Category: Entry-Level PR Job

The Benefits of Having Your Business “In the News”

Margot HorganBlog, Clairemont Client News, Entry-Level PR Job, Hiring a PR Firm, 2 Comments on The Benefits of Having Your Business “In the News”

In addition to helping Clairemont clients get in the news, we love to help them merchandise their media hits. We’ve found that many organizations understand and are excited about the benefits of media exposure itself (awareness of the company, getting the attention of potential customers, increasing employee morale — just to name a few), but don’t typically think about what can be done with the story once it has been published, posted or aired. Below are a few of the many ways you can merchandise your news coverage and further maximize your PR budget:

awards-wall
Some of Clairemont’s awards displayed in the office.

By capitalizing on news exposure, your business can:

1. Compile publicity articles and material into a book that you can show to prospects, clients or investors. A publicity book or press book provides an easy way for these audiences to see who you are, what you do and what you are capable of doing. Showing that your company is newsworthy and credible will help reinforce why your company is desirable to work with compared to your competitors.

2. Many publications present awards in various categories. If you have won publication awards, feature them on your website, social media and advertisements. If you do not have any of these awards, you should work for them! Publication awards establish superiority over your competitors and third-party credibility for your work.

 3. Promote articles written about your products in your advertisements. This makes your ads more credible. In advertising your company and products, referencing previous publicity (i.e., “As seen in Southern Living Magazine…”) you are referencing good things that others have said about you, which can help establish credibility with consumers.

 4. Send articles to industry opinion leaders. Consumers value what opinion leaders say or think about a product or company. Many view them as “in the know” regarding their field of expertise. Sending opinion leaders articles about your company and its products forges a positive relationship with them, meaning you are more likely to get their free word-of-the-mouth promotion.

 5. Include your published articles on your website and share through social media. Articles serve as valuable content for your website and your social media channels. Make sure the articles are easy to access. Give article summaries so visitors can quickly get the message without having to read the entire document.

 6. Use your articles to get more publicity. Carefully! Sharing one outlet’s story of your company with another news outlet can be risky. It can cause the second editor to say that the story has already been done. However, done in the right way, existing coverage can reinforce your newsworthy-status and potentially help the editor think to see the value of another story idea about your company. Perhaps more effective than directly sharing coverage with other news contacts is building a strong base of media coverage that can easily be found online for reporters who might decide to research your company in consideration of covering it. We often see this to be the case with our clients who are growing into having a regional or national story. When we pitch that higher-tiered media contact, chances are, he/she will Google our client. We want the results to show steady local and perhaps trade coverage.

What are the ways you merchandise your news coverage? For more ideas, leave your email address and we will send you our complete list.

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Concentration is Key in a World Full of Distractions

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Free Advice1 Comment on Concentration is Key in a World Full of Distractions

A new year brings new challenges and resolutions for every one. With my long list of goals I wish to accomplish in 2013, one of the most important is to improve my concentration – whether in social situations or work-related assignments. To put it simply – I want to be more present in the now.

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While today’s world of new media and technology surely makes life much easier in many ways, especially by providing means of entertainment, it also enables us to become more easily distracted. Here are a few tips I have found to be effective in helping improve my concentration in a world full of diversions:

  • “Be a parrot” – Put what you hear or read into your own words. In conversations, repeat what the other person said into your own words. This will help clarify exactly what is being discussed. Likewise, when reading or studying, re-writing information into simpler terms will help cognition.
  • Limit distractions – Don’t constantly have your cell phone attached to your hip. Checking your Facebook or skimming your Twitter feed can easily eat up a large chunk productivity time. Be more conscious to set aside time for personal tasks after your work is completed.
  • Make a to-do list – It’s easy to become consumed and distracted with a day’s long list of tasks. Instead of worrying about what you need to accomplish in a day, it is much easier to write everything down by order of importance. Put the most important tasks at the top of your list and create a time frame for when each task should to be started and completed.
  • Highlight – Highlighting key points helps you engage in active reading. By focusing on the main points, you can more quickly understand and recognize purpose behind the material.

Do you have any tips to share?

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Facedeals: Facebook Check-In Future?

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Marketing, Public Relations, , , , 1 Comment on Facedeals: Facebook Check-In Future?

Facial recognition for social media – creepy or creative? A Tennessee-based ad agency is banking on the fact that its new platform called Facedeals will be useful enough for fans to overcome their hesitation of facial recognition technology.

Employing cameras and facial recognition scanning, Facedeals automatically checks in a patron to a location on Facebook and then texts personalized deals to his or her smartphone. Based on the idea that Facebook check-ins are an extremely valuable function, albeit underused by businesses and consumers alike, Facedeals strives to make checking in at locations easier in addition to making the deals consumers get more enticing.

http://vimeo.com/47133014#

Despite its namesake, Facedeals is not directly affiliated with Facebook at this point, and the social site’s users still have to opt in to the platform and create an account through their Facebook profiles to cash in on the deals.

