Author: citizen

Being named as the “Best Agency to Work For” in 2023 in North America by PRovoke Media (Mid-Size category) brings a number of words to mind – proud, thrilled, excited, etc. However, this recognition really reflects the agency’s dedication and a whole lot of work from every Citizen to build a positive and inclusive workplace culture that empowers its employees to thrive and achieve their full potential.

“We are so honored to receive this acknowledgment from PRovoke Media,” says Citizen’s CEO, Nick Cowling. “It’s another attribution to show our strategy and commitment to invest in employee growth and development.” Citizen Relations had a phenomenal year in 2022, achieving its best financial performance in history with +20% growth. 

The vibrant employee culture Citizens have come to love dates back to 2011 when the agency adopted its current name. Commitment to putting employees first shows up in every aspect of the organization and was reflected in the agency’s best-ever employee engagement survey score in 2022. With a focused approach to development, approachable leadership, work from anywhere policies, and meaningful work, Citizen continuously strives to create an environment that breeds collaboration and professional and personal growth. 

The agency’s approach to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) also contributed to their award win, with a focus on identifying disparities in promotions, mentorships, and suppliers. Citizen holds regular global town hall meetings, encourages collaboration across offices, and has increased connections across offices through a range of global committees, COEs, and ERGs. With 40% of its staff being diverse, and its executive team comprising 50% women, 29% BIPOC, and 15% LGBTQIA+, Citizen Relations is proud to be making progress toward a more inclusive workplace.

According to feedback from the award survey, Citizen culture is described as “welcoming,” “supportive,” and “inclusive.” The people and leadership were cited as the best aspects of working for the agency, with one employee stating, “We have an amazing culture and family environment. I’m comfortable being myself and speaking up.”

The Best Agency to Work For win comes amongst an unprecedented list of accolades Citizen has already received in 2023, including multiple award wins from the Innovation SABRE awards (North America), The Applied Arts Awards, the Atomic Awards, the IABC Ovation Awards and The Clio Awards, along with shortlists (winners still to be announced) from the North America SABRE Awards, the PRCA Awards, the Canadian Event Awards, The One Show, The ADC Annual Awards, The Webby Awards, the PRWeek Global Awards and finally, Campaign Global PR Agency of the Year.

This is not another post challenging you to do more marketing via creators (people whose business is creating content as their own brand) or via others with influence like key opinion leaders or celebrities. I’ve been in this space for years and recognize marketing with creators is more complicated than doing it  yourself. Creators have to be sourced, vetted, contracted, briefed, reviewed, approved, amplified, measured, and paid. That list doesn’t phase my team – we have CREATOR in our titles – but I can’t fathom all the other tasks begging for your attention every day in marketing and communications.

Instead, this is a post challenging you to ask, “Do I really need to do any more influencer marketing? What is strategically missing from just using an AI service to generate a brand post about baseball, targeting that to baseball fans and shutting my laptop for the day?”

Specificity in an influencer marketing channel strategy is unlocking vastly different creators, different briefs to creators and different results.

1. You need reach

It’s the most popular answer to why a marketer needs influencer marketing so if that’s your answer, welcome to the club. Why then are there 9 more things worth reading? Because when you evaluate the ballpark organic influencer marketing creator cost of $10 per thousand followers and that content might be seen in your market by 30% of those thousand followers, this organic influencer marketing reach could cost 300% more than buying paid media. You’ll likely agree the reason thousands of brands pay that premium is because this reach fills another of your needs below.

2. You need engagement

A runner-up to reach in answer popularity. Partnering with most sizes of creators does have a higher average engagement rate than brand ads.so it’s completely understandable this is what you want from creators that you’re not getting from the AI baseball post. The caveat to discuss is that in influencer marketing studies from Meta, Nielsen Research and others, a 4% engagement rate versus 2% has no correlation to higher awareness or conversion from the other 96% of people. Engagement rate might be best as a proxy metric for one of the other 8 strategic needs creators can fill and not as the sole reason you worked late last night approving next month’s creators.

3. You need insight into diverse communities

You’re not 100% sure how your brand fits into the language and behavior of a unique and increasingly niche community. Someone who leads that community will translate for you into the spaces where that community thrives, some of which you’ve never heard of.

4. You need creativity

You need your communications to have a more memorable idea than competitors and creators can sing, chase trains, paint like a good boy and other creative magic.

5. You need credibility

Often referred to as the more vague authenticity, you need the audience to know someone has credibly vetted your product or service. Credibility can come in the form of expert credentials appropriate for your message or just a believable personality with less skin in the game than your marketing team. 

