1. Describe the issue: Create a document and write a paragraph outlining why you want to engage the media and the general premise for your strategy.
2. Analyze the media coverage: Summarize media coverage your organization has received to date, with a focus on the trend toward positive or negative media coverage.
3. Analyze the issues: Drop the media coverage patterns or issues into “buckets,” such as crisis, proactive, incident, or technical stories. Crisis issues are the most important and urgent; technical are least urgent and important. Proactive issues are important and less urgent, while incidents are less important and have more urgency. Segmenting these issues will help you prioritize your effort.
4. Set issue management goals: Determine what you are trying to achieve. State a few goals to developing a media outreach strategy.
5. Develop strategy: Decide which strategy is appropriate for the subject matter of each issue. Examples might include developing an “educate the media” strategy, or developing a “local media”strategy.
6. Develop target audiences: Determine who needs to know about this issue or issues, and determine how they receive their information. Decide what they should do with this information if you engage the media. Segment your audience as well for clarity.
7. Determine stakeholders: Stakeholders are often overlooked in developing a media strategy. They can be supportive and influential in your success.  Outline who you need to engage before you reach out to the media, and brief them on what you are doing.
8. Develop media targets: Build a list of media outlets that should be interested in your issue. The more specific the media contact to your issue, the better your results will be.
9. Develop a media team: Decide who will talk if the media is interested. It is good to have a point person, but also consider subject matter experts for technical topics.
10. Train spokespeople: Make sure the folks who will speak have their story straight, and that you arm them with accurate, relevant facts. They should practice with question and answer sessions.
11. Develop messages: Develop a few key messages that you and the media team should consistently use. One to two sentences for each.
12. Gather your facts: The media will want – and deserves –  facts. Anticipate what reporters will request and gather it in advance. If you don’t have an answer, know who you can go to get it after the media interview.
13. Develop media tools: Create some media tools in advance, such as a press release, backgrounder, video b-roll, or whatever will succinctly support an accurate story.
14. Create a timetable: Develop a timetable for implementing your media strategy.
15. Determine budget: Determine what you will need to implement the strategy in terms of resources, time and money.
16. Measure results:  Evaluate how your efforts have panned out once you’ve begun, and at increments afterward. Measure by polling opinions or perceptions before and after media outreach; by measuring media coverage; and evaluating whether the media outreach is influencing sales or behavior toward your organization.

For an excellent resource on developing a media strategy, read “Encountering the Media” by Barry McLoughlin. This pocket-sized book is loaded with helpful tips.

Not all blog posts, though, are created equal. If you’re writing too much – or too little – or if your blog post headlines are lacking, your efforts will go largely unnoticed by Google and thus by any potential customers searching for you. Here are a handful of tips for getting the most SEO “bang” for your blog writing efforts, specifically by using keywords to boost your blog post’s value.

Keywords and blog writing

If nothing else, choose a key word or phrase and stick to it. You can use tools like Google Adwords’ Keyword Tool to see what folks are searching for and adjust your keyword(s) accordingly. For example, say you want to write a blog post about pizza, specifically about how to make a delicious pizza at home. By using the Keyword Tool, you will see that the phrase “How to make pizza dough” is searched for often. What can you do with that information? Instead of titling your blog post, “Making Pizza,” make it, “How to make pizza dough.”

Now that you have your key phrase, utilize that phrase, and related phrases, to your advantage. By peppering the phrase throughout the content of your blog post, you increase the likelihood that your blog writing will rise to the top of a Google search for related topics.

Don’t stop at using the phrase, though. Use header tags, bolding and other emphasis tools to highlight that key phrase and other keywords or phrases you might like to include (“Making pizza at home” and “Making your own pizza sauce” are two often searched for phrases as well).

Don’t make the erroneous assumption that a blog post full of your key phrase and little else will do you any good, though. Google notices when content is too full of key words or phrases and will penalize you by ranking your page low. We’ve all seen those disappointing search results that are just a bunch of gibberish full of keywords but with zero value – how frustrating!

Content is still the most important, so use your key phrase, but use it appropriately. Make sure your blog writing still offers your readers something valuable – like truly how to make their own pizza dough!

When newsletters are done well, people read them. I remember a print newsletter that used to come from our trash disposal company. Each month it arrived with names of three customers embedded somewhere in the text.  If you found your name and contacted the company, you got a free month of trash service. I read it.

