HARO was created in 2008 by Peter Shankman, a Public Relations Expert and Entrepreneur. Shankman thought of the idea when journalists asked him regularly if he knew of any sources for an upcoming story.

To date, HARO brings nearly 30,000 reporters and bloggers, over 100,000 news sources and thousands of small businesses together to tell their stories, promote their brands and sell their products and services.

Once you subscribe to the newsletter, it is easy to scan the table of contents to see if there is anything relevant to your business or industry. If there is a request for an expert that applies to you, be sure to pitch on topic.

Answer promptly and include the query in the subject line with HARO listed. There are Five Rules of HARO that Shankman points out to always follow.

Other tips? Keep your pitch short and sweet. Offer contact information and links to more details if necessary, but no attachments. PR Web wrote How to Pitch HARO Successfully and it is chock full of tips from PR experts.

We have shared tips on pitching, building a media list, and follow up which are all elements, when done correctly, of a successful PR campaign.  Hopefully Help A Reporter Out can enhance your PR campaign and help your business reach the right journalists at the right moment.

Image via Help A Reporter Out 

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We are so excited to announce that we have expanded into the Netherlands.  Why the Netherlands?  And what does expansion mean?  Ok, one thing at a time so let’s first get to why we chose the Netherlands.

Nicoline Maes, Director of Business Services (and most recently Director of Business Development/Netherlands as well), moved with her family from the Netherlands to the U.S. in 2006 and in 2007 came on board to Creative Concepts.  At this time, Nicoline began working on developing our client reporting tools and then added working with David Borzo to the mix where the two became a very effective content management team.  Together David and Nicoline have managed our writer assignments and schedules as well as having developed content topics while editing drafts of blog entries, Facebook updates and more.  While Nicoline was helping to bring success to our clients she became a true believer in the power of social media as well as our other services: public relations, design and branding, events and video production.  When the opportunity came for Nicoline and her family to go back to her homeland in the Netherlands, she happily made the move and took with her the goal of expanding Creative Concepts internationally.

We have so much to celebrate here on the Creative Concepts blog!  In 2011 we shifted gears by welcoming numerous voices instead of one….great writers and strategists who have shared their research and/or life experiences with our readers which has made all of us much wealthier with knowledge.  Today we are reviewing the best of the best from 2011:

One of our amazing strategists Stephanie Schwab always seems to hit home with her instructive and interesting social media blog entries but “How To Create an Editorial Calendar,” “How Brands Can Use Instagram,” and “Use Social Media to Rock Your Next In Person Event”  especially clicked with our readers.  Stephanie, while still a strategist for Creative Concepts, is no longer contributing to our blog and we will miss her…thanks Stephanie for your contribution!!

Next up we have Heather Rast who has done us all the favor of writing about social media and mobile marketing.  She began by asking “Where Does Mobile Fit Into Your Multi-Channel Strategy” which then lead us to learning about “Geo Location Apps For Business” and then back to the very enjoyable and festive “7+ Holiday Gifts To Make Your Social Media Marketing Bright.”  We are looking forward to a new year of entries focused on social media for business…can’t wait Heather!

And who hasn’t enjoyed Susan Wagner‘s posts?  Her writing is both entertaining and educational as seen with “Partnering With Bloggers Will Help Build Your Brand,”Strategies For Finding The Best Blogger For Your Brand, and “Sponsoring A Blogger Is Good For Your Brand.”  Businesses hunger for this kind of information so we are grateful for Susan and look forward to learning more from her in 2012!

If you are in marketing, then you probably have seen countless studies on what teens think and what they are doing online.  We are lucky to have our own teen who is an expert on being a teen of course.  Jerelyn Luther has shared great thoughts on “Using Facebook To Connect To Her Favorite TV Shows,” “Insights On Teens and Texting,” and she answers the question about the new report by Pew Research Institute that says “Facebook Makes Teens Antisocial.”   Jerelyn will be attending Yale University in the Fall of 2012 but there is lots more to come from her both before and after the big move!

Last but not least is Robin Phillips who is our resident Public Relations expert.  She has shared tips on pitching, building a media list, and follow up which are all elements, when done correctly, of a successful PR campaign.  We can’t wait to hear more in 2012 from our very own PR maven!

This is the end of our 2011 review.  We are looking forward to a new year filled with delightful surprises that only social media and public relations can bring.  Have a wonderful 2012 and please keep joining us every week as our writers continue to inspire us to learn more while teaching us the basics.