6. You need relatability

Also part of the infamous authenticity of creators. You want the audience to consider your product because they realistically or aspirationally relate to the persona and humanity of the creator.

7. You need efficiency

We produce brand assets for many of our agency’s clients with creators who don’t publish the assets to their followers. They know the platforms, they’re agile, they’re available at different experience levels in all time zones and millions of them are trying to grow their content creation business from a side-hustle to full-time.

8. You need off-page SEO

You need better backlinks from third parties and more mentions of your brand in the spaces your audience is searching. Creators aren’t just posting fun videos dancing on street corners, there are partners who can collaborate on blogs, discords, subreddits, 500 character tweets and other indexable assets to increase your digital footprint. 

9. You need web3 innovation

Roblox. Augmented Reality. NFTs. Creators are experimenting and learning every flavor of technology you want to test and learn.

10. You need attention

In a world of skippable digital ads, this might be the need added to reach that gets you the most return from creators. You need to earn the audience’s attention long enough to understand your message. Makes sense to partner with someone to humanize your message who’s trying to make a living by monitoring trends and persuading thousands of people to not scroll past.

11. You need ________

Stare at your audience insights and ROI long enough and you’ll get an 11th need for creators you’re not getting elsewhere. Probably something concerning legal or your boss’s kid wanting to meet a celebrity.

So despite all of the data showing the incremental value of influencer marketing organically and in paid advertising, growth might not be doing more of it. It might start with re-evaluating how it complements that fantastic baseball post. Once you do or if you would like to do so with a team to hit a home run, let’s chat at citizendigital@citizenrelations.com about how we can help.

I did say upfront that creator was in my title how did you think this was going to end 😎

Note: Special thanks to ChatGPT, a language model developed by OpenAI, for providing valuable assistance with some elements of this blog post. 

About The Author: 

Neil Mohan is the new SVP, Creator Marketing at Citizen Relations. He has held prior roles in creative technology adoption and creator marketing at Meta, Edelman and Ogilvy. Sign up for his upcoming LinkedIn Live here.

The future of the internet is here. With Web3 quickly incorporating elements such as blockchain technologies, decentralization, increased data security/privacy, and much more, some brands are struggling to keep up with the pace and ensure their plans include modern ways of thinking.

The Citizen digital team, dComm3, is staying ahead of the curve and already has insight into what is coming up next. From predicting the jobs coming up in this space to what social media channels may not make it to the end of the year, they’ve shared their expert insight here. Meet our team and their unique, provocative ways of thinking in this space.

Drop us a line at citizendigital@citizenrelations.com to chat more.

February is Black History Month (BHM) in North America. This year’s official theme,  Black Resistance, highlights how Black communities continue to resist systemic oppression in North America while taking action towards racial equity. 

At Citizen Relations, we provided $50 to each Citizen in North America to spend at a Black-owned business during BHM. Citizens were also able to access initiatives organized by Plus Company and the Black Employee Resource Group (BERG), including educational content focused on the impact of systemic racism in our communities, workshops on anti-Black racism, as well as opportunities for Black employees to connect on a variety of topics. 

We recognize that celebrating Black communities and anti-racism and racial equity work has to go beyond the month of February. We also acknowledge the role that communication agencies have played in perpetuating biases, stereotypes and racism. Lastly, we recognize the power we have to highlight stories and shape conversations that promote racial equity and anti-racism in our communities and create equitable and inclusive workplaces. 

We are committed to: 

• Increasing representation of equity-deserving communities in our workplace by addressing barriers and biases in our recruiting, interviewing, and onboarding processes as well as our work culture. 
• Utilizing an intersectional lens to foster an inclusive, accessible, and anti-racist workplace where all Citizens feel a sense of belonging. 
• Tracking and reporting on supplier diversity to ensure we support businesses owned by equity-deserving communities. 
• Embedding EDI and anti-racism lenses in our client work from ideation to implementation.
• Highlighting Indigenous, Black and other racialized influencers, creatives and business-owners in our work.

Search behaviors have seen unprecedented shifts in the past year. Zero click behaviors and voice search results are continuing to rise. Position 0 content is gaining importance to overall search rankings. Emerging search engines like TikTok and Instagram outpacing Google usage for younger audiences. We think search is the most important thing you should plus-up this year. Are you looking at new search approaches?

Have you looked at your backlink profile recently?

Off-page search and the rise of high-authority backlinks driving quality clicks to your brand website and other owned platforms is a great place to double down and boost your digital ecosystem design. Utilizing influencers and earned media outside of big social and leaning into enduring search optimized content formats like Reddit, forums (i.e. WikiHow, Quora), and YouTube can boost your authority and help you gain share of search.

