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What I Really Do, PR Edition: Fact or Fiction?

Posted on | by Ketner Group

The people of the Internet have once again moved on from one meme, most recently the Sh*t Girls Say phenomenon, to the next, currently the “What I Really Do” meme. So far on my Facebook feed I’ve seen what media buyers, law students, lawyers, journalists, film editors, stay at home moms, and military wives “really do.” I thought it incredible that I hadn’t yet come across “What PR People do” meme considering the number of my Facebook friends are also in PR, but finally this morning, there it was! Let’s take a look:

screen-shot-2012-02-17-at-23546-pm

And since you asked how I felt about it–oh, you didn’t? Anyway, here are my thoughts on the topic:

What my friends think I do: Fiction! I don’t think my friends would say my job involves any more partying than any other non-bartending job, which is to say it doesn’t involve much!

What my parents think I do: Fact. This is 100 percent true—my parents know what a press release is, of course, but that’s about as far their understanding of PR goes. There is some confusion on how it differs from advertising (a general rule: advertising is paid media, PR is earned media), and I’m not sure they would know how marketing is different from sales.

What journalists think I do: Fact. This is pretty accurate, though I wish there was a visual to capture a bunch of devious-looking PR folk sitting around wearing devils horns emailing a press release about an auto show to 2,000 journalists and editors who only cover healthcare. Unfortunately, a lot of editors and journalists believe PR specialists don’t try to target their audience and spam inboxes with irrelevant news without a second thought. At least at KG, we try our best to only send announcements or pitches to those we think are a good fit.

What my clients think I do: Fiction! This one made me laugh, I’ll admit. I work with truly wonderful clients, so I doubt my clients think the KG team frolics in piles of their money all day, but I will concede that when working on marketing projects, we do sometimes spend other people’s money (I hasten to add we spend it wisely!).

What society thinks I do: Fact. I was sold by this one photo—it captures society’s misconception that PR people are conniving, deceitful, shady, really I could keep going but I’ll stop myself. It’s funny how much discredit the public gives the profession. Certainly there have been gigantic PR missteps and sure, there are some companies with questionable products or practices I wouldn’t want to represent, but most PR, especially the B2B work KG specializes in, is entirely fact-based and straightforward.

What I actually do: Fact. It’s been well documented on the KG blog and elsewhere that PR can be a stressful career—from the fear of the five most dreaded words, “Why aren’t we in this?” to a chronic case of PR Paranoia, “I know I’ve checked and re-checked this release I’m about to distribute 100 times, but what if there’s a typo?” I imagine air traffic controllers, neurosurgeons and teachers all have more stressful jobs than I do, don’t get me wrong, but yes, this head-meets-wall feeling really happens quite often. Maybe we should party more?

This version of the “What I Really Do” meme is more reality than myth, which I suppose is why the meme is so popular. It may not be a glamorous career, but it’s mine and I think I’ll keep it, “what society thinks I do” warts and all.

Three Ways to Save an Unproductive Day

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Daily agency life often feels like an elaborate juggling act—account managers constantly juggle accounts and each account’s unique priorities and deadlines. This requires switching gears throughout the day, usually several times an hour. The necessity of this workflow is obvious—we need to be available to our clients throughout the day as projects and issues pop up, and we strive to efficiently handle projects as if each account were our only account. The KG team prides ourselves on being flexible and in our ability to nimbly manage dozens of loose ends at a time. However, it would not be a stretch to call this style of work ‘multi-tasking,’ and from our recent series on productivity, we know that multi-tasking at its worst actually reduces productivity. The Wall Street Journal recently published an article on how to be more productive at work, and identified “fragmentation – trying to juggle many competing, and usually unexpected, demands on your time,” as the leading cause of an unproductive day and the root of the uncomfortable feeling that you worked really hard all day and yet have the sense that nothing got done. Yep, that’s a day KGers can relate to! How then do agencies limit the inefficiencies of multi-tasking in the face of competing demands on their time?

The WSJ article, “How to Save an Unproductive Day in 25 Minutes,” gives three suggestions for busy professionals to maximize efficiency when pulled in a million directions. The article resonated with me, and I wanted to share the tips and how they apply to agency life at KG.

