Having A Hard Time Earning Media Coverage? Take a simple stress test!

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young mike phillips

hasn’t written any letters

I recall, as a kid, watching expectantly as the postman marched down the hill to dump copious amounts of letters into our mailbox. After rifling through the stack I was consistently disappointed that none were addressed to me. Whenever I expressed my dismay, my Mom retorted this unwelcome refrain: “You have to write letters to receive letters.”

I think back to this every time I hear someone befuddled with unrealistic expectations for media coverage. After more than a decade in this business I’ve come up with my own smarmy refrain: “You have to create news to receive news coverage.”

To those with great hopes of earning media coverage, and to prevent earned-media hopefuls from having their dreams crushed like an 8-year-old without a pen pal, I offer a simple stress test for newsworthiness.

The three-step test:

1.  Scrutinize: What are you doing that is actually newsworthy? Be hard on yourself.

*  Is your story or product timely?
*  Is it related to a current hot topic or trend?
*  Is it NEW?
*  Will a significant number of readers/viewers be affected by or interested in this news story?

2.  Research: Who will be most interested in your story?

*  Who is your target audience?
*  What media does your target audience consume?
*  Who do you want to cover your story? Have they covered it before? Do you know what types of news they are most interested in covering?

3.  Reality Check: Are you putting a fresh coat of paint on an old idea in a desperate attempt to fabricate a new story angle?

If you’re perplexed by any of these questions, you have some work to do. Don’t despair. Just shift your efforts, do your homework, come up with a plan and make some news.

Easy, right?

7 Tips for Landing an Out-of-State Job

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 by Dustin Nelson

I’ve been no stranger to change this last year. My two biggest changes were graduating from college, and trading a small Montana town for Portland, Oregon.

Anyone who has graduated from college can probably attest to the fact that trying not to fail your last semester of college, while also navigating your first grown-up job search is no small task. Trying to move to another state for said job adds to the overwhelming sensation of tug of war over your impending future.

Luckily, in our modern age, the marvels of the internet allow us to project ourselves into a conference room hundreds or even thousands of miles away via Skype and other video conferencing software. However, there are still several factors to consider when searching for a job or internship out of state. Which is why I now bring you, 7 Tips for Landing an Out-of-State Job.

 

1.) Be Open Minded

It’s easy to get tunnel vision when thinking about the future, but don’t let it happen. It’s important to be willing to say “yes” to opportunities and career paths you may not have considered. In the modern world of communications, it’s difficult to know exactly what communications and public relations jobs entail. Trust that your job may evolve and that you may be best for something you never considered.

2.) Do Your Homework

This is essential. When communicating from far away, the company you are interested in working for needs to know how badly you want it. Research the company so that when the time comes for an interview you can answer the questions in the context of the specific work that company does. It also doesn’t hurt to take notes on potential interview questions beforehand.

3.) Show Your Personality

From first contact, through the last interview, be yourself. I know it’s a cliche, but seriously, do it. Your credentials will speak for themselves and as long as being yourself is the best, most professional version of yourself you’re going to fare much better than just trying to be what you think they want. Most professional jobs and internships require close contact with co-workers and it’s crucial that they like you as a person, not just for the work you do.

4.) Be Available

When looking for a job from afar, staying in contact is key. Companies have a lot of candidates to screen, many of which they are meeting in person. You cannot run the risk of being invisible. Check back early and often. If they send you an email, respond as quickly as humanly possible. And let’s be honest, in the age of the smart phone, there’s no excuse.

5.) Shine in a Video Interview

It’s likely that as a poor college student you won’t be able to travel for an interview. No problem! Skype to the rescue. However, the video interview presents a new set of challenges. Energy and “vibes” are very real, and they’re much easier to communicate in person. Smile and dress the way you would if the interview was in person, this helps keep you in the right mindset for the interview. Just because you don’t have to wear pants, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I’m not kidding, put on pants. Preferably nice ones.

