Social Office Suite Is a Helpful Tool for Ad Agencies and Small Companies

Social Office Suite (SOS) is a good option for agencies and companies that know the importance of building or monitoring their brands and of generating leads, but find it difficult to consistently invest enough time in social media to make their efforts pay off.

SOS helps organizations identify relevant conversations, including those about competitors, on social media networks. It provides a single dashboard to post, listen to and measure activity in a short period of time each day. Of course, companies can do these same activities themselves, but to do it right takes time and resources that often could be better utilized in other areas.

SOS gives small- and medium-sized businesses the ability to operate and complete with much larger agencies and companies at a fraction of the cost. It’s worth a look: http://socialofficesuite.com/SiteSos/Home.aspx

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

What Ten Years Running My Own PR Agency Has Taught Me

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of my PR consulting business. When I left my VP position with an ad agency to strike out on my own a decade ago, it was a grand experiment that turned out far better than I ever could have imagined.

So what I have learned in the past 10 years? For one thing, I had no idea I would enjoy having my own business so much. Unlike many entrepreneurs I’ve known, I never had a burning desire to be self-employed. But once I got a taste of running my own business, I discovered it was exciting and energizing having my own clients and handling their communication needs. If a problem or issue arises—and there have been very few—I’m able to solve it directly with the client.

Another thing I’ve learned—or had confirmed, really—is that with technology, you can work from just about anywhere and still provide top-notch service to clients. A laptop, e-mail, a mobile phone and Social Media tools are about the only things you really need.

I’ve learned also the tremendous value of referrals. With only a couple of exceptions, my business has all come from either word-of-mouth or from having one division of a company see what I’d done for another division and contact me.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve picked up the phone and someone would say something along the lines of, “I’m Bill Smith and so-and-so gave me your name . . . .”

Which leads me to another observation: You can’t beat starting out with a huge piece of business coming through the door. That’s exactly what happened to me. Initially I expected my first year to be a struggle and my goal was simply to make enough money to survive until I got established. Having a large piece of retainer business from day one gave me a roaring start and a strong foundation upon which to build for future success. I was exceedingly fortunate and blessed.

A friend and colleague who had launched his own ad agency a few years prior and seen it grow significantly gave me this piece of advice when I first got started: Be prepared for success. It was great advice, and he was absolutely right. If you’re going to take the plunge, focus on being successful, not hoping you’ll be successful.

One thing that I thought I’d miss more than I have is the opportunity to bounce things off agency peers. Turns out that several of them have their own agencies now, and we share advice and resources with each other as needed. In fact, I’ve collaborated with a number of my former agency colleagues on business assignments when they needed help, and I’ve hired some of them to provide services for my clients when I’ve been swamped.

I wouldn’t want to leave the impression that there haven’t been some bumps along the way, and my business certainly is not immune to downswings in the economy. But having my own firm has been a blessing far beyond what I envisioned. It’s been a great ride, and I’m looking forward to seeing what the next 10 years have in store.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Don’t Try to Fix Broken Communication Until You Have Completed a Communications Audit

Several days ago, I finished a communications audit for a client that has customers throughout Tennessee. If you’re not family with a communications audit, it’s simply a management tool that helps an organization gauge how effectively it’s communicating with various audiences.

While people may think that others understand and accept their messages, we are often unaware of how the messages we send are received, understood or accepted. An audit helps identify strengths and weaknesses in an organization’s communications, as well as perceptions that exist and barriers which prevent or inhibit effective communication. An audit also flags areas that areas that may require more in-depth, quantitative research.

When I do an audit, I always include:

•       A review of past methods and vehicles used to communicate with various audiences.

•       The collection and analysis of information about perceptions individuals have about the organization; what they want and need to know; how they prefer to be reached; and the extent to which organizational communication is clear, consistent and relevant.

•       An analysis of what would make communications more effective in the future, along with specific recommendations.

In addition to reviewing this organization’s communications materials and vehicles, I interviewed employees as well as customers from one side of the state to the other to determine perceptions and how communication could be improved. By comparing employees’ and customers’ answers about key issues and perceptions, I was able to identify common concerns and trends, as well as to see where gaps exist between what they think about a particular matter.

As it turned out, there were three reoccurring themes I heard over and over again. All three are intertwined, and the good news is that there are practical ways in which they can be greatly improved, though they won’t be fixed overnight and they will require a financial investment.

