How to put The YOU in YouTube

In the last decade, YouTube has become one of the most influential social media channels and that’s thanks to the rise of bloggers, vloggers and influencers. With over a billion users, YouTube has become a platform for teenagers and young-adults to keep up-to-date with regular vlogs, a place for adults to re-watch clips from their favourite TV programmes and even a place for travellers to watch holiday reviews or restaurant reviews. But what about YouTube for business? How can you create a channel which reflects the key parts of your brand and puts you ahead of your competitors? We find out…

Brand Consistency

Your social media channels should be consistent with one another and this is key to your brand. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be sharing exactly the same content, but things like cover photos, logos and colour schemes should be seamless across your social pages. YouTube is a slightly different kettle of fish as you need to use other social media channels in order to share your videos. BUT the goal is not to rely on the other channels and make your YouTube channel the place to be!

Take a look at our own Youtube Page as an example.

Variety

No one will want to subscribe to your page if the content is dry and boring. Upload a variety of different videos that truly reflect the message of your brand. Post team videos, fun videos or videos that celebrate a certain national day such as National Coffee Day or National Dogs Day! Just like on Twitter and Facebook, you should be posting a combination of posts to keep your page fresh and exciting.

Here’s an example of a fun video we made for one of our clients

Schedule your Posts

Don’t just think that scheduled posts are for Twitter and Facebook. YouTube has a publishing feature which means you can schedule your videos to upload at a certain time. This explains how vloggers can be at a press launch but still upload their videos on time - is there anything these influencers can’t do?!

Utilise YouTube Live

People want to see what you are up to right now! Even if it’s an office video, it can still be exciting. Film your team and ask them what they are up to. It will keep your channel active.

Be the Expert

A professional channel is very different to a personal channel. Make your YouTube channel the platform for people to come to for expert knowledge. You can do this by posting review videos or team interview videos.

We’ve been working on an exciting new PR project and shared this on our YouTube channel.

Use the Tags!

Before publishing your post, you can add tags along the bottom of the publishing page in order for subscribers and non-subscribers to be able to see relatable content. Your videos will then become categorised and will be easier to search; if they’re easier to search then you’ll attract a more relevant audience who are more likely to subscribe.

Video Length

Too short and it will hardly be worth posting. Too long and your viewers will get bored. We recommend uploading a video between 1-2 minutes depending on whether your video is an interview or a news piece.

Our client’s new Garden Terrace launch is a perfect example.

Admin

Fill in the bio, the description and include a good cover photo. Blank spaces will only make your channel appear unprofessional.

Quality Videos

Always upload your videos in HD quality or whatever the best quality for your phone or camera is. We recommend using your smartphone to take videos for YouTube as it’s easier to use, a lot quicker and surprisingly good quality.

Check out Sunny Bird PR’s Re-brand as an example of a good quality video.

How to Get the Most out of Facebook Advertising

As an agency we’re responsible for a number of our clients’ social media accounts and as such we need to stay up-to-date with the latest algorithms, preferences and tools that come with each social media platform. We like to share our findings on our blog too for those that are taking on the task of their brand’s social media by themselves. To date, most of our blog posts have been on exactly that; algorithms, preferences and tools – not this one.

We’ve known for a while that Facebook was moving to favour organic, social engagement and that the days of businesses being able to reach a large audience without payment were numbered. Various gurus we spoke to had slightly different ideas on this and how it would pan out, but the inevitable has happened; businesses have to spend on advertising to reach their audience.