1. Schedule uninterrupted work time—Whether you have to go hide in the empty conference room to escape the usually welcome antics of your awesome coworkers (pie! Funny YouTube clip!), pipe in some white noise to get you in the no-distraction zone like Eric does, or follow the Pomodoro Technique like Valerie does, actually scheduling dedicated time to completely focus on the most pressing task at hand can help check it off your to-do list faster.

2. Keep track of the progress you made that day—The WSJ recommends writing out everything you did at the end of a crazy day to give yourself a better sense of accomplishment. Personally I keep a running to-do list and find great satisfaction (possibly too much satisfaction) in checking things off that list. Sometimes I even tack on a few too-easy tasks that really shouldn’t count (making breakfast, putting new ink in the printer) just to make myself feel more productive! As the WSJ points out, perception is reality and just feeling more productive can make all the difference between a good day and a bad one. Continue reading →

KG Productivity Tips Series #3: Other Things We Like

Posted on | by Ketner Group

If you’re a regular reader of the KBlog, you’ll recall KG’s favorite productivity tips for staying focused and organized. In the third and final segment in our productivity series, we share our favorite miscellaneous productivity tools and tricks that help make the KG team shine!

Brittany
Google Voice: So chances are that you’ve heard of Google Voice before, but on the off-chance you haven’t, let me be the first to tell you how cool it is to not have to listen to voicemails anymore. If I have to miss a call because I’m on another call, I almost instantly receive an email and a text transcription of the voicemail–quite the perk for someone like me who dislikes listening to five consecutive messages of “Hi Brittany, it’s your mom. Call me back!” to get to the message left by a client. (Aside: I can’t be the only person whose mom doesn’t trust that my phone will tell me I missed her call without needing to leave a message.) Especially effective for people with multiple phone numbers (home, work, cell), Google Voice gives users the option to use a single Google forwarding number to all of the user’s phones, so when your office phone rings when you’re out of the office, you can take the call on your cell. Brilliant! Google Voice also supports conference calling with call recording and online archiving. On top of all of that, there are lots more features, so get your Google Voice on now if you haven’t signed up yet.

Valerie
Good Old-fashioned Mindfulness: This one might be a “duh,” but if we were all doing it right, I have a hunch our society would be a lot different than it is. The powers of mindfulness are praised high and wide for increasing health, happiness, and productivity. Some even believe that if you focus your positive energy well enough, you can attract good things to you. Now, I don’t know if I’d go that far personally, but I do know that reminding myself to be mindful and “in the moment” can have powerful effects on my sanity and my efficiency.

Next time you find yourself scatterbrained, extremely stressed, or asking yourself “what the heck was I just doing/going to do?”, try this: Close your eyes. Take ten deep breaths and visualize all the thoughts cluttering your mind flowing out one-by-one, vanishing (poof!), leaving your head empty. (I’m saying visualize, folks – most of us are not really that good.) Then, ask yourself: What is it I really need to be focusing on right now? Try to pick one thing that’s high-priority. Open your eyes, and jot down a few steps that you can work on right now.

Eric
Session Manager: I love tabs. There are two dozen tabs open in my browser right now. Session manager helps keep those tabs safe until I’m ready to return to them.

Session Manager is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that allows you to save the state of all windows and tabs open in your browser. This snapshot of your broswer can be saved and an unlimited number of sessions saves are allowed. Besides backing up your browsing in the event of a crash, this helps keep personal and professional browsing separate. It allows you to unplug — save your 9-5 browser windows as you’re leaving for the day, close your browser and leave your work projects until you’re ready for them. (It’s no fun to open up Chrome on Sunday morning when you’re looking for a good brunch spot on Yelp and get a big reminder of all the loose ends waiting for you Monday morning.) Or, focus on plugging back in. (If you’ve been shopping at home for a sweet new pair of slacks and reasonably priced ties, you can save those window-shopping tabs until later to avoid distraction when you get to the office.)

Caitlin
Look at the Competition: This may seem unrelated to productivity, but competition is a huge motivator, and motivation increases productivity. When I look at clients’ competitors’ news coverage or social media activity, for example, I get motivated to work really hard and to come up with new ideas to stay at the top of our game. If you’re even the slightest bit competitive like me, you’ll find your competitor’s success a perfect productivity push.

