Category: Uncategorized

Meet Jennifer Luskey

Posted on | by Ketner Group

My name is Jennifer Luskey and I am a second semester senior at the University of Texas at Austin, graduating with a degree in public relations and a Business Foundations Certificate. Growing up in small town Midland, Texas my life was full of football and the oil business. My love for football has grown even more while watching the Longhorns play at the DKR Stadium. On any given day you can find me venturing to different Austin restaurants, spending time with friends and family or running on Town Lake. After graduation in May, I hope to find a job in the field of public relations, working with the community and children.

While in college, I spent a semester in Sevilla, Spain, where I learned to adapt to new situations and undertake unfamiliar challenging tasks. I lived with and went to school with all Spanish-speaking locals and also had the opportunity to travel around Europe. My favorite traveling experience was when I went to Morocco, Africa for four days and was completely immersed in the culture. We stayed with local families and talked with many of their young adults about the similarities and differences in our cultures. Walking around the city with them and seeing their day to day lives was an incredible way to get to know more about their culture and way of life.  It was an eye-opening experience that I will never forget.

I have dedicated many summers of my life to Greene Family Camp, a Jewish summer camp, in Bruceville, Texas. Being a camper for 10 years and a counselor for the last three has helped me earn different fellowships and take leadership roles among the campers and staff members.  Most recently, I was a unit Supervisor where I oversaw 50 staff members and over 250 campers all summer. Currently, I spread my love for Judaism to younger kids by participating in a service corps for the Union for Reform Judaism.  I work with a local synagogue to mentor students and raise the number of children who attend camps.

Working with people and continuing my education are two passions that I have in life and Ketner Group is incorporating both of them! I am excited to use what I’ve learned from my college classes in real life experiences and I know that the team at Ketner Group will help me excel.  I am looking forward to putting my new knowledge from Ketner Group into the next stages of my life. The people have been so welcoming and I feel like I am already part of their team! Jennifer

5 Tips for Getting Your Audience to “Spread the Word”

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Originally appeared on PR Soup

I have to start this post off by coming clean: I sit on the Board of Directors for Lights.  Camera. Help. So, naturally I am a little biased towards the great work this organization does! That being said, Christine and I were so impressed by the advice that Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention! shared with her readers in her blog post today that we felt we just had to share with you. Keep in mind that the tips she shares can apply to more than just email asks; think also in terms of media pitches, fundraising asks, etc. Enjoy the post and thank you again to Nancy for this vital information!
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Your supporters and partners are one of the most productive marketing channels you have, and one of the least expensive. But I see so few orgs that ask supporters to spread the word on vital asks, and even fewer who make it easy (and far more likely) for them to do so.

This “spreading the word” strategy has been top of mind lately for, as it’s core to the program launch we’re marketing for a huge and complex New England human services org. I was surprised to learn that these folks had NEVER asked supporters to serve as marketing messengers. A huge opportunity missed but one to be harnessed a.s.a.p., and we’re doing just that.

So the pump was primed when I received an email from Aaron Bramley, CEO and Co-Founder of Lights.Camera.Help.

Aaron’s warm, brief email (full email here, with my annotations) covers all the bases, as he asks me to get the word out on the submission deadline for the Lights.Camera.Help Film Festival. He:

A. Rekindles our connection in a flash, by referencing a digital storytelling contest we’re both judging. If you don’t have an established connection, make one!
B. Reminds me about the subject at hand—the submission deadline for the Lights. Camera. Help. Film Festival which I’ve previously spread the word on—and current goal (to boost submissions by COB today).
C. Asks—clearly and directly—for my help in spreading the word to generate more submissions.
D. Makes it easy for me to spread the word by providing cut-and-paste content for tweets, facebook and LinkedIn posts and a full press release.
E. Thanks me!

So go ahead and ask your donors, volunteers, friends, colleague organizations, even staff and freelancers/firms. People like to help, especially when it’s easy. And when you ask right, you’ll exponentially expand your reach AND your supporters and partners will feel great about helping you do so. Win-win!