We’re trying not to be down about this, instead we’re thinking of it the other way around – weren’t we lucky to have got so much free reach for so long! So now we’re not just sharing top tips on how to make your organic posts work best for you, we’re also including how to make your Facebook advertising work best for you. Below are our best tips and nuggets of wisdom from a mix of experts, gurus, webinars and our own journey of discovery…

Promotional Posts Don’t Work

Any organic posts that use promotional style language such as ‘competition’, ‘buy now’, ‘click here’ will get flagged by the powers that be at Facebook and not shared

No-One’s There

Less than 1% of people that have liked your business page will see your posts come up in their newsfeeds organically

Engagement Expectations

The highest level of organic engagement you can expect with your business page is 5%

Videos

All videos should be longer than 90 seconds as Facebook now favours longer videos, the same applies to Facebook live videos

Organic Posts

Organic Posts need to be authentic and feature timely, topical or local events, those that engage with the Facebook community in the most ‘real’ way will be rewarded with reach

Don’t Use a Scheduler

Schedule posts through Facebook directly rather than a third-party management tool, Facebook is a control freak, and anything done outside of it’s high blue facey walls will be frowned upon and not given as much reach

No External Links

Don’t include external links on your posts as Facebook wants to keep you on Facebook and never let you go (see above)

Caring’s Sharing

Create shareable content that makes the sharer look good – this sounds odd but makes sense when you think about it, people share stuff that makes them look cool/funny/clever/sexy/kind etc – so if your content ticks any of those boxes then people are more likely to share your posts

Don’t boost posts!

Create a Facebook advert instead as boosted posts are less targeted and therefore less effective

Check you out

A huge 62% of people use Facebook to check out a business before purchasing, so next time someone says ‘Facebook’s not important for my business’ you are totally entitled to quote this smugly, oh so smugly

How We Got Miss Dorset in Front of 12.8 Million People!

As a PR agency based in Dorset we think it’s important to support local events where we can, so when the organiser of Miss Dorset came to us looking for PR we didn’t hesitate in lending our support.

Kelly Levell has been organising Miss Dorset for four years and has made it her mission to bring a more ethical message to the competition with the introduction of the Miss Fairtrade Award, which she introduced to the contest in 2017. The current winner Stephanie Wyatt has already started work as the newest ambassador for Kelly’s not for profit organisation; We Do Ethical Living. As an agency we admired Kelly’s vision and were happy to support the event. The Sunny Bird PR team wrote press releases throughout the competition to announce the finalists, promote the final and to announce the winner. We also introduced and sponsored the Miss Social Media Award as the winner would need to be a social media queen to go on and represent Dorset in the Miss England competition.

As well as creating and judging the Miss Social Media Award, the team also created, managed and grew the Miss Dorset social media accounts throughout the competition including starting the Miss Dorset Instagram channel. The Sunny Bird PR team used the Miss Dorset social media channels to manage the sign-ups of contestants, promote award rounds, promote sponsors, share articles, promote the final and of course live streaming of the final itself.

Sunny Bird PR HQ was also the venue for all the finalists’ interviews, headshots and videos as well as the sorting and packing office for the 200 goody bags. The goody bags, worth over £70 each were given to every guest at the final and the team used their connections to help fill the bags with ethical and locally sourced gifts. 

The whole Sunny Bird PR team attended the glamorous event at The Hilton in Bournemouth with two dedicated members of staff on social media duty live streaming and posting all night. Thanks to extensive coverage and the powerful back story of one contestant we had several TV crews at the final as well as international, national and local press.

Though our hard work liaising with press, capitalising on opportunities and reactive media relations we achieved 35 Pieces of Coverage with a total reach of over 12.8 million people – this was up from 1 million the year before. This space would have cost over £350,000 if it had been bought in advertising. Key titles covering Miss Dorset 2018 & We Do Ethical Living include The Mail Online, The Metro, The Sun, Closer Magazine, Yahoo!, London Evening Standard, OK! Magazine, The Bournemouth Echo and the Dorset Echo.

Increasing the reach and value of coverage so dramatically for Miss Dorset will have a positive impact on the competition next year. More and more local businesses will now be queuing up to be involved and sponsor Miss Dorset 2019 as they see how much coverage can be achieved for sponsors, delivering a great return on investment for them compared to traditional advertising routes. So, get ready to cheer on Steph Wyatt competing in the Miss England finals on 3rd September this year and watch out for Miss Dorset 2019 – it will be even bigger and better than 2018!

How the Team Creates Creative Campaigns

One of our strengths as a PR agency is our creative energy, we work closely with clients to create fun and innovative campaigns designed to maximise their media exposure and raise their profiles.

