Re-branding From the Inside-out

As PR professionals we are often guided and instructed on how to re-brand an organization or a company. More often than not, we resort to changing the current logo and developing a new ad campaign. However, the University of Southern Mississippi has done much more than create a new outward appearance. University president, Dr. Martha Saunders, has been more than admit about changing the university from the inside out, “You can change the way a product looks, repackage it, put a new wrapper on it, but to brand an organization requires people. It’s more than just an image. It’s something people want to be a part of.”

In 2007 Saunders took on her role as university president and quickly began plotting the re-branding of the university. Her first act was gauging the opinions of the faculty, students, outside community and fellow administrators on unique attributes of the university. Common characteristics included a sense of tradition, self-sufficiency, diversity, and a unified mentality.

Next step in Saunders' plan included comprising a committee dedicated to identifying goals in efforts to create an academic environment for the university. Having common goals has created “a nice, positive difference on campus,” states Saunders, “we can’t do all things at the same time, so let’s pick two or three, and we’re all going to get in behind that."

Finally Saunders wanted to extend efforts outward and utilize the local press. Saunders' tactic for external coverage included tailoring each story to a particular niche media.

The results show national press coverage jumping 838 percent from the 2008-2009 school year, website traffic more than doubled, and freshman enrollment increased by 14 percent.

The Public Relations Society of America has recognized the university with its Silver Anvil Award.

Shark Week Takes a Bite Out of Social Media

With the Discovery Channel's Shark Week starting this past Sunday, I feel that it is necessary to highlight their impressive social media efforts to increase viewers for their 24th year of Shark Week.

Along with their very active Twitter account @SharkWeek, they have also created the Shark Week Live app for iPhone and iPad users to view all the social media conversations dealing with the program, as well as behind-the-scenes content. Viewers will also be enticed by their new "chief shark officer" who also happens to be Saturday Night Live star, Andy Samberg, who appears in the week's promos and will host the Shark City segment.

They also held a contest earlier in the summer for fans to make short video commercials, the top two winning ads running on the Discovery Channel during Shark Week. Improving upon last year's YouTube video contest, the channel decided to utilize Twitter seeing as last year, "Shark Week" was a trending topic with almost 91,000 tweets relating to the event, reports Mashable.

Will you be tuning in this week? For more information visit the Shark Week website here.

Happy Shark Week!

7 Habits to Keep

Part of being a go-getter is not taking no for an answer and, most importantly, creating your own opportunities. Use your particular skills and tailor them to the areas in which you will prove to be an important tool. In "7 Habits That Make Great Opportunities Happen", Liz Strauss highlights 7 habits that will put you ahead of the game:

1. Pay Attention
Pay attention to your environment. Part of being a generally good employee is doing your best to make the company you're working for run as smoothly and effectively as you can. Take notice of how to do this, whether it be updating the company website, to typing up some quick notes to hand out to ensure a more fluid and efficient meeting. Not only will you grow as a person, but people will notice your role in the workplace and come to you when something comes up.

2. Think of your work as important

No one likes a Negative Nancy. Be positive in what you do and realize that you have the chance to make a difference, and take that chance. Even if your job for the day is to copy fliers, know that there is a purpose driving it and you were assigned it for a reason. By getting the job done well and without complaint, your coworkers will be more willing to provide you with new opportunities, knowing that you will get it done, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

3. Be aware of the potential of your impact

Take into account that your actions don't just affect you, but everyone around you. Consider ways to make decisions that will make everyone's lives easier instead of cutting corners, and people will have confidence in you to make the best decision for the company as a whole.

4. Imagine opportunities everywhere you look

Try to look for ways you can incorporate your particular skill set. If you are good at writing, start small and offer to proofread the weekly newsletter. If you like graphic design, offer your skills and design a new letterhead. Who knows? Someone may see your skill as vital to a new project and before you know it, you've created yourself an opportunity!

5. Make yourself a magnet for jobs you do well

Having friends in all the right places is an asset. When people give you a hand, lend your hand back. Offering your expertise will give you the chance to set yourself apart from the crowd and will also showcase you as someone who is a team player, which will definitely be a factor when you are up for a higher position.

6. Count and record opportunities that suit you

Keep in mind what trends are rising and what role you may be able to play in them. Taking notice of these trends will put you ahead and will encourage others to come to you with new ideas, knowing that you have a knack for sensing future prospects.

7. Decide

So when an opportunity arises, take it and run with it. There is always a lesson to be learned and experience to be gained that will put you at an advantage in the future. Continue to grow through new opportunities and people will be more willing to be a part of whatever you are a part of, knowing that they will be in the right place at the right time.

