PR GUIDE

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE
TO COMBINING SOCIAL MEDIA AND
DATA FOR BETTER PR RESULTS

PR is more important now than ever due to the trust created by
high quality shared content. Did you know that 66% of consumers
trust editorial coverage, but the trust in that same content jumps
to 83% when shared by a third party? This unique ability to
generate trust makes PR more valuable than traditional marketing.
Furthermore, today’s audience is much more inclined to do
extensive research before making a major purchase. In the
past, it took about seven touches or interactions with a brand
before making a decision. Today, that number has gone up to
about 20. Your releases not only create trust, but also help your
customers make a buying decision.
NUVI collaborated with Serena Ehrlich of BusinessWire for a
webinar and it was so successful we thought we’d supplement
that information with a downloadable guide. Serena is the Director
of Social and Evolving Media at BusinessWire. She has over 17
years in the newswire industry and has worked with brands such
as Kraft, Kohls, Avon, Mattel, and Mogreet, just to name a few.
IN THIS GUIDE YOU WILL LEARN:
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• How to optimize your press releases for maximum shareability
• How to use social to increase visibility
• How to track shares and data to prove ROI

PART ONE:
HOW TO OPTIMIZE FOR MAXIMUM
SHAREABILITY
HEADLINES
As you begin to make your optimize your content, one of the
easiest things to fix is often one of the most overlooked. The
headline will make or break your release. This probably isn’t
news to anyone reading this, and yet over and over we see
headlines that limit shares.
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As you can see in the example above, these were two different press
releases on the same subject and yet one was shared and significantly
boosted web traffic. Why? Well, a big part of its success was the
headline. In the example on the left, there is no “why” statement.
There is nothing about it that gives the reader any incentive to read.
Part of the problem is that it is a news release about a university
offering a class. Not exactly big news.

Don’t settle for mediocre headlines! With just 10 minutes of research,
you can produce effective headlines that drive shares. Follow these
8 steps from BusinessWire:
1. Write your news release like you always do
2. Identify important keywords and phrases
3. Go to Google Trends
4. Change the location and timeline (timeline should be for last 7 days)
5. Type in your keywords
6. identify highest searched terms
7. Add those keywords to your headline
8. Finalize your relase
You can see that the optimized headline on the right includes
the trending term “Internet of things” as well as the why statement,
“impact on Supply Chain.” This extra little bit of research yielded
a headline that led to 3x leads and 12x ROI. Worth the 10 minutes?
You bet.
IMAGES
Great, you’ve got a good working headline and a solid press
release. However, don’t share it just yet, there is still a vital
step you need to take before it is ready for publication. If you
go back to look at the difference between the optimized and
unoptimized press releases, you’ll notice one more glaring
discrepancy: that’s right, one has an image, the other doesn’t.
Images are now essential components of your press release. In fact,
you should think of the text as a supplement to the visual asset.
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Images are important for two reasons: first, you are catering to
a visually fluent audience. Whether we want to accept it or not,

we no longer live in a text based world; today’s audience is very
dependent on image. This becomes a problem as many PR
people still typically think in text, not images. PR needs to evolve
a more media-centric approach.
Second, reporters won’t pick up your press release without
multimedia assets. They are just way too busy to scour the
internet for the right image to attach to your press release. In
some cases, they may even take your release and then attach
a competitor’s asset to it just to prove a point. Many, however,
won’t even open it unless there is an image attached. If you want
to get the most shares out of each release, you must optimize
with an appropriate image/ multimedia asset.
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EMOTION MATTERS
The third and final tip for optimization is that the emotion of
the piece matters and will at least partially determine how often
it is shared. Smart content shares. People love to share information
that makes them look smarter to their peers. Second, people
love negative/ fix - problem/solution stories. For example, a
company is facing a serious problem and has done something
revolutionary to fix it, people love to read and share those posts.
Maybe it speaks to some intrinsic optimism we all share. Or
maybe it is just entertaining. Regardless, this type of content
is extremely shareable. On the other hand we have sad content.
Sad doesn’t share. People don’t like reading it and are less
inclined to share it. Now if it starts out as sad, like ducklings
stuck in a storm drain, but then there is a happy resolution
people will share it. Just a sad story? Not going to happen.