Take a close look at Aaron’s email to me, and use it as a model for your ask to spread the word. Please let me know how it goes.

What works best for you in asking your network to spread the word, and what doesn’t? Please share your experiences and guidance here. Thanks!

The SEO Apocalypse – How to Survive Google’s Massive Encryption

Posted on | by Ketner Group
Google main search from MoneyBlogNewz on Flickr
Google main search from MoneyBlogNewz on Flickr

In the marketing world, SEO has been a key investment for brands and companies hoping to boost visibility online. In the early days, marketers only had to use one or two of their main keywords 32 times in any piece of content online, Google worked its magic, and boom: first page of a search for that key term. Even though that’s an extremely simplistic view of the beginnings of SEO, it used to be the general idea. After years of roll outs, updates and government conflicts, Google SEO as we know it has become a thing of the past. A recent panel with the Austin SEO MeetUp group helped an SEO newbie, such as myself, understand how things were, how they are, and how they will be in the world of search engine optimization.

The Problem, Perception, and Progression


In October 2011, Google announced its most recent search encryption, an attempt to keep control of privacy in light of federal government requests for information. Google gave the impression that, once the encryption rolled out, the changes would be very minor, affecting just a single digit of keyword traffic for only logged-on Google users. No biggie, right? One month after this announcement, however, 17% of keywords had been encrypted. From April 2012 to August 2013, term (not provided) steadily increased up to 48%, encrypted search terms in non-signed-in users reached 60-80%, and today we sit at an overwhelming 81% encryption, anticipating 100% search term not provided by the end of the year. So much for those single digits…

Implications: What does it all mean?


If you’ve dabbled in SEO in the last year, you’ve probably noticed that the majority of your keywords are encrypted on any analytics platform – so what did we actually lose, and did we gain anything in return?

  • We lost the simple ROI pitch. Initially, marketers could view keywords that directed searchers on to their sites. It was an easy way to talk about investing in search marketing, especially SEO. When marketers look at site analytics now, they can no longer see which key terms are sending people to their site, compounding the complexity of SEO and adding to the already low investment environment of search marketing.
  • We lost the brand vs. non-brand distinction. Generally, there are more people that do not know your brand than people that do. Key terms that people search on that don’t contain a brand’s name hold a huge potential for customers, allowing marketers to look at visits coming into a website on branded terms (Oreos) versus non-branded terms (cookie sandwiches) – extremely valuable information. Post-encryption, marketers can see people are searching for their brand (cool), or just something (that’d be nice to know…) and ending up on their site.
  • We lost the ability to read Google’s mind. Marketers used to be able to just look at your content and where certain terms were located and get a good sense of where Google might rank that page. With the new encryption, it’s become more complicated to track and make inferences on how exactly Google will perceive your content, keywords or not.
  • We gained a better planet online. The number one factor that affects page rank is its perceived value to users, closely followed by authorship metrics, influence of Google+, social shares, and content readability. Google’s trying to rank content’s real value, can we blame them?


SEO (life) as we knew it is over. Not all is lost, but what now?

  • Google webmaster tools and adwords. This is a fantastic source of data where you can still learn about keywords that drive traffic to your site. Its accuracy is debatable, but it’s a step closer in the right direction on the desperate journey to finding what key terms are bringing visitors to your page. On the downside, these tools limit results to the top 2000 queries, and for many companies that’s just not enough as they may be getting a million visits a day, creating an issue of visibility. Additionally, webmaster only tracks three months of historical data at a time. While there is talk of expansion, it restricts data comparisons and progress reports to three month periods, when most people like to view year over year stats.
  • New metrics. As Google evolves, so should we. In the past, marketers have focused heavily on keyword level metrics, traffic and ranking. Google is emphasizing keywords less and taking into account phrases, combinations of words, and their meaning and sentiment. These improvements to the ranking algorithm are attempts to understand the content, not just pick out how many times the word “shoes” shows up in a blog post. Page level analytics and experiences are also of utmost importance now. Conversion rates, bounce rates, page behavior are components worth measuring for an accurate account of site visitor stats.
  • New approach: map your keywords. Build a page that helps you recognize the lifecycle of a customer in terms of keywords on your site. Marketers will have a much better chance of mapping where Google is going in the future of SEO, basing predictions on intent rather than words. See what pages are receiving the most traffic: Product pages? Services? Home page? Categories?  Interpreting the data in front of you can lead to valuable information for longer term SEO investment validity. Bing has yet to encrypt any data, and YouTube, the second biggest search engine, has a keyword volume tool – take advantage where you can!

