In the world of public relations, we’re all about maximizing content for multiple purposes. That concept is perfect for Fahlgren Mortine’s media training offering, which not only prepares clients to confidently interact with media, but also gives them a leg up in activities like presenting to their boards, communicating with internal staff, or even relaying sensitive information to family members.

Preparing for and executing a successful media interview can be a nerve-wracking experience if you’re unsure of the appropriate steps to take. Luckily, some of the skills you need can translate to other difficult situations, like navigating an on-the-job review or a parent-teacher conference. Fahlgren Mortine has compiled these simple tips – known as the 4Ps of message delivery and management – to make the process seamless, despite the setting:

Prepare Your Message
In any communication situation, it’s vital to think about what you want to say before actually verbalizing it. In the case of a media interview, always brainstorm the types of questions you might encounter – including the ones you’d prefer not to be asked – and think about how you would respond. Have some key messages in mind that you would like to convey, but limit them to three or less. Any more than that and you’ll lose focus of the conversation, and the attention of the reporter.

Think about that conversation with your boss at an annual review. Your objectives likely focus on emphasizing the progress you’ve made over the past year, discussing any goals you have in mind, and highlighting any requests you might have regarding compensation or professional development opportunities. Keeping the dialogue concise will not only present a polished demeanor, it will give your boss a chance to provide the feedback you are seeking.

Package Your Message
Once you’ve thought about what you want to say in a media interview or a conversation with your boss, give some thought to how you can say it most effectively. Particularly with media, it’s best to think like a reporter writes – start with a main point and follow up with supporting examples. An easy way to remember the inverted pyramid approach is to open up a newspaper and read a few stories. You’ll quickly notice that the real meat of the story is up front, delivering key details quickly in case readers are skimming.

The same goes for other interpersonal communication situations, such as telling your mother you won’t make it home for the holidays. Although obviously different than a media interview, you still want to state the main point – that, unfortunately, you can’t make it – and then explain why. Be mindful of word choice to soften the blow. For instance, you might describe your inability to travel home as a “situation” rather than a “problem,” and remind mom that you “often” make it home instead of saying you “always” make it home (which might trigger an argument).

Practice Your Response
Now it’s time to actually practice your plan. Enlisting a colleague to play “reporter” and ask you questions is always helpful. This gives you a chance to hear how your prepared messages sound in a real-life conversation, and adjust as needed. This is also an excellent time to try out some bridging techniques, in case you are faced with questions you can’t answer. These involve tactics like posing new questions, briefly answering and moving on to messages with which you are comfortable, or even stopping the conversation and waiting for a new question.

Again, these techniques can apply to non-media situations, too. Say your best friend has invited herself to stay at your home during a really hectic time for you at work. You’ve got your messages straight – the clear-cut reasons why the visit timing would not be ideal – but she responds with a frustrated, “But you just hosted [insert another friend’s name] last week. Why can’t you make an exception for me?” This is when you can use bridging by acknowledging the other situation, quickly reiterating how your schedule has changed, and perhaps suggesting an alternate time for a visit.

Provide Feedback
With media interviews, this step is key to ensuring that any mistakes are corrected quickly, as reporters are often working on deadline. If you accidentally blurted out the wrong data point or mentioned someone’s name incorrectly, calling the reporter back as soon as possible and noting the mistake is the best route to take. Just understand that on-camera interviews have little chance for correction, and print stories that have already run aren’t always worth correcting – unless the error was glaring. After-publication print corrections are often tiny and buried, and could do more harm than good to your relationship with the reporter.

The applications of media training are endless. Have you used any of these techniques in non-work situations, or do you have other situations that might benefit from a little preparation?

photo credit: North Charleston

A normal day in public relations can be anything but, well, normal, and while we’re cracking eggs for clients and filming Bigfoot videos to learn about new technology, it’s easy to forget to take a moment to realize our successes. But, at this year’s Dayton PRism Awards hosted by the Dayton Area Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America, we had plenty of reasons to celebrate.

Top honors for the day went to Holly Michael and the Emerson Climate Technologies team, who won Best of Show for the Top States to Work in HVACR media relations campaign. Although the trophy isn’t as unique as a red Fender Guitar, it’s a tremendous honor and marks a three-market Best of Show streak (Cleveland, Columbus and now, Dayton) for Fahlgren Mortine.