PART TWO:
HOW TO USE SOCIAL TO
INCREASE VISIBILITY
Now that you have a fantastic release with a great headline
and eye-catching multimedia, it is time to get as many eyeballs
on your work as possible. You may be tempted to just hit publish
and put it on the wire, but keep your audience in mind. Your
average consumer sees around 5,000 messages per day.
Overwhelming is an understatement. We only have so much
attention, but the number of messages is constantly on the rise.
So how do you make your release relevant and get
it in front of as many people as possible? SOCIAL!
Why use social media (asked no one ever)? People trust content
shared by friends and family more than they trust content
shared by brands. Your audience is more likely to read and
engage with your content when it is recommended by someone
they trust. Social media is the best way to get your
release shared and made available. Another great benefit
to social is that reporters read social shares. Thelikelihood of
your release getting picked up and used by reporters increases
significantly when shared on social. As we mentioned earlier,
your audience is going to do their homework before making
a decision to spend money. They want to learn as much
about your brand as they can before making a purchase. Social
is where many people conduct that research.
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HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF SOCIAL
1. Share your editorial coverage across your social channel at least
15 times. Social networks are based on algorithms. For example,
a typical post on Facebook will organically reach only 2-8% of
those that follow your page. Likewise, Instagram has similar
algorithms in place to show only what they consider the most
relevant content at any given time. Therefore, the more times you
post it, the more people will see it.
2. Each social platform has a specific audience and specific use. For
example, Twitter is used to share new information and customer
service (complaints). So new information or releases with data
do very well. On the other hand, Linkedin is more business-centric.
Users are more about business and professional competition, so
posts that follow a “read this and you’ll be better at your job”
formula tend to get more shares. Keep in mind the aspirations
of each channel and customize your release accordingly.
3. Hashtags and keywords matter. We all have that one friend that
includes no less than 25 hashtags for each and every post. And
we all know how annoying it is to try and read their posts. According
to ADWEEK, “Tweets with hashtags get twice the engagement of
those without and are 55 percent more likely to be retweeted.
But less is more: Tweets with only one or two hashtags have 21
percent higher engagement than those with three or more. Like
your optimized headlines, you want to make sure that you are
customizing the titles and descriptions of your release for the
different platforms you are using.
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As we mentioned before, images are crucial to getting your content
in front of as many people as possible. As you get ready to post your
relase across the different social networks, you should change the
thumbnail because what works for Facebook may not be the same
that works for Twitter or Linkedin. Again, you have to take into
consideration the different audiences and the type of content they
are used to sharing.

PART THREE:
HOW TO TRACK SHARES AND
DATA TO PROVE ROI
WhooHoo! You’re ready to take the most crucial step towards
getting the credit you deserve as a PR professional. You’ve
researched and created a great headline. You included a rich,
shareable multimedia asset. You are proactively pushing your
awesome release across multiple channels and platforms, each
one with a customized title, description, and image. Give yourself
a pat on the back because you are on your way. All you need
now is the data to show the value you’ve created for your brand/ client.
Now is the time to take credit for the increase in leads, subscribers,
and website traffic.
While it is important to know who read and shared your content,
chances are your executive team wants to know more than
just shares, engagements, and new followers. Beyond coverage,
you need to connect your work to business goals in order to be
competitive with marketing. Measurement is that vital step that
has, up till now, differentiated marketing from PR. Marketing
is used to measuring and showing data to validate their efforts,
thus earning them all the recognition.
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USE A URL BUILDER/UTM LINK
A big part of quantifying your success is monitoring the growth
of inbound traffic as it correlates to your content. BusinessWire
recommends using a tracking link in order to understand how
many new visitors come to your site as a result of your release.
They suggest using a URL builder or UTM link. They even wrote
a handy blog about it in which they explain how important it is
track your release.

“Provided by your analytics program, URL builders or UTM links
are lines of text you add to the end of a URL that allow the
program to track the inbound traffic activity you are generating.
URL builders allow you to connect the dots between your reader
and your website, tracking the impact of your communications
program directly on your business goals.
You can create new URL builders for every release and identify
traffic by platform (one builder for all news releases vs. blog
posts) or topic (one builder for all earnings vs. products).”
With a URL builder in place, you can track:
• Inbound traffic
• Return visitor rates
• First time visitor rates
• Conversions
• Downloads
• Subscriptions
• Click attribution
Think of how useful that data will be when you present on the
efficacy of your releases.
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MEASURING SOCIAL
Part of an aggressive social campaign is strategic posting and
content optimization. Another, equally important part, is measuring
the impact and spread of social discussions around your content.
It is this data that will show how your work aligns with business
goals and allows you prove the impact you’ve had.

It can be extremely difficult and time consuming to compile
reports on social media shares. There are multiple platforms and
many different users who may share or talk about your post.
A solid social listening and reporting tool is a huge time-saver
for aggregating and organizing this data. For example, BusinessWire
uses NUVI reporting to produce a report for each of their clients
to show how each release spread and overall engagement. With
this reporting in hand, it is a simple matter to present the reach
and engagement for every single release that goes out. This
data will go a long way towards validating ROI with leadership.
CONCLUSION
As a PR pro, you work very hard to craft compelling messages
and then get that message in front of as many people as possible.
You make significant contributions to website traffic, SEO, brand
awareness, lead gen, and many other facets of growing a
business. Social plays a vital role in the creation, distribution,
and measurement of your impact on business goals. Getting your
relase in front of as many people as possible with accompanying
analytics will go along way to getting the PR results you are
working for.
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