What to know before you pitch a blogger

Bloggers are media. They have more and more influence and reach than ever. You can be a blogger and follow blogs. Dip your toe in the blog water and just join a blogging group. You can participate on several blogging groups such as Blogher, DivineCaroline, Betterfly. Follow those bloggers who match your interests, business type, etc. Then you can get a feel for connecting to them. When you want to pitch them, make sure you do your homework. Just like with traditional media sources you’ll want to know

• the blogger’s audience-who reads them
• their reach-where else besides their blog can you find them: books, media outlets, social media
• their look and style. The Blaspheming Bitch is delicious, but may not be for your business audience
• what their criteria is for working with them. The best interchange I’ve seen is from TheBloggess. She was pitched to cover a celebrity. She doesn’t do celebrity endorsements. She gets so many of them that she has a standard, if snarky, reply. Great advice. Someone took offense to receiving the Will Wheaton collating paper photo. She wrote a blog on the worst PR pitch that got the PR firm fired for the way it was unprofessionally handled. Just a warning, she swears. A lot. So do I, just not usually on my blog.
• Just as with regular media, don’t try to get the bloggers to be your personal salesman or pitch woman. They don’t do that.

Tell the Media You’re an Expert

Media relations is crucial to attaining publicity. Reporters don’t know everyone or everything, but they kind of need to. My relationships with reporters have led to some odd or unexpected articles. I’m an expert in women’s rights, women’s health care services, and public relations strategies. I know a little something about Nevada politics. I can whip up an election strategy, a grassroots campaign and churn out voters. I can talk about sex, religion or politics-often in the same speech. I happen to be Wiccan. These random skills or facts have lead to articles–I had a reporter ask me to call a colleague because he needed to know if Wiccans sacrifice black cats for a Halloween story. (We don’t-we actually don’t sacrifice anything. Tenet is “harm none”.) And no, I don’t wear a conical hat.

Media, from print to broadcast to bloggers, keep track of “experts”. You never know when a reporter needs a gardener, an accountant, a biologist, a machinist. Business reporters need to know resources in the varied industries within their community–they don’t know your business exists unless you reach out to them.

One step is to send them just a fact sheet about your services and expertise. Include employee skills if  they have unique skills or expertise. A women’s health center may provide a list of experts including fundraising, Medicaid negotiations, public policy impacts to women’s health, how to negotiate a relationship, how and when to talk to your teen about sex. Oh yeah, and provide medical experts on women’s health. Look for those skills. Then make a list and share with a reporter. Understand which reporter needs this kind of information–target your media audience whether it’s the health reporter, business editor, photojournalist. Provide contact information. Add links to websites or blogs if you have them. Just balance providing information–you don’t need to dump everything you know, or they’ll just dump the information into the trash.

Then follow up. Set up a few minutes to call and talk about news story ideas. It’s how you can get published.

 

How to get $25,000 in free advertising or at least win a contest

Enter a contest to win $25,000. That’s what the local Reno Veterans’ Guest House did. And they asked the community to help. The Home Depot Foundation apparently runs a contest once a month and gives back to the winning charity $25k in gift cards. The votes come through Facebook and Twitter (links to the FB page). In order to vote you have to “Like” the Home Depot Foundation. A great way for HDF to capture followers.

But here’s why it worked for REno Veterans Guest House. They clearly had a plan. They utilized skills from some local public relations pros. Staff and publicists for Veterans Guest House posted on Facebook seeking vote.s They provided simple instructions in a post. They shared samples stories like starting because a vet’s wife and kids slept in their car while the vet was in hospital cause they couldn’t afford hotel fees. And they properly tagged links to the Home Dept Foundation page; links and comments on their friends pages, groups.Lesson-take advantage of your relationships and post in appropriate group discussions.

They also sent instructions via LinkedIn. They emailed a letter to every person on their personal lists and asked people to forward. I did. My audiences are not the same on FB and LinkedIn-some overlap. But different people use different tools. So their plan covered their bases.

They also pitched local media. So a news station covered the contest, as did a radio station.More than once. The newspaper printed the contest. And that’s just the media I was paying attention to.