We worked on the launch of a Bournemouth-based contemporary art gallery and as part of their launch campaign we created Bournemouth’s Biggest Ever Street Art in the form of a giant superhero painted on Pier Approach. This was the first phase in the series of creative projects designed to position the gallery as forward-thinking and engaged with the community. By undertaking projects in Bournemouth’s public spaces, the gallery aligned itself with the community and the council ensuring that it was not only well-known but trusted and respected.

The second phase of creative projects included The Selfie Wall project which came from a creative brainstorm with the whole Sunny Bird PR team. Each team member had gone away and done their own research before coming to the team meeting where we each presented our research and let the creative battle commence! It’s not uncommon for us to be in the boardroom for a few hours until we’re happy with the ideas that are forming and this occasion was no exception and the Selfie Walls were born!

Examples from Liverpool and Los Angeles had been found where the city had allowed huge walls to be painted by artists which were specifically designed for people to have their photo taken in front of.

With Bournemouth’s famous Arts University, Arts Festival and fun seaside location we thought this project could work brilliantly here too.

The first steps with this project saw us meeting with the council on numerous occasions to firstly pitch the idea and concept to them which they loved. The next round of meetings were all about site evaluations; what sites did they have available for the project and how suitable were they.

The final (and most exciting stage) was concept realisation! Stretching from Southbourne to Sandbanks, the Selfie Wall trail consists of 11 brilliant art pieces and achieved regional and national coverage in print and online. Perhaps more importantly than the coverage, these beautiful works of art were enjoyed and shared on social media by everyone that passed them. A truly community spirited and creative campaign bringing a bit or art to the seaside.

Reaching Millions! PR & Publicity Course

How to get PR and publicity for you, your business or product launch! 

Are you looking to raise the profile of your business or yourself, build credibility, drive sales and secure new customers? Whether you are just starting out or have been on the entrepreneurship block for a while, one truth always stands: media attention is an invaluable asset— especially if you want to scale, speak on stage, land book deals, and be seen by millions.

Sunny Bird has created the Reaching Millions PR & Publicity Course to show you exactly how to attract positive attention from the press. This one-day event will show you exactly what it takes to land TV, radio, podcast, print, and online media that can change everything for your business.

Where: Sunny Bird PR, The Garden Studio, Pine Grange, Bath Road, Bournemouth, Dorset. BH1 2PF

When: Friday 27th July, 10am - 4pm

Who: If you’re an entrepreneur, or SME business owner, PR Student, Marketer or someone that needs to brush up on their PR Skills this course is for you.

How much: £99+VAT

Tickets: Contact the SBPR team to pay direct on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com. Tickets are also available from Eventbrite.

Drawing on her 20 years of PR experience, Sunny Bird will reveal real-life client case studies and the secrets of how PR has sky rocketed their businesses, including:

· How a creative PR campaign increased a client’s sales by 2,656% over a one-month period

· How a PR campaign resulted in a listing for a client’s product in Fortnum and Mason

· How PR was used to secure a celebrity Instagram review of a client’s product that increased website traffic by 3,535%

· How commissioning a clinical study and releasing the results to the press boosted a client’s sales by 850%

· How the coverage secured for a product launch led to the BBC commissioning a documentary starring the client

· How a PR campaign led to an 800% increase in traffic to a client’s website and record-breaking Christmas sales

· How PR led to selling out a client’s service for the whole year in the space of just one month, increasing overall sales by 567%

In addition to speaking as founder and director of Sunny Bird PR, Sunny will also draw on her own personal experience of launching a fitness retreat brand.  By using PR as the only form of publicity, the business became an overnight success and was recognised worldwide by clients, celebrities and the media. Due to the success of the retreat company, Sunny landed her first publishing deal with leading publisher Collins & Brown. Sunny then went on to launch retreats across the UK as well as in Spain, Portugal and Austria. The media attention she received was a crucial factor in the growth of the business.

