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Soulati Media On The Street: Social Customer Service with @AdamToporek

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Soulati Media On The Street comes to you “live” (it was live then) with Adam Toporek, owner/blogger of CustomersThatStick.com. Adam has been featured in this series before from Social Slam 2012, and it’s been exciting watching his progress the last year with his social customer service blog.

Adam now has an e-book you can get free if you sign up for his newsletter, and he comes from the world of franchising (I admire anyone who works in that sector).

See what’s up with Adam from Social Slam 2013!

 

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9 Tips From College To PR Agency

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English: Crouse College, Syracuse University.

English: Crouse College, Syracuse University. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

To say the transition from college to career is easy would be a lie. This new life chapter is rewarding and also a challenge.

Right after graduating from Syracuse University, I took an internship with a PR firm in New York City merely one month later. Within three months, I was hired full time and moved into an apartment. Luckily, my best friend moved came to New York shortly after me; it was comforting to have a small slice of college during this professional transition.

Now that I’m approaching my one-year anniversary as a NYC resident and Stuntman PR employee (June 18th!) I’m much more settled. After spending 2012 sorting out chaos, I resolved to settle into a healthy and happier routine in 2013.

Tips From College To Work

1. Exercise. The first step I took was joining a gym. It had been months since I had really exercised and I knew it would provide a calm I seriously needed. My gym has great group fitness classes so I started going to yoga. I know yoga isn’t for everyone but it has been such a peaceful and necessary thing for me. After a long, stressful workday, it feels great to get a bit of exercise in and let my mind relax for a short while. It’s really a sanctuary for my mental health.

2. Work Hard. Being the low-man on the totem pole, I have a lot to learn about PR. Thankfully, I work in a very small agency and get to work closely with PR professionals who have been in the industry for 10+ years. It’s a fantastic opportunity to be able to learn from them and I will always be the first to advocate for interning or starting your career at a small agency over a large one. There are few things more satisfying that landing a great placement and impressing or gaining your boss’s praise, but that doesn’t come without dedication and hard work – something I am constantly reminding myself of.

3. Keep Learning. I rededicated myself to continuing my education after college. I had taken a social media class my senior year and didn’t want to forget what I had learned or lag behind the ever-developing industry. A few weeks ago, I attended a seminar during Social Media week. After so many months out of college it was great to be back learning from experts in my field and working toward making myself a better PR professional.

4. Stay Connected. During my refocusing, I realized I had grossly lost touch with social media as a means of learning and connecting. I had used Hootsuite during my social media class at Syracuse, and I’ve made it a point to always keep a tab with Hootsuite open and continually monitor my news feeds throughout the day.

It’s been a long ride (though it feels like time has flown by) but I’m excited about the positive changes and challenges facing me personally and professionally. I don’t think I’ll ever have all my ducks in a row but it’s been a happy struggle trying to.

5 Tips For Young Professionals

1. Breathe and relax. Find something that calms you and let yourself forget about the stressors of your day.

2. You’re most likely in an entry-level position and will have to handle certain tasks that aren’t interesting or don’t seem important, but always take them seriously. Doing your work well and efficiently will impress your bosses and earn you a promotion or more responsibility.

3. Work hard, play hard. It’s a common saying for a reason. It’s great to work hard and impress your boss and achieve career goals but balance is essential so you don’t burn out.

4. Seek opportunities to grow as a PR professional and expand your skills. Attend seminars or workshops to stay up to date on the latest trends and advancements in the industry. Blogging, whether you start your own or guest blog, is a great way to continuously fine tune writing.

5. Network. Stay connected with peers from college; they may be able to help you with your job search when you’re ready to move on to another company or can introduce you to more great connections. And of course, always try to be making new connections with professionals who have been in your industry longer than you. They’re an amazing resource for advice and in my experience have always been willing to help you succeed.

About The Author

Alyssa Dupre is an Account Coordinator at Stuntman PR and a recent graduate of Syracuse University. She happily lives in Brooklyn but still wishes it were London where her heart has resided since she studied abroad in the spring of 2011. Connect with her on Twitter @ASDupre.