6.) Bring Something New to the Table

In a professional field, most of the candidates for a job have the same qualifications. It’s important to remember that the things that make you different, the skills that may not seem to apply to this job, may actually land you the position. It’s important to find how all of your skills are applicable. For example, I have a background in journalism with a strong focus on writing and editing as well as some event planning experience. When applying for public relations positions, my writing and editing skills were what I sold. These different skills are what set me apart and landed me my job at AM:PM PR.

7.) Have Confidence

This seems like a no-brainer, but there’s a reason the term “fake it till you make it” exists. However, faking will only get you so far. The bottom line is that if you know you’re right for the job, then you are right for the job. If you know it, make sure your future employer knows it.

Come One, Come All

Join the circus as our PR intern!

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~ AM:PM PR holding auditions for summer intern ~

intern cyrk PR

 

The ideal performer has:

★    An understanding of the fundamentals of public relations

★    Strong writing and communications skills

★    Familiarity with all the top social networks and review sites

★    Ability to multi-task, manage under pressure

★    The ability to think creatively

★    A desire to learn, work hard and take constructive criticism

★    The ability to self-manage and work independently or as part of a team

This is a paid internship and your responsibilities may include:

✓     Media relations – drafting press releases and conducting outreach

✓     Drafting blog posts and updating WordPress sites

✓     Social networking engagement

✓     Website analytics

✓     Attending staff and client meetings

✓     Administrative tasks

✓     Jumping through flaming hoops, juggling, clowning around

If you would like to be considered for the internship position at AM:PM PR, please email your resume to Alexis Dane by May 6, 2014.

 

Simple Solutions to Four Public Relations Challenges Facing Entrepreneurs

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Wonder Sauna Hot Pants

Wonder Sauna Hot Pants

One of my favorite things about working at AM:PM PR is that we’re constantly meeting fresh, exciting and creative entrepreneurs who are willing to try off-the-wall tactics to get some well-deserved attention for their cool ideas. Unfortunately we can’t help every brilliant bootstrapped business-baron that marches through our chambers, but we can share some pointers about typical challenges we see facing these cash-conscious capitalists.

Below are four tips for entrepreneurs looking to get some guidance related to common public relations challenges. These are based on four common challenges we observe when businesspeople are trying to bootstrap their public relations efforts.

CHALLENGE: Lack of formal public relations training or experience

Some factors that negatively impact promotional efforts include: improper messaging, poor timing, and targeting the wrong audiences. It’s common to see businesspeople muddling their efforts with inconsistent language, improperly identified promotional goals, products pitched during the wrong time of the year, ignoring relevant lead times for the media, or targeting the wrong media to begin with. These are all obvious challenges for brains marinated in marketing-oriented mindsets, but for the un-anointed, these challenges are breeding grounds for time consuming trial-and-error.

Solution: Spend a little more time researching and thinking about who is most interested in your product and where you might reach them. Pick up a couple of books from the library that explain the basics of marketing and public relations and read them six-months before launching your product or campaign. 

CHALLENGE: Lack of time

Running a business is time consuming, and the nuts and bolts of daily operations often get in the way of the nuts and bolts of your marketing and public relations efforts. It’s important to take time to regularly check in to see if your efforts are in keeping with your 5-year plan, your one-year plan and your goals for the month.

Solution: Find some time throughout the month to visit less-stressful pastures that allow you the freedom to ruminate on your approach. Research upcoming media opportunities related to holidays, anniversaries, celebrations or other relevant dates on the calendar; keeping in mind that media lead times differ between print publications, radio and digital media.

CHALLENGE: Overconfidence

There’s nothing wrong with being confident, but sometimes overconfidence stands between identifying and achieving relevant goals, and obtaining the success you deserve. Think of marketing as you would accounting. Marketing should be planned for as a cost of doing business, just as accounting, production and payroll would be. Too often we see businesses with great ideas, but they can’t afford to tell people about them because they were overconfident in word of mouth. Remember the Harlem Shake? This article points out that you didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral, corporations with marketing teams did.

