Top 3 Social Media Content Best Practices

Took another webinar yesterday about social media -- got a few great tips and reminders. 

Here are my top 3:

1. When writing social media content follow the rule of thirds:

• 1/3 about you/your brand
• 1/3 about something you've learned (to share)
• 1/3 should be a conversation -- actually interacting with members of the community.

2. Be sure to re-purpose your social media content -- for example well-written, consumer-friendly releases can become blog posts.

3. Including multimedia in your social media release increases the chances of it being clicked on.

Just thought I'd share! It's always good to remind ourselves about the best practices that are out there!

Inspiration from a Webinar

I love feeling inspired and was lucky enough today to participate in a webinar that gave me that satisfaction. I found several action items I'd like to work on for myself and my clients! I know better than to try to tackle all of them at once, but I shouldn't have any trouble picking one to start with!

The webinar was titled 7 Steps for Small Business Success and was facilitated by John Jantsch, author of Duct Tape Marketing.

Here are my three favorite action steps!

• A strategy to grow your business. Find and describe your IDEAL customer -- not just a good customer -- an IDEAL one. An ideal customer is one that values you, is profitable and refers you. Once you find them, analyze them -- demographics, psychographics, geographics and behavior. Get a crystal clear picture of your ideal customer.
• I love that! Why are we looking only for "customers," when we could be looking for the IDEAL customers?
• A tactic for differentiating yourself in the marketplace. Copy and paste into Word the first paragraph of your website. Do the same for one of your competitors. Black out all references to both of your business names. Then, read them and see if you can tell them apart. Have your employees and clients read it for you as well. This will show you if you are making yourself stand out online. 
• What a great tool to get you to spruce up your website copy if it needs it!
• A tool for media relations. Identify five or six key journalists in your community or industry, and put them in Google Alerts so you get updates on what they write. Start commenting on their articles, blogs and send them information you have when appropriate. 
• We all know about building relationships with journalists, but I just loved the simplicity of accomplishing this tactic.

The webinar also listed a few interesting Internet statistics that you can read about in the graphic above. Enjoy! 

Tina Haisman now offering Public Relations Coaching

Are you a small business owner, entrepreneur, overwhelmed public relations professional or non-profit professional who needs guidance on how to get your business noticed by potential clients and the media? Have a limited PR budget, but understand the importance of PR? Can't afford to hire a full-service firm but would like some professional guidance? 

Hire a Public Relations Coach!

As your Public Relations Coach, I can help you:

• Craft an effective public relations plan
• Identify your goals and set achievable objectives
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• Develop powerful public relations messages
• Determine the appropriate media to target with your message
• Prepare for media interviews
• Navigate the social media scene
• Teach you how to write a compelling media release

This service combines my 16 years of public relations experience with my Master Life Coach certification to inspire, motivate and empower my clients to achieve public relations success. Contact me to inquire about pricing!

Using Creativity and PR to Sell my Home

Due to a job relocation, we need to sell our Fort Myers Florida home. After 3 months of letting an agent use traditional marketing methods, I took action on my own.

My husband and I came up with a marketing idea to create dueling top 10 lists of the best features about the home. We thought this would appeal to men and women who tend to look for different things when they buy a home.

I used the PR web advanced release package to distribute a release about the top 10 lists to areas snowbirds come to Florida from: Boston (for Red Sox spring training), Minneapolis (for Twins spring training), Detroit, Chicago and Columbus.

On the day the release went live, more than 30 people viewed our listing on www.realtor.com. That number may seem small to some, but from 0 hits one day to 30 the next was exciting. Those were 30 more people than would have seen the listing otherwise. In addition, the release infiltrated the news feeds on real estate websites worldwide.

I also distributed the release to my Fort Myers media contacts. As a result, an article ran Sunday, September 19, in The Fort Myers News-Press. It appeared on the front page of the real estate section and featured several pictures of the home. The publication of this article also infiltrated the web and populated the news feeds on real estate websites around the globe.

Another tactic I used for this campaign was a blog. I created a blog to tell the stories of the home to help potential buyers see what a lovely, family-oriented home 11471 Persimmon Court is. Check it out: http://11471persimmoncourt.blogspot.com. Each time I write a new blog entry, I post it on Facebook and Twitter.