Our team also earned recognition for work on behalf of numerous clients, including AIDS Resource Center Ohio, Crown Equipment, Emerson Climate Technologies and McDonald’s Restaurants of the Miami Valley, ranging from grand openings and influencer events to media relations and social media programs.

Congratulations to the entire Fahlgren Mortine team for another successful regional awards season, and thank you to our clients and colleagues who help to create an agency that delivers great results amid all those things that make it just another normal day at Fahlgren Mortine.

On April 17, the American Advertising Federation (AAF) hosted a conference called Advocacy & Action: Advertising Day On The Hill in Washington, DC. AAF invited members from chapters across the United States to attend, with the goal of welcoming at least one representative from all 50 states. I was selected by my Ad Club Chapter to serve as the representative from West Virginia. As the name suggests, the goal of the conference was two-fold: to both advocate and take action.

The first part of our day was spent engaging with a dynamic group of speakers who discussed issues in Washington that are relevant to the advertising industry. This year, there is one alarming issue that stands above the rest: the vulnerability of advertising fees to taxation. With the nation’s debt nearing an all-time high, plus failure to an agreed-upon national budget and an active discussion around tax reform, it seems no stone will be left unturned when it comes to potential sources of “new” revenue.

We heard from elected officials such as Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), and business professionals like Jim Davidson of Polsinelli Shughart PC, who all agreed that advertising costs may become scrutinized and, at a very minimum, discussed as an additional source of tax revenue.

So what does that mean? Currently (and as it has been since the Tax Code was adopted 100 years ago), advertising costs are a fully deductible cost for businesses.  A business may deduct the cost of advertising pursuant to Section 162(a) of the Tax Code which permits a business to deduct the ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business. The Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Tax Court have determined that the cost of business advertising meets these criteria. This deduction assures that businesses are only paying taxes on net income or profits and not on their costs of doing business.

After listening to discussions on both sides of the issue, it was our turn to take action. More than 60 members of the advertising industry descended on Capitol Hill to meet with their state’s representatives to discourage limiting deductibility on advertising costs.

I was fortunate to meet with Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) who hails from my hometown and represents West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District. She was very gracious and impressed with the facts I presented. I highlighted how important advertising is to West Virginia: expenditures account for $22.3 billion in economic output (or 15.1% of the $148 billion in total economic output in the state) and help support 106,343 jobs (or 14.1%, of the jobs in West Virginia). I also met with staff members in Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) offices. Both expressed the same message: the Senators support business in West Virginia.

My day on Capitol Hill was certainly educational, exciting and exhausting – who knew there were so many steps between buildings at the Capitol? It was thrilling to participate in the legislative process and emphasize the importance of being involved and informed. Only time will tell what changes will come as a result of tax reform. I know I will be watching – will you?

Part of me is still somewhat surprised when we receive requests to present a “Social Media 101″ training session. In the agency world, we live and breathe social media so it feels like we’ve been using it forever. Beginner-level queries from clients and others serve as a good reminder that for many organizations, especially small- and medium-sized businesses, social media can still seem new, unfamiliar and even a bit scary.

For those of us in the thick of it, social media is ultimately about being “social”—joining the conversation, building relationships, and interacting and engaging about not only your organization’s services, but about all things related and important to your audience.  It’s not about selling or pushing marketing messages or generating leads. Sure, those can be benefits, but the main reason we encourage our clients to engage via social media is to be an outlet and advocate for the consumer.

Here are the 10 social best practices we live by and teach our clients:

1. Listen. Never stop listening. Even if you have a formal social media monitoring program and feel you have an infrastructure in place to keep you informed, don’t let that be enough. Conduct regular real-time spot-checks to see if you can find anything you might otherwise have missed –and to identify trends or news events that may be important.

2. Serve your customers. Social media is ideal for companies with intense levels of customer engagement. Respond to each mention of your brand on Twitter, whether positive, negative or neutral. Thank people, apologize, fix issues, gain followers and build relationships with each interaction.