We do a lot of newsletters for customers – about 18 each month, some months more. We don’t do many print newsletters.  In fact we usually discourage them. Email is the vehicle of choice today.  Yes, most of us get a lot email, but if you design and write your newsletter well, people will read them.

We create newsletters with several objectives:

- inviting, attractive design

- concise, sharp content

- rewarding the reader

The design should reflect the client’s brand and personality.  Most email newsletter tools (Emma, Constant Contact, Mailchimp, etc.) are more limited in design capabilities than print, but if you are creative and know a trick or two, they can be eye-catching.

You can provide good quality information and can keep the length of the document manageable by linking to the full articles from the newsletter. Those links can take people to your website or to pertinent industry articles.

People want something for their time, so give it to them.  Offer relevant, fresh information, not a rehash of old news. If you have an offer or special, give it to your loyal readers. People will read your stuff if they feel it is worth their time or saves them money.

Most of the time we see open rates above the industry averages for our clients’ newsletters. I believe this is a reflection of the quality of the design and content.

Email newsletters can be done quickly and cost-effectively, unlike their print ancestors. Done well, they are a great tool for maintaining relationships, informing people and getting attention.

A recent example of using a tool to accomplish multiple objectives is a Facebook campaign we developed for a senior living client.  The “Facebook of Wisdom” showcases anecdotes, advice and memories of the residents in assisted living communities.

Define your objective

We wanted to tie the experience and memories of seniors with a modern day tool. We also saw this as an opportunity for the community’s activities director to engage residents and teach them about a technology that their children and grandchildren are using every day. Foremost, though, we wanted adult children to fan the page and visit it because we know happy families are the best referrals for new residents.

Show off your assets (Tell YOUR story)

Social media is a quick way today to get people’s attention and to have a conversation.  When you introduce yourself to someone new, you want them to get to know what’s special about you.  Residents in our client’s communities have a wealth of life experiences and lessons to share. The Facebook of Wisdom is a great tool that has given them a “modern” platform for telling their stories. It also suggests that the staff listen to and respect those stories and the people telling them.

Set a reasonable goal

We wanted to test the process and grow the program slowly so that we knew it worked and that residents and families would engage. Since launching the Facebook of Wisdom at the end of last year we’ve collected more than 30 stories and comments. We are carefully expanding our community online as intended. Another goal is to find a life story so compelling, we can share it with the media.

Keep people engaged

Once you launch a social media campaign, you want to encourage people to keep coming back.  First and foremost, be consistent.  We make sure to post fresh content at least once a week.

Incentives also help. We’ve considered a competition between the different communities to see who posts the most stories in once month. Or, we might publish the best story in the next monthly newsletter. The newsletter, in turn, is a good vehicle to remind people about Facebook of Wisdom.

Ultimately, we encourage more comments on the Facebook of Wisdom pages to build the interaction and engage audiences.

Here’s an article you might find useful on the all-in-one-tool kit for social media marketers. Still, remember these are just tools. Make them work for you; don’t be blown around by the latest wind of change or tech pundits’ blast of hot air.

Regardless of story structure or length, PR professionals who want a reporter to be interested in their client’s story  need to consider and offer journalists ideas that will resonate. Donald Murray, former writer and writing coach at the Boston Globe, says there are seven elements to a good news story. PR professionals should understand them before pitching stories.

1. Information: You need to have concrete details. When reporters ignore your pitches, it is often because they lack substance. Think about the facts and details before you pitch a story.
2. Significance: Your story pitch may be of utmost important to your client, but what about media outlet’s readers, listeners or viewers> If you are not thinking of the audience, it is likely you will strike out.
3. Focus: A good story is limited and focused. In PR, we often want a reporter to get all the details. If you give them too much, you will be disappointed. Remember what your core story idea is and stay focused in your pitch.
4. Context: Good news stories offer readers perspective. Again, your story idea might be of great interest to a company or organization, but you must help the reader understand the story idea in relation to a larger trend or issue.
5. Faces: Good stories include characters. Think about who will be the face of the story you pitch. Often, PR folks defer to the top brass; this is not always a great idea. Whomever you put forward – and you should offer up different sources to enhance your success – should understand and be passionate about the story.
6. Form: Good news stories take shape and give the reader a sense of completion. Again, PR pros can help reporters to generate form by offering a well-rounded set of facts and sources for a story.
7. Voice: Good stories also include good conversations. The newsperson has a job to provide a narrative of facts and details; good, concise quotes will add color and accentuate points in the story.

