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Written by: Carolina Salinas, Professional Development Co-Chair, CPRS Toronto

What does a content marketing agency do? How can content marketing work within your PR strategy?

These were some of the questions addressed during the Fifth Story Content Marketing for Public Relations Workshop held on April 23. Many PR professionals work daily with integrated content marketing strategies to ensure that they are broadcasting a clear and consistent message across all marketing channels. It helps to build brand awareness, trust and put your brand top of mind.

The event was hosted and moderated by Michelle Dias, CPRS Toronto’s Vice President. Guest speakers included Fifth Story experts Victoria Procunier, SVP, Sales & Client Success, Jenny Cruxton, Director, Measurement and Analysis and Niharika Mohanty, Account Director, Marketing Strategy. Each Fifth Story member offered their expertise on how to use content strategically to provide insights and information to an intended audience. Highlighting that content marketing can be used by marketers and PR professionals. The event went in-depth on topics like how Canadians are getting their information today, including newspapers, print vs digital linked to Gen X, Y, Z and older generations, radio and methods for accessing news online.

The workshop kicked off with Victoria explaining that content can be an article, a video and/or a photo published on your website, social media property or a news publication. The purpose of the content is to establish trust and rapport with your audience to be familiar with your brand.

“As a content marketing agency, we help to determine the best course of action to reach your intended audience, we help you choose the right channels and create the right assets and measures results to evaluate success.” – Victoria Procunier, SVP, Sales & Client Success, Fifth Story

Victoria pointed out the evolution of Fifth Story by starting with News Canada, an earned media tool in 1981, followed by the development of the Media Relations Points (MRP), a media analysis measurement service through the CPRS partnership. Then in 2014, it extended through a content marketing agency as Fifth Story.

Jenny Cruxton talked about the Media Relations Points (MRP), an online, subscription-based service that helps communications professionals measure, evaluate and report on earned, paid, shared and owned media resulting from media relations campaigns.

“One of the most important things of MRP is that it is subscribed with Comscore and Vividata, whose numbers are updated regularly via these suppliers and is how Fifth Story reports results on their campaigns.” –  Jenny Cruxton, Director, Measurement and Analysis, Fifth Story

How Canadians are getting their information today 

Newspapers. Daily newspaper brands reach 3 out of 5 adults across Canada on a weekly basis.

Print vs digital. Gen X, Y and Z have greater digital reading than older generations.

Radio. Radio listeners are engaged consumers. 

Online. The top methods for accessing news online, Google searches and Facebook.

Current trends

• Shop local. Two-thirds of Canadians prefer making online purchases from Canadian retailers when they have a choice.

Integrated content marketing

Niharika addressed that an integrated content marketing strategy works towards the well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are intended to reinforce each other.

“A well-integrated content marketing strategy today requires well-defined messaging, adaptation to the context of each platform you use, and unified goals to measure the efficacy of your program as a whole.” – Niharika Mohanty, Account Director, Marketing Strategy, Fifth Story

How to launch a successful integrated campaign 

1. Define your goal and KPIs
2. Build out consumer personas
3. Map out the buyer journey
4. Identify core promotion channels and create content
5. Launch, measure and integrate your campaign

At the end of the presentation, there was a two-way dialogue between guest speakers and workshop attendees through the Q&A section. It was an excellent learning workshop that provided the audience insight into current content marketing trends. 

Fifth Story speakers and the CPRS community invited the attendees to participate in a contest to win a 6-month subscription to MRP, with a value of $1,785. 

CPRS Toronto will continue hosting professional development events; stay tuned for those.

For more information on Content Marketing for Public Relations, check out these Fifth Story resources below:

• Earned Coverage Statistics
• Radio FAQS
• COVID-19 Filming Guide
• Workshop slide deck

Written by: Kaila Currie-Bartlett, Account Executive, Craft Public Relations & Digital Communications Coordinator, CPRS Toronto

For our April In Conversation With series, we connected with Samiha Fariha, who is an account executive at Torchia Communications, a PR agency based here in Toronto. Before launching her career in PR, she worked as a marketing specialist at Bosley Real Estate, a real estate brokerage firm. She holds a Bachelors of Arts in political science from the University of Toronto, a post-graduate certificate in public relations from Humber College and a certificate in digital marketing management from the University of Toronto’s School of Continuing Studies. In her free time, she enjoys writing about industry trends and social media. Some of her past stories have been published by top trade publications such as PR NEWS, Ragan Communications, Talking Influence and Marketing Magazine Australia.

How did 2020 change your role as a PR practitioner?

As an account executive at Torchia Communications, a large part of my role includes securing earned media coverage for our clients, and as you can imagine, COVID-19 has impacted the media landscape. Many journalists and media professionals shifted to working from home, which made reaching media by phone more challenging. As such, Zoom interviews have become more common and now the alternative for many afternoon, morning and weekend shows on TV, which required me to become even more creative when pitching segments or story ideas for our clients, so producers and hosts understood the benefit and the visual appeal of my pitches.  