Achieving and maintaining peak performance is a constantly moving target. Just when you think you’ve cracked the code, another distraction or challenge pops up and creates room for improvement. At KG, we’re always on the lookout for the next big thing, so let us know if there’s something that works for you that we should know about!

Leading a Double Life: What PR Can Learn from Social Work

Posted on | by Ketner Group

A body outline drawing of Valerie in which each piece symbolizes a part of her journey through the Social Work programPhoto: A body outline drawing of Valerie in which each piece of the drawing represents Valerie’s journey through the Social Work program.

For those of you KbloG readers who don’t already know, I started working on my Master’s in Social Work last fall. It’s hard for me to believe that I only have NINE weeks of class left before I finish my last “real” courses and begin my final internship before my May 2012 graduation. Of course, as you know because you’re reading this blog post, I couldn’t bear to leave the awesome Ketner Group team so soon, so we’ve worked together to make it possible for me to “lead a double life” and do both. Even though there are few weeks in there that I’ve all but forgotten due to lack of sleep, I wouldn’t have changed a thing (short of altering the laws of time in which the day is 30 hours long – the parents are all nodding their heads in agreement!)

I could go on for way too long about the experiences I’ve had, but for the purposes of this post, I thought it would be fun to talk about a few of the things I’ve picked up in social work that I could see the PR world benefiting from.  If I really sat down and thought about it for a while, it would be a LONG list – but as you can imagine, I’ve got studying to do, so let’s make it snappy!

“Yes…. and….” – My beloved first-year practice instructor, Tammy, drilled this one into us on day one, and we all thought it was kind of silly, but now, I try to drill it into anyone I catch making a “yes…., but” statement. We’re humans. We love to think we’re right, and we love to argue. But it can get pretty obnoxious when you’re talking with someone and they keep pretending to agree with you at first, then negating exactly what you said with their “Yeah that’s true but I mean….” statements. Being on the receiving end of these comments is no fun, and it happens more than we realize – oh, until now, because you’ll start realizing it all the time. So what’s the alternative? The more positive and respectful “yes, AND” statement. What I didn’t know until I Googled this just now is that it’s also an improv comedy technique, which makes total sense! No one wants to watch an improv skit where the comedians can’t let go of their preconceived ideas or egos rather than playing off what’s going on in the moment. Continue reading →

KG Productivity Tips Series #2: Staying Organized

Posted on | by Ketner Group

A few weeks ago, we started a new series on productivity and we shared some our favorite ways to minimize distractions. Today we tackle another beast–organization.

Caitlin
Google Docs: Because Ketner Group is not on an intranet, we usually have to verbally or electronically call dibs on editing a document, then pass it along to the next person and the process begins again. Google Docs allows us to collaborate on the same document, while getting real-time updates from the person editing. This way, we can eliminate the added time it takes to combine two or more edited versions that were sent around the same time.

Outlook Tasks: I know, I know. It may seem old school (or nothing new), but I keep my week’s ‘to-do’s’ in my Outlook Tasks folder. What better place to store my action items than the same program that stores my emails and calendar appointments? Also, when I receive an email that requires some action, I flag it and it is automatically sent to my Tasks folder. I also set the tasks to ping me on certain days or times so I don’t forget to complete them. It’s like my electronic nagging mother.

Eric
Stickies: What should you use Stickies for? That’s up to you. This minimal tool offers a relatively low-tech way to jot down notes or keep track of projects and more. 

Stickies is a free, basic note-taking application available on every Mac since 1994. These electronic Post-It Notes can be placed around your desktop. Stickies is an easy-to-use, lightweight application that works well for everything from to-do lists, taking notes on a call or preparing the first draft of an email — or this blog post. You can create multiple Stickies, but they all save to one file and save instantly, making them great as a word processor in a pinch — the barebones application runs lightning fast even on sluggish computers — where you don’t (knock on wood) have to worry about losing your content in a crash. And, Stickies is not just restricted to text. You can drag and drop everything from images to Quicktime movies to embed.

Brittany
Walgo
: It may sound like a shameless promotion, but Ketner Group client Omnego developed a really cool app that helps keep my life less cluttered, and at least for me, less clutter=more productivity. 

