Podcast Interview with Stacey Miller, Senior Communications Manager, Cision.
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Cision is a global PR/media software service that helps businesses, associations, organizations, communications agencies and companies to build awareness by reaching and engaging with their customers, stakeholders and influencers. On “Hear-See Media” Stacey talks about the 1.6 million media contacts and outlets available through Cision, the benefits of using Cision for businesses and non-profits and the power of influencers – who they are, what they do and why they are important.
Podcast Chapters
SEGMENT #1:
INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS CISION?
Chapter Time Code: :02 – 3:44
SEGMENT #2:
THE BENEFITS OF USING CISION FOR NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS
Chapter Time Code: 4:45 – 6:00
SEGMENT #3:
THE BENEFITS OF USING CISION FOR LARGE FOR-PROFIT ORGANIZATIONS & DATA ANALYSIS
Chapter Time Code: 6:04 – 9:40
SEGMENT #4:
HOW BIG BUSINESS AND NON-PROFITS USE SOCIAL MEDIA OUTREACH TO DEFINE THEIR BRAND & TO ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS
Chapter Time Code: 9:41 – 13:33
SEGMENT #5:
CISION HELPS ORGANIZATIONS TO HARNESS THE POWER OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Chapter Time Code: 13:35 – 15:05
SEGMENT #6:
THE CISION BLOG AND “INFLUENCERS”
Chapter Time Code: 15:06 – 17:57
SEGMENT #7:
MORE HELPFUL ARTICLES ON THE CISION BLOG & DIGITAL OUTREACH DISCUSSION
Chapter Time Code: 17:58 – 24:50
SEGMENT #8:
USING CISION TO RESPOND TO POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE PUBLICITY
Chapter Time Code: 24:51 – 28:22
SEGMENT #9:
CUSTOMER OUTREACH AND SERVICE USING CISION
Chapter Time Code: 28:23 – 30:13
SEGMENT #10:
HANDLING CRISIS COMMUNICATIONS USING CISION
Chapter Time Code: 30:14 – 32:08
SEGMENT #11:
PROFESSIONAL PROFILE: STACEY MILLER, CISION SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS MANAGER
Chapter Time Code: 32:10 – 34:15
Stacey Miller, Program Guest/Cision: Thank you so much for having me Kris.
Kris: I’d like to ask you what is Cision and what does it do?
Stacey: Sure, Cision is a global media intelligence company. We serve the needs of today’s communicators, marketers and PR pros. What that means exactly is that we provide software that helps public relations and communications professionals reach, engage and analyze their audiences… so, everyone from small businesses and non-profits all the way up to the enterprise corporations. We provide PR software that helps them with media outreach. Social Media software helps them to monitor and engage and analyze conversations. Influencer software that helps them to identify audiences that are important to them. As well as a much wider array of even more solutions to help you engage with people who are important to your brand.
Kris: OK, my company, PPG Interactive has used Cision which was previously known as “Vocus,” is that right?
Stacey: Yes, we merged with Vocus. In 2014…
Kris: OK, one of the aspects of Cision that I’d like to talk with you about is –the wide outreach you have to media stakeholders. Maybe you can talk about how many media representatives and media people are on the Cision system and how you break that down for organizations like…for instance automotive How do you break that down into particular interests?
Stacey: Cision has over 1.6 million media contacts, outlets and opportunities. So, what that means is we have over 1.6 mm people or media outlets, so newspapers, magazines, TV shows, blogs, etc. and opportunities. We also have a really great service, HARO which stands for “Help a Reporter Out.” It actually delivers media opportunities – stories that reporters are working on to your in-box so you can then pitch to the reporter based on your business. Now all of those opportunities are searchable based on your industry or your interests. You mentioned “automotive” earlier or finance, education, law, pharmaceutical, for every industry under the sun you’ll be able to find a media outlet or contact using Cision Media Intelligence and then what we do is we give you all the information that you need to reach out to them and then create really valuable relationships. Last year we also acquired Gorakana another one of the world’s leading databases out of the UK and we’ve added their premium data to our software. y – Cision really does offer some of the most robust information and intelligence on the media today.