Change happens. We like to be dramatize major changes, but we saw this coming and now we just need to adapt to the new SEO environment. In the long run, Google is only making us better content creators, so let’s ease up the apocalypse-talk and start strategizing the new generation of search marketing. Have you come across any interesting SEO changes lately? We’d love to hear how you’re tackling the new Google algorithm!

Don’t Fall Behind in PR: Four Steps to Raising Your Company’s Media Profile

Posted on | by Jeff Ketner
Fall Sampler by Micky**, on Flickr

Fall is finally here. After 40 days of 100°-plus weather in Austin this summer, the temperature is dipping into the 60s in the mornings. Sure, we’re already back to the mid-90s this week, but the mornings are crisp, folks are breaking out the fall clothes, and there’s football galore. The Longhorns even won again this weekend, so everything’s right with the world.

Fall is the season of new beginnings—and one of the busiest times of year for Ketner Group and our clients. There are key conferences and trade shows (next week, Catherine and Caitlin will be at Shop.org with a number of our clients, for example). KG clients are making exciting new product and customer announcements in the coming months, and we’re busily working with them on fresh ideas and opportunities for PR and marketing campaigns.

As we mention on our Be Spectacled page, it’s no time to let your PR program “fall” back. After all, the next few months are a critical time in the technology sales cycle. Companies will select vendors for their remaining technology projects before the end of the year, and they’re also setting their 2014 budgets and deciding which projects to fund. It’s essential for technology vendors to keep up a high profile with PR and marketing campaigns.

What can companies do in the remaining months of 2013? Here are four simple suggestions:

Pick up the pace with press releases. Press releases are an essential way of gaining earned media coverage and creating buzz for your company. We love to see our clients generate one to two newsworthy announcements each month, as it’s a way to let key editors, analysts, influencers and prospects know your company is on the move.

Pitch, pitch, pitch. In today’s always-on news cycle, the media are hungry for content, and fall is ripe with opportunities. Holiday shopping will be one of the top business stories this fall and winter, for example, and many of our clients have story angles that feed directly into potential coverage in the coming months.

The key is to be relevant and creative. Do you or your customers have particular expertise that might be valuable to media? Then pitch your ideas; after all, the media is continually looking for interesting stories.

Focus on analysts. Industry analysts play a critical role in the technology ecosystem. How long has it been since you’ve briefed the key analysts covering your space? If it’s been 6-12 months or longer, it’s time for an update, regardless of whether or not your company is a client. After all, analysts need to understand your products, strategy and customer base in order to do their job; and since they often advise end-user companies on vendor selections, it’s essential that the analysts are up to date on your company.

Refresh your content. It’s no secret that content is king. Now is the time to refresh your website with fresh content, short videos, case studies, infographics, e-books, case studies and vehicles for telling your company’s story. Most of our clients’ software solutions have hefty price tags and solve critical business problems, so prospects will be on your site often to look for relevant, up to date content.

There’s much more, of course, but these are just a few ideas to get you started. What other suggestions do you have to give your PR and marketing campaigns a fall makeover? We’d love to hear from you.

PR Ethics – The Difference Between Right and Wrong

Posted on | by Catherine Seeds
“Jiminy Cricket at the Magic Kingdom / Disney World by JeffChristiansen, on Flickr”

Let’s face it, gang, PR ethics is – at the very root – knowing what is right and what is wrong. It is a motto that we all must live by, whether you are in public relations or not. Every day when I drop my daughter off at school, without fail, I tell her these three things:

  • I love you.
  • Be a good friend today.
  • Do the right thing.