Sunny herself has featured in The Daily Mail, The Observer, The Independent, The Sun, You Magazine, Daily Mirror, The Express, Look Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Woman & Home magazine, Marie Claire, Bella magazine, Prima magazine, Start Up 100, Bournemouth Daily Echo, and BBC Radio to name a few.

So, are you ready to take your business to the next level? If so step right up! Here is a peek of what you’ll learn on the Reaching Millions PR & Publicity Course:

• The importance of developing three key messages for your brand
• How to position yourself as the expert and own your credibility
• Getting your brand reviewed, tried, tested and experienced by the press
• How using a case study can help you to secure media coverage
• What to do when you have no ‘new news’ - utilising awareness days, seasonal activity and company campaigns
• Best social media practices for connecting to mainstream media and journalists
• What to include in a press release
• Tips for how to craft the perfect pitch
• How to build a result-delivering media list
• Different ways to approach journalists, bloggers and influencers
• How many times should you chase up a journalist? Tips on how to get through
• How to secure five one-to-one journalist meetings in a day
• What to do when a journalist says they want to interview you
• How to make the most of your media coverage once you receive it

All this for only £99 +VAT

What else you will receive on the day

* Sunny Bird PR goody bag with all course information to take back to your business

* Breakfast and lunch provided

* Press release template, guidelines and examples

* List of UK National & Celebration Days

* Examples of PR ideas to help launch your brand

* Distribution of your press release to up to 100 targeted media contacts in your sector

* Your top ten media contacts - so if you are looking for the Beauty Editor of Vogue or the Business Editor of The Times, we will search and find the exact contact for you.

* 10 pitches that got the “Yes” – real pitches that led to features on This Morning, ITV’s Lorraine, Cosmopolitan, Tatler magazine, The Telegraph, The Observer magazine, The Times & Entrepreneur Today.

Who is the course for? If you’re an entrepreneur, or SME business owner, PR Student, Marketer or someone that needs to brush up on their PR Skills this course is for you.

Please book through our Eventbrite page by following this link.

Or to find out more information email the team on hello@sunnybirdpr.com.

Address for the event: Sunny Bird PR, The Garden Studio, Pine Grange, Bath Road, Bournemouth, BH1 2PF

Date: Friday 27th July - 10am - 4pm

How We got 4 Million Listeners for our Client

If you’ve tuned in to your local radio station recently, or perhaps been listening to some of the national breakfast shows, you may have heard of Ramsay Health Care UK.

The health care provider tasked Sunny Bird PR with promoting its surgical weight-loss procedures throughout the UK. Not a team to do things by halves, we set to work orchestrating a national radio day to get the message out to millions of listeners up and down the country. Here’s how we did it…

Mr James Halstead and Plaxy Budzinska on the air 

The Creative Process

As soon as our client Ramsay Health Care UK asked us to promote weight loss surgery on a national level, we knew we would require some hard-hitting statistics and relatable case studies.

The first step was to survey 2000 women who had experienced difficulties with weight loss. The survey results revealed that 75% of women were ashamed and embarrassed by their weight gain, a shocking figure which was ideal for attention-grabbing headlines.

After brainstorming how the story would resonate in print and on television, we finally settled on radio as the most appropriate platform for two reasons. Firstly, because of the phenomenal audience reach and secondly, due to the sensitive subject area, we thought case studies would be more comfortable with the prospect of radio meaning they would come across more confident and genuine on the air.

Orchestrating the Radio Day

Before we could begin pitching the story to the stations, it was vital we had all our assets in place. This included a press release highlighting the most shocking statistics, and a regional break down, and most importantly a selection of interviewees.

To give an expert opinion we used a lead consultant weight loss surgeon from Ramsay Health Care who was happy to talk about his work and pass comment on the statistics from a professional perspective.

From our survey we sourced three case studies, one for each key region we were targeting, and were careful to research their background and ensure they were a good fit.  

Prior to the radio day we agreed three core messages with our client and briefed all radio spokespeople on the objectives before going on air. These were to highlight Ramsay’s weight loss procedures; the high quality of care Ramsay provides and the website address.

We embargoed the survey results for a chosen date meaning we were able to conduct all the radio interviews on the same day from one central London location.