One exciting aspect of this campaign was that the Florida Association of Realtors wrote an article declaring the dueling top 10 lists a new "marketing tactic" in their newsletter. This was particularly exciting since part of what we were trying to do was create some action, activity and momentum in the real estate world! Perhaps this one little idea will help generate many more!

Two books were instrumental in my inspiration to create this campaign. The New Rules of Marketing and PR by David Meerman Scott and A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink. If you haven't already read them, get going!

Will keep you posted when the house sells!

Just another day in the media world

Last week I wrote about how excited I was about being contacted by NBC Nightly News. They were going to write a story about beach restoration projects and present both sides of the issue -- or so I was told. The story did not turn out that way at all, in fact, it landed on the "Fleecing of America" series.

What to do for my client now??? I work with another PR firm in representing the ASBPA, and we decided to take a two-pronged approach. I would write my contact at NBC directly with my disappointment, and the President of ASBPA would write a more public response to the piece.

The link to the story is here. Scroll to the program titled Beachfront Facelifts.

Following is the letter I sent to the producer I worked with...Here is the link for the official ASBPA response.

Dear NBC Producer (Name left off intentionally):

To say that I am disappointed by the Fleecing of America Story about “Beachfront Facelifts” would be an understatement.

When you contacted me, you did not reveal this story was for the “Fleecing of America” series. You presented the story as a balanced article about both sides of the issue – but that is not what we saw on the news last night. (Even though I've been told the interviews conducted with ASBPA representatives were thorough.) Out of a two-minute, 40-second piece, you dedicated only 24 seconds to the pro-beach restoration point of view.

The piece contained opinionated words and phrases such as “lost cause” and “futile” to describe efforts to restore America’s beaches. You aired Orrin Pilkey’s unsubstantiated phrases, such as “ignorant” and “societal madness,” to describe his radical (and extreme minority) view of beach restoration. You accused contractors and homeowners about caring only for the almighty dollar.

It seems to me, this story offered nothing more than a rehash of prior reporting on this subject, rather than facts and figures that might offer viewers a context in which to frame the issue and decide for themselves.

Allowing only 24 seconds for ASBPA to respond did not offer sufficient airtime for facts that support beach nourishment, such as:

• Beaches offer a good return on the federal investment: Every federal dollar spent on beaches brings in more than $300; every dollar spent on a restored beach brings $4-$5 back to taxpayers at all levels of government.

• A healthy beach protects the #1 U.S. industry … tourism. If U.S. beaches aren’t maintained, visitors (and the jobs they bring) will go elsewhere.

• A wide beach provides protection for homes, habitat and infrastructure. Money spent to maintain beaches should significantly reduce the federal money necessary to help communities recover after most coastal storms.

• 50% of our population lives within 50 miles of the coast. That’s where people want to be and that’s where the people’s money needs to be invested.

• Beaches are part of a larger and interdependent coastal environment. Loss of a sandy beach has a ripple effect through the entire coastal ecosystem.

• Coastal management is a crucial part of coastal commerce:

    o The navigation that brings in goods.

    o The recreation that brings in visitors.

    o The habitation that makes communities thrive.

• Beaches attract twice as many visitors as our national parks, yet they receive a fraction of the federal funding spent annually on those parks.

There’s one more point I’d like to make: In the story about the flooding in Fargo, ND, which aired just before the beach story, your correspondent interviewed a woman from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who described how a diversion canal would help reduce flooding in that area in the future. The correspondent then said funding is needed to fix the problem and install the diversion canal.

But where do you think that funding will come from? The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is funded by the U.S. government -- by tax dollars. How is protecting riverfront residents from these annual floods viewed with sympathy while protecting beachfront residents from exceptional (and certainly not annual) storm erosion deemed to be "fleecing"?

The Corps is also the agency responsible for carrying out the majority of federal beach nourishment projects to create wider beaches, which serve as coastal levees – a better barrier against coastal flooding.

I am sincerely disappointed in the way this story was handled.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Tina Haisman

ASBPA Media Relations