Doing the right thing can be tough, though. Just ask Johnny Manziel and the communications team at Texas A&M. It’s rather obvious that we (the public) do not know the whole story, nor will we probably ever know for sure if Johnny Football took that money for signing autographs. But it’s highly likely that (he did) and that the athletic department insiders at Texas A&M know the truth. But because of pressure from the University and the looming kick-off to the 2013 football season set with high expectations for the SEC Aggies and their Heisman trophy-winning quarterback – things were, let’s just say…”taken care of” and Johnny Manziel was benched for only half of a football game.  All of this justified because, well, that’s just the way college football works. Who cares if it was slightly unethical and against the rules?

When the pressure is high to succeed, sometimes PR ethics can be chucked out the window. But that doesn’t make it right. As PR professionals, our ethics are what build our reputations – with clients, media and analysts. At Ketner Group, we pride ourselves on being honest and transparent to our clients as well as to the media and industry analysts that we work with on a daily basis. As Michael Herman, APR Fellow with the PRSA said at the recent Southeast Region Conference, “Tell the truth, always. That way you don’t have to worry about what you said. How you treat people matters.”

September is Ethics Month at PRSA and is a time for members and non-members alike to think about what ethics means to them, both on a personal level as well as within their own organizations and the clients they represent. Check out the line-up of activities that PRSA has planned to help inform and educate us about PR issues in our industry.

For those of you in Austin, make sure to register for the September luncheon where you’ll be treated to a terrific line-up of speakers who will lead a discussion on PR ethics in the digital age with plenty of “tips and tricks” on how to use social media responsibly.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The time is always right to do what is right.” I love this quote for many reasons, but it does have a relatable message for those of us in PR. If you feel like what you are doing is wrong, then it probably is wrong. If your gut tells you that the “communications decision” you are about to make is wrong, listen to your gut – it’ll never steer you wrong.

If you are still not sure what the right decision is, download the PRSA Ethics mobile app to set you straight. It’s like a mini PR ethics book in your back pocket or purse.

And if you are still not sure what to do, well, I would encourage you to listen to the words from the song “Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide” from the classic Disney movie, Pinocchio.  Those songwriters MUST have known someone in PR!

Happy pitching!

What Makes Things Popular Online?

Posted on | by Ketner Group
“108 High Resolution Dark Denim Social Media Icons” by webtreats, on Flickr

The PR industry is rapidly changing. To stay competitive, PR agencies are learning how to develop digital skills or are maximizing marketing partner resources in order to satisfy the new media landscape. In a media world where anyone can be a journalist, news breaks on Twitter and memes are popping up and disappearing every week, PR professionals have their work cut out for them.

To address this, I recently planned a PRSA Austin Chapter event titled “There’s a Meme for That,” where our panelists discussed how to incorporate new digital media ideas into company strategies to boost chances of getting noticed, and increase social shares and engagement. Our panelists included digital marketing executives from Bazaarvoice, Edelman, Facebook and W2O—and they collectively had an extensive portfolio of examples of brands successfully using digital marketing strategies to reach consumers.

We started with the golden question: What makes things popular online? Why do some memes take off while others fall flat? What makes people share content and why do images and videos go viral? There are several inherent traits that exist in successful digital marketing strategies.

A human element

People need to be able to identify with the things they interact with every day. Dove, for example, has created a successful way to engage with its audience using “real” people in their ads and other communications. Recall the “Dove: Real Beauty” sketch campaign executed back in April. Dove expanded upon its “real beauty, real people” theme with this internet campaign that went viral, featuring sketches of women describing themselves to a sketch artist opposed to sketches of these women as described by someone else. The results were surprising. The message was positive, relatable and had that core human element that made the video such a success.

Socially shareable

If a campaign isn’t easy to share on sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and other blogs, it won’t do well, obviously. What makes something socially shareable? Images! Today, images go much further than words have ever taken us. Most social sharing sites are geared towards image-based storytelling, and visuals trump the written word in today’s fast-paced media environment. Before a message can ever go viral, it must be depicted in a visual, succinct medium. Such media include short videos (take a look at these cool Vine videos from brands), meme-like photos like these, infographics or just plain photos.