3. Get some Google juice. Be sure to optimize your social profiles and overall online presence with the same keywords and phrases you’ve optimized on your website and in any paid search/PPC programs. As always with SEO, you want to optimize for human beings, not search engines. Don’t be so keyword-focused that your copy becomes odd-sounding or hard to read. When in doubt, read status updates and other content out loud to yourself or a colleague before posting or publishing. It should always sound normal and natural, yet still contain your keywords.

4. Keep getting smarter. Know where to go for the latest insights into Facebook (or whatever your favorite social platform is). Read blogs, follow top social media influencers on Twitter, and subscribe to the Smart Brief on Social Media to stay sharp and keep out in front of technology and platform changes so that you won’t be caught by surprise.

5. Have a content strategy. Create a content calendar that allows for adaptation of messages to each platform (e.g., shorter notes for Twitter, include a photo for Facebook and Google+, etc). Use a content strategy such as our recently updated 50/30/20, where 50 percent of your content is value-added information your audiences are seeking, 30 percent is spontaneous, interactive conversation, and 20 percent is self-promotion about your company or brands. The 50 and 20 percent segments of your content can be pre-written, pre-approved and even scheduled ahead of time – but the all-important 30 percent engagement piece needs to take place via real-time conversations.

6. Integrate. Link to your website and blog from your social profiles. Link to your social profiles from your website, blog and all other social profiles. But also integrate your social presence offline by featuring links to your blog, Facebook page and Twitter profile in email signatures, on business cards, on product packaging and on all printed collateral.

7. Empower your employees. Don’t just have a social media policy to restrict employees—use it to empower them to serve as company or brand advocates and ambassadors online. Ask them to share, like and retweet company content to amplify your message and showcase a positive corporate culture. Your employees can be your best friends in social media.

8. Cultivate relationships with influencers. Bloggers make great friends—their content is free, trusted, lives forever and percolates beautifully to the top of search results. Be genuine, treat them like VIPs and don’t spam them. Also, don’t just target “top” bloggers with high website traffic; look at smaller bloggers with high engagement (blog comments, Facebook activity, Twitter interactions). Smaller bloggers with a strong following will soon become big bloggers, and if you can foster relationships with them now, while they’re eager and easy to work with, it will serve you well over time.

9. Remember that tools change, but people don’t. We may use Twitter and Facebook now more than the fax and telegram, but our basic needs and wants remain the same. These social tools are just that—tools. Keep your focus on your audience as a whole and your customer as an individual. Business and communications tools will evolve over time, but the value and customer service you provide should shine through regardless of platform.

10. Be human. This is the most important guideline of all. Don’t act like a corporate drone or mindless ‘bot. Talk, write and act like a real, live person. Have a sense of humor—it goes a long way in the social sphere, especially if you can laugh at yourself a little bit. Factor a human voice and some humor into your brand’s personality, and you’ll be on the right track.

We’re constantly researching, experimenting, learning and sharing with internal teams, our clients and the public. As we learn, this list evolves. What else would you add to it?

I’m sitting in the ballroom of the Grand Hyatt in New York City as a finalist for the national PRWeek PR Professional of the Year award, and have just heard the name of another finalist recognized as the winner.  My first thought, as a competitive person, is that I must’ve come in a close second for the honor (or at least tied for second).

My next thought is to wonder again how I even made the consideration list alongside these incredible communicators. I don’t believe I’m one of the top public relations professionals in the country.  In fact, I’m not even one of the best in my own agency.  Not by a long shot.  But that’s OK, and it’s actually by design. Instead, I remain focused on what I feel is my most valuable role – that of “Chief Enablement Officer.”

Our growth and success, and any personal recognition, wouldn’t be possible without the talent and collaborative efforts of our team. For me, it’s about motivating those folks to take action, operate with a sense of urgency, embrace change, and have the confidence to always push; and even fail; in order to ultimately deliver great results for a client.  And that’s how we’re all professionally judged every day.  The story of our firm and the culture we’ve built is one I’m proud to put my name on. (But, of course, I still wanted that PRWeek trophy!)

This is an exciting time to be in the marketing and communications industry, and I congratulate the winner and all the finalists in this category.  There’s a lot of great work happening all over the country, including places like Columbus, Ohio.  On behalf of my firm, it was truly an honor to be here tonight.