Kris: So there are potentially – depending on what kind of client we are representing – as a small, PR & social media firm – we could potentially reach out to hundreds and thousands of important stakeholders. In automotive, manufacturing – and very specialized things… how about things like food sustainability or aquaculture?
Stacey: The possibilities are endless. What we do is we segment them on a number of factors and the list can just be targeted and you can drill down into what exactly matters to you… so we have broad categories and within those categories are more categories, etc. & keywords… and we have an entire team of humans that goes through and researches all of these media contacts and media outlets to make sure we know exactly what they cover and exactly what their topics of interest are…and what they talk about so we can find out (what’s right for you) so you are doing targeted outreach.
Stacey: Some of the benefits, especially on the non-profit side are being able to tell your story to the right audience at the right time. I’ll give you an example. We have one non-profit client – their name is “The Last Well” and their mission is to provide clean water in Liberia to every person by 2020. That’s a huge goal, right? So, what they needed to do was to get the word out about what was happening in Liberia why Ebola was spreading, why they needed fresh water, what would happen if they didn’t get fresh water — and they came to Cision. We listened to their needs and what they were trying to accomplish which was greater reach and greater awareness and we suggested — how about if we do a PR-Web release? So they went out and did a PR press release. They did some media outreach and because of the program we put them on they were able to save 8,600 lives by raising money through this media outreach and the press releases. That’s an incredible increase in reach compared to what they had before. We are so proud to have that case study – just from using our press release service.
Kris: That is fabulous. So the people from the “Last Well” were able to reach stakeholders, they moved hearts and minds to donate to their foundation or non-profit organization so they could help people in Liberia to obtain access to clean water. Is that right?
Stacey: That’s exactly it… and not only just the press release… we’ll probably talk later about other tactics non-profits can use to expand their story and their reach so press release distribution and media outreach is just one part of the puzzle. Social media is also really important to non-profits & they’ll use social media to expand their reach which Cision also does. We provide social media software and monitoring and ways to engage with those audiences. So the combination of distributing a targeted press release to increase awareness and reach and then engaging on social media and targeting audiences again to increase awareness and reach helped this non-profit to reach their goals.
Stacey: Yes. Let’s talk about a large, for-profit corporation. They have access to every kind of tool out there. What can Cision do for corporations that maybe their large PR firm or advertising agency isn’t already doing?
Stacey: So some of our larger enterprise clients, they use Cision in a variety of ways and those solutions go deeper into our monitoring and into our insights. One thing we are really good at is providing PR and communications professionals with data to make great business decisions. So our monitoring software helps them find out exactly what their target audiences are talking about, what their sentiment is on certain subjects, how certain types of news are breaking or how the media is talking about them. How the influencers are talking about them… not just traditional media, TV, magazine, newspaper, radio, but bloggers and people on social media who are shaping the conversations about their brand. And then we provide really deep analysis on all of that data that we create because data. One of the things we really follow is that data is nothing without insight. So you can regurgitate data all day but if you don’t know what it means then you cannot really use it in a good way. By deciphering the data and saying, here’s what the data means. Here’s what our business can do next. This has been very valuable for some of our big clients. We have enterprise clients:
Some of those enterprise clients include companies like Jet Blue, Los Angeles County (the City of Los Angeles), Microsoft uses our services, even the Obama 2012 campaign. Used Cision social data to refine their messaging…
Kris: That was quite the campaign, right?
Stacey: Yes, quite the campaign… Xerox, the Humane Society of the United States, all of these brands (i.e. companies) have enterprise communications and PR strategies that require more data, more outreach, more understanding of their targeted audiences.
Kris: You brought up a very interesting point with this and that is the interpretation of data. How can smaller firms best work with their clients to make that data more understandable? I know myself many times when I’ve shown data reports back to clients they’ll say, “Oh, that’s nice but that’s not really what I’m looking for.” Sometimes when I’ll ask a client frankly, they are not even sure what they are looking for. They aren’t sure how to define their own success in that arena… so what advice would you have for organizations like mine?