Timely

Popular online content is usually centered around a timely topic or event. Do “The Royal Baby” or “You can still dunk in the dark” sound familiar to you? Both social media-born topics—one from pop culture and the other from a food brand, Oreo—gained popularity during high profile events. Even though campaigns such as these are short lived, the boost in visibility for the brand has a much longer lasting impact. Companies should be careful how they jump on the trend bandwagon, however, as people can tire quickly of memes. Check out these examples of brands attempting to capitalize on the Royal Baby trend, and then the people’s reaction to it.

Engaging

People love to share their experiences (good or bad) on social media. People share information online because they hope or expect to get something back in return. This is part of the reason why product reviews are so popular. People are open to sharing commentary, because in return, they’ll get feedback from likeminded people or recognition from the brand. This psychology is similar across the social media landscape—and everyone is a movie, food, music, or [insert any category here] critic. The key is to share good, positive messages and never capitalize on negative trends or tragedies (like an Epicurious intern did).

Measurable

Companies absolutely must pay attention to their audiences. What do they want to see? What performs best with them? Once this is understood, companies can shape their media and PR around those understandings. The Facebook panelist let attendees know that there are Page management tools that allow brands and companies to see which posts garner the most engagement. This is a good example of measuring the effectiveness and sociability of campaigns. There are many PR reporting tools and platforms that track and measure social campaigns, as well, such as Hootsuite, Radian6 and Meltwater News.

 

What are some of your favorite memes or digital campaigns? Have you run any that were positive and successful? Feel free to plug here!

Back From Abroad: New Thoughts on the PR World I Thought I Knew

Posted on | by Ketner Group | 1 Comment on Back From Abroad: New Thoughts on the PR World I Thought I Knew

Time flies when you’re having fun. It also flies when you’re travelling nine countries and 17 cities in 56 days.  After two exquisitely eye-opening months abroad, I can honestly say I welcomed my return to Austin with open arms. A chaotic and life-changing few months turned out to be some of the most incredible and invaluable experiences that I’ll never forget. Graduation. Two months abroad. Full-time employment.  It’s been quite a ride! And I have no intention of getting off anytime soon. “What did you learn?” you might ask? Many of you have traveled the globe and discovered something completely unique from the person next to you on the plane, so I certainly don’t present my experiences with an elitist tone, but as an honest representation of my thoughts and feelings toward the journey as a whole.

From the many places I explored, people I met and food I ate, the most important thing I learned from my travels is this: Embrace the urge to see the world and try new things, but remember your roots and return home appreciating your life for all that it gives you, especially the people who make it worthwhile. If you were wondering, yes, I’m a cheeseball and a sap.

While I’ll always long for walking the narrow alleys of some far off destination, lying on an exotic beach, or hiking up to a beautiful view in some foreign countryside, I’m happily jumping into my newly minted PR career – that’s right, folks! You’re stuck with me hanging around Ketner Group for a while. What better way to return from a summer abroad? As my first blog post, I thought it might be fitting to highlight just a couple ideas that not only helped me get by in Europe but can apply to a successful career in PR as well.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. The saying, “there’s no such thing as a stupid question,” holds true in this case (while on another note, I’m a believer that questions you already know the answer to are actually stupid). It’s easy and perfectly O.K. to be lost, in any sense of the word, but if you want to be found you’ll have to put in some old fashioned hard work. You may be surprised to hear this, but people genuinely DO want to offer their help! You’ve just got to learn to feel comfortable, and not like a failure, asking for it.

In a niche PR market such as retail technology, you need to be able to ask questions about your clients’ product, a new service, how that platform works, how this process brings about this result, etc. Don’t be afraid of looking silly or uninformed; asking a question now is better than facing a potentially costly, humiliating and probably avoidable mistake later. A good client knows this and is almost always happy to breakdown the details for you.