What other changes to your career/role as a PR practitioner do you see emerging in 2021 and beyond? Why?

The media landscape has really changed during COVID and through 2021. Many radio shows on prominent media outlets have been cancelled, some weekly papers have shut down and reporters that have worked at tier-one media outlets have switched to media outlets with low reach. These changes in the media landscape have made building and maintaining relationships a bit more difficult. 

Securing purely editorial opportunities on popular shows, radio and TV and stories on print/web have become difficult. Most outlets have moved to a ‘pay to play’ business model where brands will have to pay a cost to secure an editorial opportunity. These shifts in the media landscape make it harder to rely solely on earned media to get coverage.          

What is your biggest piece of advice for PR practitioners moving forward?

Moving forward, PR practitioners should be even more creative. If the media landscape is changing and making it difficult to secure editorial opportunities for your client’s spokespeople on TV, radio and print/web, then you need to think creatively and consider influencer marketing. Consider partnering with an influencer when doing media tours or make an influencer your spokesperson to prevent the story from sounding too advertorial. There are several angles you can consider to think creatively and to generate earned media coverage.  

Additional comments

The communications landscape is constantly changing. For PR practitioners to provide effective counsel they need to be aware of the latest trends in the communications landscape. PR practitioners should keep up-to-date with the latest trends in communications and write or speak out more about emerging trends so others can learn from them. I believe knowledge-sharing is crucial for our industry as many can benefit from our insights in this constantly changing landscape.

About CPRS Toronto’s In Conversation With blog series

Once a month, CPRS Toronto’s communications and marketing subcommittee will post quick conversations with GTA public relations practitioners and industry thought leaders. During these conversations we look to explore the impact COVID-19 has had on communication practitioners, as well as provide insights into the future of public relations moving forward. If you are interested in participating, please contact our Digital Communications Coordinator, Kaila Currie-Bartlett at kailacurriebartlett@gmail.com.

Written by: Eva Sofia Flores, Graduate student of Public Relations at Humber College

Coming from an arts background 

My name is Eva, and I’m an artist. At least that’s who I’ve been for most of my life. I started acting when I was 8; my parents put me in drama classes in an attempt to channel my very extroverted personality through a productive outlet. My passion for theatre blossomed and led me to Etobicoke School of the Arts for drama. Once I graduated, I went on to pursue a degree in acting. I received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Windsor in 2018. 

Then the pandemic hit, and theatres shut down. Acting was forced to take a back seat in my plans for the future. I decided to go back to school. I applied to and am currently attending Humber College’s Public Relations Graduate Certificate program. 

Deciding to change my direction

Going from fine arts to communications. It seems like kind of a weird switch doesn’t it? In reality, the shift felt natural. During my undergrad, I had the opportunity to work as an assistant to the head of publicity for the University Players theatre company. I remember my boss had asked for my opinion on what aspects of an upcoming play would best attract an audience my age. I had so much fun coming up with an answer for her. I am fascinated by how we as individuals relate to brands, to people, and even to concepts and ideas. 

This interaction stayed in my head for the next few years. When the time came to think about what else I could see myself doing, I immediately thought about public relations. I knew that this fascination had the potential to grow into something more, so I switched lanes. 

The (not-so) daunting new world

Starting this program was nerve-wracking. My lack of experience in comparison to some of my classmates was daunting. I thought I’d end up lost in a sea of terms and concepts that were foreign to me. But the opposite was true. I felt at home immediately. Not because I already knew everything, but because it felt familiar. 

In PR you have goals and objectives. You achieve them using specific strategies and tactics. The exact same goes for acting. An actor must have a “super objective”. This is a broad overall objective for a character that works throughout the play.  Every scene has its own “objective”. This is best described as what you want to get from the other person in the scene. To achieve these objectives, an actor must use “actions” which are the strategy in which they attempt to get what they need. By the end of a run, every page, scene and line of an actor’s script will be absolutely cluttered with objectives and strategies written into the margins. 

In PR, the objectives and tactics are practiced directly onto the audience. In theatre, objectives and tactics make things active and provide the actor with purpose in the scene. These are applied to the other scene members in order to create something engaging and entertaining. The ultimate goal in both of these situations is to have an effect on the audience. 

I grew up with this practice. It was second nature to me. Imagine how ecstatic and relieved I was when these same words came up as foundational concepts for public relations. 

An art in itself

Public relations deals with people and relationships. It’s an interaction much like a scene in a play. You listen, receive information and respond. Then you do it all over again. Of course, it has its guidelines and rules. But human intuition and feelings are just as important in PR as they would be in any art form.  Public relations is an art.  And I am so proud to still call myself an artist. 