Stacey: That’s a great question and it really all depends on business goals. So, we can start from any data point really. A lot of small, non-profits, entrepreneurs, startups, something that’s interesting for them is their audience. They want to know that they have an audience and that it’s growing. So for them, seeing an increase in audience month after month or quarter after quarter is important. So measuring followers in social media or conversations or increases to their website – that’s really important. As we get deeper into the data, it’s time to think about – OK, are these audience members affecting my business? And one of the ways it’s important to think about data for any size businesses – how does this data relate to business outcome? So, how do “Followers” relate to business outcomes? How does the conversation relate to business outcomes? How does the sentiment – how positively or negatively people talking – relate to business outcomes? Thinking about it in a way that says “how does this affect other things?” Instead of thinking about it as just a stand-alone data point is the most important thing. Because then you think OK, “How does this affect my business, how does this affect my revenue, how does this affect my sales?” You can then think of ways to change and manipulate that data and to create strategies to make that trend the way you want it to trend – in order to affect your bottom line.
Stacey: There are hundreds of case studies about how not only just Twitter but other social media platforms are huge in helping brands influence hearts and minds of the audiences that are important – to them. So, brands today – it’s not just about broadcasting on social media it’s about sharing a message, it’s about sharing a story, finding other people who identify with that story and then going out and having those people advocate on your behalf and that’s really the power of social media. It’s one-to-one interaction being social, it’s talking with someone, it’s creating relationships… so you see brands like Target and Duncan Donuts to any size non-profit being able to talk to people and have conversations and learn things about their target audiences that you wouldn’t have normally been able to do unless you were in physical proximity of that person. So social media is a huge, huge advantage to anyone who wants to learn more, wants to engage in conversation and who wants to inform others of their brand mission and to help them share that mission. We could talk all day about case-studies. The Humane Society is a really great one I think on Twitter I know one of their social media managers based out of the Washington DC area but they use Twitter to inform people of the puppy-mill situations and “Adopt, Don’t Buy” that’s one of their biggest campaigns. They also use social media for crowd-funding which I think is something that has really blown up in the nonprofit space recently are web-based crowd-funding sites. So whereas non-profits have to go out and look for dollars to raise campaigns and awareness, social media and the web has really added fuel to that fire. You see sites like Kick-Starter and Crowd Rise and Indiegogo and there are tons more – Go Fund Me, and all the non-profits are on there and they create campaigns on these websites and social media greatly amplifies the reach of the messages on those websites so they get more donors, they get more users, they get more people that are dedicated to their cause. And then their cause gets more awareness.
Kris: Those are good examples. And it is very powerful. I think that most of us that use it understand that. There is an education curve however, because there are still a lot of companies and established organizations that don’t seem to understand how that can be used, so I think it’s just a constant education. And reinforcement of the data you spoke about previously.
Stacey: I’ll also add one more thing to that and it is if you are a brand that is not on social media it’s almost too late. Because what’s happening if you are not on social media or if you are not on Twitter, if you are not on the network that your audiences are primarily engaging on you’re missing out on conversations that are valuable opportunities for your brand. So, the conversations that can be unsurfaced are plenty – they can be conversations about people trying to figure out what cause they want to support or people trying to figure out more information on a cause or people sharing negative sentiment on a cause that might be a myth. Something that maybe you need to correct. And that can turn that person into an advocate…or you might be missing out on positive conversations that you can harness and bring that advocate into your organization. And when you are missing out on all those conversations you’re missing out on business opportunities and you’re basically giving them up to your competitors. So, that’s why it’s extremely important to utilize these mediums to your business advantage.
Kris: I see that in the non-profit area. A lot of people will say things to me in meetings like “We have a part-time intern that every once in a while will just run the Facebook page.” And I think “Well, that’s not a strategy – that’s not part of how you are going to really reach out and engage with your stakeholders and do things that are impactful or tell people about your story.” That’s just kind of being a “me-too.” So a big part of it is utilizing the resources and I’ll put my own plug in here – bring in agencies and communications professionals to help you with this. Because it isn’t really all about going out and getting the Twitter account. As you’ve said, Stacey, “We’ve moved well beyond that.” And when you look at these sophisticated tools like Cision people need a professional to take them by the hand and say, “We will work this for you” and then “we’ll show you the benefits of how it works.” I think to launch on your own even if you have a limited budget at this point, and try to do all these things on your own would be too overwhelming.
