Tag: PR Agency

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 16

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Raleigh PR Agency, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , ,

While I was fortunate enough to land a job at a Raleigh PR agency prior to graduation, many of my friends and classmates are still searching for full-time employment. The job market is tough right now, and job openings don’t necessarily match up with the timing of graduation.

www.hubspot.com

With so many recent graduates unemployed, looking for jobs is extremely competitive. So, what can you do to make yourself stand out from the crowd? According to my Hubspot e-book, Learning LinkedIn from the Experts, “LinkedIn is one of the most powerful resources online to market yourself.”

Whether you are trying to become more influential in your industry, get more leads or clients, build your brand, drive traffic to your website or find your dream job, LinkedIn is one the most influential tools you can use. Here are just some of Hubspot’s top tips on how to use LinkedIn to market yourself.

1. Give before asking for favors. One of the best ways to give back to others on LinkedIn is by making recommendations. The more you recommend others, the more they will want to be helpful in return, especially if you weren’t asking for a favor. Introducing two connections you think would benefit from each other is another great way to give back.

2. Connect with everyone. Don’t limit yourself to only having a “small trusted network.” You never know where an opportunity will come from, so don’t limit your connections. Add a link to your LinkedIn profile to your email signature, business cards and other social networking profiles to encourage people to connect with you.

3. Use advanced applications to promote your own content. Add advanced applications to create a full profile that showcases your abilities. If you wrote a book, add the Amazon application to display a picture of your book and a link that takes anyone interested directly to the Amazon page selling it. Or, add the WordPress application to your profile to link your connections directly to your blog.

LinkedIn is a powerful asset for building a strong professional presence and standing out from the crowd. But, just having a LinkedIn account isn’t enough. Staying active on the site and employing some of the suggestions listed above is essential. Does anyone else have any tips on how to improve your LinkedIn profile? I’m going to take one of Hubspot’s suggestions and start adding my personal LinkedIn link to my different sites. You can connect with me here at: http://www.linkedin.com/in/margothorgan.

Read More

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 13

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Public Relations, Raleigh PR Agency, , , , , 2 Comments on My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 13

 

10th Annual Gingerbread Benefit

Triangle Family Services’ Gingerbread Benefit isn’t until November 29 at the Umstead Hotel and Spa in Cary, N.C., but planning for this annual benefit is already well under way at Clairemont. The event’s past success coupled with Triangle Family Services’ 75th anniversary this year means the pressure is on for this benefit to be bigger and better than any other.

It may be only June, but we have been getting into the holiday spirit in the Clairemont office lately. We have been researching and compiling media lists and drafting and editing press releases and backgrounders in preparation to pitch long-lead publications like Southern Living, Bon Appétit and Our State. The best part, though? Researching gingerbread-themed goodies, bags, boxes and folders to use for media kits.

Ideas like gingerbread candles, chap-stick and sticky notes have been suggested, but personally, I’m still looking for gingerbread-scented paper (inspired by Elle Wood’s pink scented resume in Legally Blonde – “It gives a little something extra, don’t you think?”).

After working on these projects and looking at pictures from past Gingerbread Benefits, I almost forget that it’s still only the summer and more than five months until the event. It has shown me how much work and preparation goes into the event months and months ahead of time. It’s an exciting process! I am able to watch the planning, and in November, will see all of the hard work come together into a great event.

Fearrington House chefs created a beautiful gingerbread house for the 9th Annual Gingerbread Benefit!
Read More

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 11

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Marketing, , , , , ,

If you remember my blog from day four on the job, I recently put together several e-books for professional development. This week, Dana has assigned each of us a different one of these books, and I have been reading a Hubspot manual about how to attract customers with Twitter. I’m familiar with recreational Twitter use, but it’s not my favorite social media platform, so I have never really taken it upon myself to do more research into how to use Twitter for business purposes (beyond the basics). 6 Steps to Optimize Twitter for Search was one of the chapters that really appealed to me, and I’ve shared some of the tips below:

Make Twitter pay off for your company with these tips from Hubspot

1. Make Twitter handles spam-free. To ensure that your Twitter page is one of the top hits on Google, Bing or any other search engine, try to avoid using numbers in your user name. Since many spammers’ Twitter handles include numbers (e.g., @Name456781), when Google’s algorithm scans links on Twitter, it often disregards such usernames because it cannot differentiate what is a legitimate username and what is spam.