Written by: Abbey Cole, Media Studies Student at the University of Guelph-Humber 

The Pitch: an innovative way to bring together students in all specialties – journalism, digital communications, visual communication and public relations – to collaborate on a multifaceted, multimedia project. 

On Tuesday, March 23, eight teams of University of Guelph-Humber students presented detailed COVID-response plans to help Coca-Cola Bottling Canada, Sobeys, Sunwing and CAMH (The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) to overcome real business challenges they are currently facing. 

The university’s capstone projects, collectively called EMERGE, have won more than 300 international awards since they launched in 2011. Pre-pandemic, it involved publications, special events with guest speakers and multiple attendees, a visual showcase and a full range of web, marketing and graphic design support. 

COVID-19 impeded in-person events, causing the students and faculty to think of something revolutionary. The university hosted this live pitch competition as the fourth-year Media Studies capstone project. Students developed public relations campaigns, organized budgets and presented ideas to real industry professionals. Fourth-year Public Relations students created their own team-agency names and applied the knowledge they have accumulated over four years to flex their strategic and creative muscles for one of four clients. For most of these students, The Pitch was the final assignment of their undergraduate university careers. 

The first winner of this new event was a team called Element PR. “We are so thankful to have had the opportunity to pitch to Sobeys and showcase what we learned over the last four years. My team and I are absolutely thrilled that we won and we feel like all our hard work throughout the semester finally paid off,” Team lead Monica Barbaro says, “We extend our congrats to the other team, The Source PR who also pitched an amazing comms plan for Voilà by Sobeys.” 

These students paved the way for a fresh illustration of success for fourth-year PR students. Beyond COVID-19, the hope is that this event will grow into an annual competition. The Pitch tests each student’s ability to collaborate, demonstrate how well they understood their client and applied research, analysis, critical thinking, persuasive writing and presentation skills to solve real business problems. 

The list of winners and their team logos:

To read more about The Pitch, click here. 

About Emerge 

Emerge, the capstone project for fourth-year Media Studies students at the University of Guelph-Humber, brings together students in all specialties – journalism, digital communications, visual communication and public relations – to collaborate on a multifaceted, multimedia project.

It includes publications, special events, a visual showcase and a full range of web, marketing and graphic design support. The Emerge projects have won more than 300 international awards since they launched in 2011.

Written by: Vaibhav Joshi, Secretary Co-Chair, CPRS Toronto

The last year has been unusual, to say the least, but 2021 is shaping up to be a year when we finally step out of the shadow of this pandemic. Although the way we work, live, and communicate has been the same over the past 12 months, there is renewed optimism. Vaccines will bring back the way we lived (hopefully soon), but not everything will be the same.

We learned lessons from a year at home, and 2020 made us look at existential questions, personally and professionally. This past year also raised several issues and exposed the cracks in our system. Gaps that seemed minor and were overlooked before were now glaring at us and needed mending. A need to pivot to a robust framework requires looking closer at how organizations operate and a need for change. One that is supportive, inclusive and accepting of all backgrounds.

Of course, 2020 also exposed the need for financial stability for many organizations. It may or may not stand true for all organizations, but it did for us here at CPRS Toronto. We needed reform, a renewed mission, a supportive and inclusive culture and hence the need for a new strategic direction for this chapter of our CPRS society.

Our strategic vision
It is not always easy to agree when you are renewing your mission. As is human nature, there are several opinions and considerations. The process of charting one strategic vision for the CPRS Toronto chapter was collaborative and largely unanimous. After the deep thought by board members and a working committee, it was agreed that there are three main pillars our Toronto chapter needs to focus on in the next three years.

Not in the order of importance, but in equal standing, the three pillars to propel our CPRS chapter forward are:

1. Identity: Who we are, what we do?
   It is increasingly clear in today’s world that we need to create a sense of community and support our community with resources and networking when we are still socially distant. The communications community has evolved beyond just Public Relations and needs to be reflected in our mission, incorporating the diverse communications functions. We are uniquely placed as an industry body to support our members with professional development and elevate our profession as a whole and act as a single platform to encourage all communications professionals.
2. Membership: Increase and diversify
   What was and is also evident for us in the Toronto chapter of the society is the increasing need to look like our diverse population in Canada. We relooked at the way we support diversity and resolved to create opportunities for inclusion. Diversity is our strength, and we need to embrace it. We also decided to focus on growing our association by providing a sense of belonging and finding solutions to the membership’s cost for students, young professionals, the BIPOC population and new Canadians.
3. Finance: Stability, stability, stability
   Finance is important, increasingly so in the current environment. All organizations had to pivot or make adjustments to ensure there is financial stability during the pandemic. It is even more important for a not-for-profit organization like ours. We need to be creative to build up a revenue stream to support our chapter, create and distribute content that matches the needs of the industry, and share best practices. Increasing the revenue stream alone is not going to do it. We also looked at our spending to cut costs wherever possible. Increasing sponsorship opportunities will also help our goal of reaching stability. All these actions, along with a legacy fund and ROI lense, are sure to put us on a path to financial stability and prosperity.