Solution: Include marketing costs in any business plan or product idea. Whether you hire an in-house public relations professional or hire an outside team of professionals to guide your marketing and public relations efforts, a long term approach will ensure you have properly identified future opportunities. Developing a marketing plan also ensures consistency, budget efficiency and offers a roadmap for meeting objectives. 

CHALLENGE: Keeping pace with communications trends 

If you’re not constantly consuming media and keeping up with the latest trends, you’re missing out on opportunities. Imagine if Don Draper were parachuted into the 2013 media landscape – his ideas would be sexist and archaic (not to mention his daytime drinking habits would be a bit off-putting). During the past five years the media has experienced another sea-change and if you haven’t been paying attention it’s time to get with it, or reach out to someone who has.

Solution: Read the newspaper, magazines and industry-related blogs. If possible, find the equivalent of Don Draper’s grandson. Join us for Speakeasy and present your challenges to the group.

Conclusion: We hope these challenges/solutions are helpful. Feel free to post a comment if you have a specific question.

Other good resources:

American Express’s Open Forum

Entrepreneur.com’s Marketing Strategies & Ideas for Your Business

Keyword (Not Provided) – Google Makes Big Changes for SEO

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– by Cam Clark

The world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) changes rapidly and this week Google announced a dramatic move to secure searches “to protect internet users.”

What does this mean for your SEO efforts?

Analytics programs will no longer be able to tell with which keywords were used to bring a visitor to your site.  

Keyword data has been a very valuable component in SEO because it’s used by developers and marketers to improve the website experience. This, undoubtedly, will make optimizing a site more challenging.

However, Rand Fishkin, Moz CEO, makes a great point, “Any time we see the complexity of our practice is increasing, we also have an opportunity, because it means that those of us who are savvy, sophisticated, able to track this data, are far more useful and employable and important. Those organizations that use great marketers are going to receive outsized benefits from doing so.”

While Google sites privacy concerns, some experts point to the NSA’s Prism project as Google’s main concern though keyword data will still be provided through paid search. Which makes you wonder if this is a sneaky way to get you to buy more Google ads? Or are they truly just looking out for the little guy?

What are your thoughts?

Destination Branding For Small Cities

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A review of Bill Baker’s latest book

At AM:PM PR we like to keep a pulse on trends and thought leadership related to the public relations industry, especially in subjects that we find interesting. To this end we hold weekly meetings we call “PR 3.0” where we invite PR professionals, job seekers and business executives to join us to talk about the latest developments in social media technologies.

However, we take this interest to all aspects of our work and last week I purchased a book by local Portland author Bill Baker titled “Destination Branding for Small Cities.” In this book Mr. Baker draws upon over 30 years experience working in over 25 countries helping communities with their branding and marketing. His book illustrates the case for the destination branding and marketing of small cities and towns.

Interestingly, the book arrived into my possession around the same time The Oregonian published an article saying Bicycling contributes $400 million to Oregon tourism. Do you think this isn’t destination branding? If anything, it’s a warning shot to all bike-related businesses in the region, telling them that they’d better rope themselves into the branding language if they want to take advantage of this large portion of the local economy.

The bike piece comes after a piece from CNN that says Portland is America’s top beer town. Then in the Huffington Post, Portland was cited in a study by Intuit as a top city for female entrepreneurs.

This could all be crazy coincidence, but in reality it’s the result of a successful destination branding campaign that has consciously (and sometimes, subconsciously) been part of the collective marketing efforts of cities and businesses in the region during the past decade. Bike lanes, pet friendly hotels, famous bands, beer tours, distillery row and words like “artisan”, “craft”, “eco” and even our food carts are all under the umbrella of a successful destination branding campaign. It’s successful because the campaign comes from the top down and is adopted by other businesses and organizations looking to take advantage of the media limelight. Further, our regional campaign is based upon an authenticity that builds when families move to the area seeking a quality of life that we foster and encourage in Portland.

I found the book to be thought-provoking and a must read for anyone sitting on the board of a chamber of commerce or related tourism organization – even if you aren’t directly involved in the marketing, public relations or branding committee. It’s important for people to have a better understanding of the principles presented in this book so they act as a resource, team player, or in the case of small businesses – identify the greater destination branding at play, and use it to their advantage.

