BroadBased Communications: Marketing, Public Relations, Graphic Design

As marketers and public relations pros, we are often asked to develop strategies designed to improve a person’s or a company’s online reputation. Online reputations are important because consumers’ purchasing decisions are very much influenced by online perceptions. And while there are many ways to monitor an online reputation, there are very few ethical ways to increase or impact it.

The communications and marketing teams at BroadBased can create a transparent, ethical program to increase online presence and boost awareness. Here’s a recent example of how we helped First Watch Restaurants increase name awareness, online reviews and traffic to both of its newly opened First Coast locations.

First Watch, a Florida-based breakfast, brunch and lunch café, recently opened two restaurants in Jacksonville. The PR team at Fry Hammond and Barr in Tampa partnered with BroadBased to introduce the concept to our community. One of the many strategic efforts BroadBased recommended and implemented was an invitation-only, after-hours dinner for food bloggers, restaurant reporters and influential social media users.

We selected 50 attendees who had an online presence, were active Tweeters or bloggers, and had a love of food. We also looked for online influencers with a minimum Klout score of 50. The invitations encouraged the participants to use any of their social media profiles during and after the event to share candid impressions of the restaurant, from service to food quality to cleanliness and beyond.

The Results

The evening event welcomed 55 participants who checked in, took photos, shared reviews and later blogged in detail about the evening breakfast event. The results included 230 Tweets (under Hashtag: #firstwatchjax), six blog posts, three Facebook photo albums, 22 check-ins on Foursquare, and two reviews on online rating sites (Yelp! and UrbanSpoon). The Mandarin location benefited from an immediate increase in online buzz that equated to an increase in traffic to the restaurant.

Behind the raw numbers are two powerful benefits of an event like this. First, all of the reviews and feedback were honest and organic; they weren’t “paid for” directly or created by unethical means such as having restaurant employees review locations. Second, they came in a buzz-generating burst, rather than trickling in over time.

The same concept can be applied to VIP “sneak peek” events that engage consumers at a variety of businesses and locations. Sneak peeks are perfect for increasing traffic to retailer locations, special events, event venues, special attractions, and events and weekend or annual festivals. Call Maria at BroadBased to brainstorm ways to increase your company’s online reputation.

Posted in Brand Development, Public/Media Relations

Although not all news releases will be picked up and covered by journalists, the content can be great for your company’s or organization’s website.

Much has been said about the dying art of the news release, including that it’s outdated and unnecessary. However, if content is king, then a more perfect news release can go a long way to support your SEO strategies and goals.

Although not all news releases will be picked up and covered by journalists, the content can be great for your company’s or organization’s website, thus giving you more content for social media sites. And if you’re creating content, shouldn’t it be perfect content that supports your SEO?

How does the perfect release support SEO?

The most powerful search engine-optimized news release should incorporate the keywords you’ve researched and rely on for search engines to find and rank your organization’s website. Including these keywords gives you another powerful piece of new content on the web. News releases often allow more space, longer forms of the keywords, and repetitive usage.

SEO releases should also include links to the most important content in your website. This requires your meta-tags and page URLs to fit with your keyword and SEO strategies. So instead of just sending readers to your website, we want to increase the clicks to certain pages. For example, if you’re launching a new product, you’ll want the release to include links to the specific product pages of the website.

Where does an SEO release help the most?

Hosting a regularly updated news section of your organization’s website is a great place for releases like this. Also, if you’re pushing out a release to a wire service like PR Newswire or BusinessWire, you will want your news release to be search engine optimized, as these types of releases tend to get posted online in various sites. If content is king, then inbound links are the prince.

Here’s a great article about how PR can help startups grow: 10 Essential PR Tips for Startups

Posted in Public/Media Relations, Web/Interactive Development

Briefly, news releases are tools PR pros use to entice someone into taking a larger interest in a story.

A conversation we often have with new or prospective public relations clients concerns the role of a news release. While PR consultants still rely on news releases to help achieve client communication goals, a release is one small piece of a public relations strategy.

Briefly, news releases are tools PR pros use to entice someone into taking a larger interest in a story. They are not designed to capture emotion or the “story behind the story.” A news release should put forth facts about an event in the manner preferred by news media. They should be kept to one page and be written in the style of an inverted pyramid (news writing standard), succinctly, factually and in AP Style. Stray from this format and your carefully crafted news release might go straight into the trash.