Has an opportunity ever arisen for you that you declined because you felt that, for any reason, it didn't suit you? Looking back, do you wish you had taken it? Why? Let us know!

Launching a Successful Contest

Contests are a fun way to develop a company’s brand, create relationships with users or celebrate a company milestone. So, what do contests have to do with public relations and what does it take to garner publicity from your contest? Putting together a contest is one of the best ways to get your company publicity for little to no cost, though the contest must be clever enough for the media to cover it. Contests are also full of public relations activities such as writing press releases, pitching the contest to media (if it is unique), writing letters and website copy. Like many public relations campaigns, the best place to develop ideas is in a brainstorming session. Sit down with your department and discuss why your company or client should have a contest, outline the goal of the contest and brainstorm ideas for unique contests.

A warning—contests are not easy to put together. There are many things that a public relations practitioner must do for a contest to be successful. Here is a contest time-line that my internship supervisor gave to me:

1. Brainstorm with your department
-Have your colleagues bring in contest ideas. After the brainstorming session pick the best idea and create a presentation for corporate officers, or your client.

2. Make sure corporate officers or clients support the contest
-If you cannot gain their support, there is no way you are going to create a contest.

3. Discuss the contest with legal and decide how you are going to pick a winner
-There is no way of getting around it! You must have legal go through a copy of the contest and create terms and conditions, so that contest participants will not sue your client or company. Once you have addressed legal issues and discussed the contest with corporate officers, you are well on your way to launching the contest website.

4. Decide how you are going to pick a winner
-Will you do a random drawing for a sweepstakes-style contest, or will you read through entries for your story-style contest?
5. Create simple, engaging entry copy for the website, social media sites and email newsletters
-These are not the only outlets you have to promote the contest. There are other cost-effective alternatives such as creating contest entry fliers to hand out on college campuses.

6. Document entries
-A good way to do this is to set up a folder in your email. Also, for written contests, it is best to go through entries weekly and pick out potential winners.

7. Find a winner, announce the winner and evaluate the contest
-Write the winner to tell them they won your contest, announce the winner on the contest website, post their story, use social media to announce the winner and evaluate the contest. Finally, if the contest was successful, will you do it again?

An example of a creative, successful contest: http://www.pizzaproverbs.com/

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Kurie Fitzgerald.

Enhancing Your Brand with Online Reputation Management

The following post was written by Matt Polsky, the Senior Content and Reputation Manager of VA Mortgage Center.

Currently, business must have a web presence in order to grow and survive. However, that presence cannot simply be a single page on the web; it must be a multi-faceted, ever evolving campaign to promote the company’s brand. According to a Pew Internet and American Life study, 78 percent of all potential patrons with access to the internet review a business online prior to contacting the business, and if they do not find a clear and positive indication of what the business’ mission and products or services are, you can guarantee they will go elsewhere.

Brands are what drive many businesses, and unfortunately, many businesses end managing their brands at their websites or with simple search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Because of the numerous online review platforms available, reputation management is imperative as it can greatly increase a company’s brand power. Typical ways that proper online reputation management enhances a brand include:

Brand Protection

Forums, discussion boards, and social networking sites can easily be a breeding ground for negative comments about your brand, and if a potential patron comes across one of these comments while researching your business, they will most likely go to a competitor with a better image. To protect your brand from any potential naysayers, online reputation management must continuously be on the front of your agenda. Businesses should purchase all domain names related to their business and frequently perform keyword searches to determine what is being said about the company. More advanced SEO techniques should also be used so that only sites with positive reviews on your business see the first page of search results.

Increased Brand Visibility

Achieving the top positions in the search engines has historically been a great way for businesses to achieve greater visibility; however, it is no longer enough. With various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube that carry millions of users, companies must promote their brands on these channels as well. Tweeting and posting can be great ways to spur community involvement and build brand advocates; however, Twitter and Facebook are two different beasts, so be careful not to make social media mistakes. With Facebook, posting once a day is enough to keep from flooding a newsfeed and angering a customer into unliking your site. On the other hand, Twitter users are used to seeing 3-5 tweets a day and are less concerned about how many times you post.

Brand Image

Complaints will happen, so be prepared in advance. Whether it is a complaint on your Facebook wall or on a neutral reviews site, handle it with speed and care. Show good will to the customer and try to resolve the issue. Even if nothing can be done to please a specific customer, it is still in the best interest of the company and your brand to show other customers that you do care and are willing to resolve any problems. It is also a good practice to comment on positive reviews as well, thanking the customers for their patronage, which can build repeat customers and brand advocates.

