Is Snapchat the Next Social Media Platform?

When you think about social media nowadays, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram probably come to mind first and foremost. And you wouldn't be wrong, these 3 giants have dominated the world of social media for the last few years. But, as technology and trends evolve, we must consider new and different forms of reaching our publics.

For the last year and a half, a picture messaging app called Snapchat has taken college-age students and younger by storm, becoming one of the most popular apps in mere months. Snapchat allows you to send a picture and just a few words to your friends, for a maximum of 10 seconds before it disappears. You can also do the same with videos; and recently Snapchat introduced 'Stories', their version of a news feed. Stories allows a user to post a picture, video, or series of both for all their friends to view for 24 hours. It's this news feed-esque function that makes Snapchat viable as a social media platform.

Yesterday, during the World Cup final between Argentina and Germany, and in the hours leading up to it, Snapchat surprised everyone by adding a story called Rio Live to every user's story page. This Rio Live story was constantly updated throughout the day by the company, using curated user's images and videos from Brazil regarding the game. By watching this constantly updated story, people half the world away, like myself, were able to watch the game from the front row, or even from some of the players' perspectives. Watching the end of the game from so many unique perspectives was so much better than just watching it on TV, and this capability shows how Snapchat stories can be used.

Snapchat stories, and even just sending out mass snapchats to people, are a sure way to get recognized. Even receiving a snapchat from someone you don't know, most people are going to open it, simply because they believe it will be gone after a few seconds. This can become a great way to tell college age demographics about products, services, or a way for trends to get started. Snapchat used to just consist of a picture and some words, but now the trend is towards Instagram-style pictures, with filters, emoticons, drawings, and different fonts. Snapchats are becoming more complex, people have even made movies out of them, showing the potential for even more uses.

This is the Snapchat logo, named Ghostface Chillah. 

What are your thoughts about Snapchat or other emerging social media platforms?

Media Pitching 101

Media pitching is a critical part of a PR professional's career. Becoming a pitching expert, however, is not easy. The reality is that we are competing in a crowded marketplace, and won't always be playing with a winning hand. The best way to become successful at pitching is to recognize your boundaries, develop best practices and solid relationships, and never give up. 

Here are some tips for creating successful media pitches:

Creating Content

• Tie Into Media Agenda
• Link To Trends 
• Exploit Pop Culture
• Use A Holiday Angle
• Make It Unique

Make The Pitch

• Reference Earlier Work 
• Find A Connection
• Make it Personal 

Follow Up

• Email First, Then Call
• Never Say "Did You Get It?"

Do you have any tips to make your pitch stand out? We want to know!

Instafamous

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Instagram is a free mobile photo-sharing app that currently boasts over 100 million users. The application was acquired by Facebook in April of 2012 and the rest is history.

For those socially savvy individuals looking to become 'instafamous', here are three tips to skyrocket your following.

1. Don't holdback on the hashtags
Hashtags are how your potential fans and followers will find you--so let them! Include any and as many relevant hashtags as applicable. When others like your photos, be sure to tag their handle and to thank them. This acknowledgement increases the chances that they will follow you. Finally, participate in popular hashtags like #tbt (throwbackthursday).

2. Take better pictures
Don't just be a picture taker, be an artist with a 'voice'. Spend the extra dollar or two and buy a good picture editing application. I personally recommend PicSay Pro, Snapseed or Colorsplash. You are more likely to gain followers with a well taken and well edited photo. Additionally, you will retain your current followers if you maintain the 'voice' you have created.

3. Build your Instacred
In order to trend and to gain visibility on Instagram, you need to be known. To accomplish this: follow others, like others' posts, and comment on their posts. Following and liking others are only the beginning on of the relationship. Commenting on others' posts shows that you want to further the relationship and generally seals the, "I'll follow you back" deal.

I'm slowly but surely making my rise to infamy, are you? If so, how? #f4f

The 5 Friends You Should Meet In PR

You've heard it once, and I'm sure you will hear it a million times more; public relations is dependent upon relationships. Much of what we do as public relations professionals could not be done if there were not other hardworking people in various professions also striving to do their jobs well. PR may be our passion, but people should be our specialty. It is important that we make connections with professionals in various areas, and make our relationships as symbiotic as possible. Below are 5 people that PR professionals should include in their personal networks:

The Operations Manager - Having trouble finding out exactly when a certain person is in the office? Or what certain logistics are for an event happening that is of interest to you? Then contacting the operations manager is your best bet. This person will know most if not all of the details you're looking for - from where the plates and spoons are being ordered from to which celebrities will grace the step and repeat.

The Journalist - This is one of the most stressed relationships in public relations. The perfect client with the perfect PR strategy is nothing without somewhere to place the story. Always keep good relations with journalists of all kinds - bloggers, print journalists, broadcast journalists, you never know who you will need to pitch to.

The Venue Owner - Event specialists, this one is for you! Large or small, every event needs to happen somewhere. Keeping strong ties with venue owners will help you make the event of your client's dreams come to fruition.

The Web/Graphic Designer - Is your client launching a new website or online project? Not without proper web execution! Many times, we want to suggest things to our clients that neither we nor them can execute. Many firms do not have an in-house graphic designer or web developer, and out sourcing may exceed budgets. Having a reliable friend in the industry means you always have someone to call on when those tough projects come up.

The Fellow PR Pro - No one will understand what you do more than those who are also in your industry. The smartphone attachment, email obsession, and slight case of anxiety may not make sense to those around you, but you can always count on your fellow PR pro to understand what you're going through.

PR Tools That Contributed to Restaurant Week

TD Bank hosted its biannual restaurant week in Philadelphia. For a limited time, participating restaurants in the Center City District of Philadelphia offered delectable, three-course dinners for just $35 per person. Some additionally offered three-course lunches for just $20 per person. With over 100 restaurants to choose from, everyone was bound to consume a tasty spread.

Many restaurants took advantage of the public relations aspect of restaurant week to promote their unique restaurant and bring in more customers. In this day and age in the business world, certain public relations tools are required to keep businesses successful. Restaurant Week primarily relied on the following PR tools:

• Social Media Outreach
• Websites such as Open Table as well as online news reports on restaurant week are what prospective customers look to when choosing a place to dine at. It’s crucial for restaurants to keep their website and social media networks up to date and appealing to the eye, specifically with pictures.
• Special Events
• Events like restaurant week help restaurants gain credibility. Credibility is essential for restaurants- especially in a city, since their competition could be right next door. As this event attracts more customers, it can lead to more positive reviews and references for that restaurant. 
• Sponsorships
• When successful establishments sponsor other businesses, it increases the awareness of that business immensely. In this case, TD banks sponsors restaurant week, thus making this event so much more popular and credible over the past few years.

Hosting special events like this helps businesses remain relevant and successful. Without PR, these restaurants would have struggled to promote themselves and make their establishments stand out. Luckily, there are endless aspiring PR workers, just like us, who can keep businesses on track and hopefully help them earn more revenue. 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Madeline Barry.