2. Include keywords in your bio. With only 160 characters to create a valuable Twitter bio, don’t waste space with too many industry keywords. Instead, reflect your business in an accurate and meaningful way that will help improve your search visibility. Also, since search engines often display Twitter bios in the links’ description on the results page, make sure you bio is attention grabbing!

3. Build your reach. Simple concept, but apparently overlooked by many. According to Google and Bing, both of their algorithms check the authority of every user tweeting, so make sure to gain a following for better SEO.

4. Create a special subset of keywords. Make a list of keywords or phrases that your business attempts to rank in search engines. For instance, key phrases Clairemont would want to rank for include “Public Relations” or “Raleigh PR agency.” Shorten longer key phrases and pick a smaller subset of keywords for Twitter. Then, use theses phrases regularly in your tweets to boost SEO.

5. Keep tweet lengths in the retweet safe zone. To ensure that your SEO keywords and phrases are not deleted when another user shares your tweets, give your tweets about 10-20 characters of wiggle room. This keeps those keywords safe from being deleted when ”RT @username” is added to the shared tweet. Plus, data indicates that 120-130 character tweets have the highest click-through rates.

6. Create your own inbound links. Lastly, make your content interesting enough that other influencers on Twitter will retweet it. Both Google and Bing take the value of Twitter authority figures and correlate it with the value of the link. So, the number of followers a user who retweets your content has is important for search engines that are measuring the value and importance of the retweeted link.

Any other Twitter tips worth sharing? We’d love to hear them!

Read More

Reflection, Risk & Rewards

Dana PhelpsBlog, Owning a Business, Public Relations, Starting a business, , , , 4 Comments on Reflection, Risk & Rewards

Seven months ago today — on January 4, 2010 — I walked in and resigned from my position as SVP at the world’s largest PR agency. With no staff, no clients, no office space and no financial backers, I suppose you could say I left to start the world’s smallest PR agency.

 

I’ve read many times that the definition of success for a small business in the start-up stage is simply survival. There are days when the A/C in our office (in a lovely historic building) isn’t working again, and I’m in the floor trying to put together a fan, cursing at the screws that seem to be too short, that seem like mere survival. But those are the exception. Most days, I feel on fire in a way that has nothing to do with the broken A/C.

 

A part of the Clairemont vision from the very beginning has been to blend traditional communications and social media as part of an overall strategy focused on the client’s objectives. As an early mark of success, all ongoing Clairemont accounts have a mix of traditional and social tactics in the plans we have built and are executing for them. We have also been selected for social media projects, including an in-depth social media audit for UNC Kenan-Flagler’s School of Business. (More on that soon.)

 

The Clairemont team continues to grow which is absolutely thrilling to me! We don’t plan to be a small agency forever! Our summer TLC (team, learning, career) interns are amazing & have formed a great team with each other, and I’m interviewing for full-time positions.

 

What I’ve learned in these seven months (in addition to things such as get business insurance before signing a lease, how not to pull my hair out while using QuickBooks and that I have no future as a fan assembler) is that when you own a business, you have to take risks every day. Each day. I guess I thought before that the leap in starting the business was the risk and then somehow, voila, all would fall into place. Nope. I’m also learning — through experience and with the help of my executive coach, when I put an analytical evaluation behind my intuition and gut instincts, most risks yield rewards.

 

Last week, an interview candidate asked me why she should consider leaving her steady job to join a new agency and how could I reassure her that Clairemont will survive. Great question. I’m not interested in how to survive. Only how to thrive. I changed my life because I know that Clairemont will be widely successful and will bring me and my team members much joy in the process. Otherwise, January 4 would have just been another day at the office.

Read More