I believe that follow-up (well-done, targeted, slightly aggressive follow-up) is crucial to turn a well-planned public relations campaign into a success story. I have seen many a promotion bomb because the team did not:

Do Any follow-up calls (Do not be afraid to call! The Media are people too)
or
Do Enough follow- up calls (It takes several tries – do not give up!)
or
Do Effective follow-up calls (Be a clever and quick communicator and don’t give up until you speak to a human being)

Many public relations professionals are expert writers and creative thinkers, yet they are afraid to follow-up out of fear of bothering, angering or upsetting a member of the media. Forget the worry and charge ahead because the truth is PR people and the media can have a mutually beneficial relationship and often do need to rely on each other.

Here are four tips for following up on your perfectly crafted press release or pitch email:

1. Reporters receive thousands of emails and phone calls per day so remember that they may not have seen your press release. Always present yourself as if your call is the first time they’re hearing about you and your company or product.
2. Make it snappy: write down the three points you must get across to them and refer to it so you do not get flustered or lose your focus.
3. Be respectful of their time and know when their newscast is or deadline, and do not call at that time. If you aren’t sure, ask “Is this a good time?”
4. Even if you find yourself speaking with a grumpy person, just stay positive and give a big “thank you so much” before signing off.

We all hear a lot of “nos” on the road to a golden “yes” but note that rarely does a reporter become irate and slam the phone down simply for following up on a release. So go ahead and follow the tips above and let us know how much more successful your next campaign is because you found the courage to follow up and connect with the media.

Every PR person has to create media lists during their career. From building a list from scratch to accessing your own personal database of names and publications, either way – most clients and their products call for the creation of a media list tailored to their specific news and target audience.

Evan Carmichael has some of the best tips for creating a targeted and effective media list. With so much accessible information on-line, as well as the new media category of “bloggers,” building an effective list is still time-consuming but is also easier than ever.

Here are three more points I would like to add to Evan’s list:

1. Because we are often given small budgets for PR, online newswires and database directories should be used as a last resort. While they often offer up-to-date factual information, more times than not, the information about the particular journalist or producer is not always accurate which wastes time and money.
2. One of the most important aspects of your media list spreadsheet is a section labeled “notes.” Every media contact should have a few words next to his or her name on the list. What stories do they like? What are their pet peeves? Do they accept products? This kind of attention to detail will pay off, and perhaps make your next list a breeze to create!
3. When you have down time, update. Look over your lists, do some research, ensure the contact is still there, or that the phone numbers or addresses are correct. Maintaining the lists are often more important than creating them!

So good luck in building your list and let us know if you have any other hints and tips we can use for the next time we build our own list!

Image via Motion Picture Association of America

Last week, I spoke at the M2Moms conference in Chicago; I spoke to a wide range of brand managers and PR people who are sincerely interested in working with bloggers to get the word out about the products and brands they promote. Over and over, they asked how to find the best bloggers. The short answer, of course, is to do your research — there is no one-size-fits-all directory of Great Bloggers.

There are a variety of Best Of lists available; Babble Media’s Top 50 Twitter Moms is a perfect example of a really useful list. Their list covers a variety of categories (Most Controversial, Most Helpful, Funniest) and points to some of the most prolific mom tweeters on the web. If you’re planning a Twitter-heavy campaign, this list would be a good place to start. A simple Google search for “best mom blogs” turns up multiple lists — all of which are a good jumping off place for tracking down that perfect blogger. (You can substitute any term for “mom” — food blogger, craft blogger, dad blogger — depending on what exactly you’re looking for.)

Once you’ve found a list, take the time to actually read the blogs. This seems like such a simple directive, but it’s one that many PR people and brand managers often skip. Rather than pitching your brand or product to everyone on a list because they are on the list, pitch only those bloggers to whom your pitch will be relevant. There are lots of terrific mom blogs out there, but not all of those moms have babies; indiscriminately pitching a campaign for baby products to every mom on a particular list is a good way to convince bloggers you have no idea who they are — and, even worse, that you don’t really care.

Reading the blogs you’re planning to pitch is also important because you want to be sure the blogger’s voice and tone are a good match for your brand or product. Look for bloggers whose online persona is a good fit for whatever you are pitching. Look also for bloggers who are already writing about brands and products similar to yours; a blogger who writes frequently about the environment, for example, would be a terrific match for an ecologically safe cleaning product, but a poor match for an SUV campaign.

