Greentarget

Measurement and ROI

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In this episode of Authority Figures, Aaron Schoenherr speaks with Chandran Sankaran, founder and CEO of Repustar, a novel fact distribution platform that partners with news organizations. The pair will discuss how technology can play a role in fighting so-called “fake news,” and journalism’s pivotal – but changing — role in that fight.

1:23 – Chandran discusses his path to Repustar, what motivated him to found the company and the problems he hopes to help solve through Repustar’s FactSparrow platform.

5:33 – Aaron and Chandran dig deeper into how the FactSparrow platform works and how it functions as an AI bot.

10:24 – Aaron asks Chandran about the reliability of FactSparrow’s sourcing, which is based on principles of good journalism.

16:01 – Chandran details how FactSparrow acts almost as a focus group, spotting topics that are potential areas of misinformation and disinformation.

18:14 – Aaron asks about Chandran’s monetization plans.

19:59 – Aaron and Chandran discuss how corporations might use the tool and consider the evolving importance of corporate responsibility in the era of fake news.

21:48 – Chandran discusses how social media companies, especially Twitter, are more in the business of checking the integrity of information.

23:24 – Aaron and Chandran discuss Greentarget’s 2021 Fake News report – and Chandran reacts to journalists’ perspectives on who is best positioned to combat misinformation and disinformation.

29:55 – If journalists aren’t a complete solution to combat fake news, what else can help?

33:08 – Chandran discusses why he’s hopeful, despite the challenges brought on by fake news.

36:35 – How news activists fit in, in Chandran’s eyes.

39:26 – Does fact-checking have a diminishing impact?

Click here to download Greentarget’s 2021 Fake News report.

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Even with a contentious presidential election and the worst of COVID-19 behind us, journalists say the fake news situation isn’t getting better. And they don’t know how to address it.

But if journalists don’t know how combat fake news, who does? That was the focus of Greentarget’s 2021 Fake News report, which was released in late October.

In this episode of Authority Figures, Aaron Schoenherr sits down with members of the Greentarget team – including Betsy Hoag, Director of Research and Planning, Lisa Seidenberg, Vice President of Media Relations, and Paul Wilson, Vice President of Content and Editorial— to discuss the report and its findings. The team discusses how fake news can be combatted, what role regulation might play and how we can prepare the next generation to face the challenges presented by fake news.

Episode Highlights:

1:00 — Betsy describes the background behind the report, what went into devising the survey questions, and who answered them

4:26 — Paul defines fake news and discusses the term’s polarizing nature

5:47 — Acknowledging fears of journalism’s delegitimization, Lisa goes over what clients should take away from this year’s survey findings

7:37 — Betsy and Lisa talk about how survey respondents’ political beliefs challenge preconceived notions about who is affected by fake news, and how to counsel clients in such a polarized environment

10:23 — Paul and Betsy try to get at the heart of journalists’ hesitation to amend Section 230

13:40 — Lisa and Paul speak about how to engage journalists amid the fake news controversy, and what journalists can do to combat fake news

19:30 — Betsy, Lisa, and Paul examine the psychological impact of consuming a fake news story, and share their own experiences with fake news

25:39 — Knowing that trust in news media is at an all-time low, Betsy, Lisa, and Paul contemplate ways to prepare their children to navigate the fake news landscape

Click here to download Greentarget’s 2021 Fake News report.

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The growing problem of fake news – specifically, misinformation and disinformation – isn’t going away. If you’re not convinced by your own experiences, just ask a journalist you know.

In recent months, that’s exactly what we did – 103 journalists, to be exact, in our second Fake News survey. For the second straight year, the results aren’t pretty. Here’s a quick sampling of journalists’ sentiment when it comes to fake news:

  • 93% say they strongly believe or somewhat believe that fake news negatively impacts journalism
  • 84% agree that the term “fake news” is contributing to the delegitimization of traditional journalism/news sources
  • 56% believe that fake news is more dangerous than no news
  • 14% think their own work has had a significant impact when it comes to combatting fake news
  • 9% think media literacy efforts have had a significant impact
  • 6% think Big Tech’s monitoring of social media has had a significant impact

Like we said, it’s not a pretty picture. The following report analyzes this year’s results, provides important context for our current moment and – we believe – offers some hope that journalists might be overlooking.

