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!
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
We recently came across a blog post on 5 Rookie Mistakes in Press Releases, and turns out, the author was not exaggerating about the “rookie” part. Use a headline that makes sense. Include an “about” section and contact info. Still, it’s always helpful even for seasoned PR pros to get a reminder that sometimes the most basic things are the things we screw up, because we take for granted that we won’t screw them up. The post also inspired us to write our list of tips to help businesses avoid making rookie mistakes in social media. Without further ado…
1)Don’t dive in without a game plan. You know what makes me cringe? When companies get excited by the sparkly social media trend and tell their staff to go gangbusters on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, a company blog, etc. – all without having a strategy in place.What is your goal? Who are you trying to engage with? Do you need to engage with different audiences on different platforms, and perhaps share one type of information with your Twitter followers and a different type with your Facebook followers? What’s your policy on employees blogging or guest blogging for your company? Your plan for dealing with negative Yelp or App Store reviews? I know it’s tempting to want to just dive in – but trust me, you’ll be glad later that you had a strategy in place first.
2)That said, be wary of social media ninjas/experts/superstars. It can be incredibly valuable having people on your side with specific experience developing and executing social media initiatives. However, be careful about who you trust with your social media strategy; 90% of the self-professed social media ninjas/gurus/superstars/experts out there are full of it. Just because someone has 1,000+ Twitter followers and calls himself a guru doesn’t make it true – and typically, the people who are the gurus don’t need to use such audacious self-promotion to prove it. Since the beginning of time (or at least the beginning of capitalism?) people have looked for the next get-rich-quick scheme to make a buck off the latest hot new thing, and right now in marketing, that thing is social media. Don’t get suckered. Still, there are people out there who genuinely have great experience and a track record of success in working with businesses to help them do social media right. And if you’re already working with a PR or marketing agency, they may very well have the know-how to work with you on those initiatives, and it helps that the relationships and knowledge about your company are already established. Continue reading →
This past weekend, I trekked back to my old stomping grounds in College Station, Texas to co-host an old friend’s baby shower. (I am at that point in life where the appropriate response to a friend’s baby news is now “Congratulations!” rather than “Wow, how do you feel about it?” – it’s all still new to me.) Thankfully, my Mom and stepdad still live in the area, so I got some time away from baby talk to catch up and lounge around in their new-old 1930’s-built house.
On Saturday night, my Mom handed me a bag containing a few notebooks and papers that her Mom had passed off to her the weekend before. My Grandmom has been sloooowly cleaning out the old “clubhouse” over the years, a tiny-yet-huge closet in her house that my cousin and I had taken over for our childhood exploits. I think it makes her just as sad as it makes me thinking of the clubhouse being totally empty, since we lost my cousin 7 years ago, way too young. But about the notebooks. Our “T.V. Club” (for Taylor + Valerie, also known as the “Totally Fun Club,” of course) required a lot of planning. Based on the notebooks, you’d think all we did was plan – which was mostly the case, aside from the occasional spy mission or theatrical/choral performance.
When I was reading through one of my old club notebooks, circa age 9, I laughed to the point of tears at the ridiculousness of it. I’ve included an old page here (click through to read it bigger) that really got me thinking. As rudimentary and silly as these ideas were, they say something about who I was, and who I am. Aside from being a huge nerd, when I read it, I thought to myself, “huh, I didn’t even know it until I was three years into college, but I was kind of destined for this career.”
As with any career, there are certain must-have traits for those who want to be successful in marketing and PR. While diversity among the types of people and ideas is a must, these seem to be universally necessary traits/tendencies for professionals in this business. Sure, they might seem rather “duh” (#5 on my IDEAS list anyone?) but my mantra for 2011 has been “back to the basics,” and I think there are messages here that we all need reminders of if we want to try to strengthen the reputation of our own industry:
Be proactive – I mean, really: One of our clients recently hired a new director of marketing, and in our first meeting, she was very concerned about trade show media appointments. She mentioned that at her previous company, the PR agency didn’t prep the executives with briefing books or confirm the media appointments before the show. Come on! And in a recent new business meeting, a company’s CEO told us that his PR firm didn’t proactively pitch or set media appointments at shows, and only seemed to handle reactive inquiries. The only excuse for that would be a bare bones budget, and even then, there’s a major communication gap going on. Speaking of which… Continue reading →
Cowgirls (and PR Professionals) Don’t Cry: A True Story about a Weekend in Bandera, Texas That I Will Never Forget
As we speak, my rear end and thighs are still smarting from my weekend trip to a local Cowboy Ranch located right in the heart of the beautiful and vast Texas Hill Country.My husband, Darrell, and I had been long overdue for a weekend getaway to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. Darrell was determined to plan the entire trip but being the thoughtful person he is, asked for my opinion on what I’d like to do. Thinking outside of the box, I said that it would be fun to go somewhere “where we could ride horses.” Famous last words!
This brings us to Friday night and our arrival at the ranch. After check-in, we made our way up to our cabin which, gasp, didn’t have a TV! I also quickly realized that we had zero cell phone reception.No biggie, I can handle being away from civilization (aka my work email) for a day or two.Heck, I’m a born and raised Texas girl, being adaptable is in my blood. Let’s do this.