 

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Streamlining Blogger Outreach With Inkybee

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inkybeeIt’s getting harder and harder for media relations practitioners to earn stories. There is a depletion of journos at print and broadcast outlets, and social media has altered forever the course of media relations.

Where are publicity hungry professionals turning to secure “ink” for their clients?

To Bloggers.

Blogger Outreach

There’s something agencies do called blogger outreach. It’s quite similar to media relations only it’s done with bloggers who may also have a background in public relations. When I get a pitch from a peer blogger, I typically find a way to work the content in to my blog IF it’s relevant.

Gini Dietrich went on a rant yesterday right here on Spin Sucks about how she hates PR people and provided seven tips on how to pitch bloggers better. She’s a PR pro (and I am, too), so that means she gets to say she hates her peers.

What Hugh Anderson of Forth Metrics in the U.K. has been doing is writing a few e-books and great blog posts about blogger relations/outreach. He and his team have made it a topic of choice; so much so that they made a huge announcement late last week about a new platform for blogger outreach two years in the making.

Inkybee

I jumped on the beta of Inkybee to see what his fuss was about, and I stuck around. You know a beta is great when you keep jumping from one section of the platform to the next to poke holes and try to break it. There wasn’t much broken, but I still had questions, so Hugh and I Skyped on Friday so I could get in his head a bit more.

Here’s the gist:

Inkybee is for PR pros doing blogger outreach. You enter in key words and wait for InkyBee to churn the blogs that include your key words in the category you’re seeking. I put in social media just to see if my peer group popped up; more than 1900 blogs were returned via a ranking algorithm to my email box. It wasn’t right away, but I was very impressed with the list.

When you open the home page, you’ll find great tutorials on how to navigate and use the site. The best personal touch is that InkyBee uses personalized sticky notes throughout navigation to share instruction. There are also links to both of the Inkybee blogger outreach ebooks; one of them I already downloaded, and it’s full of testimonials from the field’s leaders – one of them Ms. Dietrich herself.

The lists are awesome and really push you quickly into the task of identifying bloggers with keywords you want in your outreach and even those you’d like to look at for guest posting and business development.

When setting up a campaign, you can track and measure; this step I’ll reserve until I have an active campaign to test.

As with anything just entering beta, there are kinks to work out; I’d say, though, that Inkybee already looks polished, clean and impressive. I encourage each of you to take up the call and sign on to the free beta right now.

Anyone who has tested a product, service or online tool knows it can only get better with real-time feedback. Won’t you please lend yours?

 

 

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Did Anyone Media Train Lance Armstrong?

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Cover of The Power of Body Language

During the station (there were two of them), I was particularly interested in body language, facial expressions, and an earnest apology with sincerity.

What we got was a stone “who” only on occasion succeeded in being sincere. Only once did he tear up and that was when he was speaking about the regret he had for his eldest son. Not once did he look into the camera and speak one to one with any viewer; in particular those he most bullied and abused.

When media relations specialists work with spokespeople, we do what’s called media training.
Everyone is familiar with the word “handler” in political and celebrity circles. That’s the pro who manages the media and turns away reporters getting too close for comfort. That’s also the publicist who has the frontline backdoor role to be on top of current events with a snappy response.

It’s obvious Lance Armstrong didn’t have a handler (they probably couldn’t lie like he did) nor did he have any formal media training.

Here’s what the pros say about Lance Armstrong’s performance (from ):

Lance Armstrong’s Marketability

  • , Sports business reporter, ESPN: “Lance Armstrong doesn’t have any future marketability; it’s over. It was his inspiring story of a cancer survivor triumphing in races that made him marketable. If the wins are not legit, then neither is he.”

Lance Armstrong’s Body Language

  • Tonya Reiman, author, “The Power of Body Language:” This is the first time I ever heard the term “fig-leafed” – he nervously covered his groin with his hands. He was also wringing his hands, crossed his legs, tucked his hands between his legs, touched his face, bit his lip, took deep breaths, and swallowed hard. Tonya says these are all signs of a man under serious pressure and his face showed “so much arrogance and not enough real remorse” which is what viewers wanted to see.