If your goal is to promote a new employee, an industry award or charitable donation, a news release sent to a media outlet might earn you a mention. If you need to post news on your website, a news release is an acceptable tool. But if you are looking to promote a larger story about your company, that’s where a PR pro earns her keep: with the story pitch. She puts the facts together in the manner that editors and producers like to receive them and becomes your passionate storyteller. The thoughtful strategy behind a story pitch is what usually earns feature articles or profiles.

If you think you might have a story that is appropriate for larger media coverage, ask yourself the following questions. If you can provide a persuasive argument as to why your news is compelling to a broad audience, your idea might be pitch-worthy.

• Timeliness: Did the event happen recently?
• Proximity: Did the event happen near the target media?
• Impact: Who and how many does this affect?
• Prominence: How important is this? Who’s involved?
• Conflict: Is it controversial?
• Novelty: Is it the first, only, newest, best, etc.?

If the answers to these questions lead you to think you have a compelling, newsworthy story, the next step is to reach out to a public relations pro to help develop and plan your strategy.

Posted in Public/Media Relations

Writing for a speaking engagement is not that much different than writing for a customer, employee or investor communications piece (except for the “insert joke here” instruction). Getting in front of an audience is an excellent way to enhance an individual reputation as a subject matter expert. Of course, when speaking in front of a group, you want to have well-chosen, well-rehearsed and well-delivered words to get your message across. It’s no exaggeration the words you use to express your ideas are as important as the ideas themselves.

Speechwriting Tips

• Prepare early. Give yourself time to refine your ideas and track down facts.
• Keep it short. When was the last time you wished a speech would have been longer?
• Abandon formalities. “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…” Or not.
• Know your audience. Ask an organizer about the group’s interests and issues, and tailor your message accordingly.
• End strong. In speechmaking, last impressions are even more important than first impressions.
• Practice, practice, practice. This is as much for your own peace of mind as it is for the enjoyment of your audience.

If you don’t have time to pen your next speech yourself, BroadBased offers speechwriting as part of our portfolio of services. Speechwriting is a natural extension of the corporate messaging that we perform on a daily basis. So whether you need a 15-minute talk for the company holiday party or a 45-minute presentation to a civic or industry organization, our writing partners provide a full range of services to address any topic.

Posted in Public/Media Relations

A recent study by Hotwire and The Holmes Report revealed public relations professionals believe senior management leaves them outside the top table in their companies.

The Holmes Report, in a poll of senior global communications executives found 59% of respondents do not think public relations has a seat at the table with top senior management.

And yet “84% of executives rate communications as the function that has the most influence on corporate reputation.”

Yes, we believe PR should be near the top of the org chart, but it’s not just about structure. We think communicators deserve a physical seat at the table in many instances such as: policy discussions, customer service issues, new services, product launches and, of course, any issue with the potential to create a media reaction. The deeper understanding your PR advisors have of your business, the more valuable they can be to you.

Posted in Public/Media Relations

You’ve heard the stories of how one social media slip-up can damage a person’s livelihood or reputation. Remember Gilbert Gottfried and the fallout of his poorly timed tsunami jokes? It cost him his job as the AFLAC spokesman. While social media is a wonderful tool to expand your personal credibility and reputation through public conversation, it’s also helpful if you establish guidelines for your tweet messaging. Following are a few tips from us on how to keep your personal Twitter account from causing a public relations nightmare.

Choose wisely: If you have a ghost-tweeter, determine the tone of the messages you’d like to relay. Make sure you have a person in place to create and deliver them who truly understands your “personal brand.”

Don’t be a Weiner: Don’t say anything that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the newspaper. And know that the media views social media as quotable without your “permission.” It is in the public domain. Period.

Stay focused: Once you determine your tone, stick to it. Don’t stray too far from the voice of your brand.

Have fun: It’s ok to show your sense of humor but remember your dinner party etiquette – taboo subjects like sex, abortion, off-color jokes, religion and politics will probably lose you followers.

Contribute to the conversation: Jump in the conversation and make some new friends. Comment on the tweets of people you follow and speak freely and often on topics geared to your industry.

Don’t tweet after happy hour: Enough said.