All the above pillars will help us move in the right direction to provide a platform for our fellow colleagues across the communications industry. To support, inform and exchange ideas, best practices and learnings, to propel our industry into the future. This new strategy is a start, a living document if you will. We are not done, rather just getting started to achieve everything that we have stated above. Bring on 2021! We are ready to step out of the shadow of 2020 and the past with a renewed mission.

Written by: Mahlet Sintayehu, Public Relations Student

Are press releases still valuable? Are we writing them effectively? These were some of the questions addressed during the CISION virtual workshop held on March 11^th. For many PR professionals a press release and wire distribution are a staple tactic, but with new technologies and evolving trends, the importance of SEO key words, multimedia and compact information is key.

The event was hosted and moderated by Michelle Dias, CPRS Toronto’s Vice President. Guest speakers included CISION Canada experts Jeff Vanderby, Director of Global Product Marketing, Michelle Oke, Director of Strategic Accounts, and Duane Bayley, Senior Director of Client Content Services. Each speaker offered their expertise on how to master the art of writing and the distribution of an effective press release. The event went in depth on topics like getting the journalists’ attention, effectively scheduling distribution, using SEO to improve placement, and how/when to use multimedia in content.

The conversation kicked off with Jeff debunking the myth that journalists no longer need or enjoy receiving press releases, using statistics from the CISION 2020 State Of The Media Report. CISION’s annual survey  asks journalists about the challenges they face within their industry for that given year.

“The press release isn’t dead; you’re just doing it wrong.” – Jeff Vanderby, Director of Global Product Marketing, CISION

Jeff summarized these findings, including a lack of staff and resourcing, competition between journalists and influencers on social networks, and the ongoing conversation of fake news. He     converted these issues into real nuggets of advice for the workshop attendees.

Helpful tips to take into consideration before the writing and pitching process:

• Conduct research on the journalist you’re reaching out to beforehand, ensuring your information is relevant to their target audience (this prevents pitching a story on a topic the journalist doesn’t personally write about)
• Build a relationship with the journalist to understand how they plan their stories, so you know what they want and can write in a way that compliments their writing style
• Using clear and concise quotes help put a face to the story and give the journalist a better understanding of what the potential story may look like
• Multimedia (images, infographics, videos, audio clips, PDFs, etc.) elements are necessary (if multimedia is not included, journalists will be forced to find them on their own, which is a hassle)

Helpful tips to consider when formatting your press release:

• Avoid getting lost in the swarm of pitches sent to journalists by sending your press release a minimum of 1 hour beforehand
• Aim for a minimum of 400 words. This best serves search engines and eliminates the possibility of sending content that isn’t necessary
• Headlines should be engaging, include action verbs to further garner interest, and should NOT be used more than once
• Be sure to be available for contact on the day of press the release, in case the journalist needs to reach out
• Using the F-Shape format helps make writing more digestible for the reader
• Include 1-3 relevant hyperlinks

“One of the things Google hates is duplicative content. Using the same catchy headline over and over again- although you may like it, Google doesn’t.”  – Duane Bayley, Senior Director of Client Content Services, CISION

Together, both Duane and Jeff finished off the conversation diving into SEO best practices focused on the discoverability of a press release, tying in the question “what is considered good content?” Using high-quality multimedia  helps tell your story more effectively and improves your SEO, which results in higher levels of engagement with your targeted audience.

They reiterated the importance of leveraging wire-worthy content, content not typically thought of in PR but widely used in marketing, in press releases to generate the same amount of earned media coverage those in marketing typically garner. Branching out from traditional press release topics is an excellent  way to intrigue journalists and give them content they actually want to write about it. It positions your brand as a thought leader and helps build credibility and trust between you and the customers.

Possible wire-worthy content to include in a press release:

• Statistics of a given industry
• Trends related to your given industry
• Corporate Social Responsibility content

Excellent  two-way dialogue between guest speakers and workshop attendees during the workshop’s duration created a collaborative learning environment. It is essential that attendees leave with this as a takeaway: it is now more important than ever for brands to deliver the kinds of timely and relevant information that journalists are looking for while leveraging earned media channels to cut through the noise with content solidifies trust in their brands.

CPRS Toronto plans to continue hosting professional development events, so stay tuned for those.

To stay up to date on the latest news, blog articles and upcoming events, subscribe to CPRS Toronto’s newsletter.

For more information on effective press releases, check out these CISION resources below:

• State of the Press Release 2020 Takeaways
• The Ultimate Toolkit For Getting Your Press Releases Noticed
• 5 Most Impressive Press Releases From January