 Continue reading →

I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes

Posted on | by Ketner Group

It’s coming. I can hear the buzz, the distant rumble of excitement from anticipation and preparations. It may be early, but people are already planning for it. It comes every year and the eyes of passersby twinkle at all the sights and sounds that flood the senses…

…at the annual South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, Film and Music festival in Austin, TX. Did I have you thinking about Christmas for a second? I don’t blame you. But today, I’ve got SXSW on my mind.

We Ketner Groupies are just plain excited. We all have special connections with SXSW. I got married this year during the music festival (which hosted an awesome Friday-night outing for our out-of-towners). Another Ketner Groupie’s love story began there. We helped launch a new social media application there. And every year, we learn something new and valuable that we can share with our clients and friends.

As PR professionals, we ‘heart’ SXSW Interactive (SXSWi), the marketing, digital media and technology hub of the festival. How lucky are we to have the brightest minds and entrepreneurs from all over the globe meet up in one place to share an explosion of ideas and knowledge—right in our own backyard? And we are doubly excited for SXSWi 2012, because three of our clients have submitted their own panels, which are up on the 2012 SXSW PanelPicker now! Check these out and if you like what you see, give ‘em a thumbs up (AKA: vote for their panel)! Continue reading →

Location, Location, Location

Posted on | by Ketner Group

William T. Dillard (1914-2002), founder of the Dillard’s department stores, is the person most often credited with the quotation, “Location, location, location.” Supposedly, one of the things that helped make him so successful was that he took notice of consumer’s shifting preference to indoor shopping malls. Of course, all you have to do is look at The Domain here in Austin for evidence that this preference seems to be shifting yet again.

We got to thinking a lot about location recently, wondering if it is equally important across all industries. With retail stores, restaurants, etc.—of course. Location is absolutely key. (Again—Austinites, if someone gave you $5 million 5 years ago to open a retail store, would Highland Mall be anywhere on your list of possibilities? Well I sure hope not, because it’s about to become the next ACC campus.) But in the age of globalization, Rebecca Black, and Cheezburgers, does location for certain types of business really matter anymore? If it’s not obvious yet, I’m talking about PR firms (though the same question could apply for interactive agencies, web developers, journalists, etc.) Continue reading →

Get to know Erica, one of the new Ketner Group interns!

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Ketner Group has had some pretty awesome interns, and this summer is no different. Meet Erica, one of KG’s two new summer 2011 interns. We asked our AIs (Awesome Interns) to contribute to the blog, and here is the first post in the new series, “The KG Intern Experience.”

It all started at the ripe age of 13 – an age when you’re socially awkward, chubby and snaggle-toothed. From the comfort of my bedroom, I ran the largest and most profitable PR agency in the world. Now, I didn’t know it was a PR agency at the time, so I just called it “Events x Erica.” I thought I was pretty clever using the “x” sign to signify the word “by.” I still do – don’t judge.

Anyway, I independently managed every last detail of my extravagant parties, including booking guests, promotional activities and music selection. I was even my own caterer. What can I say? We independently-owned PR agencies have to stick to our budgets!

Needless to say, I was a PR enthusiast from a young age. Fast forward eight years, and I am now a senior majoring in public relations at The University of Texas at Austin. Over the past few years, I have had the opportunity to work with wonderful industry professionals, such as Rogers & Cowan, Film Independent, Giant Noise – and now, Ketner Group!

I’m a self-proclaimed soup-junkie, dog whisperer and film critic. An ideal day would be watching a Ben Stiller movie (why haven’t you gotten an Oscar yet?!), eating tomato basil soup and simultaneously snuggling with my dogs, Gaston and Bree.

I’m so excited to be a part of the team and can’t wait to dive into all that is Ketner Group!

Beat the Blogging Blues in 5 Steps

Posted on | by Ketner Group

It seems like these days that everybody, their dog and their dog’s favorite brand has a blog. Even for those who don’t, it could be argued that they should. For anyone selling products or services, blogs are a great vehicle for customer engagement, thought leadership, and SEO optimization – and they can also be a big pain in the you-know-what.

There are two distinct anti-blog camps: those with blogophobia and those with blog commitment phobia (don’t bother looking these up in the DSM…). The first describes a condition in which a company is hesitant to take on blogging because of security and control concerns: How can I make sure I don’t get disparaging comments? How can I be sure my employees author and post favorable content and/or don’t go rogue? Who will have access to my blog’s administrative back end? These are valid concerns.