It’s hard to fix something if you don’t know exactly where  it’s broken. A communications audit helps answer that question and provides a roadmap to get an organization’s communications back on track.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

The Best WordPress Plugins for Boosting SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a vital part of helping prospective clients or customers find you. If you’re not satisfied with the level of traffic your agency or organization generates, check out this guest post from Laura Backes, a freelance writer whose work includes Internet and technology topics. She has some practical, easy-to-implement suggestions for boosting SEO through free WordPress plugins. Thanks, Laura, for this helpful post:

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is something that every blogger knows that they probably should be maximizing, but not everyone knows exactly how to go about doing so. Boosting your SEO means generating greater success from your content and increasing your website’s traffic, so making sure that you’re getting the most out of your blog’s SEO is clearly important. But wouldn’t it be nice if you could sit back and let someone else handle your SEO for you? Luckily, you can. There are several different WordPress plugins that you can download for free for your blog that will do just that.

1.      SEO Rank Reporter

Getting all your ducks in a row with SEO is important, but if you can’t monitor whether it’s being successful or not, then what good is it? With SEO Rank Reporter you are given a report every three days that updates you on how certain keywords that you have identified as important for your blog are ranking in the search engines.

2.      Headspace2 SEO

This is an all-in-one program that really does it all in terms of SEO. The plugin manages your meta-data and makes it easy to understand and implement. It also has a wide range of modules that help you create the site that you want. You also can go in and tag posts and create custom titles and descriptions, both of which will help increase your blog’s page ranking in the major search engines.

3.      Google XML Sitemaps

If you’re trying to increase your blog’s visibility within the major search engines, then you need this plugin. It creates a sitemap for your blog that makes it easier for search engines to crawl your website and index it, helping increase your blog’s traffic.

4.      SEO Content Control

Ever wondered which content on your site could be beefed up to get more SEO bang for your buck? SEO Content Control helps to identify weak content that is holding your blog back from its full potential and helps you clean up your blog, making it more appealing to your blog readers.

5.      SEO Smart Links

SEO Smart Links will generate automatically linked keywords within your blog posts, comments and other content on your website with common content in your blog to help you maximize on your SEO. You can also create custom keywords and create links, among a long list of other things geared at improving your blog’s SEO. It helps make managing your SEO simple.

These are only a few of the many plugins that are designed to help you simply enhance the SEO of your blog. Since SEO is directly linked to the success of a blog, it’s important to take on all the help you can get—something that’s easily done just by downloading these plugins!

Author Bio: This is a guest post from Laura Backes. She enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service in my area.  You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com.

 

Don’t Miss Publicity Opportunities for Your Agency or Business

In dealing with the tyranny of the urgent, ad agency and business executives can easily overlook publicity opportunities just waiting to be told. These opportunities are valuable in generating awareness and, in some cases, helping to establish or reinforce expertise in particular areas.

Here are my Top 20 Topics to consider:

1. Awards

2. New clients/customers

3. New employees

4. Employee promotions

5. Human interest stories about employees

6. Community involvement

7. Survey results

8. Introducing a new product or service

9. Expert commentary that address newsworthy topics/trends

10. Appointments to boards

11. Publications (articles, books, etc.)

12. New offices/geographical expansion

13. Mergers/strategic alliances

14. Trends, projections, forecasts

15. Speeches

16. Sponsorships

17. Mentoring programs

18. Pro bono work

19. Guest columns

20. Case studies that could become feature stories

One of my favorite examples of a good human interest story involves a real estate agent named Alex Delgado.

“Once I got into real estate, I got really successful really fast, and I had all this money I didn’t know what to do with,” he told our local paper. Rather than pamper himself, Alex looked to the needs of others by giving a portion of his commission for every house sold to sponsor impoverished children in developing countries.

At the time the story was published, he was supporting 53 children in 19 countries.

The article quoted from letters he received from his sponsor children, who described the ways in which his involvement improved their lives. One girl from India, who signed her letter “loving daughter,” explained how his money provides her family with food and soap.

A little boy who lost both parents to an accident, and later his younger sister, wrote, “Now I am alone. I thank God for getting you as my sponsor.”