Client: “I love that ________ .” (insert one of these options: photo, sentence, headline, graphic, banner ad, layout or alternative of your choice).

Account Architect: “That’s great. What about it do you like and why?”

Client: “You’ve really captured the essence of the brand and created the sense of place that we’re looking for. The headline conveys that but it’s also complemented by a big, bold photo that shows the diversity of our target audience. My only suggestions would be considering a photo with a male and female to appeal to a wider audience. And also a sidebar that describes that diversity, possibly with a simple graphic that shows the breakdown of our student body – maybe in-state, out-of-state and international students. What do you think about that?”

Yes, these conversations happen between those of us who work in an agency and our clients. But they sometimes don’t happen often enough. The reason these kinds of conversations are important is because they help enable us to do our best work. Why? Because feedback is one of the most valuable things our clients can give us.

For those of us who work in marketing, advertising and public relations, we want nothing more than to help develop communications that connect with you and your target audience. That’s why we write creative briefs and share them with you.
And that’s why we need feedback. Not just any feedback; we need FAST Feedback. I learned this concept in management training during the many years I spent as a client. I never imagined that what I thought were relatively boring management training classes would pay off in my current role, but they certainly do.

I look at FAST as an acronym for Frequent, Actionable, Specific and Timely. FAST feedback helps clients and agencies get what we need from each other to do the best work.

A few thoughts on each of these:

Frequent: It’s important we talk to one another fairly often. (And by talk we mean the old-fashioned way – in person or on the phone; electronically is okay, but not exclusively.) We need to know what you’re thinking and the internal dynamics you’re dealing with (which often change rapidly) in order to deliver a great product on time and on budget. That’s why we want to have calls, status reports and email exchanges. Help us by making yourself accessible so we can keep things moving. Expect the same from us.

Specific: Like the example above, it’s hard for us to fix something you don’t like unless you’re specific about it. It’s okay, we can take it. Maybe your CEO hates a certain word, or you don’t like someone’s smile in a photo. Tell us! We need to know as much as possible about what works and what doesn’t. Years of work in this business have given us a pretty thick skin. Be candid and honest.

Actionable: Feedback is best when it’s constructive, not destructive. And when we can do something with it.  If there’s something that isn’t working, we’re going to probe and ask why. Help us by suggesting things we can do to improve the relationship or the work. We’re always receptive to actions we can take to be great partners.

Timely: We’re deadline driven. In a fast-paced world, we have to be nimble and so do you. We don’t like to stalk you, but we will, if needed. We know you’re busy, and we are too, so let’s work together to be efficient and respectful of one another’s time. We always appreciate being brought in the loop earlier than later when a project is coming down the pike. Good ideas take time to be uncovered or explored before they can be brought to life.

Though not the be-all end-all, following these simple guidelines will enrich the client-agency relationship and contribute to the ability to effectively function as partners.

It’s now the tweet heard ‘round the world… or at least around the Twittersphere. Mere minutes after half the lights went dark in the Superdome at the 2013 Super Bowl, Oreo tweeted a clever image with the tagline, “you can still dunk in the dark.” As of this morning, the tweet had been re-tweeted more than 14,500 times and tagged as a favorite by nearly 5,000. It even caused one loyal follower to tweet, “Did you all plan for the lights to go out….or did you cause it?”

Today the story behind this brilliant stroke of social media genius is hitting the marketing world, and one word is the culprit of it all: collaboration. According to BuzzFeed, Oreo’s agency, 360i, hosted a viewing party the night of the Super Bowl for appropriate Oreo executives. With everyone in one room, the group could respond to and collaborate in real time to deliver this gem of a tweet.

This story will undoubtedly become a signature case study in social media. Kudos to 360i for being prepared for the entirely unpredictable by bringing the appropriate persons to the table far before the unpredictable occurred. And, to Oreo’s credit, they were ready and willing to capitalize on the blackout quickly and get ahead of other brands.

Of course, reacting to a blackout wasn’t the group’s top priority. Oreo also aired a commercial during the game with a three-second call-to-action pointing consumers to Oreo’s Instagram. Before the commercial aired, Oreo had around 2,200 followers. Shortly after, its following climbed to nearly 20,000 and this morning it was more than 36,000. Considering the cost of the commercial – which was reportedly around $4 million for the buy alone – I’d say the free tweet might have been the most effective tactic of the night amid a well-developed integrated marketing campaign.