For more: “Destination Branding for Small Cities.”

Medium: A blogging platform for writers

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Last week I learned about a new social media platform called Medium and was given an exciting directive to explore their new website and report back to the rest of the team. I didn’t know much about Medium going in, other than it proclaims to be based on the belief that the sharing of ideas and experiences is what moves humanity forward. Sounds great!

Truth be told, after several days of exploration I’ve come to the conclusion that Medium is my kind of platform. It’s for the 1% of us that like to write opinionated quasi-intellectual notes on Facebook that unintentionally alienate half of your friends. The best part is that your parents, employers and colleagues haven’t discovered Medium yet, so it’s like Facebook circa 2006 when you could still get away pouring your heart out over the course of an evening (and a bottle of Chianti) with no repercussions.

Medium is currently in über beta start-up mode, but I thought it might be fun to poke and prod around their website with the proverbial stick. The following is what I’ve discovered.

Blogging Platform Reimagined

When I went to explore Medium, I did it from the perspective of their motto, ie, someone trying to move humanity forward, and I was immediately drawn to this post: Stop working (so hard).

medium logoYou don’t have to worry about that, Medium.

But in all seriousness, from what I understand, Medium is trying to reimagine the concept of a blog by making it more socially interactive than current designs allow and by facilitating longer conversations and extraneous dialogue in the process.

It became immediately apparent that this platform is geared towards a certain type of person. You know the Facebook friend who posts cute kitty photos and gets all twisted whenever someone talks about politics, science or demonstrates critical thinking? Yeah, this site is not for them. Medium is more accurately for people who like to write, or those who like to critique what other people write.

Comment Makeover

In a typical blog format (Tumblr, Facebook, Blogger, WordPress) all of the comments on a given post are archived at the bottom of each post. With Medium, the comments are displayed to the right side of the post, which results in a more fluid interaction. When you comment on a given post you can highlight the exact word or phrase you want to comment on, and subsequent users can comment further. This feature makes for more functional interactions with a post, and I like it.

Check this out:

medium image

Formatting blogs

Do you remember how crazy Myspace got when people could add pink backgrounds and floating sparkles and snowflakes to their landing pages causing your Pentium III computer to freeze up? Do you hate it when you arrive at a blog with an orange background with white typeface? Medium has simplified the way people format their blogs by eliminating choice, essentially subtracting a lot of the functional ability and formatting options that you may be used to with other platforms. They also allow only a single headline image for each post. I think this works because it makes their blog system cleaner and easier to read.

Here is an example of what I mean:

medium image 2This is what the blogging tool looks lik

medium image 3You’ll notice the following:

  1. You can only add one image
  2. Your title is large and bold
  3. The body of your writing is in smaller font

That’s it. You cannot change the font, add italics, underline things, create orange backgrounds or add snowflakes to accentuate a wintry theme. This is blogging simplified.

Categorizing Blogs

In the following image you can see that Medium allows you to review posts, and collections of posts (demonstrated below).

medium image 4

You can customize your own collection of posts under the heading “Collections” or if you don’t want to go with the ones that they select for you, you can create your own, which could be a fun way to stimulate conversations about topics that are relevant to you personally. My favorite category is “Armchair Economics” because the topics flatter my unquenchable thirst for knowledge and/or ego.

Who should use Medium?

I’m answering this question wearing my PR professional hat as clients are often asking for the return on investment (ROI) on social media platforms. I haven’t done enough digging around to fully understand Medium’s policies, but if you have a business or a brand that relies on the dissemination of ideas and information to relevant communities, Medium may be a good platform to keep your eyes on.

I’m a little conservative when investing too much time in new platforms – I like to watch others jump in to see how they may be benefiting before I invest my most precious commodity, time. It is unclear to me if writing a blog-like post in Medium will create any less or any more SEO for your brand.

