Good News Gal

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Measuring social media

On November 17, the Rochester Chapter of the American Marketing Association hosted a breakfast with David Berkowitz, Director of Emerging Media and Client Strategy at 360i, a digital marketing agency, as the keynote speaker. David shared his insights on ways to measure social media and the “Key Conversation Indicators” that his agency uses with their clients.

During his presentation, David touched on some of the ways large companies are measuring social media that are also mentioned in his blog post from yesterday titled "100 ways to measure social media."

Some of the metrics that David mentions are what I am using to measure social media for my clients and find quite effective depending on the size and scope of the PR campaign. They include:

• Mainstream media mentions & connections
• Growth rate of fans, followers, and friends
• Second-degree reach (connections to fans, followers, and friends exposed - by people or impressions)
• Influence on consumers reached
• Demographics of audience reached through social media
• Impact on other offline behavior (e.g., TV tune-in)
• Downloads & Upload
• Comments, TrackBacks, & Retweets
• Change in search engine rankings for the site linked to through social media
• Ratings
• Links ranked by influence of publishers
• Leads generated

How are you measuring social media?

Promoting A Major Motion Picture

I had the pleasure of meeting with Peter Cuneo, former CEO and current Vice Chairman of Marvel Entertainment, Inc., during his recent visit to Rochester, NY. Mr. Cuneo was the keynote speaker at the Rochester Chapter of the American Marketing Association's Marketer of the Year Awards ceremony. I spearheaded the PR efforts for the event.

Mr. Cuneo shared how the strategic marketing of characters as celebrity brands helped lead the way for Marvel's success with super heroes like Spider Man, X-Men, Iron Man and the Incredible Hulk.

The Internet has brought significant change to the entertainment industry particularly how major motion pictures are marketed. Web 2.0 has made it easier for companies like Marvel to reach their targeted audiences through social media sites like MySpace and YouTube.

Movie trailers are no longer just for movie theaters to play before the featured presentation. Entertainment companies like Marvel are placing their movie trailers in the online space, and have been hugely successful by doing so.

The trailer for "The Incredible Hulk," an action-packed classic of one of the most popular superheroes of all time, was released online on April 30th for a June 13th movie launch. The Hulk is currently the single most watched trailer in history as it has been viewed online by over 14 million people, according to Mr. Cuneo. This was one of the few marketing and PR initiatives that the company has in place for the Hulk until late May. Iron Man is currently capturing the media's and market's attention.

You can view The Incredible Hulk movie trailer right here. Join the 14 million plus people that have watched it.

One last interesting tidbit that Mr. Cuneo shared is that Marvel spends almost as much money in promoting the release of the DVD as it does for the actual release of the film in theaters.

PR 101

It can become a real challenge trying to learn the lingo used by your publicist. It was hard enough to figure out what she meant by a press release. Now you find out that there are 14 additional ways that are recognizable formats in the world of PR for "getting the word out!"

Here's a quick run down. I'll elaborate on what exactly these mean and how they are used in future posts. The two most common tools are the press release & the pitch.

1) Press Release
2) Pitch
3) Media Alert (often referred to as the Media Advisory)
4) Pitch Letter
5) Fact Sheet
6) Press Kit - Biography, Contact Sheet, Company Backgrounder & Q&A
7) Analyst Briefing
8) Desk-Side Briefing
9) Press Conference
10) Media Tour
11) Calendar Announcement (typically community or business calendars)
12) Photo & Cut-line
13) Bylined Article
14) B-Roll
15) Video News Release

And with the invention of Web 2.0 marketing, I am very pleased to mention our new #16 - Social Media. Popular Web based communities include blogs, podcasts, Facebook, LInkedIn, MySpace, myYearBook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.