The Matchbox.

Nov. 04

5 Tips for Bolstering Byline Success

Even if you have a full pipeline of corporate news to share, byline articles are a cornerstone of any successful PR program. They build thought leadership and instill stronger credibility with your target audience. The key is to generate hard-hitting topics and place them within priority publications. Here are five tips for making your company’s byline articles a success.

1) Consider the Source – Executive level professionals are best suited for byline opportunities as they have the most experience and will come across as established industry leaders. However, junior contributors shouldn’t be left out – they may support article development or appear as co-authors.

2) What’s in a Title – Pay close attention to the headline. The editor’s first impression will depend on whether it is a compelling topic that will pique their audience’s interest. Keep it concise and pack it with punch!

3) Offer Real Takeaways – Articles that offer lessons learned, tips and best practices for readers to apply in their own situations are better received than ones that simply discuss topics. While you may think readers need a deep baseline education to understand a topic, it is much more effective to briefly set the scene and then offer analysis and takeaways.

4) Bring It to Life with Examples – Nothing backs up great advice than real-world examples. Either characterize the examples without divulging their identities or ask the companies you’re spotlighting for permission to include them as named examples.

5) How Many Words? – You may have a book’s worth of information, but if an editor requests an 800-word article, deliver a piece that comes pretty darn close. Prioritize which points are most important, e.g., focus on the top five tips instead of the top 10, and pare down unnecessary dialogue.

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Oct. 28

Three Cheers for the Y&A Staff

Admittedly, this is a self-promotional blog post. But I need to give a big shout-out to our tremendous Y&A team. The year has been filled with major client wins, client successes and yes, some disappointments. Meggan Manson (a methodical strategist and my co-pilot), Eve Sheridan (a consummate PR pro ) and Jennifer Mirabile (a media bulldog) are a testament to the spirit of our agency. Tenacious, passionate (yes, we are very passionate which sometimes drives our clients crazy but they love us for it in the end) and a drive to “kill it” attitude, the team is a cohesive unit that believes in our unique style and our clients’ vision.

We’ve all made mistakes this year – if you aren’t making mistakes, you aren’t trying. But we sit back, learn from them and always ask, what could we have done differently and what can we do better next time. The beauty of the Y&A staff is that everyone has their unique personality and perspective and the collective sum meshes beautifully for the benefit of the agency, and ultimately, our clients.

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Oct. 21

Lights On, Camera Rolling: Broadcast Interview Tips

As we’ve had the pleasure to coordinate an increased amount of broadcast spots recently, we thought it was time to revisit a few tips for television spokespeople.

1. Prepare in advance: Read the talking points that you’ve developed (or your team has provided to you) prior to speaking with a reporter, but don’t memorize.  Reviewing a set of messages before the interview will keep your organization’s key points top of mind, but it isn’t necessary to recite.

2. Keep it simple: If this is a taped interview, reporters are typically looking for a few short sound bites to weave into their stories.  Keep your answers quick and concise as this makes the reporter’s job easier during the editing phase and prevents you from rambling.  This tip applies to live interviews too.

3. Dress to impress: Let us be vain for a moment when we tell you that appearance counts when it comes to broadcast interviews. Take a look at your attire closely before you are interviewed on camera.  We always recommend a solid color shirt, no busy patterns and please don’t pull out any duds purchased in the ’70s or ’80s.

 

4. Be yourself: As a PR professional, I am walking a fine line with this tip, but be yourself.  Try not to reach for answers that you think will sound good on air.  Instead, try to have a natural conversation with the reporter.

Yes, getting ready for broadcast interviews requires a bit more time than the average interview, but the exposure and benefits they can bring your organization are worth the extra time and preparation.

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Oct. 06

Balanced Social Media Posts: Curators vs Self Promoters

Social media dominates today’s media headlines, but companies are still struggling with the right balance of social media content/posts. Eric Boggs of Argyle Social, a social media dashboard tool, addressed this issue last week at Digital East. Argyle analyzed 150K+ social posts from 1K+ customer accounts to evaluate how three types of social media posting strategies fared in clicks and conversions. They compared:

  • Curators: 75+% of posts link to third-party sites
  • Balanced: 50-75+% of posts link to third-party sites
  • Self Promoters: 50+% of posts link to own site/created content

Overall, the findings show that Self Promoters generate fewer clicks (17 clicks per post) and a Balanced approach drives the most conversions (.95 conversions per post). Boggs said the Balanced companies with the best conversion rates are posting 40% curated content and 60% created/promoted content.