Proper brand management is the first step in gaining positive national and global recognition. If potential clients are able to readily find you throughout the internet and read nothing but positive things about your company, you can guarantee that they will be eager to support your business.

Matt Polsky is the Senior Content Manager and Reputation Manager for VA Mortgage Center, managing VA Mortgage Center complaints and reviews, and providing insights learned from the nation’s leading provider of VA home loans.

Sharing Outside the Box

When discussing the strategy and use of social media it’s easy to focus on the big three: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But sometimes when you want to reach a specific audience, it’s important to shake things up and look for something a little outside the box. That’s what Lotus Farm to Table, in Media, PA, has done by enlisting the help of the local Philadelphia Foodspotting group.

Foodspotting is a global network that allows people to share opinions and artistic viewpoints about food. It connects people to dishes, not just restaurants. Users in this network snap photos, usually with their mobile phones, and upload them onto the Foodspotting website in real time. There, anyone can peruse the latest dish and find inspiration for their next culinary adventure. Folks in Philadelphia have taken it one step further, creating a group that hosts monthly events called “eat-ups.”

That is where Lotus saw an opportunity. By contacting one of the groups leading members, the restaurant was able to work in conjunction with the group to host an eat-up in the restaurant. The eat-up, which was scheduled for July 28, encourages the group to come and taste the food and unique teas, and while they’re at it, snap a few photos of the restaurant. Lotus has nothing to lose, since the groups pay for their meals at these events.

Lotus is hoping to start a dialogue about their dishes through photos, attracting new dinners based on the visuals. By engaging with a lesser-known medium in a social exchange, the restaurant could spark something that has yet to be embraced on a mainstream level by other players in the restaurant industry.

This guest blog was written by PRowl Public Relations staff member Jacob DeChant.

How Thou Shalt Write An Excellent Press Release

As a Public Relations major, I have been thrown into the world of writing for the media and throughout my several writing intensive classes I have learned how to successfully write news advisories, broadcast releases, and letters to the editor. However, most importantly, I have learned how to write press releases. Every public relations class I have taken has always stressed the importance of constructing an effective and creative press release that will gain media coverage for the client. I found an article, The Ten Commandments of a Press Release written by Bill Stoller while looking for some extra writing tips. In the article, he outlines the ten “shalts” and “shalt nots” to help any press release get published.

1. Thou Shalt Be Professional. No goofy fonts, rainbow paper or silly gimmicks. Even lighthearted press releases represent a communication between one professional and another.
2. Thou Shalt Not Be Promotional. If you can't get enough objective distance from your company to write a press release that's not filled with hype and puffery, hire someone to write it for you.
3. Thou Shalt Not Be Boring. Even the driest subject matter allows for some sparks of creativity. Journalists like knowing that there's a human being communicating with them, not some corporate robot.
4. Thou Shalt Be Brief. Learn to cut out extraneous words. Keep your sentences short. Include only the points necessary to sell the story. The well-crafted one page press release is a thing of beauty.
5. Thou Shalt Know Thy Recipient. A features or lifestyle editor is a very different creature from a city desk editor. If you're promoting the opening of a new winery, the food and wine editor may be interested in all the details about what kind of aging process and wine press you're using. The city desk editor just wants to know when the grand opening is and what's going to happen there.
6. Thou Shalt Use The Proper Tense. When writing a hard news release (a contract signing, a stock split, a major announcement, etc.) use the past tense. When writing a soft news release (a trend story, a personal profile, etc.) use the present tense.
7. Thou Shalt Think Visually. A press release is more than words -- it's a visual document that will first be assessed by how it looks. Whether received by mail, fax or e-mail, a journalist, the reader will (often unconsciously) make decisions about whether to read the release based on how the release is laid out. Big blocks of text and long paragraphs are daunting and uninviting. Short paragraphs and sentences make for a much more visually inviting look.
8. Thou Shalt Tell A Story. How to arrange the facts of a hard news release is pretty much cut and dried. The old "who, what, when, where and how" lead and "inverted pyramid" concepts still hold.
9. Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness. This may seem an obvious point, but it always bears repeating. Tell the truth. Don't inflate, don't confabulate, and don’t exaggerate. Don't twist facts, don't make up numbers, and don’t make unsubstantiated claims. Any decent journalist will be able to see right through this. If you're lucky, your release will just get tossed out. If you're unlucky, you'll be exposed.
10. Thou Shalt Know Thy Limitations. Not everyone can write a press release. A good feature release, in particular, isn't an easy thing to craft. If you just don't feel like you have the chops to get the job done, hire a professional.

What do you think of these “commandments?” Can you think of any of your own to add to the list? Let us know what you think!