Regardless, there is something we can learn from this. It’s not every day you have a Super Bowl blackout moment, but taking advantage of real-time moments that are important to a target audience is really the beauty of social media. It could be an industry rumor at a trade show, interesting words spoken during a conference, a pop culture event that you can boil down to your niche. We even had one client live-tweet – and dramatically increase engagement with followers – during an appropriately-themed Jeopardy airing. Similar to Oreo and 360i, we’ve seen the benefits of collaboration, as our fearless leader Neil Mortine points on in a PRWeek article today, when an agency can work alongside experts from all disciplines.

Whatever it is, the right foundation of collaboration and engagement between the agency and the client must be in place. When it is, the right people are often at the table and appropriately prepared in advance, so when it comes time to pull the trigger and hit send, you’re all on board.

Where have you seen real-time posts make a difference?

photo credit: StevenW.

I was surprised to see that Lance Armstrong had scheduled an appearance on Oprah (which is scheduled to air tomorrow), to “come clean” about his use of performance-enhancing drugs during his professional cycling career. Not because that is an out-of-the-box tactic for image rehabilitation—it’s anything but—but because I believed Armstrong was so headstrong and committed to his denial that he would never admit he was wrong.

After all, just last year he had passed up what seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so when the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency recommended he be stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned for life. The evidence appeared to be so overwhelming that even long-time Armstrong supporters, who admire the grit and tenacity he demonstrated in overcoming cancer as much as they admired his cycling prowess, could no longer defend him.

But instead of either owning up to his actions or actively fighting the accusations, Armstrong said he was tired of fighting and, while denying the charges, accepted his punishment.

In surrendering, he acted so completely inconsistent with his personality that it was totally unbelievable.

Like Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, and Pete Rose, Lance Armstrong is blessed and cursed with an obsessively competitive nature, so extreme it warps the personality. This obsession is what drives these athletes to transcend their extraordinary physical gifts and accomplish things other gifted athletes can’t. It not only shapes what they do, but who they are, for better and worse.

Armstrong would have at least remained true to himself if he had continued to defiantly deny all the evidence, refusing to accept reality in the same way he had refused to accept the limitations of a cancer survivor, believing he could impose his will on the rest of us, that he could make us not see what was right in front of our eyes. (That is the kind of delusion that creates champions.)

Instead, he fell back on the lame excuse that he was tired of fighting. It was a strategy that didn’t serve him or his foundation (formerly the Lance Armstrong Foundation; recently renamed LIVESTRONG) particularly well. Maybe he wasn’t quite ready to tell the truth at the time, but if he believed that non-action was the best way to make the issue go away, he was wrong.

Now, his attempt at image rehabilitation seems so transparent it has little chance to succeed, right?

Not necessarily.

We don’t like unfinished stories. They don’t sit right. We crave resolution, and resolution creates the opportunity for redemption.

Today, if you are a big enough celebrity, redemption begins on Oprah’s couch.

What I find interesting about this story from a public relations perspective is how clearly defined the path to redemption has become and how it can still lead to success even when the motives of the person seeking redemption are in question.

Whomever is counseling Armstrong didn’t have to spend a lot of time brainstorming a strategy to rehabilitate his image. The formula is so well-known that just about anyone with familiarity of the media can lay out it for you. As soon as we heard Armstrong was going on Oprah, we assumed he was following the image rehabilitation formula. It has become like the Hero’s Journey that guides so many Hollywood screenplays—if well-executed, it reliably and consistently creates conflict and ultimately resolution and so makes for a good movie.

Armstrong has a part to play and, if he plays it well, he can at least minimize the damage to his personal reputation and fortune and, if things go his way, maybe even reclaim a bit of his former glory. As the audience, we will know he is playing a part, but we will at some point forget the formula and overlook the artifice. We will get caught up in the drama, suspend our disbelief and give ourselves over to the story. And we will help provide what every good story requires: a proper resolution.