And the contest started to get close. Several PR pros took up the challenge-many of us have reasons to love vets. I posted daily on my personal Facebook page, on my business page and on many groups I’m associated with. I tweeted the contest–Congressman Amodei even retweeted my post. We hardly see eye to eye on any political spectrum, but we do for vets. I gave extra credit in my public relations class assignment-and some students took me up on it. Can’t tell you how many friends appreciated my daily reminders on Facebook! The voting went back and forth. If I heard correctly, it’s the first time the contest has ever seen that kind of action. The other program was based in Atlanta-Home Depot’s hometown with close to 12 times the population of Reno Nevada. But it just took a few groups to dedicate themselves to the project-and a lot of social media.

If the Veterans Guest House had tried to buy the coverage of their services across all those platforms it would have easily cost $25000. I don’t recommend measuring with Advertising Value Equivalent, but clearly this program demonstrated to non-profits and small businesses unique ways to LEVERAGE a contest to build awareness, supporters and increase capacity.They carried the news story further with the win; getting back on the radio and television and further telling the story. Posting the news on their website.

The Veterans Guest House is now trying to capture who did what for them. My only criticism in their plan was the direct link to Home Depot rather than driving traffic to “Like” the Veterans Guest House page and find the link there. But hey, they are working towards connecting with their supporters. And maybe they thought of that and were concerned about barriers for participation. Won’t try to second guess them.

And now they’re in a contest for $250,000. Look for the social media posts on how to vote for them throughout March!

How to manage and address your reputation

Your word and your reputation cannot afford a poor image when you’re a business owner. You might have the best bed and breakfast or the savviest bookkeeping skills or the cleanliest service, but if your referral reputation doesn’t match that, you could be out of business.

Know what’s being said about you and where. Check your reputation. They can manage negative comments for a price;  you can see where you and your company are listed for free.  They can also help you correct all the bad info out there. You’d be surprised what comes up. I did a search and one source had me working for a company I know, but have never worked for. Another client is battling outdated info. Some sources have her business location that’s been inaccurate for more than 10 years!

There are tons of review sites: Google Places, Yelp, Consumer Reports, AngiesList and hundreds more. They can be related to service, trips, professionals, teachers, the list is endless. Then several business sites such as Amazon.com and CraigsList also have review options. Your name and reputation could be anywhere. Know it. Check it regularly.

If your business is getting less than stellar or 5 star ratings, here are a few recommendations on how to address:

1. If there is a system problem, fix it. Make sure cleaning staff have maps to location. Call two days ahead to confirm date and time and location for service or reservation. Address the scheduling needs for the client. Whatever it is that leads to the common complaints, address. It’s amazing how a poor tracking system or timing can impact customer service.
2. If there was a lack of clarity for coupon test services like Groupon, be sure to clarify the expectations for any further patrons. Sometimes the expectations aren’t clear and so the client gets disappointed
3. Reach out to every client on the bad reviews, assuming you can identify them and offer a  compensation for their service challenges. Either another stay, a free meal, something to try to make it work.
4. Take advantage of using the owners comment section to indicate how you were willing to fix this situation. You should apologize on each one and not leave them hanging. DO NOT ARGUE as the owners response. If you disagree with their assessment, don’t say so on a public comment. That just starts a disagreement war and you’ll lose. Perception is key; they didn’t like the service, doesn’t matter what went wrong. I’d use language to the effect:“ We are sorry you experienced service that didn’t meet your expectations. We have improved our follow up system and are providing staff clear directions. We are adjusting our schedule to address delays. We want you to be satisfied with your  service and are willing to make it up to you if you’ll give us a chance.” If they take you up on it, you may or may not salvage a client. But if you at least show you are willing to try, anyone else reading the review can take that into account.
   1. Don’t use the exact same language on each, address the biggest concern and tell them how you’d like to fix it.
   2. Contact the review site directly. Check if they filtered” positive comments; if the positives are legitimate, then ask the review site to put them up. Understand that if you get friends to put up comments all on the same day as the negative, that can be filtered.
   3. If any of the  negative reviews aren’t accurate or you have a different perception of what actually happened you can actually challenge the review with most review sites—but you may not be successful.

It’s tough to please clients. You might also consider sending each client a follow up email after their service and ask for a review on the site you preferand provide them to the link. You could do this every Friday or something. Make it easy. Send it to the clients who love your work and your staff at first. But get in the habit of sending to all clients; checking the reviews and RESPONDING to them—good or bad.

