Are You Using The Internet To Its Full Extent?

Today, the Internet is one of the most helpful tools a publicist can use.  Recently I heard from a few speakers a few websites that seemed like must-knows for a public relations specialist.  While we are all Facebook, Twitter and Instagram experts, here are some other websites that will be helpful to you and your public relations career:

1.  HelpAReporter.com - HelpAReporter.com, or HARO, can offer you that extra story you did not know you could have had.  HARO is a free website that emails you three times a day with publicity alerts from journalists looking for article assistance from publicists. HARO is partnered with some of the top journalists in the country, such as ABC.  Also, it allows you to make connections with even more journalists than before!
2. SeekOrShout.com - SeekOrShout.com helps you create and promote new content.  The ‘seek’ feature lets you search editorial news from all over the web.  After you find what you are seeking, you can ask the SeekOrShout community for its help with your search by requesting an interview, product review or helpful document.  The ‘shout’ option allows you to promote or announce new content.  People who follow you or who follow the topics you tag, will be able to see the post and use it themselves.  This website is a great way to help you with a blog post, find someone to help you promote your new product, and promote your new content.
3. PitchEngine.com – PitchEngine is the sleekest way to release your press releases.  They claim that, “It combines the readability of a magazine with the immersive experience of an app.”  It allows people to interact with your press release and also share it with others.  It automatically formats your press releases for viewing on any smart phone.  PitchEngine also allows you to leverage your release, reach more networks make it more searchable and even tracks your release and lets you see where it is being published.  The basic package of PitchEngine is free, however there are other packages with more features that will cost you a bit more.

Also, do not forget to follow websites that are specialized to the field you are working.  You never know where there is an extra story you can find!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Jackie Grillo.

PR At The Shore

I grew up at the shore and this summer I was lucky enough to get my old job back at Ocean City Coffee Company (OCCC), and still intern in the city during the week.  Going into my senior year, I have had a lot of experience with public relations.  When the manager of OCCC, Aubrey Corbett, asked me to assist with social media I was so excited to turn their Facebook into something huge and create the coolest coffee Instagram Ocean City, New Jersey has ever seen.  But, through helping assist with Ocean City Coffee’s public relations this summer, I learned something very different.  Public relations in a shore town is nothing like in the big city.

When I first started helping with the OCCC’s Facebook page, my suggestion was to make scheduled posts, find articles about coffee and post discounts to drive in more people.  However, I discovered that was not what customers were looking for. Aubrey came up with the idea to post the local weather, which locals were performing at the shop, local jokes and fun tips about coffee and that posting everyday seemed a bit much.  When we talked about it she said, “We are a small town with people who come back each summer.  Social media isn’t our main focus.  We get more business from the one-on-one connections we make with customers and the word of mouth throughout the town.”

When it comes to PR in the big city, I feel there is a heavy focus on social media, creating flyers, writing press releases, etc.  In a shore town, the relaxed pace lends itself to relationships with customers. Catering to local and loyal regulars seems to be the best PR around town.  Don’t get me wrong though, all of the shops still post flyers in local hotels and travel books. 

I looked at other Facebook pages of Ocean City stores.  Del’s Beachside Grill posts about once a month and the last post was about the owners daughter winning Miss Ocean City.  The famous Manco & Manco pizza is a boardwalk favorite and also only posts about once a month.  Both stores have lines out the door each day.

While in the shop, I tested Aubrey’s theory.  One customer said, “When we come to a small town like this, we ask the locals where they go, we don’t look it up online ahead of time.” 

Even thought the summer is coming to an end, the next time you are in a shore town, instead of researching before, ask a local where they get their favorite “Cup-a-joe”.

Manager Aubrey Corbett going out to catch some waves in an Ocean City Coffee Company shirt.

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Staff Member Jackie Grillo.

The Child of PR and Marketing

This weekend, members of PRSSA and myself attended a PRSSA regional conference at Penn State, where we learned and discussed many different interesting PR topics.  One of the topics that really interested me was when Adam Kmiee, Global Director of Digital and Social Media at Campbell Soup Company, discussed PR and marketing becoming one.  

I personally avoided marketing because of the business and math side of it, as I’m sure many others in the PR world have. After attending the conference, I started to compare and take a closer look at the two.  If you take away the math, PR and marketing do not have many differences.  The idea of both is to promote a person or business and reach a target audience.  Marketing has a bit more of a business spin on that, while PR is more light and friendly.  Both marketing and PR are constantly doing research to figure out how to reach their target audiences and what their audiences are looking for.  The major difference between the two is money.  Marketing deals a lot more with money.  Marketing professionals deal with where to place ads, how much can be spent on PR campaigns and figure out how to manage every dollar spent.  Public relations on the other hand deals with the public and media more.  Public relations professionals talk to the newspapers and journalists and monitor public approval (or disapproval).  