Maybe it’s time to stop giving all the content to Meta, Google, Twitter, TikTok?

Organic and owned content is making a come-back and hosting your own community, forum, or blog is a great way to not only showcase your brand’s expertise. It not only allows you to build search authority and new entryways to your brand, but also puts you in control of a whole new ream of data about your audience, what they care about, and how they talk.

Are you speaking brand or are you speaking human? And was that written by a robot?

Understanding user intent and utilizing natural language processing (NLP) models can help you identify the white spaces in the search landscape for your brand. The move to develop content that speaks the language of the people and indexes for real search has been supercharged with open-source AI tools like GPT-3, now baked into automated content generation. 

At Citizen, we know how to meaningfully engage with our client’s owned and earned communities. We build organic content and linking strategies that drive a halo of highly optimized brand SOV.  We can leverage real-time data to help us mine for brand moments, become more relevant, better understand communities and improve a brand’s authority online across search, social, media, and influencer. 

Interested in how you can reapproach search this year? Reach out to us at citizendigital@citizenrelations.com to start the conversation. 

About The Author:

Cara is a seasoned marketing & technology professional and integrated strategist, with over 15 years of experience. She co-creates, packages, and operationalizes innovative and digital-first marketing capabilities and products.

Global communications agency expands digital services and significantly grows team to accelerate the impact of earned media

New York, N.Y. (February 1, 2023): Today, global communications agency, Citizen Relations, announced the expansion of its global digital capabilities. Boosting earned with the power of digital, their strengthened integrated service enables the agency to influence audiences more effectively, with more personalization, performance and dynamic content to better connect marketing, sales and data. 

“While Citizen has been providing social and digital communications services to its clients for years, we felt there was much more to be done,” said Nick Cowling, Citizen’s CEO. “We wanted to build an offering that would drive conversation surgically, bring our campaigns to life online in a truly connected fashion and deliver performance like never before –  our new digital team is doing just that.”  

Led by Crystalyn Stuart-Loayza, Citizen’s Chief Digital Officer, Citizen calls its new brand of digital “dComm3”, which brings together a growing team of 15+ technical experts across strategy, activation and intelligence, embedding digital across the way earned programs are built, executed and measured – ultimately bridging brands into what’s next in web 3.

“Our brand of digital communications challenges convention with innovative solutions in four key ways, “ says Stuart-Loayza. “To start, we’re building next-generation content performance and effectiveness models boosted with orchestrated tech and high automation for faster, more effective ways to communicate.  Secondly, we’re leading in off-page search, bridging Citizen’s conversation know-how with user intent to capture greater share of market and voice. We’re also leading the next generation of social with owned communities and a new breed of web-forward community engagement for more digital intimacy and value. Finally, we’re focused on evolving the influencer marketing landscape with entirely new models that bridge media buying, affiliate, social algorithm hacks and a new breed of creator collaborations for clients seeking solutions in this growing category of influence.”

dComm3 has already begun to seamlessly orchestrate modern solutions for Citizen clients, including Molson Coors, and is actively acquiring talent that bolsters the agency’s capability across the following categories:

Citizen’s evolution aims to digitally enable and empower its clients to achieve better communications results today,  test and learn from new collaborations/models and solutions and push the boundaries as the digital world rapidly changes. 

Citizen’s digital communications team (practicing dComm3) is led by: 

• Crystalyn Stuart-Loayza – Chief Digital Officer: Crystalyn is a passionate digital transformationalist with over 20 years of experience in digital marketing, focused on helping brands supercharge programs with digital. She’s been an early social media pioneer and leader in digital content and is currently a specialist in building interactive experiences. 
• Cara Peckens – SVP, Digital R&D and Technology: Cara is a seasoned marketing & technology professional and integrated strategist, with over 15 years of experience. She co-creates, packages, and operationalizes innovative and digital-first marketing capabilities and products. 
• Laura Brown – VP, Digital Strategy: Laura brings 15 years of experience in advertising and public relations agencies. She leads teams to develop digitally-led creative communications campaigns, channel plans, influencer marketing campaigns, paid media plans, community strategies and content development
• Daniel Sendecki – VP, Performance Content: Daniel is an award-winning print, digital and content strategist for B2B, B2C, and D2C brands. Bringing nearly 20 years of experience, Daniel has a proven history of establishing and supporting revenue and profitability through strategic content development.

To learn more about Citizen’s digital offerings, visit our digital page.

