Tag: Raleigh PR Agency

Best Practices for Facebook Timeline

Josephine ButlerBlog, Marketing, Social Media + Influencer Engagement, , , , , , ,

As Margot mentioned earlier, one of the ways that Clairemont team members work on professional development is by reading. I’m constantly seeking the latest and greatest when it comes to social media and public relations. Recently, I had the chance to review an e-book from our friends at Hubspot entitled, “New Facebook Business Page Timelines,” and I wanted to share a few best practices with you.

1)   Think visual! With the integration of timeline comes the opportunity for visual storytelling. The most popular pieces of content are usually photos and videos. If you’re looking for an example of how to tell you company’s story, we recommend checking out the Thomasville Furniture Facebook page. We worked closely with the Thomasville team to collect old photos and milestones for the page. Because the company has a rich history, the options were nearly endless!

One of our favorite milestones from the Thomasville Facebook page.

2)   Use a logo for your profile picture. This is especially important because it visually associates your brand with any sponsored stories or ads that you run.

3)   Turn your featured apps into compelling calls-to-action. Because Facebook did away with welcome landing pages, you can now showcase your page’s content using the apps toolbar in the upper right-hand corner. I really like the idea of using text-based images because it allows you to explain the app’s features or benefits to users. Here’s a great example of a call to action:

Hubspot’s compelling call to action!

4)   Pin new promotions every seven days. When content stays fresh, engagement will remain steady. I actually recommend pinning things for three days or less, if possible (similar to my recent advice about Facebook advertising).

5)   Publish more than once a day. Previously, brands didn’t want to post more than once or twice a day because when you bombard fans with too many posts, they’ll unlike your page. Nowadays, the algorithm for users’ news feeds has changed. If you’re not posting several times a day, your content is getting lost in the feed.

Again, these are just a handful of tips that I found helpful. If you’d like to read more, you can find the e-book here: http://www.hubspot.com/guide-to-new-facebook-business-page-timelines/.

Any more tips to add? We’d love for you to share!

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

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Days 9 and 10

Margot HorganBlog, Entry-Level PR Job, Public Relations, , , , ,

A little more than two months ago, I was still an intern at Clairemont, but as a full-time employee, it is now one of my responsibilities to help manage our three new summer interns, Erin, Erica and Emily (our “E” interns). It has taken some getting used to being on the other side of this relationship, but I’m finally feeling more at ease giving the directions instead of taking them.

Of course, managing interns has taken some practice, and I haven’t always been the best leader. It takes time to delegate and explain tasks, but in the end, having these women in the office has been a huge help, and they make such a great addition to our team! Here’s a little list of the top things I have learned from our interns:

  • Don’t forget to check in and make sure they have work! Just last week, I left one of our “E” interns without a task. Our interns are quick workers so don’t forget to keep track of their progress!
  • Interns are invaluable when it comes to completing a seemingly endless to-do list. Many hands make light work!
  • Our interns have introduced us to a lot of great new apps. With so many apps available, we love new suggestions to help make our lives more convenient and fun!
  • I’m not as good at explaining things as I thought I was. I might know how to do something, but not necessarily explain the task very well to our interns. This is an on-going lesson and work in progress!

When I was an intern, I didn’t realize how much I helped with day-to-day tasks, but in hindsight, I can see how much interns really do contribute to agency work. We are very lucky to have Erin, Erica and Emily working with us this summer. Keep posted because we will be introducing each of them to you in our blog over the next few days!

Read More

My First 30 Days at a Raleigh PR Agency: Day 8

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

At Clairemont, we focus on blending traditional communication and social media to provide our clients with monumental results. So, knowing what is the next big thing to hit the social media world is our job! But with social media and technology changing everyday, it can be a challenge keeping track of all the newest social crazes.

Sites like Mashable and PR Daily do a great job of reporting on industry news and are a good reference for social media updates. According to a June 6 article on PR Daily, the video version of Instagram is an up-and-coming contender for the next popular social networking app. Here is its list of their top 10 Instagram-for-video apps to watch:

1. Viddy. Of all the new-breed video-sharing options out there, this is the one that looks and feels the most like Instagram. It has all the features you’d expect, including Facebook Timeline integration. If celebrity interest is any indication, Viddy might become the “it” platform. For some mind-bending content, check out Britney Spears’ channel (only available on iPhone at this stage).

2. SocialCam. This is the other “hot” video-sharing app at the moment, thanks in part to the team behind another popular video-based service, Justin.tv. The “leaderboard” function shows you who has the most followers on SocialCam, which at this point is led by The Roxie a “SocialCam Rockstar.” It’s available on iPhone and Android.

3. Klip. This should have been called Klipstagram or Klipterest, because it is the closest to a mash-up of Instagram and Pinterest you’ll see. It’s another iPhone-only app, except you do have the ability to connect Klip with YouTube or upload directly from Klip.com (something that Instagram has avoided).

4. Looplr. A combination of the first three apps profiled here, Looplr allows for simple “shoot, share and watch” capability from your phone, supported by that familiar Pinterest-style viewing interface on the Web.

