Meg Kane from Vault Communications Speaks to Temple PRSSA

Temple PRSSA's second guest speaker of the semester was Vault Communications Senior Account Manager Meg Kane. She spoke yesterday at our weekly chapter meeting about the key to success in the public relations field. Meg graduated with a bachelor's degree in communications from La Salle University and went on to earn her master's degree at the University of Maryland at College Park specializing in crisis communication, strategic public relations and political rhetoric. Upon graduation from college Meg took a job as the sole PR person for a small all-girls school where she learned everything from writing school newsletters to graphic design. Her first job was unknowingly one long job interview for her second while Vault Communications President Maribeth Roman Schmidt recieved a steady flow of the school's many publications written by Meg. Her strong writing skills got Schmidt's attention and in 2005 Meg decided to take a job at the then fourteen-year-old agency.

After explaining her background in PR Meg took us through two very interesting case studies that she's experienced at while at Vault Communications. She spoke of the daily demand of creativity that is necessary to be successful in PR and gave an example from Airgas, an important Vault client. Before working with Vault Communications, Airgas was a three billion dollar company that was practically unknown to investors. They enlisted the Vault team to help raise awareness to investors of the solid investment opportunity that their company offered as a profitable company with an ethical CEO in a time where most big businesses were failing. After a year of relationship cultivation with Jim Cramer of CNBC's Mad Money Airgas CEO Peter McCausland was finally invited onto the show. Eight Mad Money appearances later, the Vault team decided that it was time to land more interviews on different invester based programs. This is where the team's creativity made them stand out.

As most investors know, each company that is traded on the stock exchange has a three letter abbreviation assigned only to them. For Airgas, that abbreviation is ARG. The team was planning on pitching Airgas's story again in September, and stumbled upon the silly national holiday Talk Like a Pirate Day that takes place every September 19th. Knowing this, Airgas's stock exchange abbreviation couldn't have been more perfect, ARG, as in ARGGGG matey! This connection was all that the Vault team needed to make before the ideas started flowing. They decided to make an unconvential pitch to get the attention of the national investor-based media instead of just sending another press release. Two weeks before National Talk Like a Pirate Day all of the journalists on their media list recieved gold wrapped chocolate coins like those inside a pirate's treasure chest. One week before, the same people recieved a pirates hat, still with no idea who it was from or what purpose it had. Finally, a few days before the big holiday, the journalists each recieved a pirate pinata that, when they broke it open, contained ample information about Airgas. The journalists were stunned and loved the creativity of the pitch and within a week Airgas booked eight interviews with national media!

This case study was an example of the point that Meg was driving home with her presentation yesterday: creativity and hard work are the keys to great PR. Her case study is proof that it can pay to take calculated, sometimes quirky risks in order to stand out in the sea of mundane press releases and media alerts. Research, creativity and confidence all play a role in developing these out-of-the-box ideas. Meg's story was definitely an inspiration to me and reaffirmed the reasons why I want to enter this challenging but often rewarding field.

Qdoba Day!

Today PRSSA is having a Qdoba fundraiser! All you have to do is bring the PRSSA flier into Qdoba and hand it to the cashier when making your purchase. PRSSA will get $1.50 from each entree and drink purchase made with the flier! The fundraiser is from 11 a.m. until 10 p.m. today. After the PRSSA meeting today we'll all be heading to Qdoba, which is a great opportunity to get some early dinner and hang out with your fellow members!

What to do if you haven't printed a flier yet:

• Check your e-mail! The fliers have been sent out over multiple listservs.

Or

• Come to the PRSSA meeting today in room 217B of the Student Center from 3:30-4:15; extra fliers may be floating around the meeting!

Hiring a Reporter?

"If your business depends on free publicity from newspapers, what do you do when the papers can no longer afford to send reporters to cover you?" asks New York Times reporter Richard Perez-Pena in an article published on Sunday.

"In professional sports," he says, "the answer, increasingly, is hire your own."

A California hockey team, The Los Angeles Kings, recently hired a reporter to compile coverage of the team for its website. Apparently, the team gave the journalist "a multiyear commitment and complete autonomy to post reporting or commentary." The reporter will travel along with the team and cover its competitions.

“'We have a passionate fan base who want instant information about our team, but there’s been declining news coverage of us,'” a spokesman for the Kings was quoted in Perez-Pena's article. At the same time, the journalist enlisted by the team said that the job change would represent a pay increase and a higher level of job security.

