Tag: public relations

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!

Surprise! You’re in Public Relations.

Posted on | by Ketner Group

“Surprise!” is what should be written on your diploma upon college graduation. As is the case for many careers, public relations is one thing taught and another in practice. Earlier this month, I accepted an invitation to speak to the University of Texas’ student-run Tower PR group and was brought back to my college days—days of hope, dreams and eagerness to start a fabulous life in PR.

After meeting such wonderful, enthusiastic future PR professionals at UT, I started comparing what I thought a career in PR would look like at 21 to what it actually is after nearly 5 years of going from internships to account coordinator and executive roles to senior account manager. Now I love my job and I’m sure I chose the best career for me, but one thing is certain: At 21, I had not even a clue what I was in for.

“PR is glamorous.” SURPRISE! It’s not. At all. PR professionals get no public credit for the good work we do, and that’s the way it should be. You work hard all day to win positive publicity for your clients (hardly ever for yourself), and a job well done may or may not be met with praise. PR is very much a “behind the scenes” or “backstage” role, so people who crave being the star of the show should think twice about choosing this underappreciated career.

“PR is all about party planning.” SURPRISE! I wish I could plan parties for a living. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been approached by someone wanting to get into event planning. Party planning is a large, successful industry and is mastered by event planners, designers, caterers and others. It’s a whole other tamale. In fact, it’s on a whole other plate. In PR, you’re immersed in activities such as crafting a corporate message, managing client relationships with media and analysts, and writing case studies, press releases and articles. On the rare occasion that a client throws a party and needs your help, they will likely be looking for your assistance in promoting the party to a targeted community. Continue reading →

Ketner Group Journey- The Beginning

Posted on | by Ketner Group

My name is Catherine Mitchell and I’m a senior public relations student at UT Austin. Knowing that graduation is slowly sneaking up on me in December, I decided that I needed more experience in the public relations Industry before I could truly know which path to choose when I graduate. This leads me to the beginning of my journey with Ketner Group!

I have held previous PR internships with outstanding companies, but still I longed for experience in an actual agency whose sole purpose was PR and marketing. I had been to quite a few interviews at other agencies, but when I walked through the door here at Ketner Group I instantly felt at ease. Everyone at the office was friendly and energetic. My interview didn’t feel like a formal “what are your strengths and weakness” type interview, but more of a two-way conversation where I felt comfortable to be myself and got to learn more about the people in the agency. Choosing the place I wanted to intern was a no-brainer!

Ketner Group deals mainly with B2B technology clients, which is definitely a different field of PR that I imagined myself working in. However, I have found that I really enjoy learning about different IT developments implemented by Ketner Group’s clients.

Merely seeing how a public relations professional spends his/her day at work has provided me
great insight into the field. The opportunity to sit in on conference calls and meetings with
clients has shown me how to build and maintain strong relationships with clients. I have learned through observation the importance of presenting knowledgeable council to the client while still maintaining a casual enough tone to keep the meeting friendly.  When I’m at the office I literally feel like a little sponge trying to absorb all the information I can!

Being surrounded by professionals who really love what they do has made interning at Ketner Group a really positive experience thus far. People really aren’t lying when they say the best way to learn is through experience. I now know that I enjoy working in a boutique agency where everyone is more than coworkers- they’re friends.

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 →

When I Grow Up I Want To Be…

Posted on | by Catherine Seeds

I’m not going to lie.  Sometimes my job is hard. In fact, it can be downright frustrating and still causes me to shed a few tears now and then. Twelve years working in public relations has taught me to have thick skin and to keep pushing forward when things get tough, but I still have days when I can’t wait to get home and pour myself a tall glass (or two) of my favorite white wine. And I’m not the only one who feels this way, either. According to The Huffington Post, public relations is ranked one of the top ten most stressful jobs in America, right alongside our friends in advertising, commercial pilots, architects and EMTs. PR executives must consistently prove our worth to clients, for fear if we don’t, we’ll get the boot. (We must also be perfect spokespersons and pitchers for the media, for fear of being “that PR person” – but that is another topic all together!)

We must educate clients who don’t understand that it is not always about how many clips you get, but also includes the importance of developing and nurturing relationships with media, analysts and industry though leaders. We must be all things to our clients: spokespersons, advisors, cheerleaders, editors, trainers, devil’s advocates, educators, writers, lead generators, pitchers, networkers, brand ambassadors, sometimes psychologists, travel companions, and dare I say, friends.

So, imagine my surprise when I read a CNBC report about the Top 10 Hated Jobs in America (as surveyed by CareerBliss). Public relations was nowhere to be found on the list, instead, it was marketing managers and VPs of sales and marketing. According to the survey, directors of sales and marketing (who typically manages the company budget, public relations and employee training) reported the second-highest level of job dissatisfaction due to “lack of direction from upper management and an absence of room for growth.”

