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Healthcare and technology PR mavens know that Twitter is a marketing tool with the power to engage your organization’s target audience. Twitter’s simplicity and format for effective and limited engagement makes this social media platform unique. One important feature of this site is that it allows for the republishing or the retweeting of posts. When your posts are retweeted it helps to gauge your organization’s value to its followers and its ability to be thought leaders. In short, it brings attention to your brand and builds trust and who doesn’t want to feel important?

Did you know that as of June 2011, Twitter users sent 200 million tweets per day — one billion tweets are sent every five days? With so much traffic in the Twitter world it is essential to write every post with the intention of being retweeted. How can you get your organization’s message retweeted to a larger audience?

Here are three suggestions to help your organizations get retweeted:

• Post value information. If your followers find that your organization’s post is important, then they will take action and spread the word by retweeting. Some ideas for posting valuable information can be posting condensed data from a large amount of information for your followers, posting little known facts and even posting new data.
• Share links. According to the report “The Science of Retweets,” by social media scientist, Dan Zarrella, the presence of a link in a tweet may increase the chance that it will be retweeted by as much as three times.
• Use the most “retweetable” words. In Zarrella’s analysis of Twitter, he found that the three most retweeted words were “you,” “twitter,” and “please.” Getting a retweet maybe as easy as asking for one politely, use “please” in your call to action.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a social media program that includes Twitter, contact Scott Public Relations

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As a member of PR Boutiques International, we are delighted to share this week’s Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog article with you…
“More Good News For the PR Industry: New PR Boutiques International Survey Predicts Optimistic Forecast for Boutique PR Firms in 2012 — The Power of Social Media Cited as the Year’s Major Communication Event”

Respondents to a new PR Boutiques International (PRBI) survey of worldwide boutique public relations agencies predict moderate to high growth for their businesses in 2012, a reflection of the increasing recognition that these specialized firms deliver real value in a challenging economy. “The boutique PR firm is more appealing than ever to clients because our structure and senior expertise yields results,” said PRBI president Bill Cowen, CEO of Metrospective Communications of Philadelphia, in a news release. “Today companies need insightful and accurate advice, superb execution, and flexibility to adapt to constantly changing conditions, which is exactly the value proposition that our members provide.” How social media helped to incite the revolutions in the Middle East was tapped by respondents as the biggest milestone in 2011 that proves the power of PR, followed by the heightened public hype and awareness around the technology world (including the death of Steve Jobs) and the use of social media to help turn Occupy Wall Street into a global phenomenon tied for second. All member agencies responding to the survey reported that their confidence level about the business environment was either medium (72 percent) or high (28 percent), while 78 percent predicted moderate growth in 2012. Two out of three reported that the perceived value of the PR boutique has increased during the economic recession, because companies see that they get more value for their investment (38 percent) and clients value the hands-on role of senior, experienced practitioners (38 percent).

The power of social media was cited by 44 percent of respondents as the major trend impacting communications in 2012, followed by the economic recession and its impact on spending (33 percent). The difficulty of telling a company story in a crowed marketplace was voted the biggest communication challenge that clients face in the coming year. Conversely the most significant opportunity facing companies today lies in telling that story through engaging, compelling media and channels, including the strategic use of social media.

Rather than predicting that social media will be the PR “magic bullet” for all clients, PRBI members instead view it as a tool that must be powered by engaging content and strategically integrated into the enterprise’s communication program.
“The cost effectiveness of PR, and the ability of senior practitioners like PRBI members to devise the best way to tell a compelling story in a crowded marketplace, is a key differentiator going forward and the reason why we are optimistic about 2012,” concluded Cowen.

PRBI, a worldwide collaborative network of firms, includes 32 agencies operating in 13 countries, spanning the globe from Argentina to South Korea. Members of PRBI represent companies ranging from international conglomerates to Fortune 500, trade associations, and fast growing firms in industries such as technology, energy, financial services, government, tourism, education, lifestyle and healthcare.

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Traditionally it was thought that women were the target audience for cause-related marketing. Marketers created campaigns to pull at the heart strings of women and have left out men from cause campaigns entirely, but a recent PR Week/Barkley PR Cause Survey shows that men care about causes practically as much as women do.

The survey found that 88 percent of men believe it is important for a company to support a cause, as compared to the 91 percent of women that hold the same belief. The apparent evening of the scales may be attributed to a generational shift—of the respondents to the survey— those from the Millennial Generation see cause relating as a necessary social responsibility, the issue is no longer a gender issue, but now it may be a generational concern.

The PR Week and Barkley survey cites the three causes that men are more likely to support are:

1. Causes that affect children
2. General health-related causes
3. Poverty-related causes

How should this survey change marketing’s focus for men in cause-related marketing efforts in the future, especially for healthcare marketers?

More than half of the respondents to the survey said they were willing to pay more for a brand or a product because it supported a cause important to them. The survey also showed that cause-related marketers have not caught up to these stats because it showed that 68 percent of corporate marketing executives said they had no plans to include men with their cause efforts. In light of these new findings, maybe the best strategy for the upcoming years will be to create marketing campaigns that are gender-neutral or to focus cause marketing on male brands as well as targeting female audiences.

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