Resourcefulness is close to Godliness. Okay, so I may have muddled up that proverb, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true! From using shampoo as face wash and leave-in conditioner as body lotion, to putting my basic Spanish vocabulary to good use in the Czech Republic, I learned to get what I was looking for in the most random yet oddly effective ways.

PR is a field where thinking on your feet is an absolute necessity. Whether it’s a new take on a seemingly trite piece of information or a way to get more bang for your clients’ buck, resourcefulness is a key advantage to doing your job and doing it well. Not only can an inventive approach to your communications strategy keep your work spicy and irresistible (like the Tex-Mex I so desperately craved while away from Austin), it can save you and your clients valuable time and money in the long run. By using time and resources efficiently, you open up more hours that can be devoted to a social media ramp-up or a refreshing and productive brainstorming sesh that you previously had no time to explore.

After getting my degree in public relations and interning in the industry for a couple years, I thought I had a pretty accurate grasp on what the communications field was truly all about. Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t, but what’s more important is to understand not only where public relations is now, but where it’s going. I’m still so green in this well-toiled field of PR, but I’m dying to see what’s next and plan to do my part advancing the industry and keeping Ketner Group pushing full speed ahead. I hope this post can inspire some of you do the same! Never give up on a successful career, but take any and every opportunity to travel – it might surprise you how you’ll be affected!

I’ll wrap things up with the Mark Twain quote my KG team members so thoughtfully decorated my desk with on my last day before jetting off to the other side of the pond:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

Cheers to the next chapter, whatever you choose yours to be!

#KeepPRWeird: Top 3 Take-Aways from PRSA 2013 Southwest District Conference

Posted on | by Ketner Group

I’m on the PRSA Austin Chapter board and gladly volunteered to serve on the planning committee for the PRSA 2013 Southwest District Conference, which was June 5-7. I had an exciting job as the Special Events Committee Chair, which means that I got to plan the social events. What conference goes without networking and happy hours?

And what networking happy hour goes without a life-size poster board of John Wayne? He went with us everywhere!

Here’s a small group of us keeping it strictly business, of course, at Lustre Pearl during our Rainey Street Pub Crawl. That’s me in the cowgirl hat and glow sticks (yep, glow sticks).

To get back to the REAL reason PR pros from Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and more gathered in the capital city of Texas, we were there to learn how to “Keep PR Weird,” which was the official conference slogan. Not only did David Lieber, Watchdog Investigative Columnist at Dallas Morning News, say that #KeepPRWeird was the best conference slogan he’s seen in 20 years, it was trending locally for both Twitter and Instagram (thanks to our Pub Crawl photo contest), so check out the conversations!

If I had to take three lessons home from the conference, it’d be these:

1. Storytelling is everything.

Stories are the reason humankind has some idea of our past. From the beginning of time, humans have been passing on important information through stories–whether it was carvings in a rock, through song or written down. We still share and remember important information through stories, and we’re wired to think that way. David Lieber, the opening keynote speaker, emphasized the importance of companies and brands telling their stories. Each story should have a hero/heroine, and the story should have a beginning, climax and end. Make sure to describe the problem you’re solving and illustrate the challenges that brought you where you are today–it makes your company seem much more human. And people crave that human touch.

2. Measurement of Social Media? Possible!

Angela Jeffrey, APR, Senior Counsel for CARMA International, presented a session titled, “The R Social Media ROI.” This was a really useful session, because all PR people know what a headache it can be to try and measure anything in PR, let alone social media. Angela is a fan of the AMEC Social Media Valid Framework, and if you are unfamiliar with it, you can read up on it at AMEC.org (a very helpful presentation) or take a look at Angela’s PR News article that breaks it down nicely. According to Angela, “The philosophy behind the guidelines states that to truly demonstrate the value of PR, metrics need to be linked to the business objective of the program, and move beyond measuring outputs to measuring outcomes. The Framework helps you identify suitable metrics for PR and social media programs that take you from cursory to meaningful measures that resound with the C-suite and help you refine your programs.”