I believe it also has to do with the quality of the curated content. As it is sometimes tough to find good social media content to share, here are a few tips:

  1. Post your PR results. Share press releases and positive news stories.
  2. Search your own keywords for relevant coverage and set up Google Alerts for articles on the topics most appropriate for your company/product.
  3. Don’t be afraid to share an article that includes your competitors.
  4. Think outside the box. Don’t just post about what your company does. Include complementary posts relevant to your audience.
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Sep. 28

What’s Behind Facebook’s Latest Changes?

We’ve all seen the commentary about the latest Facebook changes announced at the f8 conference—including the much-hyped Timeline that chronicles a user’s entire existence on the social platform—but what’s really behind them and how will they impact personal and business users?

It’s clear that Facebook is moving toward self-selected data categories, e.g., classifying groups of people (a huge differentiator of Google+ with Circles) and designating who can access status updates or photos. Additionally the news feed now reflects a class system rather than appearing chronologically, with the most engaged Facebook users’ posts showing up as higher priority than Aunt Mary’s occasional posts.

How will Business pages be affected by this change? If a business doesn’t make it into the priority feeds of its Facebook members, then its posts may be shuffled into the smaller, harder-to-read chronological ticker—thus weakening a company’s ability to stay socially connected with its fan base. To combat this issue, businesses will need to ensure a strong affinity with fans by paying close attention to Facebook’s “EdgeRank” algorithm.

From the looks of these changes, I’d say Facebook is greasing the skids for a major monetization step. It had a goldmine of rich user data before, and with further targeting, that data’s value just skyrocketed. And although still under privacy protections, users will now only be asked once by Facebook apps for permission to share stories, potentially freeing up more user data sharing. Further, with Timeline automatically highlighting users’ most exciting or emotionally-charged posts photos/videos, apps they’ve used, and where they’ve been, Facebook profiles are morphing into each user’s life story—offering a clear understanding of their preferences and aversions…and translating into valuable marketing data ripe for the picking.

FbTimeline

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Sep. 13

NBC News Twitter Account Hacked

On Friday afternoon, two days prior to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, NBC News’ Twitter account (@NBCNews) was hacked and tweets falsely reported that an airplane had crashed at Ground Zero.

Due to the prompt response by NBC News notifying Twitter, the account was deactivated and only a small amount of NBC News’ 130,000 followers likely read the tweet. However, the anxiety caused at such a sensitive time was unnecessary and raises the issue of social network security again. (Fox News’ Twitter account was also recently hacked.) It is shocking that hackers were able to easily take over a major news outlet’s account when reportedly only three NBC executives have the password.

NBC handled the situation by making an apology on the “NBC Nightly News,” and tweeting/posting online that the information was false and that their account had been hacked.

Watch NBC News’ Brian Williams Issue Apology

Twitter and Facebook are wonderful tools for communicating.  I can’t imagine doing my job today without them.  However, their security features must be closely examined and upgraded to avoid misinformation. Additionally, news outlets need to revisit their security protocol when it comes to social media.  If not, communications professionals and journalists will need to seriously reconsider how they share news via social media channels while protecting the news’ integrity at the same time.

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Sep. 09

Who’s the Perfect Client?

Today, Young & Associates enjoys a diversified mix of clients – some are fast growing, others well established and known in their space, and others are trying to get there (aka tech start-ups). Over the years, we have experienced a multitude of client styles and personalities – the evangelical, the bully, the peacemaker, the workaholic, the cheerleader, etc.

During new business conversations with the entire staff, we often get around to discussing the client profile and “what makes the perfect client”. Is it the client that pays the largest monthly retainer? (BTW – That does weigh in pretty high). The pleasant lower-paying client that values and understands PR, what it can and can’t do for them and has realistic expectations? Or the clients that are clear from the on-set that they need an aggressive six-month engagement that might lead the agency into a new industry niche, but the client will likely run out of money so don’t count on them sticking around much longer?