That’s why, even though the effort is transparent, Armstrong has a very good chance of ultimately achieving redemption. Does he deserve it? That question seems hardly to matter anymore.

photo credit: Velo Steve

Corporate investor relations and public relations officers know that dealing with securities lawsuits is an inevitable cost of business as a public company. This past year saw a new type of lawsuit that has created headaches for a number of companies, including Microsoft, Cisco and Clorox. I wrote an article about this that appears in the January issue of IR Update, the monthly magazine of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI).

View a PDF of Patrick Gallagher’s article

I attended two social media conferences last month: SOMET, the Social Media Tourism conference, in El Paso, and the Smart Business Midwest Social Media Summit in Cleveland, where I served on a panel about taking social media strategy to the next level. Despite obvious differences in geography and industries, I found several similarities between the two conferences, including a surprising lack of talk about “the next big thing.”

It appears most of us in the social sphere are in agreement that there isn’t a particular new, whiz-bang site or tool out there right now. Instead, we’re focusing on being more strategic with the tools we have. In lieu of shiny new tools, we’re learning cool ways to use the same usual suspects.

So, without further ado, here are my five favorite new ways to use old social tools.

1. Twitter hashtag streams at events – One of my favorite things about both of last month’s conferences was the live feed of the Twitter hashtag stream (#SOMET for one, #MWSMS for the other) broadcast on big screens at the front of each room. Although most attendees were following along on our own HootSuite or Twitterfeed dashboards, it was nice to be able to look up at the stage, smile and nod along with the speaker, and still keep up on insightful or funny Tweets about the conference. If you’re on Twitter, stay sharp in your field by seeking out the top events in your space and following their conference hashtags online even if you can’t attend the event in person. Likewise, if you’re at an event, help others and boost your own followers by live-Tweeting with smart, insightful commentary so those following along at home can benefit, too.

1a. Twitter lists – Although they are not new, Twitter lists have gone “out of sight, out of mind” for many people, yet they are still insanely useful. If you’re not using Twitter lists to categorize people you’re following into useful groups, you’re missing out. You can also check out the Twitter lists of people you admire and respect in order to follow “influencers of your influencers” with one easy click.

2. Pinterest – Am I really calling Pinterest “old” already? Yes, I suppose I am, but there are still so many untapped ways to use everyone’s favorite digital “crackbooking” site. One of my newest ways is to use secret boards to showcase blogger relations campaign results. Simply save each of your blog hits to a private Pinterest board, tagging and describing each however you like, and then add clients and anyone else you’d like to share it with as pinners to that board. Voila–you’ve got a visual, creative, innovative way to refer back to a campaign and see all your great results. If you really want to showboat, you can use a public board instead. Remember that some bloggers won’t be thrilled to find themselves on a board of “conquests,” so think before you pin.

3. Facebook – A relatively new development worth exploring on Facebook is Interest Lists, which are not unlike the above-mentioned Twitter lists. If, like me, you find yourself with far too many pages to follow, you can simply group them into Interest Lists (e.g., Rockstar Clients) and then spend time each week perusing those lists. You can also browse and subscribe to the Interest Lists of others. If that’s still not enough for you and you want to be sure you won’t miss any content a particular Page puts out, you can choose “Get Notifications” by hovering over the “Liked” icon at the top of a Page. That will subscribe you to their page and ensure you see all their updates.

4. Instagram – Sure, you can share photos and show off your hipster cred through clever hashtag usage on Instagram, but what else is it good for? How about influencer identification and outreach? Top Instagram users may have 500,000 or more followers and super high levels of engagement with their content, so why not find those folks for your industry or interest area, follow and cultivate relationships with them, and find ways to work with them to benefit all parties involved. We heard some great examples at #SOMET of tourism brands who have done just that. Let the haters hate–this is cool stuff as long as everyone hashtags appropriately (e.g., #client, #sponsored). By the way, after yesterday’s reversal of Instagram’s user-advertising stance, I’ve still got it on the nice list.

5. Google+ – I’ll admit, my take on Google+ used to be “do it for the SEO,” but after learning more about virtual photo walks
and other cool uses of Google+ Hangouts, I’m now a believer. Especially for tourism clients or other businesses with a huge visual element, being able to do a virtual tour live on camera can be supremely compelling. As our Google speaker noted at #SOMET, “comments are not conversations, but live video chat is.” If you want to take engagement to the next level, Google+ Hangouts are it.