Stacey: There is a lot out there and the world of social media tools, communications tools, PR and marketing tools, marketing tactics and strategy is so advanced today it can take a lot to sift through and to figure out what the right tactics are, what the right strategies are to use. I mean there’s nothing wrong with going out and finding resources and I think some of the best communicators today no matter what size of organization, they choose a very careful toolset.
Stacey: We are excited about that webinar. We’re talking about harnessing influencers as part of your social media toolkit and your media outreach and your influence on programs – it’s an interesting tactic. Not every brand does it today and not every brand will be doing it. Influence marketing isn’t a new thing it’s maybe been around since 2011 or so, but it’s really exploded in the last year because of the way that the internet and the web and the media has changed – and the way that it’s changed is simple. Traditional media such as TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc. aren’t the only conversations that influence your brand perception. Now anybody who has a voice is able to influence your brand and your buyers, etc. Influence marketing is finding the people who are in your industry or who talk about your brand and that can influence others to buy your product to get involved in your cause, who have other people listening to them on whatever platform they are on. What we’ll go through on the webinar is “what Influencers are,” how to do it, how to do it for a relatively low cost, how to identify the people who are important to you, how to engage them, and how to mobilize them and have them speak on your behalf and get more buyers to your brand. We like to call it “social media on steroids,” or PR on steroids.
Kris: What would be an example of an influencer for a non-profit?
Stacey: There’s two ways to think about influencers. There’s organic influencers…there’s someone you come across that’s just has a large network and is really engaged on the topic and who has a network that’s listening to them, that you don’t pay – and there are influencers that you might think of as an endorsement where they are interested in your cause but you might pay them a fee in order for them to advocate on their behalf. Like Sarah McLaughlan. She endorses an animal-focused organization and she does one of the commercials. She’s an influencer, right? Because we believe that Sarah loves these animals and she’s caring for these animals and she advocates for this organization but she is a paid influencer. An organic influencer could be someone like me. I could be an influencer to the humane society in the U.S. because I volunteer on the weekends at the animal shelters and I post about it on my Facebook and my friends say, “That looks cool, I’d like to go help out at the shelter on the weekend.” Then I bring my friends to the shelter that weekend and I got people involved in the cause so I’ve become an “influencer” for the Humane Society because I’ve advocated for the cause and I’ve brought people in.
Kris: Stacey is this webinar going to be available on your blog?
Stacey: Yes. The full link will be sent to anyone who has registered and will be available for quite a few months afterward.
Stacey: Infobesity. Credit to my good friend Mark W. Shaffer for that. He is an incredible marketing strategist out of Tennessee. So shout-out to Mark. I love that term because it explains not only what’s happening in the media but also explains what’s happening to consumers. Which is that we live in this world where we are consuming more and more information every minute every hour every day.. and as humans we just can’t process that much information so selectively we pay attention to certain bits of information over others. And the way that the World Wide Web and the media have evolved is that we pay attention to information that is less text based and more multi-media based. Also, more data based because that satisfies the way our brains function. It satisfies the need for processing. It satisfies the need for visuals. So, an important tip I wanted to bring up because of that word, “Infobesity” especially for non-profits if you’re looking to work for non-profits — is to think about how much information is out in the world and then how to make your information stand out. And this comes directly from reporters we surveyed for a year. In this day and age reporters are looking for data and multi-media – they are looking for visuals to sum up their stories. So, in order to stand out – yes, you have to have a great story and you have to have great relationships. Yes, you have to do great research but you can have a let up if you go and find data you can offer that they cannot get anywhere else, if you create graphics or provide visuals that they cannot get anyplace else, making their jobs easier because they are using that data to satisfy their readers.
Kris: And, one of the things my company specializes in and Ken Mitchell who is recording this podcast right now is a specialist in this area, is the idea of electronic media. What you and I are doing right now as well as the video. We do a lot of that for clients and it’s very impactful and effective.