Lance Armstrong and PR

  • Mike Paul is a crisis PR expert quoted in Advertising Age. He believes Lance only partially told the truth. In not so many words, Mike believes Armstrong failed his first crisis-PR move (when “scandal-plagued athletes often do confessional interviews where they come clean and throw themselves at the mercy of the court of public opinion.”)

How To Prepare For Media Interviews

Regardless of whether you’re a “scandal-plagued athlete” or a bona fide Wall Street executive, there are stones to turn over and it’s reporters’ jobs to find them (except in the case of the scandal!). Preparing for an interview with the Wall Street Journal is akin to Lance Armstrong preparing for an interview with Oprah. It takes hours and hours of pre-interview preparation prior to sitting in front of an investigative reporter or someone with the skills the likes of Oprah Winfrey.

Here are several media training tips:
1. This tool is golden when it comes to putting a story on one page.
2. Hire a media trainer who consults with a media relations professional. You need someone from the outside who isn’t close to the situation to come in and drill. In the case of Lance Armstrong, he should’ve been preparing and practicing just like it was a presidential debate.
3. Write a Q&A document with every single possible question that could be raised. Answer these questions using a message map. In the case of Lance Armstrong, however, there was more than a decade of lies to address and rectify in advance of the Oprah interview.
4. Rehearse, but be careful how rehearsed answers become. Lance was too stone-faced; however, no amount of preparation was going to allow him to break down in front of an international audience. He failed to earn respect from anyone; he succeeded in being labeled a consummate liar.
5. Review reporters’ history of interviews and writings. This is a job for any good media relations professional. It’s called writing a brief. It allows spokespeople to reference previous stories, break the ice, and also be prepared for the type of style and to expect a barrage or line of questioning.

Here’s the nutshell…no one in this era of visible online identity should ever assume anything is private. Prepare for an interview as if you’re Lance Armstrong being interviewed by Oprah.

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PR Strategy For Business: The Company Launch

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News crew setting up to report on the floods (Photo credit: max_wedge)

Economics and economies are contributing to the start-up and along with the great idea to launch a company comes the need for solid public relations counsel to strategize about the best way to distribute news.

Gone are the days when launching the company was straightforward. What we used to do was develop a media list, write a press release and get it approved, and then start pitching media one by one with phone calls, followed by executive interviews, and stories that appeared in media outlets.

I’m not going to say that was easy, but it certainly pales in comparison to what we do today (she said with excitement!).

Blending Traditional With Digital

Launching a company today requires in-depth strategy and a healthy regard for the social media sphere.

When a start-up is launching a company website at the same time it’s trying to establish a brand and reputation, there are elements to activate that enable a one-two punch in logical sequence.

A website with language by copywriters and marketers needs to launch with the appropriate optimization and back-end analytics tools.

Meanwhile, a should be orchestrated from which a few news releases and fact sheets are created.

The media list is trickier these days. Media outlets have fewer reporters on staff and also fewer print editions. Many publications are strictly online which means the lead time for publishing the news (especially if it’s hard news with a time element) is zilch. If an editor likes a story, he can clear a blank web page and run it! Funny, but true; you get the idea of the immediacy of the news cycle.

What that means is the PR team has to button up and think about every news angle, its impact on the company, how it should be communicated, and when. Please read this sentence twice; it is that important for your business’s success.

Factors To Consider

  • Should the news go on the wire, just online or both?
  • Should social media channels post the news same day and repeat it or wait?
  • Which social media channel should be regarded as primary for corporate news; how about consumer news?
  • Should bloggers be pitched? How about important journalists? Should you pitch them online via Twitter or traditionally via phone and email?
  • Do you want to field requests for interviews that are inbound or do you want to be aggressive and pitch and earn the hits?
  • Is your spokesperson trained using the message map? Is there a Q&A developed so spokespeople are prepared and not blindsided?
  • Has the PR team created a media brief of reporters who call requesting an interview?
  • When should a blog post news of a launch? Before or after a news release?

And, there is so much more.

The primary takeaway is not to confuse you, Ms. or Mr. Business; it’s to encourage you to hire a qualified public relations strategist with media relations expertise. Have no fear…

 

 

 

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