Helen Gill (nee Standing)’s session on ‘Expert Power’ for the CIPR Yorkshire & Lincolnshire group will look at how PR people can adapt their media relations skills to the digital world, demonstrating why social media firmly belongs within the public relations discipline. Using case study examples, Helen will share tips on how to translate traditional media training techniques into supporting and enabling clients/colleagues to use social media such as blogging, Twitter and LinkedIn to position themselves as thought leaders. She will outline the role of the PR advisor in ensuring that individual experts have the right skill-set, personality and support to gain influence through online interactions which are genuine, memorable and visible to the right audiences. Helen is one of the founding Directors of digital comms consultancy Engage Comms Ltd, which was established a year ago to fill a gap in the market between traditional PR agencies and 'social media gurus'. Bringing fundamental communications principles to social media, Helen delivers 'hands-on' training to clients from a range of sectors including professional services, construction, lifestyle, health and education. She is an Accredited Member of the CIPR, current Treasurer of the Yorkshire & Lincolnshire committee and a part time PR Lecturer and dissertation supervisor at Leeds Metropolitan University.

1. Social Media Breakfast Briefing:
#ExpertPower
@helenmarygill, Founding Director of
@engagecomms
10 July 2013

2. #ExpertPower
“Ability to influence other parties based
on expertise and knowledge.”
[Businessdictionary.com]
• Something that we as PR people have always
been responsible for helping our clients and
colleagues gain

4. Help your CEO to inspire
1. Help them ‘be themselves better’
2. Drive the mission and values
3. Paint the future
4. Be the eyes and ears
5. Engage through conversations
6. Be audience-centric
7. Learn to listen ‘louder’
8. Develop a point of view
9. Teach your boss to tell stories
10. The importance of signals
11. Prepare properly for public platforms
12. Learn, rehearse, review, improve

5. How has social media changed things?
• It hasn’t really – the best practice principles
above are still the same
• Social media is not a sales/advertising tool, it
is a relationship/influence tool
• This is the ‘thought leadership’ part of PR
• BUT we need to adapt what we do in terms of
media training/relations and speech
coaching/writing to the digital age

6. The upside and the downside
• We can now publish our own content so don’t
always need to go through the media and other
intermediaries to have a say on something
BUT
• It is even harder to stand out and be memorable
because there is so much content out there and
people have to come and find you

7. So, how do we need to adapt?
• Brands can gain influence using social
media, but they can’t gain #expertpower
• People buy people and people want to engage
with real people online – they expect a ‘face’
• Experts need to be bought in and trained to
be social media savvy - good communications
skills are more important than ever
• Original content is king – you need to produce
lots more of it!

8. The challenges
• It is very difficult to manage
reputation, messaging and consistency when
individuals are given responsibility for their own
online profile
• There needs to be a culture/mindset of
collaboration and openness for long term mutual
benefit, which can be difficult in some sectors
• Some experts just won’t have the right
personality for social media, which will make it
very difficult to ‘teach’ in a genuine way

9. The opportunities
• Technical experts who might find it difficult to get
up on a podium and talk at a conference or give a
media interview may feel more comfortable
behind the computer screen
• The speed and conciseness that social media
demands forces you to translate expertise into
the simplest possible terms
• ANYONE can gain influence using social media –
your expert doesn’t need to be in a position of
great power to gain #expertpower online

10. The role of PR in gaining #expertpower
• Provide training, guidelines, templates and policies
that empower rather than restrict them
• Help experts translate what they do into engaging
language and ghostwrite/create compelling
multimedia content – blogs, tweets, videos etc
• Break things down into bitesize, shareable chunks
• Coach them in online relationship building – LinkedIn
etiquette, responding to tweets etc
• Proactively monitor online conversations/trends
• Identify the people they need to get in front of then
help them to stay ‘front of mind’

11. #Personalbranding – just a buzzword?
• No.
• It’s not just for celebrities and
ego-maniacs!
• And it doesn’t just have a role to
play in job hunting
• They will only gain real influence online if they
can stand out – personal branding will allow your
clients and colleagues to carve a niche for
themselves and be memorable
• It is just making the most of what they already do

12. The corporate brand vs the personal brand
• Individuals hold all your brand’s #expertpower
but that doesn’t mean that they should be ‘on
message’
• You can have a range of different
spokespeople with different specialisms/areas
of expertise but they all need to be tied
together somehow
• Give them brand guidelines which help
maintain consistency of look/feel/tone/style

13. 5 tips for giving your experts ‘the power’
1. Tease out the ‘gems’ – technical people
often don’t know which bits of what they
do is actually interesting to others
2. Get to know their personality and
understand their tone of voice
3. Develop a personal brand strategy for
them which is aligned with the corporate
brand
4. Get their buy in – demonstrate the
business case, show them real life
examples and take them on the journey
5. Give them one-on-one, tailored coaching

14. Case study: Blacks Solicitors

15. Case study: Armstrong Watson

16. Task #1: Your expert’s power in a tweet
• Used to be an ‘elevator pitch’, now it’s how can your
expert commentator get noticed in 140 characters
• Come up with 140 characters for your expert that gets
across their ‘power’ and personality

17. Engage with us!
Follow @engagecomms @helenmarygill
Find us on LinkedIn
www.engagecomms.co.uk/blog
Download the slides from slideshare.net