Medium challenges the notion that attention spans are getting shorter or that people require all information to come in 140 characters or less. Medium is embracing the idea that everyone can write long, drawn-out prose, and that there are people out there that want to read your meanderings.

Go ahead, check it out and explore for yourself.  http://medium.com

On branding and social media

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Have you found yourself censoring images, ideas or other posts on social media platforms because you feel they might cause negative feedback from certain members of your online community? This is an example of managing your brand identity, whether you’re conscious of it or not, and many people and businesses have been struggling with the act of branding ever since the first adorable baby animal images started circulating on the Internet.

Make no mistake, managing brand identity on social networks is a difficult task. Additional considerations include when to post, what to post, how to post, where to post, how to respond to criticism or a communication crisis. With all this pressure, some folks are on a personal quest to determine a special formula or to instill a set of rules to follow that will ensure social media success. I don’t know that there really is a secret formula, but I suspect it comes down to one of the first social lessons that most of us learn at an early age: you’ll be far more successful being authentic and empathetic to others, versus a self-aggrandizing type-A loudmouth. In other words, just be real and be aware of your audience.

There have been some pretty atrocious examples of brands and business leaders failing to “be real” on social media and it’s had disastrous (if not amusing) effects on their brand identity. Curiously, many of these missteps have occurred after national or international tragedy, in some ill-advised effort to capitalize on a hot topic of media intrigue. Other missteps have occurred when brands have taken a stance on social issues, temporarily unaware of the people that inhabit their target audience that they’ve spent building over a period of years.

In recent days we’ve seen the following PR disasters:

*  Epicuroius advertising some scones and breakfast treats, tying the promotion into the Boston marathon bombing

*  Eden Foods opposing the contraceptive measure imposed in the new healthcare law (do they NOT know who their target consumer is?)

For a list of more social blunders, check out this article from Mashable. These examples offer a teachable moment for AM:PM PR friends and clients.

We’ve drummed up a list of five additional suggestions on branding and social media to ensure your brand doesn’t follow in these footsteps.

  1. Don’t try to attach your brand to a crisis. I would argue that you shouldn’t do it at all, but some folks have big hearts and feel the need to express their sympathy for a tragic event. If you must, let your audience know that the employees of your business have their hearts and minds in the right place. That is real human emotion and it’s fine to express. Once. But trying to tie a product promotion or sale into a disaster is just gross, and above all, not what a real person would do. Several brands including Kenneth Cole and The Gap have had their brand images tarnished by thoughtless Tweets.
  2. Share information that interests real people.  I like kitty posts as much as the next person, but for brand integrity I try to limit myself. As challenging as it is, I do so because sharing kitty images and related social media memes does nothing for my brand. If I do ten kitty-like posts and then one post related to something business-related, my target audience may have already tuned out (or worse, hidden ALL of my posts).
  3. Don’t oversell yourself. When I was a kid, this guy Jack Roberts was famous in Seattle-area TV commercials for his many, many commercials saying “I wont be undersold.” While his marketing message has stuck with me for 25 years, it’s not an effective strategy for social media. People will get annoyed and tune you out. However, if you get a windfall and want to buy a bunch of TV advertising, give it a shot. Also check out Chuck Curcio for inspiration.
  4. Don’t create alter egos to bash your critics or competitors. Falling under the “be real” requirement, the founder of Dilbert and CEO of Whole Foods have something in common. Both created fake alter egos to praise and defend themselves online, generating some negative publicity for their brand as a result. Here’s a feature in the NY Times for John Mackey, which is usually a good thing, but this time it wasn’t.
  5. Make sure you know your customers before sharing your beliefs. In the case of Eden Foods, CEO Michael Potter (no relation to Harry) obviously had temporary amnesia of his customers when he sued against having contraception covered for his employees. Then he kept digging that hole deeper, as shown in this piece from Salon. You have to be careful when taking political postures that represent your public brand or image.

This is a snapshot of some considerations to keep in mind when branding your online business or persona, based on our observations from recent events. While the platforms are always changing, the same general rules always remain. Be authentic, be real, and in the immortal words of George Carlin’s character Rufus, from Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, “be excellent to each other.”

