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Goodbye 2012!

Posted on January 2, 2013 | by Ketner Group

We’d like to take this time to say goodbye to 2012. It was a good year, and–just like any year–we had a few downs, but mostly ups.

2012 saw Ketner Group go to NRF’s BIG Show for the 13th year. We explored our industry at SXSW Interactive, where we learned about visual storytelling, local SEO, social branding and new SoLoMo technology. We did a refresh of our company messaging and engaged with an awesome design firm, Creative Pickle, for a complete overhaul of our website.

We are looking forward to what 2013 may bring, but before we completely turn away from 2012, we wanted to share our Christmas card photo with everyone. That’s right, we know we look good.

Social Media Contests: It’s Always a Good Time of the Year

Posted on December 13, 2012 | by Ketner Group

Photo courtesy of Blast Radius

Well, folks, it’s here. ‘Tis the season of giving and we’re knee deep in gift wrap and holiday cards, cookie dough and frosting, tree lights and ornaments – hopefully not all at once!

In a season that is already globally known for its high-stress characteristics, why not add in a little friendly competition? Brands that host a social media contest, especially during the holidays, can effectively boost online engagement, fuel your customer base and promote your company online.

Before highlighting a few brands that have successfully carried out a social media contest, keep these tips in mind when considering this opportunity:

Set a goal that doesn’t focus on increasing followers alone. Emphasize the value of reaching a new demographic or generating more sales leads during the contest period.
Don’t forget to promote, promote, promote! Use your social channels, company website and blog to spread the word about contest details and why people should enter to win this insanely awesome prize – which brings me to my next point!
Offer an appropriate prize. Know your demographic in order to choose a prize that participants will not only find valuable but worthy of a little effort on their part.

These brands have successfully hosted social media contests – maybe you’ll find some inspiration for your brand’s next online competition!

McAlister’s Deli has decided to get in the holiday spirit and host a “Name Our Gift Card Mascot” contest. Customers can Instagram photos of the brand’s promotional penguin in various situations, then submit their name idea with the tags #givedelicious and @McAlistersDeli. The winner can choose between a personal tablet and $500 McAlister’s gift card or a $1,000 scholarship and a $500 McAlister’s gift card. This is a great prize that incorporates a third party gift and a gift card from the company hosting the competition to reward loyal customers.

Alamo Drafthouse Filmmaking Frenzy – This Austin-based movie theatre is expanding rapidly to cities nationwide and is known for its quirky personality. To go along with its eccentricity, the cinema house recently hosted a film contest (how appropriate!) for viewers to send in their version of a public service announcement highlighting the negative consequences of talking or texting on a cell phone during a movie. Submissions were uploaded to Badass Digest, the theater’s pop culture site, and viewers voted on their favorite film. Winners for each location received a $200 gift card to Alamo Drafthouse and their PSA was screened at their respective theaters. While video can be intimidating for some brands’ marketing teams, it is still one of the fastest growing social mediums that should not be dismissed.

Nike hosted a month-long #RiseAbove Instagram contest over the summer that highlighted fans’ love for basketball by submitting inspirational photos while wearing Jordans, its popular line of shoes. Winners were spotlighted on the contest’s website and the efforts reached millions of fans.

Mellow Mushroom offered free pizza to random lucky Twitter followers in a campaign called “Follow Us and We’ll Follow You”, but complimentary pizza pies are not all a fan might receive. As a friendly joke, the pizza eatery’s mascots would “stalk” its followers participating in the social media contest and make them the stars of online videos and social pranks. While it is an interesting concept, we’d recommend going with a less offensive effort.

A trend not to be overlooked is the growing “Pin It to Win It” campaigns on Pinterest. This effort can be tailored to almost any brand, product or service and brings highly visual emphasis on the subject at hand. Take a look at this page of the Top 50 Pin It to Win It efforts.

These are all great examples to find inspiration for your next social media contest – every brand is different so tailor the competition to fit your image! You’ll quickly see it’s a great way to learn more about your target and an effective way to gain momentum in your marketing efforts. So go make that next big Tw-Insta-Pin-book contest and see where it takes you!

4 Easy Ways to Refresh Your Company’s Branding Without Spending Too Much Money

Posted on November 29, 2012 | by Ketner Group

Have you ever gone into your closet at the change of a season looking for something to wear to mark the change (it’s finally chilly!)—and left disappointed? After ignoring your fall/winter clothes for the better part of half the year (in Texas), your clothes seem boring, blah and so last season. Well, instead of throwing on a pair of jeans and whatever t-shirt looks good with a scarf, refresh your wardrobe by mixing what you already have up a little.