5. Tout. Tout is a little different from the first four; it’s more of a “Twitter for video sharing” app, enabling users to upload 15-second video status updates. Ex-NBA star Shaquille O’Neal was one of the first big names to join Tout (under the direction of Amy Jo Martin, a.k.a. Digital Royalty, one of sports most respected digital marketing experts).

6. Veetle. This is slightly different from the others in that it focuses on “live video broadcasting” among your social networks as opposed to recording and then posting (in a similar fashion to qik.com).

7. MyVidster. Again, this one is slightly different because it started as a Web-based video-bookmarking service, but it has recently launched a mobile app to allow sharing on the move.

Instagram for Video apps

Social video discovery specialists

There are a few similar Web-based apps that focus more on discovery than creation, which shouldn’t be overlooked.

8. Shufflr. While this is available on mobile, the most interesting element of Shufflr is the Facebook integration that sits within your profile and serves up your daily video fix based on your interests.

9. Chill. One of the more recent talked about Web apps, Chill borrowed some inspiration from Pinterest and made video content sharing more “personally social” than the behemoth YouTube.

10. Frequency. This Web-based aggregator brings video content together from professional content creators such as BBC, ESPN, and the NBA. It’s hard to categorize this one, and it does feel similar to the current YouTube interface.

Does anyone have an account on these apps? I’d be interested to know which ones everyone is using. I think I’m going to download Shufflr and give its daily video feed a try!

Read More

This One Time at Brand Camp…

Dana PhelpsBlog, Professional Development, , , ,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zBvrHkCWc&feature=relmfu

This week I’m attending my first Summer Brand Camp, a conference hosted by People Report for people in marketing, operations and human relations, in the restaurant industry. Having worked with several national restaurant brands and franchised operations, it is really fun to be here and feel like I’m part of the inside circle of such a passionate group of people.

Here are some of my favorite things that have happened at Brand Camp so far:

  1. The first night, as a total newbie in this group, I went into a room with about 15 other people and wrote a song. As a collaboration exercise led by Banding People Together, this was the perfect icebreaker and a wonderful way to learn more about my fellow campers and the challenges they face in their daily jobs. In a short period of time our “band” named George Clay Michael and the Summer Brand Cramps created a hard-driving song with a lot of angst about the communications struggles that occur between departments and colleagues. Watch the video to see for yourself how the words “shut your big mouth,” a hug and meowing can all come together in one song.
  2. One of the absolute best stories came from two guys, Jason Lauritsen and Joe Gerstandt, who talked about how difficult it is to always be authentic during a time when the words authentic and authenticity  have turned to buzzwords. Jason and Joe encouraged campers to work hard at being original and for people and brands to shake their tail feathers and fly their freak flags. The story they told was about a doctor they both went to for vasectomies. (I’m telling you, these folks at Brand Camp REALLY share a lot.) Picture Dr. Sloan who comes in for the procedure with a “Surgery for Dummies” book under his arm as he asked the nurse (in front of the patient) “Was this the vasectomy or the sex change?” The point is, you might not think of a doctor as being funny and perhaps a tad inappropriate, but that’s who Dr. Sloan is. He’s authentic, and being his patient was a memorable experience. And Jason and Joe endorse him everywhere they go!
  3. Simon T. Bailey challenged the campers with defining their Vuja De moments. You know what deja vu is, right? Well Vuja De is when you say, “I haven’t seen it yet, but I intend to create it.” How do you know you are getting close to having a Vuja De moment? You start becoming uncomfortable with being comfortable. Wow! That gave me a flashback to the moment I decided I wanted to open a Raleigh PR agency. Simon offered some other interesting thoughts including this: A job is something you are paid to do. Creating a moment of brilliance is something you are made to do.
  4. William Tincup, Bryan Wempen and Craig Fisher talked about the importance of having a social framework versus a social strategy. The energetic and interactive discussion about how to let your audience influence your online engagement and asking the question of “what are you trying to do” before deciding which tools seemed like a page out of the Clairemont playbook. Such validation to hear these highly regarded experts in the HR industry — a different space than PR — reinforce the advice we give our PR clients about social media and overall communications.
  5. Christopher O’Donnell told an inspiring, funny and motivational story about becoming the CEO of Famous Dave’s. My favorite part was when he was in a company meeting and told the founder, the board and the franchisees, “I am the CEO. I’m Christopher O’Donnell, and I am the CEO. CEO’s are hired to be leaders, and that’s what I plan to do. I plan to lead.” Then he went to his office, locked the door, took a couple of deep breaths and said, “Oh, shit.” Great example of the responsibility you accept when you take on a leadership role.
  6. Marc Buehler, president of O’Charley’s, said the answer to the question of, “How do you turn a business around?” is simple…. go back to what made the company great. Why did people love it in the first place? I’m going to be honest, I’ve refused to eat at an O’Charley’s for a few years now. But knowing that Marc has been at the helm for a year and seeing his passion, I just might have to give it another try.
  7. Realizing that two shout-outs in the same post to William Tincup and Jason Lauritsen will likely fuel their already healthy egos (and you know I mean that in a loving way!), I have to share the link to their performance at last night’s talent show. LMFAO would be proud, don’t you think?

This has been a wonderful learning and networking experience, and I hope I am able to attend Summer Brand Camp next year! Fellow campers, what have been your favorite moments?

Read More