And there you have it–my five (plus one) favorite new things to do with old social media tools. If you have similar tricks to share, I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.

Who gets to take home a red Fender Guitar from an awards ceremony?  We do!  The Fender is the traveling award for “Best of Show” as honored at yesterday’s 10th Annual Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) Cleveland Rocks! Awards, hosted by the Greater Cleveland PRSA Chapter.

I couldn’t have been more proud of our agency for the awards we received!

Fahlgren Mortine’s work with client Scentsy took home the top honor with an entry titled, “ScenTrend 2012 Launch: Naming the Trending Fragrance Note of the Year,” receiving the Best of Show Award for outstanding media relations work.

In addition to the Best of Show, Fahlgren Mortine was awarded 16 Cleveland Rocks! Awards – 10 of which were named “Gold” category winners – for work completed on behalf of clients representing associations, and business-to-business, consumer products, non-profit and technology organizations.

The agency won awards in the categories of community relations, special events and observances, marketing consumer products and services, integrated communications, media relations, annual reports, press kits/media kits, social media, feature stories, and editorials/advertorials/op-ed columns.

Fahlgren Mortine swept four categories, receiving both “Gold” winner and “Silver” runner-up awards in the categories of media relations, special events and observances, annual reports and editorials/advertorials/op-ed columns.

What’s notable is that the PRSA Rocks Awards are judged by our peer public relations professionals in other markets, further contributing to the honor of the recognition.

The awards were truly a shining moment for Fahlgren Mortine.  We strive every day to deliver meaningful business results for our clients – and the Rocks Awards are a testament to the dedication and passion we have for the work we do.

The electric red Fender Guitar will sit proudly in our lobby for the next year, but the Fahlgren Mortine name will be forever engraved on it.

As the year winds down, now is a good time to look at the calendar and think about how major events can positively affect your media pitches and promotions in the coming year.  Many organizations do this, but I find that the exercise tends to be too inward, looking at upcoming product launches and trade shows instead of what’s going on in the markets served.

If you want to see a great example of calendar-driven promotion, look at healthcare. Every month has a theme: heart month (February), breast cancer awareness month (October), even colon health month (March). And many healthcare practitioners use this calendar approach to successfully target their promotions and media pitches.

One of the best examples comes from a healthcare supplies and services company that developed a video that went viral a few years ago, featuring a pink glove dance for breast cancer awareness. They have turned this into an annual campaign and have hospitals all over the country making videos featuring their product.

My personal favorite calendar-driven promotion is also from healthcare, but these marketers took a more creative look at the calendar of events in the lives of potential patients. The Oregon Institute of Urology came up with a clever plan to pair March Madness with vasectomies, arguing that the two-to-four days needed for recovery could offer a great excuse to park on the couch for some basketball.

But great ideas for seasonal promotions aren’t limited to healthcare. I once pitched a B2B story at Halloween about a code graveyard on company property. The fact that it featured actual headstones, pieces of equipment and code buried in the landscaping made this story irresistible.

So as you think about creative ways to tie your promotions and pitches into the 2013 calendar, keep in mind these tips:

• Think outside the calendar. “Back to school” wasn’t always a season. When are your customers interacting with and thinking about your products the most?
• Don’t be afraid to try this in B2B. Odds are, your trade editors and daily newspaper business editors don’t get seasonal pitches as often as their counterparts at consumer magazines or the metro section. You may warm their hearts in any season with a compelling photo and a great caption. Remember to work WAY ahead to ensure you don’t miss their window to publish a time-sensitive story.
• Seek out lesser holidays. Christmas and New Years are crowded with marketing messages. Look for holidays with less “noise” around them and think about creating your own “season.”
• Use common sense. Tying your product to a national disaster or crisis can look opportunistic and tacky, rather than clever.

Most importantly, keep business objectives in mind. Compelling stories and seasonal tie-ins can be fun, but they also need to help customers better understand your business and move toward a purchase decision. Don’t let messaging get lost in the excitement.

photo credit: -Ebelien-