The second condition, blog commitment phobia, is a fear of committing to a blog because of concerns that it will be difficult (read: time consuming) to organize and challenging to create and post meaningful content consistently without letting the blog go “stale.” These are also valid concerns.

As a PR agency, it’s nearly impossible for us not to blog (we are fans of practicing what we preach, after all), so it’s probably pretty obvious where we stand on the issue: In most – but not all – cases, we think business blogging is smart. But we’re not going to tell you that it’s easy. We will be the first to admit that, just like the old saying about the shoemaker’s kids going barefoot, it can be hard for even a public relations and marketing firm to find the time to blog for themselves—but as another saying goes, nothing in life worth doing comes easy.

So if you’re going to take the leap (or you already have a blog and could use a refresher), here are 5 tips to make blogging for your business as painless as possible:

  1. Develop and maintain a blog editorial calendar (or EdCal, as we call it): Half the battle in blogging is coming up with a compelling topic for each post. Brainstorm on a couple of months’ worth of possible topics and plug these into an EdCal. Of course, EdCals are never set in stone. If something newsworthy pops up unexpectedly, be sure to roll with the punches and adjust your topic queue as necessary.
  2. Establish accountability: The other half of the battle is actually sitting down to hammer out your ideas into coherent, publish-button-worthy thoughts. It’s especially easy to let your blog slide as client work piles up. A strong accountability system among bloggers and managers within your company or department can help keep you on track and hold you to your deadlines (Thanks, Caitlin!). If you’re able to get ahead on preparing the posts in your EdCal, all the better, in case one week turns out to be particularly hectic.
  3. Document formal blogging procedure: It’s critical for companies to have a formal process of blog content revision and approval. Putting down on paper exactly who needs to review, who makes final edits, who grants approval and who is trusted with the blog password for posting are the checks and balances of the blogosphere to ensure all content posted is accurate and authorized. Hopefully, this is part of a larger social media policy document or social media playbook – but at the bare minimum, this piece is very important.
  4. Share responsibility and knowledge: While limiting access to blog’s administrative controls protects a blog from rogue posting, it can create a heavy burden on the individual authorized to do so. In some companies, it may be best for several trusted employees to have working knowledge of how to log in, make changes, publish posts, etc. Likewise, a blog with rotating authors (like ours) prevents a single employee from being solely responsible for the success or failure of the blog. One post per blogger each month is a much more manageable task on top of the regular workload than one or more posts a week would be. Of course, if you’re lucky enough to have a dedicated social media person, they’ve got the time – but keep in mind that they’ll still need access to executives and subject matter experts to keep your blog well rounded.
  5. Employ spam prevention: Comment spam is annoying. Sometimes it’s downright gross (I’ll save you from embarrassing examples, but trust me on that one!). And it’s never anything you want your customers or potential customers to see. For a nominal fee, bloggers can implement a spam prevention plug-in like Akismet to identify and block comment and trackback spam with integration to various blogging systems. You’ll never see a comment on your site that wasn’t approved by both a powerful spam filter and your human spam police.

Still struggling with whether or not blogging is right for your company? Drop us a line – the Ketner Group team can help you work through the pros and cons and help you determine if a jump into the blogosphere is the right move for you.

Austin Movie Theater Creates a Viral Sensation With “Don’t Text” PSA

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Iconic Austin theater Alamo Drafthouse is making a big splash online and in national media this week with a recently debuted PSA about texting during movies. In the video, we hear an unlettered, swear-filled voicemail the Alamo received from an angry customer who was ejected from the theater (without a refund) after ignoring repeated warnings about using her phone during a film.

The video and its corresponding blog post have generated thousands of comments and racked in a couple of million views on YouTube (uncensored and censored versions combined). The two-minute clip is well on its way to viral video fame, fueled by mainstream mentions everywhere from CNET to CNN, where Anderson Cooper said Alamo Drafthouse founder and CEO Tim League deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for his crusade against rude moviegoers.

What can brands learn from Alamo Drafthouse’s viral sensation, and what are the pros and cons of such a campaign? We had a brief roundtable to discuss.