If I were looking to buy or sell a house, Alex Delgado is the first person I’d call. And I imagine a lot of other people felt the same way after reading this story. It obviously was good publicity for his company as well.

What stories like this are in your organization that ought to be shared?

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

How PR Can Bring “Awareness Plus” to Ad Agencies

Many advertising agencies use public relations to generate awareness, but in my experience few use it as a strategic tool to drive new business.

While generating awareness is valuable, PR can do so much more if it works hand-in-hand with an agency’s new business plan. Agencies that utilize PR solely for awareness purposes are shortchanging the value it can bring them.

Public relations can help agencies drive sales, get discovered by prospects and retain existing clients. I like to think of this approach as “Awareness Plus.”

I use the term “Awareness Plus” because if utilized in a targeted, strategic manner, PR will give your agency the benefits of awareness plus so much more.

On February 8, I’ll discuss the building blocks for creating a performance-based PR plan for agencies at a Mirren webinar titled, “How to Craft a PR Plan that Will Drive New Business.”

For more information about the webinar or to register, visit http://www.mirren.org/workshops/130/77-How-to-Craft-a-PR-Plan-that-Will-Drive-New-Business/

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

 

 

Cruise Ship Flunks Crisis Management 101

Costa Concordia, the luxury cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy a few days ago, has created first-rate crisis not only for the ship’s owners, but also for the entire industry.

If the ship had a crisis plan to handle such an emergency, it sure didn’t work very well.

The panic and chaos that ensured when Costa Concordia began to turn on its side was exacerbated by a crew that seemed unsure of what to do. News media reports have now surfaced that the ship’s captain—who as of this writing is behind bars—waited more than an hour after the vessel hit a rock to issue an evacuation order.

Frustrated by the captain’s inaction, some crew members began helping terrified passengers get to lifeboats. However, a number of the crew reportedly left before all the passengers were safely evacuated. Even the captain allegedly abandoned ship before hundreds of his passengers escaped.  Survivors have described the incident as “like something out of the Titanic.”

One would naturally assume that the chances of a disaster like this taking place in a modern ship cruising along in good weather near shore are pretty small, but one also would assume that should an accident occur, the captain and crew would be well trained and prepared to handle it and make sure passengers got off safely before fleeing for their own lives. Now, however, confidence in the entire industry is shaken.

Henry Kissinger once observed that “A problem ignored is a crisis invited.”

The problem for Costa Cruises, which owns the Costa Concordia, started long before the ship capsized. A thorough crisis plan and regular disaster drills for the crew would likely have resulted in more decisive action and an orderly evacuation, which may have saved lives and prevented injuries.  A captain who failed to perform his duties due to incompetence, complacency or being incapacitated should have been one of crisis scenarios.

In fairness to Costa Cruises, it may have had a crisis plan and may also have routinely practiced various scenarios with crew members. But clearly the plan was inadequate and flawed because something went terribly wrong.

The only thing worse than not having a crisis plan is having one that is not communicated, reviewed or tested by those who ultimately will have to implement it.

You don’t have to own a luxury ship to need a crisis plan. Every business and agency, even small ones, should have a what-if plan that is regularly reviewed and updated. For example, if a hurricane, earthquake, tornado or fire wiped out your office building, would you have a back-up plan to minimize disruptions to your employees, clients or customers?

If you don’t have a plan to deal with these and other emergency situations, I recommend you take action rather than sitting back and hoping for the best. Get started on a crisis management plan this month—and when you’re finished, make sure your plan is communicated to employees so that know what to do and how to respond if a disaster strikes.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Developing an Effective PR Plan: Getting Started

“Publicity begets publicity” is a principle I learned early in my agency career.

As I’ve found time and time again while working with clients in an array of industries, once a story is done by one news media outlet, others media tend to notice and want in on the action.

Having someone from your agency or business repeatedly quoted in media outlets on a particular topic can go a long ways toward positioning that person as an expert. It’s hard to overstate the value of becoming a trusted source for reporters and the benefits such positioning can garner.

Organizations that make PR a priority through an intentional, ongoing effort to get their names in the marketplace can gain a significant competitive advantage, especially when it comes to new business development.

But in order to manage time, resources and activities in the most productive way possible, it’s vital to have a written PR plan to provide focus, direction, coordination and clear targeting for your efforts.

Without one, PR activities will manage you, and they may lack focus and consistency. Or, they will simply fall off your radar as the tyranny of the urgent takes over.