Stacey: Extremely effective. I cannot say enough about video as well as podcasts. Obviously it’s not a brand-new thing, but I feel in the past year, podcasts have exploded. Especially in the world of marketing and PR. There’s lots of really great podcasts out there, just like this one. And then video. Video is extremely important today. Especially when we are talking about social media and multi-media outreach. Video captures the attention of viewers and communicates information in a shorter, more digestible format something that people can scroll through quite easily. And it’s what readers crave. All the media content agencies – they do surveys every year and videos continue to perform much higher than text or image-based content, so to keep that in mind, you don’t have to be a video producer. You don’t have to have anything fancy to produce great multi-media. For example, we are doing this podcast on Skype which is a free tool. I didn’t need any other equipment to do it or expertise for video. The iPhone 6 has amazing quality and Android also has amazing quality to record video and you put it into a free video editing tool and you’re good to go. Think outside of the box. Don’t immediately jump to the conclusion that you need bigger, better and more extensive resources. I think this is key to being successful. Don’t box yourself in to thinking that you can’t do some of the things that the larger brands are doing.
Kris: Absolutely and that’s a disruptor, right? Because it used to be that you had to go out with a whole big crew and the quality had to look really high. And it’s really about content that drives the messaging. With the video – you can’t just put something out there that’s nonsense. It has to pertain to the messaging.
Stacey: Yes, we’re all on a level playing field.
Kris: Moving along there’s a couple more topics I want to cover with you. One of those, I noticed with interest is Josh Collings article on the Cision blog. He talks about the new David & Goliath scenario for the business community. Because we were just talking about disruptive technology. Everybody can do it… etc. Can you give us some examples of this David and Goliath scenario? What I mean by that is no longer do the huge corporations like Wal-Mart or GM have leverage over the smaller companies — in terms of communications outreach. People want to actively come in and use those tools, they are accessible to everybody… that’s one aspect of it but another aspect that Josh talks about on your blog is the idea that people can contact in both a negative and a positive way with a large corporation and their voice can be heard.
Stacey: Absolutely. There’s two points I want to make on the David and Goliath situation. And they come from a couple of my favorite brands. I talked just a moment ago about how thinking outside of the box and thinking that you can’t do the same tactics as big corporations – that’s not true. We can produce the same work, we can tell even better stories no matter the size of your organization. Take Uber for example. Uber has an amazing story. They took the taxicab model and they flipped it on its head. This completely changed the way people travel from this tiny startup and now Uber is everywhere. There was a quote last night. I was watching TV and someone said, “You know you’re in a bad area if there’s no Uber.” And that’s crazy to me because a couple of years ago there was no Uber. There was no such thing as being able to call someone and get a ride in two minutes. And to have a ride for the fraction of a cost of a taxi. Uber is a great example of a startup of a small business that took a great story, disrupted the industry. Uber was the David and then became the Goliath. And now taxi companies are scared of Uber. Now they are working against Uber. There’s another story. Everyone is into the whole organic food movement and eating well, eating green and eating healthy which is wonderful so stores like “Whole Foods” and “Trader Joe’s” have really come into the forefront versus stores like “Giant” or “Safeway” or all of those mainstream grocery stores but the big problem with organic foods and eating healthy is it’s expensive. Now there are smaller chains of grocery stores that have dramatically listened to consumer needs and they’ve changed the prices or they’ve figured out a way to lower their prices so now people can eat organic for the cost of regular groceries and now Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s and Moms are competing with these tiny grocery stores. Again, David and Goliath and its all because they are doing creative consumer listening, taking consumer feedback. Responding and creating great media strategies to perpetuate that story, to share it and to get great awareness.
Stacey: Absolutely. The best brands in the world use feedback they get from their consumers in social media to improve their products and services. Like I said earlier the brands that don’t are missing out on really valuable opportunities to acquire new customers to acquire advocates, to turn the nay-sayers into yay-sayers, all of those things can be done with social media. Every brand from small to large. I know many who have very active social media monitoring strategies. The ones that are replying and listening are the ones that get the most positive sentiment. It’s as simple as that, because people – you know, you had a problem and you wanted to be heard. So you took to these channels expecting to be heard and when you get a reply from a brand it creates a connection and makes you feel important as a consumer. It helps shape your perception of that brand because that brand had that one on one connection with you and any brand of any size can do that.