After thinking about all the similarities, it really occurred to me that one could not exist without the other. Marketing needs public relations to deal with the public and make sure the right message is reaching the right audience.  Public relations needs marketing to help them reach that audience, without breaking the bank.  While speaking, Kmiee said, “I want marketers who know digital who love social.”  

I started looking into what other PR professionals thought of the combination of PR and marketing together and I found this great diagram on PRNewswire by Yin Wu, which really opened my eyes to even more benefits of the two together. 

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.

Share Everywhere

This Thanksgiving holiday, Facebook posted a blog that confirmed that they will now how a “share button” on their mobile site, Android, and iOS apps.

“The company said there was no technical hurdle that made a share button difficult to implement on mobile,’” Facebook said. “Facebook simply never made it a priority.”

The share button will show up on newsfeed posts alongside the “like” and “comment” buttons.  While sharing was available before, this is the first time that users will be able to do so via a mobile device.

So, how will this help us PR folks? 

Sharing news articles and pictures will be a helpful aspect of the share button.  Facebook users will be able to easily share any news article that they few on their phone or any picture they see anywhere they are.  Posts will also be able to be shared, even sponsored posts!

Bottom line, the share button will widen the reach of people who might not normally see a news article, picture or post, creating more views on them!  This will broaden the network of people that you can reach through your social media. This will be very helpful to any PR professional because more networks that you could never reach before will be able to get received.  Hopefully in return, users will be able to gain more followers also.  

A mobile share button will help everyone with broadening their networks and gaining more followers and that is something that all PR professionals can be thankful for!  Do you think sharing via mobile will be useful to you?

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo

Voting With Your Apps

The Republican National Convention generated over 4,000,000 tweets throughout its duration.  That high number of tweets may have had something to do with the new apps that iPhone and iPad users can download that allow them to stay up-to-date with the campaign.  These apps also allow them to also sync their Twitter and Facebook accounts.  Here are some of the more popular presidential campaign apps:

Obama for America: This app helps a person learn more about and help campaign for Obama.  It allows users to take action by finding campaign events near their location that they can attend to help support and rally for Obama.  It also gives suggestions on how users can campaign on their own time, such as door-to-door and supplying photos of flyers that can downloaded and printed out.  The app can be synced Twitter and Facebook handles so they can share their actions and breaking news stories about Obama and his campaign.

Romney-Ryan: This app works very similarly to the Obama for America app.  Users can view the personal bios of both candidates and breaking news stories about their campaign.  Supporters can also find events near them to show their support for Romney and Ryan.  This app can also be synced to app users Twitter and Facebook accounts.

CNN/TIME Convention Floor Pass:  CNN & Time magazine have teamed up with the best political experts to bring the political conventions to supporter’s iPhones.  This app allows a person to feel like they are on the convention floor with breaking news stories and opinions from political experts.  Keeping up with the trend, this app can also be synced to the user’s social media accounts. 

Both the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention also have apps that can be downloaded that are similar to the CNN/TIME app, but are dedicated strictly to either party.

During the last presidential election in 2008, Apple announced that 11.6 million iPhones were sold.  During 2012 so far, 98.1 million iPhones have been sold, showing the increase in the amount of iPhone users and how these apps reach a much more extensive audience.  These apps have a featured page on iTunes under the category Election 2012 and can all be downloaded for free.  

What apps do you use to stay up to date with the 2012 election?  Let us know!

This guest blog post was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.

To Klout or Not to Klout

This week at my internship, my boss looked at me and asked what my Klout score was.  I looked at him somewhat confused then remembered Klout is a website that measures your impact on social media.  I signed up and all week my boss and I have become obsessed with Klout.  

Klout measures your retweets, replies, followers and the topics you discuss on Twitter.  On Facebook, Klout measures how many likes, wall posts, and comments you receive.  Other social media sties can be connected to your Klout, but Twitter and Facebook seem to be the main drivers behind a Klout score.

Your Klout score is updated daily, with influencers and topics updated weekly.  Businesses can use this to see how affective they are with their audiences on social media.  A score goes up by creating great content that people want to share and respond to. If a business wanted to try a new social media strategy, they could use Klout to see if this strategy was affective and could measure the success of the strategy.  