So, is this situation a win-win?

Or, in blurring the lines between journalism and PR, does it represent an ethical dilemma? Is there, in fact, a major difference between PR and journalism-for-hire?

Promoting an Organization on Campus

It is important for a student organization to promote itself on campus. As the Public Relations Committee Chair of Phi Sigma Pi National Honor Fraternity, this is my job for the semester. There are many possibilities to make an organization well known on campus.

One public relations tactic that is often utilized by student organizations is giving something away for free either associated with the name of your student organization or with the name of the organization printed on it. Phi Sigma Pi recently gave away free coffee in order to get the name of our organization out on campus and to attract potential members. Additionally, clothing with the name of the organization printed on it is a simple way to get an organization recognized. Even printing the website of the student organization on a pencil and handing them out for free to students is a method of getting the student organization well known on campus, and will also direct traffic to the website.

Organizing, hosting and sponsoring events on campus are other ways of promoting a student organization on a college campus. Creating an annual event that will attract a large number of students is a great way to for people to become familiar with a student organization. If the event reoccurs year after year, it has the potential to become more successful, to grow in size and to become more popular on campus. Even if the organization is not responsible for organizing an event, sponsoring or hosting an event will promote the group.

An obvious, but effective, public relations tactic to employ is placing fliers around campus. The fliers could advertise a specific event associated with the student organization or provide general information about the organization. Placing the fliers in creative places may be more effective in grabbing the attention of students, but placing fliers in noticeable locations is still useful.

These are a few ideas that will promote a student organization on campus. What are other creative ways to promote student organizations?

Dr. Seuss vs. Publicists

On Monday morning I sat in on a staff meeting, which consisted of eight account executives and one CEO. They started off by discussing interesting news and events that occurred over the weekend and then began discussing what was currently on their client’s agendas. As they went over plans to pitch the press and decided upon promotional events to lure customers in, they also stressed the need to tell their company’s story to their audiences. They discussed characters that would help their publics relate and discussed plot lines that would create an image for the brand.

Until then I never thought of publicists as storytellers. As students studying public relations we are constantly told how important our writing skills are, but we have to remember that its just as important to be able to come up with a story to write about. Robbie Vorhaus, a former CBS newsman and now owner of Robbie Vorhaus and Company, discussed the correlation between Public Relations and storytelling in an interview on the website, All About Public Relations with Steven Van Hook. He discusses the similarities and importance of storytelling in the public relations field.

He explains that storytelling, which essentially includes public relations, is focusing on one person, your client, and taking the chosen audience on that client’s - or as he calls it that hero’s - journeys. All stories have a theme; in our case it would be that our client is awesome! He then continues to explain, “if you tell the story with the same structure and elements of all great stories, your message will be heard and acted upon. And, in business, whoever tells the best story wins.”

So as we continue working with our clients at PRowl Public Relations and as we graduate and enter the work field, keep in mind all the stories you heard from over the years and remember these inspirational words from DR. Seuss himself, “And will you succeed? Yes, Indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed."

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Josie Fox.

Brands: On your mark, get set, TWEET!

Brands: If you’re not on Twitter yet, you’d benefit to do so soon. Interpret, a tech and media research firm, found that Twitter users are twice as likely to engage with brands than on other social media sites.

According to the article, “... over 9,200 Internet users in August, finding that roughly 24 percent of the respondents that used Twitter, reviewed or rated products online; just 12 percent of people that used other social nets—but not Twitter—said the same. Twitter users were also more likely to visit company profiles (20 percent) than non-Twitter users (11 percent), and twice as likely to click on ads or sponsored links (20 percent vs. 9 percent).”

“The higher rates of engagement with brands could stem from a number of factors. First, people aren’t spending as much time doing activities (commenting on photos, chatting, playing games) on Twitter, so they could be more apt to click on an ad that would take them away from the site. In contrast, it’s been proven that most ads on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, fail to garner high click-throughs or other interactions, simply because users don’t want to have their experience interrupted.”

Set up a mock interview!

The Career Center at Temple University offers students a chance to practice and perfect their interviewing skills, through feedback from a videotaped mock interview!

You can sign up by going to the Career Center website and making an appointment.

Available days:
September 15, 16, 26
October 7, 21, 20
November 4, 12
December 4

Remember to make the best impression, dress professionally and have a copy of your resume and/or portfolio in hand.

Good luck!