Category Archives: PR Clients

How To Reinvent Your Business During And After The Pandemic

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Businesses are starting to reopen, and many small to medium size businesses are concerned they cannot survive if their clientele has to be at a minimum to enter their facilities. Not all businesses can work remotely, and those who can, should also consider how to reinvent themselves to respond to the new way consumers will be purchasing their products and services.

We are witnessing how several major companies have reinvented their business. From automotive manufacturers to the apparel industry they are converting their factories to produce essential wearable’s providing products that protect first responders and consumers. Retailers and service businesses need to understand they too can reinvent themselves and realize there are different avenues available to survive in this new changing economy.

Think Outside The Box

Examples of businesses adapting are gyms and physical trainers. Several have created online programs for people to stay in shape. Exercise programs, some free, are being offered online. This helps current members know they are benefiting from their membership. Several doctors and wellness centers are doing telemedicine for non-emergency patients. Many traditional brick ‘n mortar stores are now getting aggressive by selling products online. Curbside service is only a small step for retailers to hopefully remain open. You need to think outside the typical box and be creative. Remember, every business today is experiencing similar problems, so team up with other companies to expand your opportunities.

Reinventing Does Work

A critical industry hit very hard are restaurants. My suggestion for this industry is to have online celebrations for anniversaries, birthdays, and office parties. Restaurants can deliver specially prepared meals and have an online video party for those celebrating that special time. An alternative idea could be for smaller restaurants to contact businesses in their area, like real estate agencies and sell prepared “congratulation meals” for the new homeowners when they move in. Bakeries and pastry shops should collaborate with restaurants to offer desserts with the meals. This can be especially effective when someone is having a celebration making it a very memorable occasion.

Expand Your Opportunities

Retailers who sell auto parts, home furnishing, appliances, clothing, jewelry, window coverings and even boutique shops could do tie-in programs with organizations or related businesses in their community. Offering discounts should not be your primary

marketing strategy. These are short-lived programs. Instead, work with other non-competitive businesses, which is a stronger and more powerful way to gain attention and establish customer loyalty. It becomes a win-win-win for everyone.

Keep Your Brand Visible

One of the most productive and cost efficient ways to re-build a business is by keeping your name in front of current and potential customers. Using social media is an excellent way to communicate. Be active on all platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even LinkedIn. Do postings to let customers know what you are doing, such as; how you are making the environment safer for them, special promotions you are offering, tie-in promotions with other businesses, new services offered, community events, and more. Another good idea is to post articles about how your products/services can improve or help customers add more value to their lives. Put yourself in your customers’ shoes, and ask yourself “what would you want to know about that business?”

Be open-minded. Be creative. Think forward, not backward and you will discover how productive it can be when you reinvent your business.

Good-Bye to another social media: Google+ to close down

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Yes, even the “big” dominant media like Google recognize when it’s time to let go.
Hard to believe that it was only 7 years ago when Google decided to challenge all the social networking sites by launching its Google+.

If you are still active with Google+ you will have a few months to make your last postings before the social network is closed down. Google claims it will close in August 2019, but to be safe, I recommend quitting sooner than later.

So why did this giant company decide to call it quits? Several reasons. For one, Google+ had issues with its privacy bug. Hundreds of thousands of users had their data exposed to third-party developers back in March. But like Facebook, Google would not report the problem immediately because they didn’t want to bring attention to any regulatory scrutiny that could damage their reputation.

If you want to believe Google’s reason, they saw a big drop in usage and engagement, saying, and I quote “90 percent of Google+ user sessions are less than five seconds”. Yeah, that’s another good reason!

From various sources I’ve read, it is safe to say that Google+ and +1 buttons will have no impact on rankings going forward. I hope that means Google Search will no longer look to see if your business was an active user and we can finally be ranked by our social networking, postings, podcasts, backlinks, etc.

Another reason you should feel ok, Google has admitted that today they do not use personalization in search. What that says is Google+ would show your personal assets, photos, emails, etc. that were based on your Google+ account directly in the search results. If you recall, Google suggested that searchers take their social conversations to Google+. It was a way Google was trying to drive more conversations to their social network.

With all the pressure Google put on social network users to post on their network, the more people rejected being told they had to do this or their rankings could be affected. Some businesses caved in, others chose to not be bullied. Another example you might remember. Google My Business. That name was replaced by Google Places, which later was replaced by Google+. Do you see how Google was trying to manipulate us?

Maybe this should be a lesson that all businesses can learn from. Don’t force something to work when the market isn’t buying your product or service. Look around and see how to better serve customers than make them want what you offer.