Klout also wants to allow brands to reach and engage with their audiences through Klout Perks.  Klout Perks are rewards that Klout users receive through their Klout scores and the topics that they are seen as influencers on.  Klout Perks seem to be the main drive behind people joining Klout.  Some perks have been advanced screening of a movie, laptops and trips all over the world.  People who are against Klout as an effective measuring tool find the perks as problematic because they say Klout favors certain topics, therefore having the same people win perks over and over again.  

Klout Perks to me seem the most useful for a business using Klout, like the theater. Businesses and brands can start a Klout Perk of their own.  If the theater created a Klout perk, it would be advertised on multiple social media platforms.  To win the perk, the theater’s social media followers would need to discuss it on their own social media accounts, creating more followers who would want to win the perk. 

After looking into Klout, do you think Klout would be useful for you or your business?



This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.

Social Media During AIDS Education Month

This summer, I am interning at The Wilma Theater.  The show that the Wilma is currently putting on is Angels in America.  For those who have not seen the HBO miniseries, Angels tackles the serious subject of HIV-AIDS from a theatrical stand-point.  In quite the coincidence, Angels at the Wilma is being performed during Philadelphia’s Aids Education month, which is lead by Philadelphia Fight.  Philadelphia Fight is an AIDS service organization that provides care, education, advocacy and research on potential treatments and vaccines to Philadelphia.  

Philadelphia Fight has taken to social media during AIDS Education month to promote the events they will be holding during June.  Through their Facebook page, Fight has consistently been promoting events that have been coming up and encouraging discussion of events.  They have also been promoting an event called, Update Your Status Recently?  When someone gets tested for HIV, many people call it finding their status on HIV.  By using a play on words, Fight has created a campaign, targeted to a younger audience, that uses the idea of  updating a Facebook status to updating an individual’s HIV status.  This campaign is being used to urge individuals to get tested on National HIV Testing Day, by encouraging those who get tested to ‘check-in’ at a participating testing location on June 27^th.  Those who participate will receive a free slice of pizza from 13^th Street Pizza and a free drink ticket to a local bar.  They will also be entered in a raffle to win bigger prizes such as a flat screen TV. The ad being used for National HIV Testing Day looks like the homepage of Facebook.

Fight has also recently joined YouTube.  The first video they posted highlights the 2011 AIDS Education Month by showing speakers who are HIV positive share stories and speak about Fight.  By posting this in March of 2012, they raised awareness and interest for the upcoming month of June, when AIDS Education month would occur again.  Their most recent video was the “Update Your Status Recently?” campaign.  It promoted the event and encouraged individuals to participate in National HIV Testing Day.  Fight also has a Twitter handle, @PhillyFight, where they have been promoting AIDS Education month and continually promoting Fight research and HIV facts.  To see more social media that Philadelphia Fight is doing to promote AIDS Education month, visit their website at www.fight.org.


This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo

Social Media Meets March Madness

March Madness has arrived and unlike many years before, this year March Madness has taken over the lives of its fans and also their social media accounts.

Selection Sunday, the day where picked teams and their seeds are announced, started most of the Twitter talk about March Madness. Fans mainly started tweeting two hours leading up to the announcement of which teams would be picked for the tournament. Iona received the most tweets with almost 12,000 mentions in a two hour span of time. Iona was not the only team that was tweeted about. This year, unlike many others, March Madness and social media became much more interactive. Fans created team and player hashtags, tweeted to players and began live tweeting scores and comments during games. Players even tweeted back to fans and thanked them!

For the first time this year, there was also a March Madness social winner. A research group at communications agency Schwartz MSL created a formula to see which school had the most tuned in social media fan. The formula took the combined followers of a school’s team on Facebook and Twitter, and then divided that number by the total student body population. The Kansas Jayhawks were the winners of this bracket. Why did such a smaller school like Kansas, with a little over 20,000 undergrad students, beat out such a large school like Ohio, that has over 43,000 undergrad students? Mostly because when you have such a large school like Ohio it is hard for all students to be as interactive on social media, unlike a smaller school like Kansas.

Interested in knowing which team is being talked about most currently on social media? Mashable.com provides mRank. mRank calculates the amount of buzz that a particular topic has on the social web by analyzing conversations across Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Mashable has dedicated a whole selection to the buzz for March Madness teams here.

Hopefully, your top bracket choice has a lot of buzz! Are you participating in March Madness via your social media accounts? Let us know!

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jackie Grillo.