Creative Concepts

It seems like everyone – brands and consumers alike – is on Pinterest. Information about how to use the platform for business is kind of thin, so we thought we’d offer a few pointers to those thinking about adding it to their company’s social media arsenal.

Pinterest Do’s:

• Make sure your website (full of images you hope site visitors will pin to their Pinterest boards) features plenty of high-quality photos. Technically speaking, photos should be sized for web use (JPG files, 30-50kb) and conform to good SEO practices (file name and alt tag relating to the keywords your brand targets). On the composition front, only the most visually interesting photos rule Pinterest. Color, contrast, texture, lighting, and dramatic effect all weigh in. Take care of these things, and you’re taking care of the home front. While showing off (pinning) your own stuff should make up no more than one-third of your total pins, a website ripe for others to pin from is just plain smart.

• If your brand believes Pinterest is a strong strategic platform (uh, that’s why you secured a user name, right?), then you can’t sit back all Field-Of-Dreams like. Use Pinterest’s handy sharing buttons on your website (just the way you include the Twitter and Facebook ones now) to let visitors know they can find your brand. Write a blog post explaining the choice and ways you hope it’s useful for customers. Sprinkle in a few tweets announcing “We’re now on Pinterest – find us at XYZ handle.” Spread the word in low-key ways and let your good pins speak for themselves.

• Consumers today long for multi-dimensional experiences with the products and services they buy. So increase customer intimacy by showing them more about what makes your brand unique and worthwhile. Part of the buying process involves personal alignment with what the brand stands for. How it treats people (employees, customers, communities it operates in). So show another dimension to your brand by using Pinterest to highlight the personal lives of employees, the quirky, morale-building internal event, or your product in use in real customer situations.

Pinterest Don’ts:

• As with any social platform, participation should not be centered wholly around your brand. This is especially true on Pinterest (the company even has a code of conduct). Instead, create boards with pins that relate to the needs your customers may have. For example, a specialty foods store might include a board with pinned photos of recipies, another about interesting, niche, or vintage utensils and cookware, or a board centered around creating gift food baskets.

• Repeating myself – as with any social platform, Pinterest isn’t magic pixie dust. Your brand will not suddenly gain huge share overnight. The Facebook fan page won’t spontaneously combust by all the many new people anxious to “connect” with your brand in every platform imaginable.

• And don’t repeat yourself. Meaning, do not (can I emphasize that?) auto-post your pins to your brand’s Facebook stream. “But won’t that steer our Facebook fans to our Pinterest page? Wouldn’t that be good?” you might ask. Quite the opposite, in fact. Auto-pinning is akin to spam. And while cross-promoting content across online networks (along with reformulating the content to appeal to varied consumption preferences) is generally a good idea, it works best when the user (your brand) modifies the message (be it tweet, status update, etc.) to fit the platform. It’s much more acceptable on Twitter, for instance, to abbreviate and condense text due to the character limitation. The style/tone of Facebook messages is generally casual. I think Pinterest comments call for even greater intimacy because pin-worthy items evoke more emotion from users.

Is your brand on Pinterest? What’s been your experience? Have you seen good examples of brands using it in superb ways?

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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.

This week, my personal blog, The Working Closet, was named one of Babble Media’s Top 100 Mom Blogs of 2011. ABC News dubbed the list “the most influential mom bloggers in North America.” ABC adds that 32 million moms go online each month, with over half visiting blogs.

That’s a lot of influence.

So how influential are the women on Babble’s list? Very influential. “There are now 3.9 million mom blogs in North America alone, according to eMarketer.com,” ABC News reports. “Of those, about 500 have considerable power and reach, [Babble Co-founder Rufus] Griscom said. Another 4,500 take blogging seriously enough that they might fly to a blogger conference.”

That Is amazing.

The world of mom bloggers is a pretty small community; of the 100 names on Babble’s list, half are women I have met in real life over the past few years, at conferences and retreats and PR events. Another quarter are blogs I read regularly. Many of these women are my friends, people I exchange holiday cards and emails with. But they are also women I work with on panel presentations and various projects; as an editor, they are my go-to people when I need writers or spokespeople.

These are the influencers.

What does it mean to say that a blogger is an “influencer?” It means that she has readers — hundreds or thousands or, in some cases, hundreds of thousands — who are listening to what she has to say and basing their own behavior on her opinions and recommendations. My personal web site is a style blog; I write about products and brands as part of my daily posting. I hear from readers and Twitter followers and Facebook fans that they take my recommendations seriously. They trust me, and they buy the products I write about. That’s influence.

How does a blogger become an influencer? Two things are key: she has to write with an authentic voice, and she has to create excellent content. The bloggers on the Babble list are doing both of those things, both in their personal writing and in any work they do with brands. In fact, that’s why brands want to work with these women — because they are willing to lend their authentic voice and incredible writing to the conversation about ideas and issues and items that they think are worthwhile.

But influencers are also picky; we’re not the mom bloggers who will create free content in exchange for samples of a product we could pick up ourselves at CVS. We’re looking for brands that are a match for our beliefs and our values and our lifestyles, because those are the brands we can speak about in an organic, trustworthy way. We are also looking for brands that will compensate us fairly for our work and our influence. We’re not in it for free stuff; we know our voice is valuable and powerful.

