IFTTT Recipes, Social’s ROI and Curation Tools: PR Advice from Sarah Evans

The ubiquity of digital and social media has sent the PR profession into a state of flux. As PR changes, so must PR professionals.

But what changes do PR pros need to make? PR pros have become the community hub, content producers and marketers who act as producers, content creators, and, at times, journalists, says Sarah Evans, owner of the PR and new media consultancy Sevans Strategy.

With all those new hats, PR pros will need a few tools and tactics to succeed. Below Sarah answers your questions and helps you succeed as a new era PR pro with advice that includes tools, tactics and best practices to adopt.

1. I’d love to hear some of Sarah’s favorite PR IFTTT recipes

A: There was a ton of positive feedback about IFTTT post-webinar! IFTTT (if this then that) puts the internet to work for you. It allows users to develop a combination of channels, triggers and actions. For example, you can connect your Instagram and Dropbox accounts so that anytime you add a new photo to Instagram it also goes into a specific Dropbox folder (thus archiving all of your Instagram photos in another place).

Many of you asked for my favorite recipes, so here they are:

1. I have text message notifications set up to notify me anytime a big brand (e.g. Facebook, Google, etc…) updates their online newsroom (makes monitoring news, competitors, etc. a little easier). (IFTTT recipe)
2. Anytime you add a new WordPress post, it posts to your Facebook page. (IFTTT recipe)
3. Missed calls get a personalized SMS message instead of going to voicemail (IFTTT recipe)
4. Back up my contacts to a Google Spreadsheet (IFTTT recipe)
5. When I change my Facebook profile photo, update Twitter, too (IFTTT recipe)

2. We all know how time consuming social media can be, what is the ROI with community interaction?

A: As cliche as it sounds, ROI is really more of ROE (return on engagement). The relationships and interactions you have online may make things possible that wouldn’t have happened without a more human connection. Of course, there are specific ways to track the benefits of online interactions, like:

1. Visits to your website driven by social interaction
2. Purchases, downloads or other items offered via social media
3. Vanity metrics, like “likes,” “followers, “views,” etc…

I also like to showcase different relationships that have grown via social media, such as:

1. Communication with reporters, bloggers and influencers
2. People who proactively post about a positive brand experience (e.g. purchase, customer service, etc.)
3. Opportunities to provide customer service or otherwise engage with current customers/clients

3. One of the hardest things for me to do is find new content. How do you find new content to share?

A: A few of my favorite tools for curating and/or aggregating content are:

1. Feedly
2. IFTTT recipes
3. Reddit

4. Should marketers and PR pros copyright material before pushing it out on the web?

A: If you’re sharing a lot of imagery on social media, it’s tough (but not impossible) to keep “ownership” over your work. One of the best tips I have is to add a watermark and/or copyright mention using a text-overlay app, like Over. It keeps your brand name visible no matter how far it is shared online.

Want to hear more from Sarah? Check out her on-demand Vocus webinar now!

Image: bixentro (Creative Commons)