I’ve been working in the PR agency world for my entire career, so I am not naïve to think that marketing managers and directors have it easy. I know they don’t.

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 →

New KG Intern Sara on Her PR Degree and Internships

Posted on | by Ketner Group

“What’s your major?”
“Public relations.”
Classic response: “Great! …What’s public relations?”

Needless to say, a typical explanatory conversation with fellow students, family members and friendly coffee house employees gets old. But to be honest, I wasn’t even sure what public relations was until I came into my freshman year as a PR major at the University of Texas at Austin. I knew Samantha on “Sex and the City” was in public relations. She seemed to have a cool job. Why not go for it?

As a junior public relations major at UT, I have learned that this business is demanding, fast-paced and a daily challenge. This was definitely the industry for me! The fall semester has just begun, but my Public Relations Techniques course is turning out to be one of my favorite classes. In this group project-based class, we work on analyzing and suggesting ways to enhance a specific non-profit organization in the Austin area. I am so excited to work with Ventana del Soul, a local non-profit that works with socio-economically disadvantaged families and at-risk youth in Austin to provide training services and job coaching in the culinary arts industry. As a firm believer that food (more specifically, chocolate) can fix almost anything, I can’t think of a better organization to provide public relations advice and counsel.

Outside of classes, I’ve gained experience by working with the College of Communication Career Services (CCS), the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center and the Austin Convention & Visitors Bureau (ACVB) and I was ready to see what life was like at a public relations firm. During my time at the CCS, I worked on promoting the event to students and faculty of the university and wrote press releases to send out to The Daily Texan and other neighboring university newspapers. At the ACVB, I worked on various sales proposals in order to bring more meetings, conferences and conventions to the city of Austin. From the moment I moved to Austin three years ago I have been hungry to learn more about this city and what makes it tick. Working at the ACVB only encouraged my obsession with the “Live Music Capital of the World” and I gained valuable knowledge of the city and the hardworking people who help to make it the greatest town in Texas.

I am very passionate about environmental conservation and I hope to one day be able to use my PR degree to promote sustainable and ecologically friendly products and organizations. My internship at Ketner Group will allow me to hone my PR skills in a professional setting and I am so excited to be a part of the team!

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 →

Recipe for the perfect PR campaign proposal

Posted on | by Ketner Group

Turning the elements of the best dessert recipe into a guide for making the perfect PR campaign proposal

I’m a brand new wife with a brand new husband. After 5 years of “testing the waters,” we dove into the marriage pool just last month. Everyone knows the best thing about getting married is getting presents, obviously (insert laughter here, drum beats and cymbal crash).

We registered for lots of baking toys, including glass cake pedestals, cupcake tiers, handheld mixers and pastry displays. Over the long Easter weekend, I started making my dessert cookbook, which contains recipes from celebrity chefs for the best New York style cheesecake by Emeril Lagasse, Boston cream pie cupcakes by Martha Stewart, Chocolate Intemperance flourless cake by Austin’s own Jeffery’s restaurant (a secret recipe) and many other delectable delights.

Upon organizing each sinful recipe, I noticed a commonality among them – other than the fact that all of them had my sugar-craving radar spiking off the charts. Each chef claimed that their recipe was the best recipe and all because they’ve made it unique by adding a special ingredient, baking it at an unusual temperature, or serving the cupcake sandwich-style with the cream spread across the middle instead of piped into the center.

In my professional life, I am not a pastry chef; I’m a public relations practitioner. However, I can use the secret to making the ‘best ever’ dessert recipe as a model for designing the perfect public relations campaign proposal.

Just as a baker wouldn’t try to win over an events planner with a simple vanilla cake with buttercream frosting, a public relations professional shouldn’t propose an “ABC, 123” PR campaign. There are box cake mixes you can buy at the grocery store, as well as “PR: Do it Yourself” books you can get at a bookstore. Businesses come to PR agencies for help because they’re looking for that extra know-how they can’t learn-how. The next time you’re lucky enough to be considered for becoming a company’s PR agency-of-record, take the time to hit pause on your email machine, blink a few times, crack your fingers and get started on this recipe.

Cook Time: As long as it takes and in as less time as possible (PR pros who charge by the hour will appreciate this).
Yields: A long lasting, resounding message, high return on investment and a happy client.

Ingredients:
Cake:

  • Research
  • Creativity
  • Examples
  • Proof

Frosting:

Born to be in PR? 9-year-old me takes us back to the basics

Posted on | by Ketner Group | 1 Comment on Born to be in PR? 9-year-old me takes us back to the basics

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:

  1. 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 →