I’m thrilled to be included in Babble’s list; I love what I do, and I work hard at it, and it is nice to be recognized for that. It’s also nice to realize that people really are listening to what I say, even if I spend most of my time talking about shoes.

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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.

According to AllFacebook—the unofficial guide to Facebook—teenage behavior on Facebook has become increasingly, and disturbingly, more antisocial.  New studies by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project report concerning effects of Facebook usage by young teenagers such as friendships ending, face to face confrontations at school, problems with parents, physical fights and bullying.  Possibly the most disturbing of all is how nine out of ten teenagers have observed cruelty on social networks, or treated others that way themselves.  Regardless of the age limit for a Facebook account, it has also been noticed that children thirteen and younger have been creating accounts with reported ages much, much older than their actual ages.  This is to get past the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and the age limit that Facebook has set in accordance with the Act…with or without their parents’ permission.

On a Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, I happened to peruse a blog entry on Mashable about a site called StyleOwner.  I read about a lot of new sites and apps and always investigate them as possibilities for Creative Concepts and/or our clients and this time was no different.  As Mashable explained, you could create your own online boutique drawing from many established and up-and-coming designers the site has negotiated a relationship with and by selling your picks, you could earn 10% of sales.  Instantly, I felt that this was a winner which was strictly instinct as I hadn’t even gone to the site yet.  And this wouldn’t be for me because I don’t need another business…Creative Concepts and a new sister site being developed is quite enough thank you…but this might be fun as a mother/daughter project for the youngest entrepreneur in my family, Olivia.  As a side note, when Olivia was in 2^nd grade, she created a store in our family room selling her stuffed animals for hugs and when she decided to hire her older brother to play cello to bring in customers (us), I knew that marketing and doing business were a part of her being even at that young age.

So it didn’t take much to get Olivia on board:

Me: “So, Olivia, do you want to pick out some cool clothes and accessories, sell them to your friends, and make money?”

O: “Sure Mom and can I get an iPad to help grow the business?”

Me: “Oh boy!”

So despite the perceived need for new tech toys from Olivia, I emailed StyleOwner for an invite (they are still in Beta) and within ½ hour we got the OK to build our site and boy what a joy it was and is!  Once we got our code, StyleOwner asked us to go through some very simple steps where we got to choose the name of our store and then we had the chance to design all the elements of the store from music that plays on our homepage, to the font and the background design where we had many options and styles to choose from.  Some elements we were able to pull from our own archives like the profile picture and a bigger picture that sits on the homepage so the setup of our store ended up being a nice combination of personalized elements and their templates which totally worked for us!

Next step was up to Olivia.  She built the store.  Styleowner has merchandise from a range of 75 individual brands she could choose from to help create a fashionista’s online dream.  From men’s and women’s clothes to categories like hats, scarves, jewelry and more, there was no doubt a store could be built that would provide a solution to everyone’s dressing needs.  Olivia took two days to go through every item that the site had laid out perfectly for the “stylist.”  While choosing an item to put into her store, she could click on an arrow to add to her store and she could click on a bubble to add a personal note about that item.  Other options allowed Olivia to choose from designers, categories of items or items based on pricing…so easy even a 6^th grader could set up a store if they have an eye for fashion and a heart for sales.

So here is where the site gets super fun with the social commerce side of the business.  They have easy ways to share updates about your store on your Facebook and Twitter profiles (Olivia: “hey look Allie (a good friend), I found the perfect necklace for you!” which posts right to Olivia’s facebook and twitter profiles with a link to that necklace so Allie can see it).  Olivia can also create recommendations for her friends and share with them once complete.  Maybe Olivia’s sister needs some options for the prom so Olivia, with her “recommend” tool, could grab dresses, jewelry, and shoes so her big sis doesn’t have to go through Olivia’s whole store.

While Olivia was still in set up mode, I found a little something to buy because the item was cool (can’t say what it is because it’s a Christmas gift and others are reading this) and I wanted to test out the site as a shopper.  Again super easy.  I chose the item I wanted, added it to my shopping cart, bought it, got a confirmation email and within days received the item directly from the designer.  We realized that Olivia and other storeowners don’t have to mess with ecommerce and shipping and handling themselves because it’s a built in feature.  The ecommerce is managed by StyleOwner and the shipping is handled by the brands.

Other helpful tools provided for the “Stylist” is a forum to share your wishlist and problems (it is in Beta after all), incentives for selling like $25 gift cards after five sales which is big for a 6^th grader, a blog for talking more about your fashion know-how, and amazing customer service which might be tested once they get more stores up and running but it works perfectly now.  There are some much needed elements like SEO for each store and analytics so you know if anyone is visiting but I am hopeful that those goodies will be provided for down the road.

As an up an coming business person, Olivia couldn’t have it better with this site (she has already made her first commission…ok, it did come from me but still…).  She has to be in tune with her potential customer,  keep an eye out for new designs provided by Styleowner.com that appeal to her clients and she has to continually market the site to preteens (her group), teens (her sister’s peers) and to the mom’s watching over their kids’ shoulders (do I have to say this is my peer group?).

With high quality products, responsive support on the backend for the store owner, and lots of room for personal expression and style from Olivia, the store owner, I am thinking she might just be paying off the mortgage soon with all that she can earn selling from her store, Liv2Shop.  Check it out and let us know what  you think!

Valorie
Founder, Creative Concepts

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