Mr. Murray was one of the best, and his “Writing for Readers” is a classic. PR professionals who want to better understand what reporters want should pick up a used copy.

Why? Well, Google has introduced a new enhancement that will mean a Google search will include highlighted Google+ results. Yup, Google+ is giving Google+ search results preferential treatment. What does that mean for you and your business? In short, it means you should create a Google+ page and commit to updating it at least semi-regularly. If you care about your search ranking in Google, that is. That’s because Google will, no doubt, look favorably on those who “play its game,” so to speak.

Signing up for a Google+ business page is pretty simple. First you have to create a personal page. Then, go to Create a Page on Google+ and choose your category according to the type of business you run. From there you’ll put in your business’s custom info, including a photo, tagline, and more. You can also create a photo stream, add individuals to your circles, and more. Mashable has a great Google+ page you can take some inspiration from.

Creating another social media presence may seem like a chore, especially if you’re already managing multiple platforms as it is. That’s why it’s so important to be efficient with how you manage your accounts. Don’t set out to create content for just one platform – replicate it and spread it out across all platforms, making the most of what you have to offer. And get started on creating that Google+ page (and don’t let it languish in inactivity!). If you want potential customers or clients finding you on Google, Google+ is worthy of your consideration.

As with most things in marketing and PR, the answer is – yes and no. It depends on what businesses you’re talking about, and how marketers and PR pros utilize it.

Pinterest’s appeal and value is in the visual. The most popular “pins” are visual items that people have been sharing for ages, such as wedding dresses, interior design inspiration, fashion and travel destination photos – think dog-earing a glossy magazine or snapping a cell phone photo of a dress and sending it to your friends. Early adopters of Pinterest are companies in retail or who deal in visual commodities, such as craft sales site Etsy, shoe manufacturer Toms and celebrity photos from People magazine.

Some marketers believe Pinterest has potential for B2B marketing, but this seems to only provide real value for companies with an already-robust media presence. Since Pinterest is an aggregator of visuals, it helps if companies have an active blog with visual elements such as infographics, or if the company deals in creative visuals that can be used on boards. And of course, B2B marketing is only as useful as there are companies you want to notice you and interact with on Pinterest. For other companies, using Pinterest as a sort of evolving gallery and an extension of existing web presence could be useful if they have the content to keep the Pinterest page interesting.

It’s hard to “pin down” the value of Pinterest as a spreader of content. Some retail sites indicate Pinterest has driven significant traffic, but “pins” are spread very thin across the platform – the sites that are sources of the most pins, like Etsy, only claim about 3 percent of total pins. Things that “go viral” on Pinterest likely have less staying power and overall views than viral memes on Facebook or Youtube, for instance, due to the decentralized nature of Pinterest with pins spread across many boards.

The fine-print writing on the wall – Pinterest as content appropriator

Pinterest might be a great way to show off content and spread it to a targeted audience, but the legal niceties might not be so nice for individual users and companies.

The user agreement gives hints that Pinterest might not be just a warm and fuzzy content aggregator. The agreement gives permission for Pinterest to distribute any uploaded content, which is a huge no-no for creatives dealing with original work. Members give permission for Pinterest to “use, copy, adapt…and otherwise exploit” any member-uploaded content, while at the same time affirming that the member has sole worldwide rights to the content. The latter is a large burden for casual users who likely find most of their content in the tricky ownership world of the Internet, and obtaining permissions for every upload could hamper the spontaneous nature of pins in the first place.

Pinterest also recently introduced a “no-pin” HTML tag, allowing sites to protect content against pinning, which also seems against the spirit of Pinterest. The move, which protects Pinterest against copyright concerns, is reminiscent of Youtube’s agreeing to take down copyrighted videos and work with the owners of the content on their terms. It might seem like a small thing, but it shows that Pinterest is not immune to legal growing pains, which might not ultimately benefit the end-user.

So what’s next for Pinterest? Should we encouraging clients to use it?