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Amid a saturated media landscape, many thought leaders struggle to get their insights in front of key audiences. Organizations like global consulting firm BRG have turned to a host of owned-content channels in recent years. But even then, it’s difficult to stand out.

One such effort by global consulting firm BRG was ThinkSet Magazine, which launched a few years ago as a way to elevate the voices and perspectives of the organization’s thought leaders. But, in 2018, BRG wanted to increase the publication’s effectiveness – and turned to Greentarget’s award-winning Content & Editorial team for help.

Solution

Greentarget began the engagement by reconfiguring the magazine’s editorial strategy, starting by creating more compelling content. ThinkSet also became a digital-only product, phasing out quarterly print editions to focus more on online audiences. Just as importantly, Greentarget turned its attention to optimizing ThinkSet content for search, by including keywords in headlines, ledes and subheads – and even using search-engine optimization (SEO) techniques to come up with story ideas.

These efforts began in early 2019 and continued through the first half of 2020, before pandemic-era budget considerations limited new ThinkSet content. But that pause, and eventual return, of regular content provided an unusual opportunity to judge the effectiveness of the SEO work of the previous 18 months.

Results

Traffic for ThinkSet peaked at the end of May 2020, right as content was reduced. But far from falling off a cliff, traffic remained fairly constant thanks to the lasting effects of Greentarget’s SEO techniques. The content that had already been produced using those techniques continued to draw readers through search, avoiding a precipitous drop in readership.

Then, in late 2020, Greentarget resumed ThinkSet content production, employing the same SEO techniques. By spring 2021, traffic had returned to nearly the levels seen in spring 2020. With search-optimized content now appearing regularly – and buoyed by articles from the past two years that continue to perform well — ThinkSet is poised to set new highs with its traffic.

More importantly, BRG thought leaders are better positioned as true authorities in a wide variety of subject areas.

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  • Greentarget secured more than 40 media placements for RBC Global Asset Management’s Responsible Investing Survey in outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Chief Investment Officer, Financial Times and The Globe and Mail.
  • The report was viewed over 5,500 times on the survey microsite.
  • Social media posts about the report garnered over 225,000 impressions.

Challenge

As responsible investing continues to gain traction among investors, one big question remains: What is its material impact on the risk and return outcomes of investment portfolios?

RBC Global Asset Management (GAM), an established leader in responsible investing, firmly believes not only that institutional advisors can realize better long-term performance with environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors integrated into their investment processes – but that active managers who understand ESG will have a competitive advantage.

RBC GAM’s leadership thus saw this continued uncertainty as an opportunity to both elevate its brand and help educate its institutional audience.

Solution

Greentarget and RBC GAM conducted a survey of institutional asset owners, financial advisors and pension consultants to research the current state of responsible investing. The survey results would educate industry stakeholders, empowering them to make more informed decisions about integrating ESG into their investment processes

To that end, RBC GAM’s marketing team worked with its vice president of corporate governance and responsible investing as well as several senior portfolio managers to craft the survey questions. Nearly 800 financial industry professionals from the U.S., Europe and Asia participated, and their responses revealed a compelling divergence of views about the value of ESG on investment performance.

Greentarget and RBC GAM’s subject matter experts analyzed the results. Greentarget’s content team edited the survey report and a blog post series that highlighted specific topics from the survey.

From there, Greentarget’s media relations team went to work promoting the report through earned media.

Impact

Greentarget’s media relations team secured over 40 pieces of news coverage and 131 million impressions on the survey results. Placements included top-tier business publications like The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and Financial Times.

The survey report itself was viewed more than 5,500 times on the company’s microsite, which was built exclusively for the survey launch. Meanwhile, RBC GAM’s global responsible investment website, microsite and ESG videos were viewed by over 3,500 people during the campaign.

Paid and organic LinkedIn and Twitter posts garnered over 225,000 impressions and over 2,000 click-throughs.

As a result of Greentarget and RBC GAM’s joint efforts, the survey report and promotional campaign won the Public Relations Society of America’s Silver Anvil Award in the B2B Integrated Communications category.

More importantly, the institutional investor audience now sees RBC GAM as an even stronger thought leader in the rapidly growing responsible investing space. 

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