Get a “Tune-Up” of your social networks to see how they can be more effective for your business. Give George Carson a call.

App Overload. Are you confused which app to use?

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Many of the social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook are still useful media. And business networks like LinkedIn are very powerful, if you know how to use the tools effectively. Are you experiencing “APP Overload?” Confused what is the best platform to use in your pr marketing strategies campaign? You’re not alone.

Vine App

Vine App

It hasn’t been 2 years since marketers and advertisers were finally understanding how to use them in social media marketing, and now we need to learn all over again how to reach targeted customers. Let me explain. These social media platforms I mentioned are continually expanding their capabilities to be more productive. One in particular is Twitter. Two years ago they created a new app called Vine. The purpose of Vine was to give marketers, like Coco Cola, Dunkin’ Donuts, Target and publicity firms a way to post short videos (6 seconds in length). It was great for the first 18 months. Then competition from other platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube created their versions of short video formats marketers could use. But not all is lost. Still today, Vine has about 4% of all videos posted. This can be an effective platform for PR Clients when combined with others.

Allison Stern, founder at Tubular Labs commented about the decline-using Vine saying, “I assume that brands are having this platform fatigue”. I think that best describes what is currently happening with this app overload.

If you want to post something that is happening now, then you need to look at Periscope. That’s another Twitter app, which has become popular because it is a live video streaming app. They have a few cool features. When you tap the video (screen) it sends little “hearts” across the screen. It is their way of acknowledging, “likes” to compete with Facebook. Originally Periscope was developed in 2014 by another company and named it Bounty. Then in February 2015 Twitter saw the value and purchased the app, renamed it Periscope. To understand how fast this app became a hit, in less than 6 months of its release, Periscope had 10 million accounts.

So before you abandon any of your social media apps, just keep posting videos on all platforms, and write short Tweets, blogs and keep your brand in front of customers through all the different social media platforms, today and whatever develops tomorrow. Need help getting your social media campaign going, if so, call George Carson at 949-477-9400.

How to get more punch out of an event

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Miss CA 2015

Miss CA 2015

Steve Garvey

Steve Garvey–LA Dodgers

Eric Dickerson

Eric Dickerson, NFL Hall of Famer

As pr professionals we are given the task of promoting a pr clients event, but then sometimes asked how can we get more people to attend the event from previous years. This year we worked on a local RV Show that is sponsored by the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) at the Fairplex in Pomona, CA. As in the past few years working with this consumer event, we looked at having some sports legends meet and greet visitors. Knowing that many RVers enjoy different sports, and a lot of them will park their RV at the stadiums the night before, we decided to bring some of the greats in Baseball and Football. Our local publicity plan for the 63rd RVIA California RV Show included having the opening weekend (Oct.9) of the 10-day be kicked off with Miss California USA doing the opening. Then on Saturday and Sunday we had Steve Garvey (LA Dodgers), Jim Abbott (Angels) with sports host Roger Lodge, and an NFL Hall Famer, Eric Dickerson draw a large crowd for the first three days. Also, we had lots of media cover the event a couple of days prior to the opening. This week we had other media attend that included a Chinese TV station. The coming weekend we are having another local TV station plus two radio stations (including Vic the Brick) doing live broadcast. And to make the final weekend of the show be successful, we have Rick Harrison (TV reality star on Pawn Stars) do a meet and greet. We did keep the focus on the introduction of the 2016 model RVs from over 45 manufacturers so visitors who attended the show would know what new features they can expect to see at the show. The sports legends gave people another reason to see their favorite athlete while shopping for their new RV.

There are many ways to give some “punch” to an event, and if you understand the audience that will be attending, it is best to tie-in something that will attract them to the show. Publicity is more than sending out press releases, or having a press conference, we look at publicity as a means to communicate a message to a client’s customer. Keeping this in mind should open your creative juices to find that “hook” to give your next event the punch it needs.

If your company is planning an event, give George Carson a call. There’s a good chance you will be pleased to see what he can do to make it more exciting and eventful for your customers. Call him at 949-477-9400

Is blogging a thing of the past?

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If you answered yes, then maybe you never considered blogging as a vital component to the digital world we live in. Or maybe you feel that blogging is for people, not business. If that’s the case, you are ignoring something that can increase your company’s visibility and traffic, which could lead to an increase in sales. It is still amazing how many PR Clients do not understand the power of blogging.To Blog or Not

So why am I asking such a question if the simple answer is to say, “blogging is important and not something of the past.” Well, glad you asked. There are different approaches to blogging and where your blog is located. No, not a geographical location, but where your blogs are posted. For example, is it part of your website, or just hanging out there? Blog posts are usually more powerful if directly linked (part of) to your website. PR Clients should have an on-going blog program.