Pinterest recently announced that it will soon be releasing an API, meaning that tech companies could start getting VC funding to create useful apps. This could help the business and retail side of Pinterest, aiding companies in capturing Pinterest traffic in useful ways to increase sales.

The site continues to grow at an astounding rate, but for now it remains a platform mostly for individual, casual users. As Pinterest’s wave continues to rise, however, early-adopter companies and their PR and marketing teams will continue to think of ways to use and harness the growing platform’s energy. It remains to be seen if Pinterest is simply another arrow in a company’s social media quiver or if it has real bottom-line value.

For a company trying to take the long view of social media platforms, Pinterest might be too new and narrow in marketing potential for clients to adopt it now. At the rate its growing, and with signs that it wants to add value for businesses through apps, there might soon be a way to determine that pesky ROI. For now, adoption of Pinterest will likely stay within retail, creative and visual-based companies, or companies with a lot of resources to devote to social media marketing. Because let’s face it – as useful as Pinterest might prove to be, social media fatigue is setting in for individuals and companies alike.

So what is it? What is the deal with Pinterest?

At its most basic, Pinterest is an aggregator of visual Internet content. The platform allows users to “pin” interesting content and organize it in “boards.” Most users choose to categorize their boards by topic – “Dream House inspiration,” “Cars I’d love to own” or “Tech gear I want to buy” – and pin content to those boards, sharing it with friends who follow them on Pinterest or Facebook. The inclusion of a Pinterest bookmarklet lets users pin something instantly as they browse the Internet, even if they are not on Pinterest’s site. “Repins” act like retweets on Twitter – users pinning someone else’s content to a wider audience.

Great. Another social media site.

As with any new social media element, it’s important to scrutinize Pinterest – is it useful?  Does it add anything to an already crowded social media landscape? What makes it different than the last “latest thing”?

The rise of Tumblr comes to mind as a semi-cautionary tale about the next great thing in social media. Tumblr burst on the scene in a similar fashion in 2009, leaving similar platforms in its wake and causing frenzy and genuflection from tech and media pundits. While Tumblr still enjoys millions of users and is a staple of the social media landscape, it has not proven as agile as Facebook or Twitter in becoming an everyday tool for social media users.

Pinterest’s ease of use echoes the praise of Tumblr’s ease of use, but Pinterest has a few things that might give it more staying power than other platforms. Pinterest is not a blog or even a microblog – it is an aggregator. Anyone can be a prolific pinner. Pinning does not require creation of content, just finding and repurposing (or repinning) it. Discovery of content doesn’t require research or crafting a blog post – it merely requires being on the Internet and browsing for things that you’re already interested in. Pinterest also streamlined its signup process by letting users sign up through Facebook. This provides a ready-made potential follower list and doesn’t make the user feel like they’re signing up for yet another service.

In my next post I’ll talk about Pinterest for business use.

Logo Design Categories

Wordmarks

A wordmark is a text-only design that illustrates a brand’s message, philosophy or position. Effective wordmarks often feature a unique typographical style or custom typeface to create a brand that is simple yet distinctive.

Advantages of Wordmarks
• Simplicity
• Adaptability
• Non-representational
• Name Recognition

Letterform Marks

A letterform mark uses one or more letters as an iconic symbol to represent a brand. Often, these symbols are highly stylized so the mark is distinctive enough to stand alone.

Advantages of Letterform Marks
• Iconic
• Simplicity
• Independent

Pictorial (Iconic) Marks

Pictorial marks, often referred to as iconic marks, are an illustration of a brand metaphor or its product. It is common for companied with pictorial marks to select a tangible item, such as an animal, as the basis for their illustrated brand.

Advantages of Pictorial Marks
• Promotes Brand Culture
• Tangible
• Anthropomorphic Potential

Abstract Marks

Abstract marks use non-representational symbols to convey a brand’s message. Abstract symbols are often the best way to illustrate complex or intangible products,  issues or services. These marks are reliant upon the emotive qualities of shape and color.

Advantages of Abstract Marks
• Ambiguity
• Emotive
• Interpretive

Emblems

Emblems are a sole entity comprised of a marriage of inseparable pictorial elements and typography.

Advantages of Emblems
• Perceived Strength
• Distinctiveness
• Unity

Need inspiration?

Check out Pivot’s design portfolio.