Angela gave attendees a very specific 8 step process for measuring social media activity:

  1. Define organizational goals
  2. Research stakeholders and prioritize
  3. Set specific objectives for each key stakeholder group
  4. Set traditional/social media KPIs against each objective
  5. Choose tools and benchmark (using the AMEC Framework)
  6. Analyze the results and compare to costs
  7. Present to management
  8. Measure continuously and improve performance
To learn more about her process, visit MeasurementMatch.com and download her latest white paper.

3. An organization can survive a crisis through honesty and passion

The closing keynote was awesome. Katherine McLain, VP of Communications at Livestrong Foundation, spoke on how to overcome a crisis situation, especially when your organization relies on donations. Following the investigation into and admittance of Lance Armstrong’s doping use, the Livestrong Foundation took a hit. Ken Berger, President and CEO of Charity Navigator had said, “[They are] not going to be able to survive if the person who is behind the spirit of [the organization] is in trouble. It is just going to devastate them.” Ouch! What Livestrong ultimately did was focus on the positive: They are there to help people through difficult struggles in their lives. People with cancer. People who need the foundation to assist them with their fight. Livestrong developed a hashtag that helped position them above the controversy: #FightWithUs. They also developed videos that illustrated individual peoples’ battles with cancer. They focused on the positive, distanced themselves from the negative and marched on.

If you want to chat more about what I learned at the PRSA Southwest District Conference, hit me up on Twitter! @CaitlinNew

 

Great Reads from Around the Marketing Blogosphere

Posted on | by Ketner Group | 1 Comment on Great Reads from Around the Marketing Blogosphere

This week we’d like to give a shout-out to other like-minded marketing or media agencies, whose blogs summed up everything we wanted to say before we could have said it.

Up first, is Thom Singer’s blog, “Tweet, Post, Update and Share Beyond Yourself,” which talks about the importance of promoting others even when there is nothing to gain personally. This is as easy as ‘retweeting’ someone else or sharing a Facebook update. The idea is to not make it all “Hey, look at me” but to make some of it “Hey, look at them!” You never know promoting others may lead to them promoting you.

Next we would like to mention Bazaarvoice and their blog on “Collaborative Economy,” a new(ish) way to reach, sell to and share with each other directly through a social, digital marketplace. This sharing marketplace allows customers to subscribe to or rent products other customers own. This was most commonly seen in media, such as: Netflix, Gamefly and Redbox, but now sharing has become something like a community.  This may seem like a threat to traditional businesses, but in reality, this sharing marketplace offers great opportunities for businesses that jump on the trend. For example, Toyota now lets customers rent cars off their lots, competing with services like ZipCar and Car2Go, and Chevy partnered with mobile app RelayRides, which lets members rent out their cars while they aren’t in use. The collaborative economy moves beyond selling, and allows business to create relationships for mutual benefit.

Our last shout out goes to Marketo and their round up of the “5 of the Most Innovative and Unique Marketing Campaigns So Far in 2013.” With 917 shares and counting, I was interested to see what campaigns made the cut. Out of the five campaigns, two really stood out to me in both creativity and just plain ole’ fun: Senador Volstead Beer and #lowesfixinsix.

  • Senador Volstead Beer is a truly genius campaign, I may have LOL’ed a bit while marveling at its website. Senador Volstead is a beer company based in Spain named after Senator Volstead, who declared the start of prohibition in 1920. How did they keep to the prohibition theme? By hiding their product to make it look like they are selling teddy BEARS not BEERS. This is memorable and hilarious.
  • Second, is from a Lowes Vine campaign: #lowesfixinsix on a solution to keep rugs from slipping across the floor. This is a really innovative campaign that uses Vine’s strengths to create a step-by-step process for the consumer. This campaign really sticks out to me; it really shows how a brand can use Vine to their advantage. Make sure to check out the other campaigns as well, they all do an amazing job of capturing the attention of their audience.
    Read an interesting blog lately or have any comments/thoughts? Please feel free to share!