Another reason to keep blogging is to stay in touch with your customers, and to build credibility with potential customers. Unlike having a Facebook (business) or Pinterest, or Instagram accounts (which I feel are all still powerful when incorporated properly into your pr marketing plan), blogs allow you to express an opinion, talk about market conditions and have customers make comments. It’s a way to keep in touch with your market and get feedback as well. Hey, this is a better way to know about your customers than having it become a negative review on Yelp.

Blogs should not be a sales pitch, nor be a bragging area about your company. The big difference from other social media where you would show and tell about a new service and products, blogs should be more informative. Talk about your industry and what might help improve it. You can mention that your new product has helped shaped a market or industry, but don’t go into a sales pitch. The content you write is important and using links to credible sites help re-enforce a statement. Make sure your content is relevant to your industry, and not political.

Another reason to blog, it can give your business an identity, a personality. People like to know that a company has “people” running the business and not robots. And of course, blogging does improve your search engine rankings.

Lastly, how often should you blog? If you are just starting out, I would recommend the first 4 months you blog at least twice a week. Then, after that, cut to once per week. If you have the time to blog more often, go for it.

So I ask, will you be blogging anytime soon, or are you still in the mindset that this too will pass?

Need help with your blog program, or how to make a social media campaign successful? Then stop reading this blog and give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

Creating a Successful 10-day Event

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How do you make the 62nd California RV Show successful?

Being the 62nd annual show makes it a real challenge to get existing customers excited about something they have known about for this many years. And finding new customers isn’t easy.

First you need to understand the audience, what it is that will create their interest to attend the RV Show and what can you do to make it more of an event than just a typical RV show. After knowing these critical facts youLogo--CA Show then build around these findings to create a successful California RV Show. It is important for the media and publicity teams to work together by exchanging information to develop a campaign that will have the greatest impact. The PR Client in this particular case is the RVIA (Recreational Vehicle Industry Association). Unlike other RV shows, this is produced by the manufacturers association, not the dealers. The RV dealers are represented by displaying the manufacturers new RVs for 2015. Interested customers can talk directly to the manufacturers representatives to learn about the RVs, while the purchasing must go through the dealers.

This year’s show had several challenges. Among them was the size: over 1200 new RVs with 21 dealers that counted for 800,000 sq ft of space. To create some excitement we wanted the customers to know more about

Gayle Anderson and George Carson

Gayle Anderson and George Carson

what to expect at the show to create the “desire” to attend. To do this we worked with Gayle Anderson at KTLA, channel 5. Her solid following of viewers and her personality to make things interesting gave the show the needed publicity exposure prior to the opening. We presented to Gayle what is different. Things like Genesis Supreme RV building a 19 foot Toy Hauler at the show, a slalom challenge by Airstream, retro RVs like Winnebago’s Brave, and how roomy a Mercedes Class B Van is with a murphy bed. The local publicity helped many RV companies create the interest among potential RV buyers as well as those who might not have considered RVing but now see how much fun it can be.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Tom Gaither and Josh

A few days later we had KCAL 9/CBS chief meteorologist Josh Rubenstein report the weather live from the California RV Show. Josh was great. He interviewed Tom Gaither, director of the show and many different manufacturers from Fleetwood, Leisure Travel Vans, to 5th wheel manufacturers. Josh even went inside a custom class A motor home built by Show Hauler.

AC Green and George Carson

AC Green and George Carson

To give the show added enjoyment we had former baseball greats like Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Chuck Finley and Randy Jones do a meet and greet sessions on different days. AC Green, former Lakers player, also known as Iron Man was there on Sunday to sign autographs with fans. And to rock the show, Bret Michaels the lead rock star in the band Poison gave the crowd a fun time signing his name on most anything his fans handed him.

This is one way to create a publicity campaign and make it successful.

Is anyone listening to your social media conversations?

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There are a lot of conversations (noise) in social media. If you just try to follow only a few like Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, you will get drowned in all the conversations. So if this is overwhelming to you, then lets look at how to make people listen.

bigstock-Businesswoman-With-Big-Ears-10623491First of all, building a social media network is very important for pr clients. Before starting any social dialogue, these are some of the questions you need to ask when doing your conversations. Does it stimulate your customers to do the action you desire? Is it building brand loyalty? Are you creating any dialogue for people to interact with your conversation?