We woke up Saturday morning, ate a fantastic country breakfast of biscuits and eggs at the ranch’s dining hall, and met our fellow ranch-goers – Jersey, Maverick and the Minnesota Twins*. We were ready to start our day at the ranch! While sipping the last of our coffee, in walks our ranch hand, Dish*.Dish was stuck somewhere between Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove and reality. He was dressed in all the necessary cowboy gear (hat, spurs, scarf around the neck) and completed his ranch hand look with a classic handlebar/horseshoe-styled mustache. We soon learned that Dish was not very good at telling jokes, and by that I mean made several inappropriate comments to me, Jersey and one of the Minnesota Twins. For example, and I take the liberty of EXTREME paraphrasing, “Ma’am, the saddle horn is not your husband’s……so don’t grab on to it like it is.”You get the idea. But, again, I’m a Texas girl and can deal with this so-called cowboy.
Fast forward to roping lessons, where Cowboy Curly*, the owner of the ranch, taught us the proper way to rope a pretend cow and a barrel – yours truly was having a hard time with the concept and I ended up only roping myself. Cowboy Curly clearly knows the concept of the weakest link, aka me, and proceeded to single me out and constantly yelled at me for doing it incorrectly.But, I’m a true-blue Texas girl and kept saying, “No sir, those aren’t tears welling up in my eyes. Those are my allergies.” That was my story, anyway. I eventually learned how to flip my wrists correctly and even got a chance to rope the pretend cow on my horse. Yee haw! Continue reading →
When I first joined Ketner Group in 2007, I knew very little about running a business, and just enough about PR to convince them I was the best candidate for the entry-level position. I was given a gigantic desk in a room all to myself (one of the “perks” of small business I am glad we grew out of – it was so lonely!) and thrown into client work 8-5, 5 days a week, while all my friends were still off procrastinating away senior year. (I was the dork that graduated early.)
The past three and a half years have taught me more than I could have imagined, and one of the best parts of it has been learning bit by bit about how a small business is run and the secret ingredients to doing it right. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no financial expert, and my favorite parts of the job will always be client work and scheming with my co-workers, but an incredibly valuable part of working for Ketner Group has been learning much more than just PR: I’ve watched a small business grow, gain and lose clients (AKA revenue), and adapt to survive in a time when our entire industry was changing beneath our feet.
In order to avoid writing a novel, I thought I’d pick just a few things that make me proud to be part of this team:
Creating the kind of atmosphere you want to work in
I will be the first to admit our office didn’t always have the greatest atmosphere. Sure, it was a positive environment, but – being a small business – we just didn’t splurge on things like new furniture or décor. With clients that were mostly out of town at the time, we didn’t have many unexpected visitors, either, so the “image” of our physical office wasn’t terribly important.Then, 2 things happened. We got more local clients, and we hired more women. Continue reading →
When I was growing up, I had no idea what my Dad did for a living. I knew that he went to work every morning with a briefcase and came home every evening in time for dinner. I distinctly remember an episode from my sixth grade Spanish class in which our teacher asked each student to state the occupation of his or her Dad. When it was my turn to speak, I frantically flipped through the pages of my mind’s Spanish-English dictionary and stumbled upon what I thought at the time was a suitable if somewhat incorrect answer: “A businessman.”
Fast-forward ten years, and I am now a proud employee of my Dad’s formerly unknown business. I never thought I would work for my Dad, much less for a PR firm, but I guess you could say that I didn’t have a choice. I was about to embark on a 7-week study abroad program last summer and was trying to find a job under the broad heading of “prelaw” that I could hold down for the remaining five weeks until the start of the fall semester. Turns out that no one wanted to hire me just for five weeks (surprise). So, whether it was because he didn’t want a jobless son or because he simply wanted to increase the male quotient at the office (see this former blog post), Dad hired me.
Fortunately for the both of us, I ended up really liking the short-lived gig and have been working at the Ketner Group since I graduated from The University of Texas this past May. I still plan on going to law school next fall, but decided very quickly after college Continue reading →
Some questions have no easy answer. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?
Add another question to that list: What happened to all of the men in PR?
It wasn’t all that long ago that a bunch of men established the public relations industry as we know it today. Innovative businessmen like P.T. Barnum first pushed the limits of publicity, and were followed by enterprising young men like Edward Bernays and Ivy Lee, who met a need that executives all over the world didn’t know they had yet.
The world’s largest and most successful PR agencies were, not surprisingly, founded by men. Still today, the executive leadership of global media conglomerates and smaller, privately held PR firms alike is largely male. But one look around the office, and it’s obvious things have changed in the last fifty years. Our own Ketner Group office is a microcosm of this gender imbalance, with our lone male, our agency principal, outnumbered five to one. Continue reading →
When I first joined Ketner Group in 2007, I knew very little about running a business, and just enough about PR to convince them I was the best candidate for the entry-level position. I was given a gigantic desk in a room all to myself (one of the “perks” of small business I am glad we grew out of – it was so lonely!) and thrown into client work 8-5, 5 days a week, while all my friends were still off procrastinating away senior year. (I was the dork that graduated early.)
When I was growing up, I had no idea what my Dad did for a living. I knew that he went to work every morning with a briefcase and came home every evening in time for dinner. I distinctly remember an episode from my sixth grade Spanish class in which our teacher asked each student to state the occupation of his or her Dad. When it was my turn to speak, I frantically flipped through the pages of my mind’s Spanish-English dictionary and stumbled upon what I thought at the time was a suitable if somewhat incorrect answer: “A businessman.”
Some questions have no easy answer. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop?
Austin