The Results

Throughout the course of a morning we had 13 interviews set up. This included two national stations, Sky News Radio and talkRadio, along with 12 regional stations in areas where Ramsay hospitals are based.

The interviews were a mix of live breakfast shows and pre-recorded slots for the afternoon drive shows. Well-briefed and confident spokespeople ensured every interview ticked our key messages including directing listeners to the Ramsay website.

Overall, we reached 3,980,000 listeners, which if the same air-time was bought in advertising would have cost £75,272. 

If you would like to know how to get your company or brand message heard by millions, contact the Sunny Bird PR team on 01202 293095 or hello@sunnybirdpr.com.

How We Achieved Editorial in Coveted Wedding Media

If your business is in weddings then you’ll know first-hand that the wedding media is a tough nut to crack. With a captive audience of brides, grooms, bridesmaids and not forgetting mothers of the bride, all consuming wedding magazines, blogs and Pinterest boards faster than you can say “I do”, the wedding media is the place to be if you want to get in on the action. Due to its unique audience the wedding media provide precious little in the way of free space for brands trying to get a glimpse of the limelight and our challenge was to do just that.

When we started working with the luxury, Eco-boutique Green House Hotel in Bournemouth we had a very clear goal: 50% of our activity should be focused on promoting weddings at the hotel. As we always do with new clients and new challenges, we researched the market then sat down as a team to work on our strategy. One of the golden rules of PR is finding something new to speak to journalists about; they need new news for their readers. With that in mind we assessed the unique offerings of a wedding at The Green House and unsurprisingly it was their green credentials that set them apart from the herd when it came to wedding venues.

The next step was, how do we make this into a story? We worked with a Bournemouth-based organisation called Count On Me who counts carbon for a living with the aim of reducing companies’ carbon footprint. Using their formulas and spreadsheets we could then accurately work out the carbon footprint of a wedding at The Green House Hotel. That however wasn’t enough; we still needed to make it topical and relatable. To make our story topical we calculated the carbon footprint of the royal Kate & Wills’ wedding to create a comparison and an interest angle. And the best way to make a story relatable is by using case studies so we sourced three; one couple who had a luxurious wedding in Ibiza, another couple who had a more modest wedding in Dorset and our third couple who got married at The Green House Hotel. The carbon footprint was worked out for each of the case studies which gave a fair mix of comparisons for The Green House to be held up against. As our final asset we researched the most popular wedding destinations and calculated like for like carbon comparisons for each.

To pitch this story out we researched each wedding title as well as journalists in mainstream publications that had featured weddings and contacted them with an individually tailored pitch suited to each of their titles or style of writing.

Our hard work paid off with this campaign and we achieved an incredible 11 pieces of coverage in wedding titles reaching over 130,000 people of The Green House Hotel’s target audience.

Alongside an impressive collection of wedding coverage, the Sunny Bird PR team has also secured over 62 pieces of hotel coverage in just 6 months averaging out to over 10 pieces per month. The coverage achieved reached over 2.5 million readers and included reviews and roundups and has an advertising value of over £95,000!

How We Increased Our Social Media Presence By Over 100% In January

Most businesses we speak to say the same: “we know social media is important but we just run out of time” and that’s where we come in. As an agency we invest a lot of time working on our own social media to ensure we know the very latest algorithms, features and updates so that we can get the best results from each platform for us and our clients.

In January we saw the brilliant Paul Sutton for some specialist social media training, with the goal of improving all areas of the Sunny Bird PR social media channels by 100% compared with December’s figures. We absolutely smashed our results, and here’s how:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a tricky one, as a business page you don’t have as much clout as a person and it’s also much easier to engage with a person rather than a page. As an agency we run the Sunny Bird PR LinkedIn through Sunny’s personal account rather than on a business page for this reason. For our clients we run a mix of company pages and people depending on their needs, flexibility and restrictions. In addition to considering the type of account you use, there are a number of things you can do to maximise your LinkedIn presence:

Connect with people with whom you have worked or with similar interests and demonstrate your expertise and thought leadership in your posts. Rather than selling your services, drive people to relevant and valuable content on your website or blog. Post regular status updates about what you're working on and who you're working for, making sure your feed is a mix of company and industry news.

