It’s no secret that public relations has changed over the years. The advent of social media has revolutionized the way people receive their news and how news is delivered. Scanning the newspaper has given way to opening Facebook and Twitter feeds for morning headlines, and following the local weatherman’s posts and tweets for the day’s forecast.
As a result, PR pros have had to evolve and bring their clients along for the ride in order to grow and prosper in this new world of marketing communications.
In Connecticut, the organizers of the first annual CT Schooner Festival recently hired Quinn & Hary to execute an integrated marketing communications plan that would generate awareness, attendance and exposure through traditional public relations, as well as social media.
In a traditional sense, we conducted media outreach that generated publicity in advance, during and after event. We successfully generated positive media coverage for event through the placement of feature stories including all pertinent information on the event and when and where the public can access it.
Our social media strategy built awareness of the event tapping into a strong network of local and regional influencers and promoting newsworthy aspects of the event. We engaged families, nautical enthusiasts, and the general public through promotional contests posted on Facebook and Twitter.
As a result, we generated more than 1 million media impressions reaching people from Connecticut, western Massachusetts, and southern Rhode Island. Our media placements included feature stories in The Hartford Courant, The Day, Springfield Republican, Associated Press, New Haven Register, The Westerly Sun, WNPR radio, WFSB-TV, NBCCT-TV, WTNH-TV and FOXCT-TV.
Meanwhile, our social media efforts resulted in more than 760 Facebook “Likes” with a daily average of 1,500 unique users viewing content, 2,000 unique visits or views to the page, and 6,000 impressions, reaching an all-time high of 1,200 people talking about the CT Schooner Festival event from September 11-15. Our Twitter activity also resulted in 6,590 impressions and reached 5,008 accounts through @CTSchoonerFest.
-Saverio Mancini