It’s 2023, and I still think about that Geocities website I made in the 90’s about Sailor Moon. (And before you ask, yes it did include fanfiction). With guestbooks, webrings, and Yahoo Chat in tow, I was able to find my people and geek out about our shared passions in our little dark corner of the internet. It was the best; I had community-driven destinations where I knew I could find exactly what I was looking for, and nothing else to distract me. 

All of a sudden in the mid-2000s, we were met with tools to not just connect with IRL friends and expand our niche online tribes, but literally anyone with an internet connection and enough know-how to create and utilize a social media account could broadcast whatever they wanted. This shift from 1-to-1 comms, to 1-to-few comms, to 1-to-many comms came on so quickly that we all picked up some bad communications habits along the way – both as humans and as marketers. And now, all this time later, I think we need to return back again to those good old days of organic community and content that the World Wide Web initially promised us, ironically enough to stay modern as how we find connection on the internet evolves. 

Here are three modern ways we’re thinking about organic social communications at Citizen in 2023 and beyond: 

New Platforms Without Ads Require New Ways to Outreach

How will you speak and be spoken to on emerging channels and communities?

In a more decentralized world of social media, where creators monetize goods directly and platforms don’t have stabilized ad models yet, organic dialogue is the only way for brands to join the community. To authentically engage in Web3 spaces, one might consider game builders, avatars, even XR builders to communicate on our brands’ behalf, but first and foremost as a community member rather than as an advertiser.  

Over-Reliance on Paid Has Limited Organic Narrative Building

How can you better integrate organic content into your production mix?

Brands have over-indexed on paid reliance and organic narrative building can be just the supplement to boost performance on investment. We’re all pros at developing and maintaining marketing funnels that drive action, but what about those organic communications funnels that drive affinity and word of mouth? In 2023, we’re reminding our clients about those who have already chosen to follow our brands in social media and build many awesome things to reinvigorate their brand love, wherever they may roam online. 

The Evolution of Search Requires Natural Language Organic Content 

How’s your owned content narrative?

Sometimes in PR, we work with clients who swear they don’t have any “new news” to share, which they’re concerned could impact their newsworthiness and search ranking. In order to own their share of search, brands need stronger, natural language-driven organically-built content. Specializing in organic search engine optimization in platforms like TikTok, Instagram, GiPHY and Pinterest where more Gen Z/Alpha audiences are seeking to discover is growing more and more important. As is building organic content and linking strategies that drive a halo of highly optimized brand share of voice. 

At Citizen, we help build, protect, and drive reputation and share of voice through innovative digital communications strategies that are forged with PR-know-how and are Web3 ready. And we want to know, Is your big bet for 2023 reinforcing your organic content strategy and production model? Reach out to us at citizendigital@citizenrelations.com to start the conversation. 

About The Author: 

Laura brings 15 years of experience in advertising and public relations agencies. She leads teams to develop digitally-led creative communications campaigns, channel plans, influencer marketing campaigns, paid media plans, community strategies and content development.

 Having just passed the classic January PR moment, Blue Monday, we can acknowledge that many of the things we were going to give up, either didn’t happen or haven’t made us happy. So, what can we, as communications professionals, do more of moving forward that will set us up for success in 2023? Here are five easy things we can all start doing more of today. 

1. Listen: clients need our ears right now. They need us to understand the environments they’re operating in (whether internal, competitive, regulatory or political), their challenges, audiences, channels, sometimes their colleagues, other times their hopes, fears or personal circumstances. Listening is how we build relationships, how we show we care, how we understand and it is what leads to conversations that count. Take the time to listen to what your clients need to say. If you’d like to know more about the power of a great listener, listen to this.
2. Laugh: now is the time to bring the joy. We should bring our sense of humour to work, daily. My colleagues know that I love the phrase, “it’s PR, not ER”. If you can’t find lightness and joy in your daily working life, something’s wrong. Every relationship benefits from the presence of humour and that includes our client and colleague relationships. Bring joy to brainstorms, to the client calls, to the office kitchen and the team zoom. Check out HBR for more on the benefits of fun at work. 
3. Question: for me, curiosity is a comms professional’s best friend. It is at the heart of creativity. It propels us to innovate, to iterate, to build and to grow. And in this era of misinformation and disinformation, there’s no better time to question the source of the information you’re consuming. So let’s question our beliefs, our assumptions, our experiences and see what a different perspective might unlock. Need help? Check this out.
4. Replenish: we all need to build our resilience. Another phrase I love, “you can’t pour out of an empty cup”. Much has been written about the state of exhaustion that people are in right now following the whirlwind that was 2022. This is going to be a tough year professionally and personally for many, emotionally and financially. Take the time to fill your cup – do what rejuvenates you. Book your time off, take the time off and recharge. Your creativity, patience, listening skills and humour will thank you for it. Some useful tips on how to build resilience here.
5. Serve: we’re in client service so let’s think about how we serve – both our clients and our colleagues. It means focusing on the needs of others, before you consider your own. Acknowledging other people’s perspectives. Giving people the support they need to meet their work and personal goals, involving them in decisions where appropriate, and building a sense of community. Happy outcomes include higher engagement, more trust, and stronger relationships. If you’re interested in knowing more about servant leadership, read this. 

