months. However, resist the urge for as long as possible, open the curtains fully and allow natural daylight into your home. Not only will this help reduce energy consumption and warm you up at home, but as a bonus, exposure to sunlight has also been shown to correlate with happiness and positive wellbeing. Remember: the sun is your friend.

#2 Standby still means on.

There is a growing concern that working from home has resulted in our monthly energy bills spiking ever so slightly. Leaving the laptop on for several hours a day or using an additional monitor to increase work productivity still has a cost, and who pays that cost, those who work from home. To prevent any unnecessary power drainage, don’t shut the laptop display or leave the monitor on standby overnight, turn everything off at the source when not in use or at the end of the day. It may not always be convenient to switch off during your lunch break if you’ve got a meeting straight after, try using power-saving mode to save you time and money.

#3 Wrap up, don’t crank up!

With the cold winter nights nearly at an end, it will almost be time to stop using the heating, but not just yet. While working from home may provide the opportunity to dress less formally from the waist below, resist the impulse to turn on the heating immediately after the first few cold shivers. Instead, layer up on clothing or rest a blanket on your lap, that way you’ll remain comfortable, warm, and formal, while also saving energy.

To sum up, in addition to the physical and psychological impacts of the hybrid working model, there will be a surge in both ecological and financial effects due to the slowly increasing energy prices, in the coming year. Will people continue to work from home knowing the extra price they’ll have to pay? What sacrifices will need to be made to maintain a balance between a professional yet sustainable working environment? Whatever the answers are, hopefully these tips will help you make your decision.