Participate in groups as they give you a great opportunity to reach and engage potential customers online. Taking part in these discussions can help establish you as an expert in your field. Try LinkedIn advertising; paid advertising on LinkedIn is still a relative bargain, and can get your business in front of your market quickly. Experiment by boosting a post by £10 each day for a week to see which posts/audiences return the best results giving you a foundation for your strategy.

As a result of these measures, our LinkedIn follower growth increased 281% from December to January, and our most viewed post was up by 241%.

Facebook

Facebook used to be an amazing tool for building community around a brand, but with organic reach on a steep decline towards zero (that’s the number of people who see your posts without you paying for increased reach), it’s getting harder to reach your audience on this giant social network. There are still things you can do to maximise your Facebook reach and engagement however:

Prioritise video as this is favoured by the Facebook algorithm, especially if it drives likes and conversation. Aim to make videos engaging by capturing people’s attention within the first three seconds or by including a call to action, and add live videos to the mix as these have proven popular with many audiences. Respond to comments on your page as Facebook favours posts that generate conversation and engage with other businesses for the same reason, with the added bonus of reaching each other’s followers.

Experiment with the “preferred audience” button to make your posts more likely to reach those who would be interested in it, and consider placing some advertising budget into sponsoring your favourite posts to further increase your reach.

Utilising the above strategies saw our business Facebook page’s monthly reach go up by by 177% and post engagements increase by 130%.

Instagram

Instagram is the king of visual content and offers some brilliant opportunities to showcase the creative side of your business. Growing your platform on Instagram organically can prove to be challenging as algorithms are forever changing, but as it currently stands Instagram has some great options for engaging with other users. Here are some tips to help you maximise this engagement:

Use hashtags that are relevant to your brand as this is how most people find new content on Instagram. Check how popular a hashtag is by visiting the ‘Tag’ tab on the search bar in the Instagram app. Type in a topic to see its most popular hashtags and use these to reach the right audiences. Like and comment on pictures that relate to your brand or product and find bloggers’ or journalists’ pages and comment on their posts. Hold a contest by posting an image and asking people to like or comment on it in order to help boost your engagement and increase your followers by following at least ten relevant accounts every day to encourage them to follow you back.

Remember that quality beats quantity; only feature your best images and utilise the Instagram app’s built-in tools to optimise the brightness, contrast and saturation of each image. Ask questions in your posts and on other people’s posts, to increase engagement and boost your visibility to others.

Increasing our efforts to engage with others and produce quality content on Instagram saw our monthly follower gains increase by a fantastic 100%.

Twitter

Twitter is an ever-evolving platform and one which can often feel hard to stay ahead of the curve on. With its fast-paced newsfeed of 280-character snippets of information, Twitter requires time rather than money to ensure you reach your audience at all times of the day.

While tweeting often is key, it’s important to maintain a balance to ensure your newsfeed isn’t too broadcast heavy. To up your engagement in a meaningful way, aim to make two thirds of your tweets interactive by initiating conversations with other users and brands. To help with this, you can use a social media tool such as Hootsuite to keep on track of what’s trending and what’s relevant to you.

Make sure your following consists of relevant accounts as these are the ones who are likely to engage with you. While it may feel good to see your follower numbers rise from an influx of spam accounts, these won’t engage with your content and as such, have no benefit to your brand. Don’t be afraid to recycle tweets; as the Twitter newsfeed moves so fast, you can feature the same post multiple times without the same person seeing it twice. If you have spent time creating brilliant and timeless ‘evergreen’ content, post it more than once to maximise the exposure.

With a new focus on engaging with relevant audiences on Twitter, we saw the number of new Twitter followers per month increase by a whopping 750% and Twitter mentions go up by 625% compared to December’s figures.

Do you want advice on how to maximise your social media efforts, or would you like someone to take it off your hands altogether? Then call the team now on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com