 

Using video for branding offers ROI

Video Branding – Guest Post by Mikee Shattuck

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By Mikee Shattuck

mikee shattuck logo

 

 

Technology and the rise of social networks over the past decade have put practices used by communications professionals in a constant state of flux. It’s admittedly difficult for organizations to determine which tactics will elicit the greatest return on their marketing investment and it’s common for many small business owners to overlook opportunities that are actually within their budget.

Video is often overlooked due to what is perceived or imagined to be extraordinary costs. However, due to recent improvements and cost reductions in camera and software technology, you can now produce a slick video for a fraction of the price. When coupled with developments in e-newsletter and social media technology, your return on investment with video starts looking pretty good.

Benefits of Video

Brand Personality

Video offers a way to put a personality or personal face on your business, which in turn allows you or your business to connect with prospective customers on a “real” level, if that makes sense.

Demonstration

You can use video to communicate directly to your target audience or to demonstrate: how to use a product, new ideas, your areas of expertise, or the practicality or application of a new product or idea.

Virality

When coupled with social media, a thoughtful and creative video can be shared among audiences through various social media channels – which can actually make it it one of the most measurable marketing tactics too. In Software Advice‘s recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey for 2012 video was shown to be one of the most successful ways to generate engagement through content.

mikee shattuck video chart

 

Video is Popular

Some crazy facts:

  • YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine.
  • More than 1 billion unique users visit YouTube each month
  • Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube
  • 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute
  • 25% of global YouTube views come from mobile devices

Speed and Simplicity

Finally, video is easy for your end user: your target audience. Unlike a well-written essay that requires your target audience to spend 5-10 minutes of brain power to read and digest, a thoughtful video can get your messaging across in less than a minute.

Video doesn’t have to be expensive or take a lot of time to produce, but it does have to be well planned and shot as thoughtfully as possible. Hiring a video producer will help to amplify online campaigns and may share insight and personal connections to your audience in a manner that is hard to reproduce otherwise.

Mikee Shattuck is a Portland, Oregon native with over 10 years of marketing and advertising experience. He offers quality and efficient video production service for an insanely affordable value. Mikee can be reached at: http://www.mikeeshattuck.com

Check out examples of Mikee’s work:

BioLite CampStove from Mikee Shattuck on Vimeo.

Dick Hannah Service Xpress from Mikee Shattuck on Vimeo.

MapleXO Vulture Couture Fashion Show from Mikee Shattuck on Vimeo.

Don't bury your head in the sand. Be prepared for any scenario.

How To Deal With Bad PR

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– AM:PM PR Guest Post

Sometimes things don’t always go to plan though and you get media attention for all the wrong reasons. Here’s how To deal with bad PR.

I have worked for a number of companies that have been very high profile for all the wrong reasons. The worst thing you can do when things go wrong is bury your head in the sand. Also, responding to a question with: “no comment!” makes you sound guilty straight away.

You need to be prepared. Develop a crisis/issues management plan. Think through every possible scenario and develop specific plans, messages and protocols for each. Doing this will make you feel a little more confident when a crisis does happen at 4pm on a Friday and media start calling asking for statements ASAP.

Include protocols for responding to media requests in your plan. Whoever takes calls from reporters should be writing down all the questions so the communications team can craft solid responses.

Often reporters will accept responses/statements via email. If they do, this is the way to go. It eliminates risks of saying too much. If you are asked to call the journalist back then, unless you know the journalist well, don’t go off on a tangent in your discussion. Keep it to the agreed points and don’t add any personal comment or feelings. The old adage about, “nothing being off the record” is very true.

A few more tips when preparing for the worst:

am:pm pr tips

        1. Be truthful and hold your hands up if it is an obvious mistake.
        2. Don’t try and cover things up un-necessarily
        3. Remain calm and definitely don’t get angry
        4. Make statements clear and short
        5. When all has settled down, ask for feedback from the media