A good starting point is to nail down as specifically as possible what it is you want your plan to achieve and how you will go about it.

People sometimes use terms such as a goals and objectives interchangeably, so when you’re ready to establish you PR goal, objectives, strategies and tactics, it’s important that everyone is speaking the same language and sharing the same meaning.

I’ve found the following football analogy helpful when thinking through what needs to be accomplished:

Goals are broad and intangible, so the team’s goal could be to become the best high school football team in the world. Because there are no world playoffs at the high school level, the goal couldn’t be measured.

Objective: To win the game. An objective is specific and measurable. In this case, winning is the primary objective.  A secondary objective may be to enable a player to gain enough yards to break a school record or to score a certain number of points.

Strategy: The other team is bigger, but we’re faster.  Therefore, we’ll utilize our superior quickness to achieve the objective (i.e. to win the game).

Tactics: The specific plays we will run throughout the game, especially those that favor quicker players. You also could think of tactics as the action plan.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Developing an Effective PR Plan: Identifying and Understanding Your Audiences

One of the most important aspects of a public relations plan is a clear delineation of who you want to reach, what motivates them, their level of interest/comprehension and the best ways to reach them.

Whether the PR plan is designed to stand alone or be incorporated into a broader marketing plan, identifying and understanding your audiences is critical to success.

Customers have different informational needs than employees, and a regulator will ask much different questions than a supplier. Likewise, a local reporter will be especially interested in the local angle of a story and what it means to the community, while trade and national media will focus on the “big picture” aspect of the same story. Even then, trade media will have different informational needs than national consumer media.

Some audiences are obvious, while others may be more challenging to identify. Depending on a number of factors, a PR plan may address a relatively small, targeted audience or more diverse, fragmented groups.

Whatever audiences end up in your plan, you’ll need specific strategies, tactics and messaging to effectively reach each segment.

When creating a public relations plan, it’s helpful to find a method for categorizing audiences to you make sure you don’t miss one. The following is a method I’ve used to segment audiences based on their links to an organization:

Enabling links – publics that set policies or goals and may control assets.

• Board of directors
• Government regulators
• Congress

Functional links – audiences with a direct link between the services the organization performs and the product(s) it produces.

• Employees
• Suppliers
• Users of products/services

Diffused links – individual members of a public who do not belong to a formal organization but share a common interest.

• Community residents
• Minorities
• News Media
• Environmentalists
• Voters

Normative links – publics that share the organization’s goals and values.

• Religious associations
• Professional societies
• Competitors

Always keep in mind that diffused links can quickly fuse by organizing to take action (over a common problem or opportunity) and can cause major headaches for you and your organization.  Unions, coalitions and environmental groups are prime examples.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.

Is Your Organization’s Blog Making News or Reporting It?

One of the most important reasons for having a blog is to establish or enhance your ad agency or business as an expert in a particular niche. Being seen as a credible, trustworthy and knowledgeable source that provides useful (as opposed to self-serving) content can have big payoffs down the road.

Your organization’s blog also gives you continuous opportunities to demonstrate that you:

•       Are an effective communicator

•       Have the ability to solve problems

•       Are well connected within your industry

•       Know about important industry developments and trends

There are three basic approaches to business blogging:

1. Become a subject matter expert (SME) who provides fresh thinking, insights or commentary on a topic.

2. Make the blog a news channel that reports information readers may not yet have come across.

3. Create a blog that’s a mix of the two—part SME and part news channel.

There’s nothing wrong with using your blog as a news source, but ask yourself this: Is a prospective customer or client going to be more impressed with someone who is current on the latest industry buzz or with someone who’s creating it?

“The benefits of being an SME depend on the specifics of the industry, but the universal benefit is differentiation. And differentiation usually equals more business. For example, it could mean more leads or the ability to charge a higher hourly rate for consulting, speaking, or training,” writes Mark Faggiano, founder and CEO of Brand5, an Internet marketing consulting company.

I’ve been blogging for nearly three years now, and my content has been a mix of PR tips, insights and commentary combined with PR news. But after reading in Mark’s excellent article in Social Media Today about ways to become a subject matter expert on Twitter, I’ve challenged myself to apply his advice to blogging by focusing on creating more original content and less reporting of news throughout 2012.

Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.