The same concept is true for your company. A web designer once told me that companies usually spend a lot of time and effort building a website they’re happy with, then leave it stagnant. Then after two years, they’re unhappy with it again. I have worked with clients who are never completely happy with their company messaging and try to do a complete rewrite every year. I get that—the market changes, customer needs change, you find what works, what doesn’t—but there has to be a better and less time-intensive way to refresh a company’s brand without a complete overhaul of your website, collateral, messaging, etc.

1. Blitz your Blog. Reorganize and refresh the design of your blog instead of your entire website. Give your blog’s template a shiny new look—change up your categories, or add more. Putting more internal and external (promotional) focus on an interactive and ever-changing messaging avenue such as your blog will allow your company to respond more quickly to changing trends or hot topic industry news. And you’ll be less likely to grow tired of your website.

2. Create an evolving campaign. Evolving campaigns are brand initiatives that involve a central static idea with variable details/messages that change based on different tradeshows, product launches, customer events or promotions your company is planning. For example, take a look at our Be Spectacled campaign. Our central idea is our monocle man’s Be Spectacled slogan, which challenges our visitors to make their public relations program shine (with us, of course). Currently, we’re focusing our Be Spectacled efforts on NRF 2013, a huge retail technology-industry tradeshow. In the past, we’ve focused the campaign on South by Southwest Interactive. Our Be Spectacled evolving campaign lives in a prominent location on our homepage, and this helps our website stay up-to-date with our changing focus.

3. Quarterly reviews of messaging with sales team. The sales team is a great source of information when it comes to messaging. They’re out in the field every day speaking with prospects and customers, so they are loaded with information about the most common challenges prospects experience and can see first-hand what messaging points resonate with prospects and customers. Sales teams can point to the benefits your company’s services provide that are most important and helpful to customers. Sit down with your sales team every quarter to refresh company messaging. This ensures that it changes little by little instead of in huge chunks—which means less time and effort on the marketing team’s part!

4. Socialize. Social media can be an easy and cost-effective way to give your company a boost in chatter and activity. If your company is not on LinkedIn, Twitter and/or Facebook, yet, then you probably should be (with some exceptions). Brands should be involved with even more—Instagram and Pinterest are a must for brands right now. Ketner Group is even dabbling in some Instagram and Pinterest activities. Already in the social world? Change your social media profile photos and information. Something this little could provide you with a breath of fresh branding and is something your followers may notice.
On that note—follow Ketner Group on our other social pages—Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

The Mobile (Presidential) Election of 2012

Posted on October 26, 2012 | by Catherine Seeds

As originally posted on The Mobile Retail Blog http://www.themobileretailblog.com/social-media/the-mobile-presidential-election-of-2012/

It’s hard to imagine that in a little over two weeks, our country will have elected (or re-elected) a new president. What a difference four years makes. For example, just here at the Ketner Group, the team has definitely gone through its share of changes and life-changing moments – we’ve had one new baby, two marriages, two cross-country moves to California and Texas, and have bought seven new cars!

Other things have changed, too, especially on the technology front. Thinking back to the 2008 election, or what is known as “The Social Media” election, Facebook and Twitter were a key factor into President Obama’s election win. In fact, it was his campaign team who pioneered the use of social media for organizing, fundraising, and communicating his 2008 White House bid. And boy did it work! Continue reading →

The Scariest Thing You’ll See This Halloween… AP Style Mistakes!

Posted on October 25, 2012 | by Ketner Group

Sure. Zombies and ghosts can give you chills, but nothing makes you squirm like a misplaced comma or the double space between sentences. We know deadlines and full schedules dictate most of our days, but making time to review the latest AP Stylebook might be just what you need to polish up your nearly-flawless writing skills!

The team at Ketner Group decided to highlight which mistakes we make the most and which common errors make our hair stand on end.

KG’s Most Common Mistakes

Using “their” Instead of “its.” – Jeff’s our biggest offender on this one!
The Double Space Two-Step – As Catherine would say! It’s a tough change, but we’re all in this together.
Too Many Commas – Caitlin has become a little comma happy recently – this article in PR Daily is a great read for tips on comma usage!
Misspelled Words – Brittany’s a Grammar Hammer, but “occasion” and “fulfillment” give her some spelling trouble every now and then.

That AP Rule We Just Can’t Ever Remember…

Texas vs. TX – This one still gives Catherine and Jeff a rough time! “Always Texas, not TX!” Catherine suggests double checking your AP style book to confirm the states for new clients.
Now Where to Put This Footnote… – Inside or outside the period? Inside or outside the quotation? Brittany struggles with these questions daily. The rule: if footnoting an entire sentence, place the footnote after the period. If footnoting a single word or phrase, place the footnote directly after it and before a period.
When Do I Hyphenate? – Compound modifiers can be confusing and once you’ve fallen into the sticky trap it can be impossible to get out. Caitlin often uses two or more words to express a single concept, but not without deliberation!