Major brands are using “conversations” to further build their pr visibility and brand. Companies like Coke, Pepsi, Microsoft, Apple among many others are aggressively “talking” to their consumers. But are their customers really listening? Some of these brands use Facebook and Twitter to get people to participate in contests, or engage them into a discussion. These pr marketing strategies are good, if understood. Sometimes the results are very small when you look at the overall numbers these social media have in comparison to those people responding. Does this mean they should not continue their publicity campaign? Of course not. You need to have a plan, just like a marketing plan, or media plan, you need to develop a publicity strategy of where, when and the topics you want to start. Just because the immediate followers or those responding might be small, you are developing a massive exposure about you and your brand. And the same is true when you ran a print or TV campaign. The exposure is always greater than those directly involved in your message. This is part of building a brand.

I read a recent article by Barry Levine that sums it up  “ Social media conversations are a whisper not a shout.”

That means you need to know who are your customers, know what they like on social media, what they enjoy Social meida-penguinsdoing and how often do they engage in the social media that you want to connect with them. Seems like a lot of research, and it is. But once you have learned this about your customer, then you can begin the “conversation.” With that said, it is important to have a true conversation, not a sales pitch, nor how great your company or brand is. Just like you would discuss a topic with a friend, keep your conversations friendly, and point out the good and bad about something. Get people to interact. That’s why so many brands use contests. Unfortunately, that is now getting overused and should be done on a limited basis, not become your main reason to have the conversations.

In summary, are conversations being heard? They can be if you are active in conversation with your customers and start topics that they would like to discuss. Remember, postings are good in social media, but that isn’t building a brand unless you get people involved in conversations. Then the word will spread beyond the social platforms, that’s how to create the buzz in the industry.

If you are ready to continue the conversation, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

Social Media for B2B: How to make social media successful

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When you ask a friend if they use social media, they first think of Facebook, or Twitter. Ask if they use these social media for business and the answer is “no.”

Social meida-penguinsNow if you ask a business owner, such as a pr client, what is social media, they will answer, “people who use Facebook and Twitter to gossip about their lives.” Is that what social media is to you? Is there something wrong here? Yes, businesses still have not learned how to ride this powerful media wave to their advantage. B2B are very slow in accepting that social media can become their best source for increased revenue. If social media is not part of your publicity campaign, then it’s time to re-think your plan.

You already know about Linkedin. But did you know this is one of the best forms of social media for any business. So are Google+ and Twitter. Facebook is slowly becoming a business source and that is affecting Facebook’s core customers, individuals. Many people have moved on to other social media, like Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare and a host of others. PR clients can really benefit from a well-planned social media campign.social-media-ages

I saw an article by Amber Mac who identified 5 simple tips for B2B to become successful using social media. Amber’s tips:

1-  Invest in a strategic plan. Have an objective, goals laid out before taking the social leap. And be consistent, this is a Mon-Fri assignment, not a on- shot project assignment.

2-  Build the right team. It is necessary to have reliable people, or person do the postings. They should know your overall plan to be effective.

3-  Select the right tools. This is where you need to learn about Linkedin and how to make the best of it. Also, look into Instrgram, which can be a plus for your business. And Google+ will help increase your rankings and visibility.

4-  Include content marketing. These are blogs, photos, videos and other content to educate your potential customer.

5-  Embrace partner amplification. Whether your partner is an outside vendor, or internal staff, engage in their social media. Share posts, photos, leave comments.

Keep in mind that social media is a digital form of face-to-face conversations. Done correctly you can take advantage of using these large networks to increase visibility, increase customers, and increase profits. The tips mentioned above can be applied to any social media.

Use these 4 guidelines to target prospects:

• Current and intended customers. Know the company types, and specific names.

• Job titles are important. Be sure you know all the variations such as “VP”, and vice-president.

• Industries. Know what industries you want to approach. Don’t go after too many, target only two in the beginning, then expand your target.

• Know the location you want to reach. Meaning, local, national, or international.

As I mentioned earlier, Linkedin should be on top of your business social media list. Once you master that network, the other social media will be much easier to implement a campaign. If you need help in creating a social media campaign, give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400.

How To Get TV News Coverage

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PR Clients always want the best visible coverage from the media. So how do you get this coverage?