Welcome to Citizen Insider, a monthly blog where you’ll get a chance to hear from one of our Citizens. Today, Toronto Account Director Nancy D’Souza shares her ex-pat holiday reflections.

The holiday season always makes me reflect on everything that I’m grateful for.

Last month marked my one-year anniversary since moving to Canada. It’s been a fantastic, eventful year, made even better in the last six months since joining the team at Citizen.

My husband and I packed up our lives in Dubai into 12 big boxes, we sold our car, canceled our phone lines/bank/hydro accounts and moved 11,000kms to the other side of the world. We’re not the only ones to do so – Canada welcomes millions of immigrants each year – and yet this experience was so overwhelming for me, and straight-up paralyzing.

Ever since I was in my early 20s, I grappled with the question of “where is home”? Is it a place? The streets where I grew up? Or is it a feeling? Where you are always welcomed, no matter what.

I was born and raised in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) with an Indian passport. Since 20 years or so, the city has become well known for many superlatives – like the biggest, largest, tallest, fastest. It has most recently been in the spotlight for TV shows like the Real Housewives franchise and Dubai Bling. Many people have asked me: Is it really like that over there? Yes AND No. Yes, it’s extravagant, the beach clubs and brunches, with gold faucets and luxury cars being the norm. On the flip side, it also has a simple, hardworking people that come from all races and socio economic backgrounds – much like Toronto, which the shows do a terrible job of not showing. Growing up there, I was exposed to so many cultures, and it was the most fun, fulfilling 30-something years of my life. So why leave, and why now?

For the many things that are wonderful about Dubai (like no income tax – yet!), the downside is that the country doesn’t grant permanent residence or citizenship, even to those who were born there and have lived there their whole lives. Like my parents who moved to Dubai from India to live and work in their 20s had to leave when they retired at the age of 65. Can you imagine what that’s like? It’s not great. There’s a whole generation of “third-culture kids” from the UAE. Those of us who were born in one country, have the passport of another, and are in search of somewhere to call home.

Whenever I’m asked what brings me to Toronto, I pass it off as saying “I moved for greener pastures”, or that “I moved here to work and make a living”. But reality is I’m an immigrant, just like the 400,000 others who moved here in 2021.

And I feel so lucky to have been welcomed by all.

I’m daily in awe of the many conversations we have at Citizen about inclusion. I’m inspired by the eagerness of colleagues to understand and educate themselves on the advantages of having a certain passport, or the privileges that come with being a certain race. It’s hard to imagine why someone would pick up and leave behind their family and friends, work, everything they know and love, for a one-way ticket to the unknown. And yet here we are!

One year in, I’m happy to say that the journey has been wonderful. Not a day goes by when I’m not ooh-ing and aah-ing at the simple pleasures here that many might take for granted. Like clean air, nature, walking, and snow. Yes! Even the snow. It’s been a real joy exploring the city, building a life, and trying to find my tribe. Assimilating to the local culture (GO Raps!), learning the nuances, and sharing some of mine. Any interactions I’ve had, big or small, have been rewarding in more ways than one. And for that, I’m grateful.

If home is where the heart is, in the most literal sense, if it’s how a place makes you feel, then I feel welcomed, and blessed, and I’m so glad I’ve found a new place to call home.

We’re thrilled to be selected for The Message’s “Top Of The Year” lists for 2022 and are the only agency to be featured twice – a perfect way to wrap up this last year!

Two of our campaigns were featured in:

The Message Mighty List: Our Favourite Creative of 2022 – Cheetle in Cheadle for Cheetos

The Message Mighty List: Our Favourite Causes of 2022 – ReclaimYourName.dic for Elimin8Hate

Both these campaigns embody what Citizen stands for all while pushing the boundaries of creativity. We’re incredibly proud of this work and the teams that made it come to life. 

As seen in The Message. Click on the links below for the original articles:

The Mighty List: Our Favorite 2022 Creative

The Mighty List: Our Favorite People and Causes of 2022