The AP Rule That Haunts Us

Its vs. It’s – This is one of Jeff’s ultimate pet peeves. His helpful tip is to say “it is” out loud every time you write “it’s.”
Capitalizing Everything! – Catherine cringes when she sees titles capitalized in press release quotes. “Not Everything Is That Important, People!”
The Double Space Two-Step, Again – We all grew up doing it, but times have changed and it is no longer correct according to AP style. Caitlin’s been cracking down on this one!
Homonym Mix Ups – Typing all day for a living can warrant the occasional mistake, but the misuse of “to” and “too” drives Brittany batty! She’s watching you, People of Facebook. “Conversely, catching a ‘who versus whom’ or ‘less versus fewer’ mistake makes me feel like an editing rockstar,” she says. You most certainly hold Rockstar Editor status at KG, Brittany!

Moral of the horror story: refresh your AP style memory! Set aside a time for the whole office to go over common mistakes and have team members mention other errors to be aware of that you might miss in your review. Taking an hour today can save you more than a few hours of edits in the future!

Halloween: In Need of Good PR?

Posted on October 18, 2012 | by Catherine Seeds | 3 Comments

madeleine-halloween Is it just me, or is the Halloween industry in need of a branding facelift? When I was a kid, it never occurred to me that this “holiday of sorts” was the cause for so much controversy between differing religious groups, let alone the fact that Halloween’s roots come from ancient pagans who believed that October 31 was the day that the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the deceased would come back to life and cause havoc such as sickness or damaged crops. (Thus ancient Celtics would wear masks to scare away any spirits.) I come from a Christian family, but my parents were not the ultra-conservative type, and so my brother and I always dressed up for Halloween, participated in Halloween parties at school and always went trick or treating in our safe suburban neighborhood in Lubbock, Texas.

Nowadays, however, Halloween as a “holiday” has a much different look and the industry has literally exploded right before our eyes. In doing research for this blog, I found a stat from BIGResearch that in 2005 (the year my daughter was born) consumers spent almost $3.30 billion. For 2012, figures are estimated to top $8 billion– spending of course on costumes, decorations, and candy. So, if you look at the Halloween from a figures standpoint, the industry has done, well, pretty dang amazing! Continue reading →

W-R-I-T-E: An Acrostic Method to Writing About Something You Don’t Understand

Posted on October 11, 2012 | by Ketner Group

Every PR or media professional has been there. We’ve all been assigned that writing piece that’s guaranteed to scramble your brain. Like a kid who hates dodge ball hiding from the ‘choose your team’ line-up, you shrank in your seat or went silent on your phone line hoping that the arduous task wouldn’t fall to you. But just as the dodge ball-hating kid needs to play for a grade, you need to write for a living.

Now that the challenging writing assignment is yours, let’s talk about some ways that could make it easier for you to formulate an intelligent collection of thoughts about a subject about which you honestly know nothing. It’s been a while since I’ve used the Acrostic method to make a point, so let’s use WRITE to spell out a workable method to successfully writing this madness.

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W
Who is your audience? I know this sounds basic, but it’s an important step we writers sometimes skip when launching into an article. You should really stop to identify for whom you’re writing so that (1) you know how to position the information and (2, and most helpfully) you can understand which sources could help you better comprehend the topic. Many people in your audience most likely have written content on the topic, as well. This brings us to our next letter.

R
Research, research, research. Clients love to give us the go-ahead on writing bylines and other pieces, but rarely have time to instruct us on the subject matter. When a client’s industry is highly technical or difficult to understand, this could be a nightmare. Therefore, work in time to do a deep-dive research session. Many times, this requires moving beyond reading through the material your client sent and finding handfuls of other articles written by professionals in the industry. Recently, I had to write a blog post about a highly-detailed, business profitability best practice. I spent about an hour just researching the topic before I even wrote one word.

I
Intelligent sources. When you obviously can’t speak as the expert, find experts who can. This goes hand-in-hand with research. Researching sparks great ideas, but if these ideas aren’t your own, quote them. This is a great way to get a point across fairly, and add credibility to your article. Continue reading →

Goodbye Summer 2012-See you in Rio in 2016!

Posted on September 27, 2012 | by Ketner Group

Summer is fleeting—even with the seemingly relentless heat of a Texas September, it’s undeniable that the days grow shorter and the mornings cooler, and the school zone lights blink their warnings during morning commutes.

The trouble with the end of summer is how fast the busyness of the fall and holiday season sneak up on you, even as you try to savor the last of the peaches and mourn the retirement of easy sundresses (just me?). It’s a fast and furious ride from here—a slew of fall birthdays (did you know more people are born in September than any other month?), big college football weekends, and then it’s straight on to Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas/Hanukkah, and New Year’s.