Just remember to always respond to negatives. Try to make it right. Get in the habit of seeking positive comments. Pay attention to what’s being said about you. It matters. It’ll save your reputation.

 

Pinkwashing recovery will take decades

In the last two weeks a lot of public relations criticism has been directed at the Susan G. Komen Foundation, and well deserved. I’ve refrained from participating because in full disclosure I’ve worked or volunteered with Planned Parenthood for more than 21 years.

Without debating the merits of the SGK decision, as a Public Relations practitioner, it’s an amazing case study. First it’s a study in how not to sabotage your own organization by succumbing to internal and external pressures to change the mission of the organization. Kivi Leroux Miller did an excellent non-partisan job of covering this issue in her article The Accidental Rebranding of Komen for the Cure.

Komen changed their position after three days of unprecedented response from women and men across the country. Who knows how many thousands of people across the country weighed in nationally, locally and across every platform imaginable. The social media viralness contributed to the three day ordeal for Komen. Clearly SGK was not prepared for the tsunami of response and show how NOT to respond to a crisis of your own making. They threw a sponsor under the bus but posting a new corporate sponsor during the crisis. Whether Energizer battery intends to stick with is its sponsorship remains to be seen.And women are pissed off. Reversing the decision has opened a big problem with financials investigated, prior relationships investigated. “Pinkwashing is now a verb in the lexicon for long time detractors of Komen. Locals are finding rebuke from former volunteers not willing to do races. Sponsors not willing to connect to ‘controversial’ entities are not willing to offer race locations. And through all this the fight against breast cancer must go on.

Other groups exist to fight cancer, and breast cancer specifically. It is going to take decades for SGK to recover from their 3 days of not understanding their audience, not understanding the connection women feel to Planned Parenthood and not having a crisis communication plan in place to address their ongoing challenges. Breast cancer wins over women’s health because of the political debate. May be get back to the focus of making women’s health a priority and not political or religious debate.

Locally chapters are left relatively to their own devices on mending relationships with local donors and volunteers. Women are mad at these attacks and the politicization of women’s health. SGK failed to recognize: while one in eight women contract breast cancer, one in five uses Planned Parenthood in her life time. One percent of annual 200,000 diagnoses of breast cancer happens in men, but Komen doesn’t provide access to services or screening to men. One percent of the nearly 5 million patients at Planned Parenthood are male.

What you can learn from a case study

Last fall I offered three clients a case study opportunity–they’d get a six month coaching session in exchange for my ability to discuss. All three were grateful for the opportunity and acknowledged they could use help in their marketing plans. We scheduled the times from fall through the first quarter of the new year. What I’m finding is time and value can be culprits to planning or intentions.

One client hopes to actually use the offer to train a staff person. But health issues and client influx ( a good problem to have) prevent this client from taking advantage of the offer. A second client hoped to delegate the role to a family member in the business. But scheduling, prioritizing a free service,not fully being able to delegate because of obligations and skills has prevented this client from participating. The third client is finding that prioritizing the biggest key-so the coaching has gone in fits and starts.

For the business client with both retail and service we started with breaking down the everest of planning into rolling hills to overcome week by week. Our work is helping the client determine which elements to start, flesh out till  proficient, and what to add. Prioritizing the marketing approaches likely to bring effective marketing with the time resources.

Start with your website. Make it current, interesting, able to capture contact and using key words and content worth sharing.

Second work the lists you have. Updates need to go to clients-either via email, direct mail, social media, texting–whatever your channels. But talk to your clients. Give them a call to action-make them your sales force, while keeping your business top of mind.

Expand to find new audiences–could be social media, publicity, traditional media, events–all depends on the audience and time/resources of the business.

Coaching helps do a couple of things: create deadlines and accountability; and it helps justify when its time to delegate or outsource. Coaching helps you determine the plan and figure out how to realistically accomplish marketing when you are a small business owner.

Are you asking questions?

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To find out what your clients want, sometimes the best thing to do is ask them. Take advantage of the survey options available. You can go to online tools like such as Survey Monkey or Zoomerang. Depending on budget you can mail, do phone, in person.