Getting Television and Print Coverage

Getting Television and Print Coverage

First you need to plan your publicity campaign. That means you need to establish what is newsworthy, set a target date to make this announcement (press release), be prepared to follow up to all the news media the release was submitted, and have a spokesperson(s) be ready to meet the press. Sounds simple, but this is not an easy task. Knowing the reporters and the media is very critical in getting a story published or aired on broadcast television. PR Clients must rely on their pr agency to direct how and when such a story will be presented. It is the agency’s expertise that will make this happen. Many times pr clients feel that their point of view about their product or service is superior to the competition and cannot understand why “they” are not getting the media or reporters to take notice. For this reason alone, it is important for pr clients to trust the direction, recommendations of the pr agency, if not, it is possible the pr client could create a negative impression to the media and nothing will happen.

We recently had two pr clients that wanted major media coverage. One was for the California RV Show that recently happened at the Fairplex in Pomona on Oct. 11 through 20. The other was Grande Bakery whose 50+ years in business was forced to close due to the city of Santa Ana using eminent domain to take their property for road expansion. We established a strong pr campaign that highlighted the objectives we developed for each pr client. The results were excellent.

The California RV Show had a full week of coverage from KTLA’s Gayle Anderson, plus CBS chief meteorologist Josh Rubenstein, Telemundo TV, various print media and several bloggers writing about the event. You can read more about this publicity campaign in my blog dated October 22.

Grande Bakery required a different type of approach. Knowing this decision by the city was going to impact the lives of the Gallegos family who owned the bakery for over 50 years, and the employees (many who worked there for over 30+ years) and how it was going to have an effect on the community who supported and relied on their goods for over three generations, was our focus. Our timeline was short. We only had three weeks before the city was to take possession of the property so we had to move fast and smart. Our first article appeared in the OC Register with interviews by Tony Gallegos and Ralph Gallegos. This was followed up a few days later with NBC and Telemundo doing interviews. Less than a week later a follow up story with OC Register, NBC TV, plus Telemundo and Excélsior Newspaper created more media attention that generated many calls to the office of Loretta Sanchez. Everyday another media will pickup the article and do their story angle as did OC Weekly’s Gustavo Arellano in today’s online news.

Having a solid campaign that gets your message to your audience is how to get the attention of the media. Knowing when, how and what to do is the pr agency’s responsibility. Give your pr agency the freedom to create the campaign you need and trust their decisions will help you gain the awareness you desire. If your company, event or product needs more visibility, consider a solid publicity campaign. If you need help developing the campaign then give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. We know how to “make things happen!”

Creating a Successful Event

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Our company was appointed as the publicity agency for the recent 61st California RV Show in Pomona at the Fairplex. The goal was to increase attendance from previous years, which was about 20,000 people. We analyzed what the show had done in the past and made recommendations. This was a challenge because the show runs 10 days.

One of the first items on our list for this PR Client was to generate a lot of news media attention, which was not done in previous RV shows. Another element was to establish a partnership with a charity, we choose the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Orange County. I now wanted the event to have a personality who is an RVer and is a diabetic. This lead me to contact Bret Michaels. Bret is a Type 1 diabetic, and last summer had a successful show called “Rock My RV”. What a perfect match! After contacting Bret Michaels and telling him of our goal to help raise money for the ADA, he immediately wanted to participate.

George Carson and Bret Michaels

The California RV Show, our PR Client still needed other “attractions” to keep people coming all 10 days of the show. Having unique RVs on display would give the consumers something to see while shopping for their favorite RV to purchase. I contacted three of the Rock My RV owners from the show whose RVs were completely re-built. The three RVs included Tapout, Gypsy RV and the Luxury RV. Now we had a foundation for the publicity.

We first focused on the new RVs having Gayle Anderson from KTLA do interviews with various manufacturers reps from Fleetwood, Winnebago, Airstream, Diablo Toy Haulers to describe their products. We also had interviews arranged with the owners of the Rock My RVs and did an entire segment on Glamping. That’s a new term used to describe “Glamours Camping.” Other media coverage include CBS chief meteorologist Josh Rubenstein who did interviews while reporting the weather during his morning segments. ABC did an interview with the director, Tom Gaither, and we had the Hispanic news media, Que Buena radio and Telemundo TV do an interview with the first Hispanic owned manufacturer of RVs, Pablo Carmona of Genesis Supreme in Perris, California.

Bret and Punkass from Tapout throwing T-Shirts

TV news media coverage began 5 days before the show opened. Other news coverage in print and radio also began early and continued throughout the week of the show. Our publicity enhanced all the ad placement resulting in a 39% attendance increase over last year. Having a plan and knowing how and when to implement that plan is critical to getting maximum news media coverage.

If your business or event needs a boost, contact George Carson at 949-477-9400 before your competition does!