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

 

Introducing KG’s Newest Blog Series: PR 101

The KG Team is excited to introduce a content series for our PB&J Blog. “PR 101: Back to Basics”. Think back to your days in school: sitting in class, working on a campaign, writing all those press releases. Now think about the first year of your full-time job in PR… We’d be willing to bet you encountered more than a few concepts that threw you for a loop! We’ve all had our moments of panic when sitting in that first client meeting: bylines, analyst briefings, ed cals. What analysts? And what’s a byline?

“PR 101: Back to Basics” is a blog series designed to better prepare current PR students for the industry, as well as help professionals, green or well-seasoned, to enhance and expand their knowledge of PR. In this series, we’ll be profiling different topics that we feel would be beneficial to young PR professionals as well as vets who have been around the block, so to speak. We’d love to hear your thoughts on significant industry knowledge that would be helpful to highlight! Do you remember a specific instance when you were expected to know something on the job that you weren’t taught in school? Is there a topic you think gets pushed aside in our industry that you feel we should discuss? A penny for your thoughts! Or maybe a shout out on our blog will do.

If you’ve ever felt like Lucy at the chocolate factory, we understand. Feeling overwhelmed at work is normal, so no need to stuff all those truffles in your hat, or all those ed cals in a deep, dark, secret folder in Outlook. PR 101: Back to Basics will help you wrap those chocolate, and eat them, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KG is on a mission to end uncertainty and encourage real world knowledge in PR! We hope you can all get involved for this series, and follow us along the way with your comments and feedback! Tweet us at @PBJblog or @KetnerGroupPR using the hashtag #KGPR101 with your thoughts!