Of course, this isn’t fantasyland. No one is perfect, but some clients do come pretty close. The ones (regardless of their fee) that are willing to listen, take the team seriously as professionals and strategists, are upfront about issues/challenges and acknowledge a sound media victory win out in my book. What’s your perfect client?

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Sep. 07

A is for Apple, Back to PR 101

A chill is in the air. The one that comes with back-to-school, the start of football and a summer-to-fall closet switchover. What a perfect time to revisit some PR 101.

What is PR? At its core, PR is a visibility and reputation building tool. Business professionals that aren’t familiar with PR often have the false belief that PR should and will quickly shine the spotlight on their company resulting in extreme growth. This type of fate is the exception, not the rule, and is reserved for extremely unique companies – think Facebook, Groupon, Google, Apple. While a long term strategic PR program can help influence your sales, PR is not designed to be a solo lead generation or traffic building effort. Also, the product or service must be strong enough that the people you do reach via PR share the product with others and continue to use it.

Some potential clients claim they don’t have any news. I don’t believe it. What may not seem like news to you may be big news to another party that is trying to learn about your industry or organization. While media will not cover every press release written, sharing press releases (at a reasonable interval of time) helps companies stay in the public eye. Reporters today rely on the Internet for news sources so it is important to put your press release on one of the newswires. Even if you don’t have traditional news, e.g., a new client, product or executive, think about ways to package your go-to content in tips, trends or success stories.

Lastly, your PR team can’t work in a vacuum. Like most outsourced services, PR needs an internal advocate – someone to share the company updates, strategize with and help prioritize based on the organization’s needs. Whether hiring an agency, consultant or employee, make sure they have an internal counterpart/project manager/leader that understands the business and market and can share the company’s challenges and goals.

Accepting these PR truths will help you be realistic and know what to expect from your PR program.

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Sep. 02

Email: Where Is It Going?

Recently, I told a friend in his early 20’s I would email him some info, he looked at me strangely and said, “Oh, send it to my Facebook, I never check my email.” Curious, I asked him if most of his friends had abandoned email. “No, some have work-related accounts but most communication is by texting, Facebook, and some Tweeting.”

Observations only go so far but MediaPost’s Email Insider has some research to back up a growing trend that email has less a dominate role in the communications mix, particularly for teens. Although 44 percent of the teens participating in the research believe email will stay around, it is thought of as “professional” with 41 percent assuming social media will bypass email. The remaining 15 percent don’t know or care.

For public relations/advertising and marketing professionals targeting youth, this is just a continuation of an alignment of “traditional” email communications with social networking programs. With “72 percent of adults on a social network”, I argue that all email marketing no matter the age group must have social networking components.

As with all communicating strategies, determining your program objectives, audience/s and message/s will lead to a multi-faceted and on-target plan. In today’s world, no matter the age group, the plan needs to include social media.

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Aug. 22

“The Situation’s” PR Situation

When Abercrombie & Fitch asked Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino and the rest of the “Jersey Shore” cast not to wear the company’s clothing in exchange for payment, headlines took off. Then came the clever rebuttal from MTV, tweet responses from Sorrentino and fellow cast mate DJ Pauly D, and even a five-minute segment on NBC’s Today Show.  The situation (sorry, couldn’t resist) was clearly a PR stunt, but was it worth it?

While Abercrombie & Fitch took some heat from “Jersey Shore” fans and the company’s stock price coincidentally dropped during the same time period, Abercrombie still made out with a tremendous amount of press and brand visibility. The immense attention drawn to it, and the follow-on events—including the CEO jokingly bringing it up during the company’s earnings call—have brought Abercrombie into the brightest spotlight that it has enjoyed in a long time.

While PR stunts are always a risk for fallout or generating shallow perceptions about a company, some do work in a company’s favor. Abercrombie seems to have played its cards right. Calling out a high-profile, controversial reality show in connection with its brand piqued widespread interest across young mainstream consumers—Abercrombie’s target buyer audience.

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