How can Microsoft get more bang out of Bing?
By hiring Burson-Marsteller PR firm CEO and former Hilary Clinton campaign loyalist, Mark Penn, the well known strategist and political pollster.
According to The Wall Street Journal "Digits" blog, Penn is being brought in to help ignite "more consumer use of Bing," Microsoft's search engine, which lags well behind Google in terms of search market share.
When examining the earnings results from both Microsoft and Google this afternoon, it seems that Microsoft needs all the help it can muster in this particular battle.
Microsoft posted a $492 million loss for fiscal Q4 2012, largely due to a $6.19 billion writedown of its failed acquisition of advertising-service engine aQuantive.
Google, on the other hand, seems to continue to act second only to the Federal Reserve when it comes to printing money, bringing in $1.25 billion in revenue for the quarter, and realizing a 42 percent rise in paid clicks year-over-year.
However, it seems Microsoft isn't the only one out looking for some PR help. Penn's firm, Burson-Marsteller, just released a study of how Global Fortune 100 companies are using social media (conducted in partnership with Visible Technologies) to create more influence.
First, the top most-often mentioned companies on social media in that group: HP, Ford, Sony, AT&T, Samsung, Toyota, Honda, Walmart, BP, and Verizon.
The study examined some key social media vehicles, including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google+, and Pinterest.
CNET broke down the five key findings of the study:
- The Fortune Global 100 were mentioned a total of 10,400,132 times online in a single month. Gone are the days that companies and brands could tally and sort through all of their media mentions each morning.
- Video content creation is on the rise, and there was a 39 percent jump in the percentage of companies with a branded YouTube channel in the last year (and excluding ALL skateboarding bulldogs!).
- Engagement is becoming second nature to companies. Seventy-nine percent of corporate accounts on Twitter attempt to engage with other users by retweeting and using @mentions.
- Multiple accounts on social media platforms allow companies to target audiences by geography, topic, or service.
- Companies are rapidly adapting to new platforms. Google Plus pages for businesses were launched last November, and by February 2012, nearly half (48 percent) of Fortune Global 100 companies already had a presence on the platform.
The study also highlighted that 93 percent of the Global Fortune 100 companies' Facebook pages are updated weekly, up from 84 percent and 59 percent each of the past two years.
I'll add my own two cents, considering IBM is a member of that Fortune Global 100. In our own Facebook research, for example, we, too, have found video to be an increasingly impactful online resource.
We're also seeing that the more data we share, the more interest we garner in terms of reshares (infographics are also impactful, but need to be used smartly and selectively).
That is to say, the more useful and insightful data an organization can share through its social media activities, the more they're able to rise above the information overload fray and present prospects with "news they can use."
No matter which famous political PR flack they hire.
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