    Image courtesy of Lowes

 

SXSW: A blur in the rear-view mirror

Posted on | by Ketner Group
Photo courtesy of SXSW Interactive Festival

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both Austin and myself are fully recovered from the sleepless madness that is the South By South West (SXSW) onslaught of all things branded and hipster and geeky-cool that is now a much-loved and/or much-hated March tradition, depending on whom you ask (and whether or not you ask them as they sit in gridlocked traffic courtesy of all the road closures).

Though March and April(!) have come and gone, as have the road closures, thank goodness, I’m still thinking about a few sessions at SXSW Interactive (SXSWi) that opened my eyes to new ideas, and that’s the true value of SXSWi. As a busy professional, and one of the 69% of PR professionals that eat lunch at their desks every day, it’s so easy to put on blinders as I sit, chained to my computer every day, waging war against deadlines and monitoring budgets. Everyone needs to shake it up sometimes, and two sessions in particular posed questions that, a month and a half later, I still can’t shake.

The first session that blew me away was #bingle, a joint session with Danny Sullivan, Founding Editor Search Engine Land at Google, and Duane Forrester, Senior Product Marketing Manager of Bing Webmaster Tools. A pure Q&A format, the conversation was fluid and candid as SXSWi attendees took to the microphone to ask the experts. See the whole #bingle twitter feed here—look at the tweets from March 8-14.

 

 

 

The main question I walked away asking myself was this: What is the value of wire distribution for press releases?

Search engines have been discounting press releases for SEO for years.  So what’s the real value here? This question has come up a few times recently at KG, but hearing it directly from Google and Bing has increased our sense of urgency in reevaluating our internal processes. While we’ve always been very selective about which press releases we distribute via the wire and which circuits we recommend, we can still be more strategic in why and when we recommend wire distribution.

The other session that I still quote and think about daily (not exaggerating) was #socialb2b, “B2B Social Marketing: Blazing New Trails,” led by marketing experts Jamie Grenney, VP of Social Media & Online Video at Salesforce.com, Jason Bartlett, VP of Global Social Marketing at Xerox Corporation and Jeanette Gibson, Sr. Director of Social & Digital Marketing at Cisco Systems Inc. See the feed of tweets from March 11 here.

This session was packed with tidbits that have not just lingered in my memory, but have actually inspired change within myself and across KG:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And to quote myself quoting the panel:

 

 

 

The question that a session attendee asked the panel that still haunts me is: How can we translate big enterprise B2B social media success to much smaller companies with fewer resources?

The panel didn’t have an especially confident answer on that one, which is admittedly a really tough question with which the majority of businesses across the country struggle. The idea the panel did suggest, though, resonated with me. They all stressed how successful YouTube videos have been for their enterprises, and this is something many smaller companies do not invest in, but could produce on a budget. So long as there is a direct call to action within the first 15 seconds, YouTube videos are highly effective. One reason for this is how safe it is to share a familiar YouTube link. This point was driven home this week when I found an email from Networld in my inbox that aggregated some incredibly compelling stats about video:

  •  “89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today.” (A second source: Comscore)
  • “Online video users are expected to double to 1.5 billion in 2016.” (Source: MediaPost & Cisco)
  • “Online video now accounts for 50 percent of all mobile traffic and up to 69 percent of traffic on certain networks.” (Source: TechCrunch & Bytemobile)

What’s more, PR giant FleishmanHillard saw the writing on the wall and this week announced they are rebranding from a traditional PR agency into a “channel agnostic” integrated marketing communications firm that will tackle digital marketing projects, including video.

SXSWi 2012 left me enlightened but exhausted. SXSWi 2013 left me inspired and recharged. The post-SXSWi zombie syndrome is always worth it to get out of my comfort zone and hobnob with the bright minds and progressive thinkers that are shaking up my industry. Ketner Group is committed to evolving with the times, staying fresh and current to bring our clients the most relevant, thoughtful counsel possible. We’re excited how far we have come—the new website, the new-and-improved PB&J blog, and the addition of the incredibly digitally-savvy Sara Lasseter—and we look forward to continuing to chart this new, more digital course through the rest of the year until SXSWi 2014, when we’ll fill up our inspiration tanks once more.