Kris: And conversely, when they don’t respond that’s another message too.
Stacey: Yes, and that’s a big deal – when you don’t it’s almost like you’re saying something but you’re saying something that’s very negative. Silence sometimes says the biggest thing. It’s one thing that I’ve consistently heard throughout my 10 years in this space. Not responding is one of the worst things you can do because then the consumer feels ignored, they feel neglected, they feel like you are hiding something. It’s a terrible experience for the consumer. Five years ago it might have been OK but today… most Fortune 500 companies – 90% of them – are on social media responding – many in the non-profit sector and business sector. They are all on social media and are doing what’s absolutely necessary today. It’s no longer an “if” it’s a “must.”
Stacey: Yes – you feel like you’re making a difference. I also worked a number of years in customer service especially through social media and you wouldn’t believe the difference it makes in someone’s day. Number one when they get service. That makes them happy, that retains the business, and #2 the recognition that you get because this was the type of service that wasn’t around between 5-10 years ago. You would pick up a phone or you would email and wait on the line. You’d have to wait for a response time. That’s just not the way the world works anymore. We live in a world where people expect things immediately. We are an on-demand economy. You push a button and you get to watch a movie on Netflix. You push a button on your phone and you get an Uber car to your front door. People want to push a button and be able to talk to a brand when they have a problem with it or they want to get some sort of feedback even if it is positive. So, being accommodating to that and realizing that we live in this real-time world, is something that is not just reserved for corporate brand(s) – any size brand can also get into each of those practices.
Stacey: Yes, absolutely. Crisis PR is every communicators worst nightmare. I know it’s my worst nightmare but as communicators, again, no matter what the size of your business is, you have to be prepared for it. And having a pulse on your industry – knowing what’s happening and what’s trending in the news… not just about your brand, but what’s happening in the industry and then listening to the conversations about your brand. And listening to conversations about your competitors can help you pre-emptively hear or find out about a crisis that might be able to strike. So, 90% of the work in crisis communications is preparation. If you want to be prepared for a crisis when a crisis hits, you are too late. So, tools like Cision help you gather the data that you need in order to – should a crisis happen – be able to reach out to the media and correct misinformation or to provide executive spokesperson…to make sure you are on top of it the moment that it happens. And that you are proactively responding before it’s too late and before media or influencers or anybody else in the public runs away with the story.
Kris: Excellent… and you – if you are using the Cision powerful tool – you will definitely not be a non-responder. Because you’ve got access to too much good information. We could talk for hours I’m sure about all of the many wonderful things that Cision does to help businesses and to help us communicators help businesses to achieve better communication.
Stacey: I’m currently the Senior Communications Manager at Cision. I’ve been with the company for 10 years — actually my entire career. I have an unbelievable love and loyalty for Cision ever since started with it 10 years ago. I started off as a media researcher and I learned about changes in the media particularly television media and it was at a time when there was a lot of consolidation and acquisitions and mergers of conglomerates and newsrooms were shrinking because of the rise of digital. And I found that really fascinating. The rise of digital journalism. I followed that and I led a team of researchers for some time and then when social media came around – especially social media for brands – and marketing and for PR I hopped on that train early. I used social media for research and creating relationships with journalists which is how I came to my role on the PR team. So, ever since social media came about I started doing all of this maybe in 2008 – I joined the PR team and started learning more about the media outreach and tactics and I’ve been addicted ever since. Cision provides such amazing tools and is such a great resource for communicators. I love being the person who learns about these new tools and tactics as they evolve and being able to share those with other communicators. I absolutely love it here.
Kris: That’s wonderful and you do a phenomenal job of explaining that because I am a communicator and I so appreciate the information that you shared with us today – and with those who aren’t communicating effectively and why they should be. Right? So, Cision is a fabulous tool – we appreciate all the help Cision has given us in the past and in moving forward and again, I thank you very much for your time and participation today on the PPG podcast. Thank you!
Stacey: Thank you so much again for having me.