Carlota Pico recently spoke with Simon Truscott, PR and social media manager at FIS, a global banking software company offering corporate financial and information solutions. Their conversation covered a wide array of topics, such as how to separate great content from good content and recent trends in fintech marketing. Simon also contributed key insights into the public relations industry, including whose voices to amplify and how to measure success. 

You can watch the full conversation in the video above or on YouTube, listen to the podcast on Apple and Spotify, and read our recap below.

Key takeaways

• PR can be used as a defensive strategy—for example, when managing and protecting a company’s reputation. But it can also be used proactively to help consumers, the general public and anyone with an interest in understanding what your brand does. 

• Metrics to determine PR social media success should vary depending on the objective of the content. If you want to drive awareness for a new product, you should look at impressions. However, if there’s a topic you want your audience to interact with and share their thoughts on, you should look at engagement metrics.

• Influencer marketing is an up-and-coming trend in the fintech industry due to the rise of experts and thought leaders in the area. Influencers are chosen based not only on their following, but also their expertise, the way they deliver content and how personable they are on camera.

• Your employees are the best brand ambassadors you have. Amplifying their voices is more authentic than having external influencers talk about your company, and it resonates more with potential customers. 

• What separates great content from good content is a clear and obvious purpose. There needs to be something you want your brand to say, which your audience also wants to hear. Posting content just to be active on social media won’t lead to success.

As a big global company, we have 55,000 employees who are always saying a lot. It’s important to listen and amplify their voices, because they’re our best brand ambassadors.

Rapid-fire recs

What’s a source of inspiration for you?

I think it’s really important to have a passion outside of work that can inspire you. For me, that’s architecture and design. I get daily emails from Dezeen about furniture design, which might seem irrelevant, but I like it for a number of reasons. I love the way they present everything and explain the background of each design, plus I get inspiration from the advertising campaigns they feature.

A valuable resource, event or group?

I recently attended the Nudgestock Festival presented by Ogilvy (online, of course). It had some great insights on topics ranging from behavioral marketing to commerce. They also talked about some of the future tools that can help with consumer targeting, like AI, which I found really interesting.

Connect with Simon and Carlota on LinkedIn.

This post was edited by Rishabh Agrawal, a freelance content creator based in Madrid.

For more insights into employee advocacy:

Human-to-human marketing – Michael Ranmi Akinle, EMEA head of growth at Clari

It’s not about selling, it’s about solving – Oliver Mott from Grant Thornton International

To see the full transcript, click on page number 2 below.