After user backlash, congressional scrutiny and even an investigation by the European Union, Facebook halted its efforts to use and expand facial recognition technology on its site. But, when the site does decide to employ facial recognition technologies again (which we all know it will), Facedeals could prove to be a very valuable asset – and in more ways then one.

If Facedeals incorporates with Facebook and becomes widely used, the data alone the platform will be collecting on each of its users will be extremely valuable to Facebook, businesses, advertisers and search engines. Which, all leads me back to my first question: Facedeals – creepy or creative?

Join the conversation and share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Have You Heard the Buzz About the Fuzz?

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , , , , , , , , , 1 Comment on Have You Heard the Buzz About the Fuzz?

Social media has forever changed the way brands interact and communicate with consumers. Today, Clairemont intern Callie Henson tells us how she has embraced the power of new media in her PR courses, internships and class project –  The Fuzz. 

I’ve always been the kind of person who loves social media. At first, it was more for my personal use – but now, I am fascinated with the power and influence new media can bring to a brand.

Over the past few years, I have been able to get a strong grasp on how to be a successful PR professional through my different internships and classes specializing in public relations. For the past month, I have lead a campus-wide new media campaign at UNC called The Fuzz. And with this project, everything I have learned through my college career has come together – my PR skills and social media skills have worked together  to help create one strong creative branding campaign.

In the New Media Technology and It’s Impact on the Future of Advertising, Marketing & PR class I am taking at UNC Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I have learned all about new media, it’s impact on audiences and the prevalence new media will have in this industry in the future. Gary Kayye, my professor and founder of rAVe Publications, has challenged us to create a new media campaign on campus to truly show what new media can do for a marketing campaign.

The Fuzz is my team’s campaign – and from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and Pinterest, my team has created a strong brand and personality on campus in the past three weeks. Everyone knows, or wants to know, all about The Fuzz. Our campaign uses creative marketing to the max – we have figured out how to put on an entire campaign without spending any money. We have reached out to local businesses, and by supporting them and their social media, the businesses have provided us with donations and prizes.

UNC student Julia Shearer shows off her winnings from The Fuzz local business partner, Caribou Coffee

“Five years ago, the idea that students would able to take mostly free new media technologies to organically create a marketing project of this scope and with this level of community involvement would have been unimaginable,” Kayye said.

This marketing campaign has opened my eyes to all the possibilities of new media technologies and what it can do for any business. Social media has brought the power of voice back to the brand. No longer do you need to rely on a reporter to get your news and your story out there.

We got our story out there on our own through different social media channels and self-publishing news websites. For example, I was even approached by Susanna Gebauer, the founder of the exploreb2b.com social platform, to write a story about The Fuzz for the global communications news source based in Berlin. And, from my time at Clairemont, I’ve learned about different self-publishing news websites like The Third Report, All Voices and Pitch Engine. We even have a Huffington Post story in the works…

The Fuzz has allowed me to put my PR skills and lessons-learned to the test. And, so far, I think I’ve passed. As for today, our YouTube page has nearly 2,000 views total. Our followers on Twitter and likes on Facebook grow everyday. And most importantly, the Fuzz is truly buzzing around campus. Everyone wants to know the buzz about The Fuzz. Have you heard the buzz about The Fuzz?

http://youtu.be/NbxNa9nGhV0

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The Gift Economy

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Marketing, Public Relations, , , , , 1 Comment on The Gift Economy

If you remember, in the beginning of September, I went to the Content Marketing World (CMW) conference in Columbus, Ohio. CMW is the largest content marketing event in the world, and this year’s conference hosted sessions by more than 70 speakers. Our intern, Callie, watched the video recording of one of these sessions and shares her thoughts below on the talk, “The Gift Economy: Content as Social Currency” by Mark Boncheck.

Everyone uses the gift economy one way or another. During a lecture at Content Marketing World, Mark Bonchek of ORBIT+Co described the gift economy as something given without payment in return. He explained this through the example of paying friends with pizza and beer when they help you move to a new house. Obviously, you cannot pay a moving company with pizza and beer, thus creating a gift economy with social currencies. The social currency is when something is given or exchanged to establish or reinforce a relationship.

Bonchek furthered his point by explaining the differences between a market economy and a social currency. A market economy is all about the act of buying and selling, transactions, prices and supply and demand. In a market economy, the obligation is finished when there is a transaction. With social currency, the focus is on many to many and peer to peer. The social currency is all about enabling and empowering by connecting people together rather than persuading and promoting.

Finally, Bonchek tied it all together by combining the social currency concept with the idea of currency in traditions. By finding what already connects people, one can use that tradition in combination with technology to connect more people. Kraft did this with a sharing recipes online campaign, using the tradition of sharing recipes and cooking tips to connect its large fan base.

It’s such a simple concept, that it can be difficult to enact. But, if you can manage to think of that simple idea and break into a real, transcendental, traditional relationship (like paying friends with pizza and beer for helping you move; or exchanging recipes among friends and family), one can create a social currency for its brand.

Have you ever used the concept of social currency for a client or campaign? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

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