Eric: Tim League’s Austin-born combo of beer, food, film and creative events is a popular one — Entertainment Weekly, Wired and Fandango call it one of the best theaters in the world — particularly with film fanatics, no doubt in part thanks to League’s zero tolerance policy on talking and texting. But, even if this customer acted like a jerk, does the PSA go too far by having a laugh at her expense?

Brittany: Girlfriend probably should have saved the drunk dial for an ex-boyfriend, but it’s within Alamo’s legal rights to use it. This is not the first provocative or explicit no-talking warning Alamo has put together, and I think it’s perfectly in line with its edgy, anti-corporate brand.

Eric: The way I see it is that League is a bit of hero to many film buffs. And not just for his outspokenness or his theaters’ Austin attitude. Besides creating the Alamo, he also heads a nonprofit called the American Genre Film Archive that preserves and exhibits the largest genre film archive in the world. The man obviously loves film and has a reverence for the movie-going experience that much of the general public doesn’t share. His stance is simple: If you don’t feel this way, don’t come to the Alamo.

As for the woman in the voicemail, she remains anonymous unless she decides to try to raise a stink about the video, so I don’t feel too bad for her. Besides, anyone who has ever worked a day in their life has dealt with a nightmare customer like this and can take some satisfaction in seeing her get publicly taken to task. Just because you give someone your money doesn’t mean you have the right to behave like a foul-mouthed brat. The Alamo makes it very clear before every movie that if you talk you’ll be kicked out — without a refund.

Catherine (our resident goody two-shoes): Let me first say that, as a longtime Austinite, I am a huge fan of Alamo Drafthouse and their “Keep Austin Weird” attitude. However, while I completely understand that Alamo has every right to use the caller’s voice message for their most recent PSA, does it really mean that they should have? My opinion is no, they shouldn’t have. Don’t get me wrong — I think the PSA is funny, and I laughed (like when you laugh at someone falling down or tripping). But, the goody two-shoes in me thinks it was a little mean spirited.

Eric: So we’ve got some differing opinions here about the video, but what should one consider before attempting to launch a potentially divisive campaign like this?

Caitlin: You have to weigh the positive and negative aspects to your message to make the best decision.

First, what was the Alamo Drafthouse’s message? That they’re the best movie theater to patron because not only do they promote a unique, “Keep Austin Weird” atmosphere, but they’re also serious about eliminating inconsiderate behavior during films.

Second, how can they prove that they’re serious? By using real world examples. The drunken voicemail was like a pot of gold landing in their lap. How could they not use it? Not only does the inebriated caller sound incredibly uneducated — “the Magnited States of America” takes offense — but she also severs any shred of sympathy we could feel for her with a rude, expletive-filled rant against a beloved local business.

Next, you have to weigh the positives and negatives. We’ll start with the negative. Some people might still feel sorry for her. It isn’t easy watching everyone turn on someone else, even if they deserve it (e.g., Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Anthony Weiner). Now, the positive. As I said before, most people can’t identify with her voicemail and have most likely lost respect for her, so using it is a comedic way to drive home the point that you are serious about your message.

As for the outcome? I’d say this anti-theater-texting PSA was quite successful due to the national media coverage and its viral web presence. If the Alamo Drafthouse weighed the positive and negative, I’m sure they decided that way more people would find it hilarious than mean. Though, we’re glad to have people on our team who are too kind-hearted to find the voicemail’s use appropriate. (We love you, Catherine!)

Valerie: I thought the video was funny, but I’m seeing something from looking at the comments on the Alamo’s blog post that we’ve not touched on yet. Tim League took a bold move opening the company up to criticism — not only from folks who don’t agree with the theater’s policy or think this is bad customer service or unnecessarily shaming of the girl, but also from folks who haven’t had this experience at Alamo theaters. Many commenters on the Alamo’s site complain of being bothered by noisy patrons and telling management only to have management not respond as promised. It was gutsy from that perspective too because they had to be ready to go into crisis response PR mode.

Eric: Well, no matter your opinion on the video, it’s hard to deny it’s a hit. The Alamo Drafthouse posted the video online last week and began showing it before screenings last weekend, and its view count is skyrocketing. For a video that probably took 30 minutes to make, that’s some great exposure.