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How can PR appropriately tap into online conversations?

Tapping into online conversations can be easier than most marketers might think. The key is to add value to those conversations, and an important component of that is for a brand to talk less about itself and more about what matters to the online community. This is where a public relations approach can be highly effective. Too often, marketers want to come up with big, splashy campaigns and programs to try to drive online conversation about a brand, but that can come off as too promotional. Even more important, it can be difficult to gain traction for a new idea. Nothing a brand comes up with is going to be more interesting than what consumers come up with on their own. And tapping into an existing conversation can be much cheaper than starting a new one.

Nothing a brand comes up with is going to be more interesting than what consumers come up with on their own. And tapping into an existing conversation can be much cheaper than starting a new one.

At Ketchum, we track online conversations, or memes, to find out what topics are resonating with audiences and to look for opportunities to insert our clients into those conversations. Specifically, we try to figure out what the next page of the story could be if a brand got involved. Then we help the brand add to the conversation in a way that is sincere. This can play out as the brand offering a solution to a problem that is a concern for that online community or even simply showing that they "get" an issue the community is talking about. We’ve done this for a number of clients, ranging from Dr Pepper to Kodak, and we’ve built traction through traditional PR tools, such as press releases and phone calls to media.

Of course, it’s essential that the meme be one that is getting the attention of a brand’s target audience, and we can use Google Trends data to determine that. Also, it’s important to realize that the presence of a brand will seem more sincere if the brand is not repeatedly getting into a target’s conversation. A brand can tap into a few memes a year, but it should aim for different audiences each time so the messages don’t interfere with each other.