All of this is my way of saying that summer completely slipped away from me, without my permission, and in my denial that it is—officially—fall, I never posted part II of KG’s Olympic Love Fest.   We’ve made no bones here on the blog about how much we love the Summer Olympics at Ketner Group. I mean, some of us might love it more than others, but we all love a good excuse to have a little party and hang out together.

Thanks to NBC’s first-ever live streaming of the Olympics, the team realized how hard it would be to avoid spoilers if we waited until after work to watch the highly edited highlights of the day’s events in prime time. This was unacceptable (to some of us.) We then had the genius idea to set up a spare monitor in the conference room and hunker down for group work sessions while the Olympics were on in the background. Of course, one thing led to another, and the next thing you know, our group work sessions were complete with a daily rotation of hot tea, English muffins (perhaps a stretch authentic-wise), finger sandwiches, crumpets, scones, and bangers and mash.

We even found I had an Olympic doppelganger, Team USA swimmer Lauren Perdue.

Naturally I had to tweet at her because making a copycat picture isn’t weird enough by itself, and basically I’m famous now.

That first week of the Olympics was the most fun we’ve had at work in ages. Sometimes team bonding has a reputation for being forced and trite, but this was the real deal—pure team building gold. But, I had to leave a good thing, because I was on my way to London for the second week of the Olympics! (I think you can guess whether I am one of the KGers who really loves the games!)

My husband and I had the great fortune of seeing three events before we continued on to Europe. We saw Team GB’s greatest night of athletics ever (Americans call it track and field) (my bff Kate Middleton & her husband Prince William were there, too!), gymnastics individual finals (Gabby Douglas!) and men’s beach volleyball quarterfinals. We had fantastic seats at each event and had the absolute best time. I can’t believe we really got to go. But the real highlight of the Olympics for me was meeting Team USA gymnasts Jonathan Orozco and Jake Dalton.

And just for the record, if the athletes from my alma mater, the University of Texas at Austin, competed as a country, UT would have ranked in a tie for 13th place among all nations in the number of gold medals earned and tied for 18th in the number of total medals won.

U-S-A! Hook ‘em! Ketner Group!

A Gold Medal Summer

Posted on July 6, 2012 | by Catherine Seeds | 1 Comment

A Gold Medal Summer

Everyone at KG knows that I’m a huge sports fan, and of course, every two years I cannot wait for the arrival of the Olympics. I love everything about the Olympics, even Bob Costas. Nothing beats watching an underdog team beat the incumbent gold medal winner or an individual athlete overcoming incredible odds to win the race. In my opinion, the Olympics have provided some of the most historic and inspirational athletic feats in recent history.

In a little over a month, the best athletes from all over the world will descend upon London for the 2012 Summer Olympics. (As an interesting aside, our very own Brittany Johnson and her husband have been lucky enough to score tickets to a few of the events!) As the world prepares to watch more record-breaking races and nail-biting gymnastic routines – I thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane on some of the top Olympic moments. After all, so many of these were great PR stories for their time!

Jesse Owens – Conquering the World Though Racial and Physical Obstacles
During the 1936 Olympics against the back drop of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Olympic track star Jesse Owens, won four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, 4x100m relay and the long jump. He broke or equaled nine Olympic records and set three world records. Adolf Hitler hoped that the Berlin Games would prove his theory of Aryan racial superiority; however, Jesse Owen’s achievements led the people of Berlin to hail him as a hero. One of the most memorable moments of the games was when a 19-year old Germany athlete congratulated Owens after a qualifying round, in full view of Hitler.

The Holy Trinity of Gymnastics – Comaneci, Retton, Strug
You can’t call yourself a woman’s gymnastics fan unless you know about these three ladies, who all made historic achievements during three different summer Olympics:

Nadia Comaneci – During the 1976 Olympics, Nadia scored what is now known as “The” Perfect Ten. She was the first gymnast to ever score a perfect “10” – and went on in her career to repeat this feat six times at Olympic competitions.

Mary Lou Retton – In the 1984 Olympics, she was the first female gymnast from outside Eastern Europe to win the Olympic all-around title. Retton scored perfect 10s on floor exercise and vault to win the all-around title by 0.05 points.

Kerri Strug – During the 1996 Olympics, Kerri (a part of the Magnificent Seven U.S. Women’s Gymnastics team) fought through injury and enormous expectations to land a vault on one leg, guaranteeing her team gold. The Magnificent Seven remain the only U.S. women’s gymnastics team to claim Olympic gold.

Miracle On Ice – A Defining Moment in Olympic History
The “Miracle on Ice” is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men’s ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, February 22. The United States team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet team, who had won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament since 1954. Team USA went on to win the gold medal by winning its last match over Finland. In 1999, Sports Illustrated named the “Miracle on Ice” the Top Sports Moment of the 20th Century.

Tell us your favorite Olympic moments!