How can you measure a blogger’s influence? A quick way is to look at his or her Twitter profile. A blogger with a huge number of followers may very well be heavily influential on Twitter, but be wary of making a hiring decision solely on that number. A blogger who follows 200 people but is followed by 2,000 may very well be more influential than a blogger who has 25,000 followers but follows an equal number of people. In other words, a blogger who is speaking to a loyal group, even if they are on the smaller side, may do more for your brand than a blogger who is not genuinely engaging with his or her followers.

Photo via DonnyGamble.com

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This link is a great example of every PR person’s worst nightmare: a journalist (or blogger in this case) makes fun of your pitch, shoots you back a snarky response, and it doesn’t end there as you continue to make more mistakes and they continue to broadcast it to their followers! Have you had this happen to you?  Do you never want to be on the receiving end of being called out online? Below are a few very easy ways to avoid this situation – even for the greenest PR person out there.

• Do not send out your client news to anyone and everyone – really know your media outlet, know what it reports on, know its tone, know its past stories. This sounds really simple but I know so many PR People who pitch a good story to the wrong place – wasting everyone’s time and energy (and their reputation for the future).
• Listen for media-feedback, and then incorporate that into your pitch moving forward—or perhaps even your current pitch. The writers, bloggers, and producers out there know what they want to write about –and know what their bosses what to see printed or on air.
• Determine if no means not now – or no means “NEVER” This is subtle—but a PR person who actually speaks with his or her intended target will get a sense of whether he or she should stop sending this person pitches forever—or keep them on a list.
• If No means never, don’t keep trying them with different angles of the same story. They could just be a media person who does not want any noise (or news even) from PR people. That’s THEIR problem. Leave them alone!

This brings me to my last but also very important point. Person to person contact is very important in communicating news. That, I hope, will never change. Really good, actually NEW information is difficult to obtain by Editors and Bloggers.  Public relations can help get the word out about a little brand that is trying to break into a bigger category or a company that is sharing industry news which can ultimately generate new ideas and then stories for the media.  Clever, well-thought out Public Relations campaigns are designed to inform and deliver news so please do follow the above points and make yourself (and the PR industry) an invaluable part of the news cycle!

Photo via Top Rank Blog

But in our post-9/11, post-Hurricane Katrina, post-An Inconvenient Truth society, something changed.  Suddenly, people were concerned about the environment, and about energy, and about the impact their daily actions might have on the planet’s future.

In the aftermath of this green awakening, people needed a way to ask questions, share suggestions, pitch policy reforms and raise environmental concerns.  Thus, from blogs to YouTube to Facebook to Twitter, social media became the hub for a wide array of environmental discussions — and today their collective conversation is louder than it’s ever been.

Blogs: The Spark for Green Journalism

Before the mainstream news media embraced the green movement, impassioned individuals were using blogs to bring attention to the environmental issues they were personally concerned about.  These grassroots movements flowered, and today some of the most trusted (and highly-trafficked) sources for green news are blogs like Grist, Sustainablog and TreeHugger.  In turn, larger news organizations like the New York Times and the Huffington Post now have blog channels dedicated to green content, further validating the environment as a mainstream subject.

Green News Travels Fast

A simple search of Twitter hashtags like #sustainable, #green and #EcoMonday reveal that hundreds of green conversations take place on Twitter every day.  Equally impressive is how often brands and corporations enter those conversations to share related tips (and to promote their related products and services).  This real-time information exchange helps brands monitor topics of interest to their customers, but it also means that breaking news like the BP gulf oil spill quickly becomes common knowledge (and stays in the public eye for months), making it harder for companies to manage the spin.

Common Bonds Create Communities

As young mothers become increasingly aware of the ingredients they’re introducing into their children’s lives, “green mommies” have become a swiftly-growing subset of the “mommy blogger” community, championing a renewed emphasis on natural and organic foods, fibers and cleaning products (like those made by our client, Ecover).

This same unifying “green” thread can be found in other eco-responsible communities, including designers, chefs, fashionistas and anyone seeking a little lifestyle improvement.  This provides consumers with universal access to information, support and resources, and it provides ecological brands with unified audiences to poll, connect with, learn from and sell to.

Greenpeace vs. Nestle: When Facebook Becomes a Battlefield

Sometimes, brands who use social media for sales and marketing find themselves trapped in a PR conundrum because they forget a basic online truth: they don’t control the conversations that happen on their channels.  For example, when Greenpeace activists hijacked the conversation on Nestle’s Facebook page, Nestle was slow to respond (and clumsy when they did), which caused the company to seem both evasive and dismissive.  News of their snafu spread like wildfire, causing Nestle a lengthy and time-consuming PR headache — and, ultimately, led to Nestle agreeing to meet Greenpeace’s demands.