All in all, have fun but remember that Twitter is a representation of you. Refrain from saying anything that you wouldn’t want a client, partner, employee, vendor or reporter to ask you about. For information on how to design a personal Twitter account – complete with best messaging practices – email BroadBased’s director of public relations, Maria Coppola.

Posted in Public/Media Relations, Social Media Planning

Beginning June 1, BroadBased will offer a new line of public relations services titled PR Express. This line of “express” services will provide small businesses and start-ups the benefit of agency expertise with a minimum of commitment and cost.

This offering focuses on non-retained, one-time projects including:

• Industry-based media list development
• Special event list development
• Single press release writing
• Promotional writing
• Press release distribution
• PR-managed social media projects

For more information on PR Express, please email Maria Coppola, PR Director, at Maria@bbased.com.

Posted in Public/Media Relations

BroadBased Public Relations Director Maria Coppola, APR, is published in PR News’ Guide to Best Practices in Nonprofit Communications.

The first-edition special publication is designed to help nonprofits navigate PR, communications and social media. Maria’s 1,000-word article is titled “The Crisis Plan: An Ounce of Prevention is Worth a Pound of Reputation Rehabilitation” and is on page 70 of the book, which includes articles by other PR pros from around the country. You can order a copy here, or better yet, call Maria and get her working on your crisis planning team!

Posted in Public/Media Relations

Members of the BroadBased team are honored to once again take part in the Flagler College Communication Week, scheduled for the second week of March. Sponsored and hosted by Flagler College’s Communication Department and the campus PRSSA chapter, this student-led and planned event brings together students and industry experts for an analysis of, and education about, issues facing our professions.

BroadBased CEO Jan Korb and Digital Media Strategist Tonisha Landry-Gaines will team up for a guest lecture to the public relations and social media class. This class is relatively new to the curriculum and is focused solely on the study of social media. PR Director Maria Coppola, APR, will be guest lecturer for a public relations writing class and will also participate in a panel of journalists and editors for a discussion on media rhetoric, which will be focused on anonymous online news comments.

The Flagler College Communication Week event to be held March 7 – 10 is in its sixth year. For more information, please contact Professor Rosemary Tutt, APR, Assistant Professor of Communication and Faculty Coordinator for Communication Week.

Posted in BroadBased, Public/Media Relations, Social Media Planning

Most, if not all business owners have plans in place to mitigate physical risk including lost data, fire, flood and theft. That’s a no-brainer and the responsible thing to do, right? But while we plan for physical crises, many of us overlook catastrophic planning for an issue that can come out of NOWHERE: a media crisis.

A media crisis can arise from any of the physical issues listed above or can present itself from something much less anticipated: a disgruntled employee or customer who contacts the media about a real – or imagined – dispute. How do you protect yourself from bad press? Who do you call to diminish your corporate exposure? It happens more than you might imagine. Please consider a conversation with an accredited public relations counselor and get the 411 on how they can mitigation your exposure.

When is the right time to include a PR consultant on your team? Below are a few examples in which BroadBased has been called in to defuse situations and attenuate exposure. You should call your PR consultant if you hear:

• “I’m going to call the media” (they might not be serious, but what if they are?)
• “I’m going to call the police” (reports are public and the media monitors police radios)
• “I’m telling Ken” (referring to Ken Amaro, an excellent consumer protection journalist who is a go-to source for business and customer disputes)
• “I’m going to sue you!” (obviously, legal issues are worse than any media crisis, but legal issues also make good media stories)
• “I’m going to make a complaint to regulatory agency” (if your service business is regulated by a state agency ­– like the Department of Professional Regulation – the dispute can become a public one)

Additionally, your PR partner may be able to mitigate the issue if:

• You make a police report for any reason – theft, robbery, fraud
• A customer, current or ex-employee maligns you or your business via online forums (think newspaper or blog comment sections) or through an email campaign

If you don’t already have an accredited PR counselor, BroadBased’s Maria Coppola, APR, can help you plan for or mitigate any media crisis.

Print and online media personnel work on daily (and sometimes hourly) deadlines. If a reporter called you at 8 p.m. alerting you to a potentially damaging story that would appear in the morning news, what’s your plan? Please consider it. It happens more than you would suspect.

Posted in Public/Media Relations