It’s hard to imagine that kind of outcome occurring a decade ago, before social media provided the green industry with a collective voice.  And it’s fascinating to wonder where such a hyper-connected green future might lead both a green-obsessed world and the ecological companies that serve their needs.

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Image by Ken Colwell via Fickr.

While the merits of that question can be debated endlessly, we here at Creative Concepts do know one thing for sure: whatever “wrong” happens to be, it sure feels good to know we’re doing something right!

Sometimes, validation comes from metrics.  Social media can be unpredictable, so when the numbers prove that our theories (and campaigns) are bearing fruit for our clients, we feel good because they feel good.

Other times, validation comes directly from the clients themselves.  We’ve been working with some of our clients for more than 5 years, which means our methods are working for them.  And every time we sign a new client, or expand our responsibilities with an existing client, we know that we’re all moving confidently forward in a positive — and profitable — direction.

And then there’s the validation from our peers.  For example, when we read Mashable’s recent list of 10 Tips for Posting on Your Brand’s Facebook Page, we digitally high-fived ourselves because we already do each of these things for our clients. (See for yourself on their Facebook pages.)

Client love, new work and metric boosts are what keep us active and engaged, but there’s still nothing like reading a major advice column and realizing we’re already ahead of the curve.  (And we haven’t even had our coffee yet!)

Wondering what else we know?  Follow us on Facebook and Twitter!

If you think writing novels (or blog posts) is hard, try tweeting for a living.

In most forms of communication, the audience invites you to spin your story and enchant them over time.  Even a 30 second TV commercial gives you half a minute to make your pitch.

But on Twitter, you only have milliseconds to capture someone’s attention as they scroll through a nonstop litany of links, promotions, inside jokes and regurgitated news stories, desperately in search of something interesting.  If you’re not immediately captivating on Twitter, your boring tweets will be buried under an avalanche of similarly blah messaging in the blink of an eye.

So how do you manage to stay interesting on Twitter, day after day?

Here are 11 tips that we at Creative Concepts have developed internally on behalf of our clients to help them stay competitive in Twitter’s attention market:

1. Every tweet is a headline. For centuries, newspaper editors have been writing great headlines to draw attention to dense blocks of text that might otherwise go overlooked. Imagine that every tweet you send is going on the front page of The New York Times, and that you’re single-handedly responsible for increasing the paper’s circulation.  (No pressure, right?)
2. Be useful. “Interesting” is always a matter of perspective, but “useful” actually provides a service.  You may not be dazzled by the prose of a tweet, but if you want (or need) to know what it’s pitching, you’re far more likely to click.
3. Be direct. Addressing someone with the @ symbol in front of their Twitter handle ensures that they’ll see what you have to say.  (Now, just don’t be spammy…)
4. Be brief. The shorter your tweet is, the easier it is for others to add their own commentary as they retweet you — and people love adding their own two cents to your discussion.
5. Solve a problem. We search Twitter to find out what kinds of problems our clients’ customers (and potential customers) may be having, and then we help our clients offer their customers solutions via links to products, blog posts, or just good old-fashioned advice.
6. Remove doubt. People like to know what works. By sharing the positive reviews and accolades that others have tweeted about your products and services, you’re letting potential customers know that your existing customers would recommend you — because they just did.
7. Say thank-you. When you see kudos about your brand, thank that person directly. They’ll appreciate knowing that their kind words helped make someone else’s day.
8. Become an information resource. What are the hot topics in your brand’s industry right now?  What is everyone talking about? What is no one talking about? By sharing information about those topics great and small, your brand becomes your customers’ curator for a larger conversation about the field or the industry itself.
9. Be funny. Humor travels fast on Twitter, and while everyone’s sense of humor is different, a brand that can laugh at itself is a brand that others are more likely to take seriously.
10. Be positive. Twitter is occasionally a traffic jam of complaints and customer service debacles. Be the upside that cuts through the clutter and you’ll stand out simply for taking the high road.
11. Be yourself. What you say is important, but so is how you say it. No one stops to read a brochure, but they’ll linger to overhear a private conversation. Deliver your messages honestly and authentically — and in your own voice — and you’re less likely to be confused for an easily-ignored marketing robot.

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Image by Angie Muldowney on Flickr