The Wax Blog

I was emailing with a virtual colleague of mine about a young media consultant who is known for having thousands upon thousands of Twitter followers. In fact, that’s her primary presence online. We were wondering whether this person’s Twitter stardom would turn into lucrative consulting deals. After all, how much of you intellectual capital can you display in 140 characters? (Those of you who follow me on Twitter during American Idol season might think it actually does the opposite.)

It’s a question that demonstrates how great success in one social media network may not translate to more business for you. And that’s why it’s so important to find the right social media tools to work your campaign, not necessarily the most popular ones.  (If you’d like to know how I feel about many company Facebook pages, you can read my post on that subject here.)

So for the fourth post in this series on writing an actionable social media plan,  instead of thinking about “should we do twitter and facebook” ask yourself, where are my customers engaged in social media? If you’re B2B, it’s probably not on Facebook. If you’re launching a book, what better place to be than Facebook, where you can set up a fan page and tell all your friends about it? Think about your customers, or readers, or whomever you are trying to reach. What are they using right now? Restaurants, bars and other social types of places better get have a presence on  geo-based social media like Yelp and Foursquare. Consultants, I’d suggest having an informative blog that really demonstrates your knowledge of your industry. Whatever you choose, don’t try to be everywhere. Pick a couple of networks that you think you can easily manage and go from there. Just as a quick primer, here is the social media that seems to work well for my clients in different industries: (more…)

I ran this post early last year and thought I’d update it with a few more ways to be a ‘good nag’.

The biggest pet peeve I hear from the media is when people ask them “hey did you get my email?” Granted that is a pretty stupid question – but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called a journalist because I KNOW he or she would want the story only to hear “yeah, send it again it must have gone in my spam file” Or – “Oh I was on vacation and had too many messages so I just deleted them all.” So how do we make sure the journalist or producer got what we sent without appearing like a needy, nagging spouse? (more…)

I’m a little tired of hearing about the wonders of social media and the stunning achievements of the PR 2.0 world. Anybody who’s ever done the hard work of promoting in online video knows that for every thousand views, you’ve got a ton of leg work. Those “Susan Boyle” moments just don’t come around that often.

I may get called a Luddite for this, but there simply isn’t a better public relations tactic than the good old-fashioned STUNT. Jay Conrad Levinson may have coined the term ‘guerilla marketing’ to try to make it seem like a fresh concept, but ever since the first beauty pageant to find Miss Dove soap, creative stunts and promotions have made the difference for brands. And by combining those stunts with the power of online promotion, you’ve got a wicked good strategy.  What better example than the Old Spice campaign…many would say this was a red hot viral campaign but really, it was a clever promotional idea launched with an ad campaign, but fueled by strategic use of Twitter and YouTube to make it seem current and new. That’s the beauty of integrated marketing.

Most people think big promotions have to cost quite a bit of money, but really it just takes a creative idea. London-based Taylor Herring Public Relations is arguably one of the best agencies in the world at truly creative, unusual promotions. Taylor Herring provides public relations for events like movie premiers and television shows, as well as  PR for major brands like Honda and Google. But what they, and their online division also do very well, is create unusual experiences for their audiences that might be eyebrow-raising, but still fit the image of the brand. And although they are the people that created the world’s first ‘live’ TV commercial, the campaign that got my attention was one they did for a comedy channel’s stand-up season on UK television. Instead of something huge, they thought up the idea of simply finding the world’s oldest jokes and created a “Historical Humour Study” including the oldest jokes and one liners. Complete with a resident professorial expert, the idea was contained in a simple press release. Yet it was so unique, the agency garnered millions of impressions for its client. (You can read the entire case study on the Taylor Herring site here)

Here are a few simple tips that you should follow when planning your own ’stunt’: (more…)

I’m in the PR world and we use a lot of interns. For the most part, my experience has been a bit strange since I started Wax Marketing. At first, I thought maybe I had lost my touch…I used to manage a fairly large number of people and was known for spotting the best and brightest of the entry-level candidates. Maybe communications majors were just, well not as bright? (Sorry,  I come from the technology industry. They think everyone is dumber, no offense!) Or maybe I’d lost some of my interviewing skills? Whatever it was, I was going through interns and new hires faster than cherry pie at a pie-eating contest.

I started to realize a few things had changed. For example, a pro bike race I worked on had a kids’ fun race. The race promoter insisted that everyone get a medal…a practice I had never heard of. A job candidate’s father accompanied him to his interview. Again, this blew me away. However, not as much as the intern who could not stop emailing her mother…127 emails in two days to be exact. Or the intern who locked herself in the office for two hours because I told her that her work had to be re-done. Worse of all probably, I had a client  who was late to an incredibly important meeting because her son wasn’t happy with what he was wearing to school that day. He was 15 at the time.

These occurrences and others like them have happened on a regular basis lately, and it helped me realize…maybe  it’s not just about me. There is something going on with the education system and with parents that has changed in the last ten years. I found Dr. Jean Twenge’s book Generation Me and others like it that explained our society’s determination to help kids know they’re truly “special” has turned them into a group ill-prepared to take on the competitiveness and, I have to say, at times unfair culture, of business today. (more…)

I love it when experts like Chris Brogan says there’s no such thing as a ’social media expert’ because I’ve always said there’s no such thing as a ‘marketing expert’ either. Or a “public relations expert” for that matter. You might be the most educated, the most experienced ‘expert’ but there’s no way to predict the exact combination of competitive, online, media, and economic environments facing a particular brand, company or author. So when you go about setting your goals, remember that you are probably the best ‘expert’ when it comes to your company and it’s virtually impossible to compare your own results to others…especially where social media is concerned. What other medium is changing as rapidly as this one?

When I help companies set goals for social media I try to get them to identify three different types of goals: 1) quantitative, 2) qualitative, and 3) a special set of goals that you might consider the equivalent of winning the social media lottery. Let’s start with quantitative goals, since those are sometimes the easiest. It would be great if you could comment with examples of some of your goals as well, just to give us an idea of what everyone is shooting for.
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After such strong comments on my post about corporate digital footprints, I got a REAL expert to weigh in on monitoring your online reputation. Here are Kevin Kaiser’s thoughts – Kevin is the founder of Startup Biz Blog an up and coming small business blog with some really smart advice. Stay tuned as I kick off my new series on writing an actionable social media plan next Monday.

After all of the energy you’ve put into creating your company, don’t let it get lost in the giant tangle of the world wide web. Managing your online reputation so that people get the correct picture of your company right off the bat is more important now than ever. (more…)

First of all thanks to the adorable @dlarson15 for suggesting this week’s ‘How to Pitch’. Honestly you can ask me how to pitch any show and if I don’t know, I’ll find out for you. SO ASK!

Local TV is probably one of the most desired media for small businesses. Like so much of PR, local TV works primarily through relationships. Get a reporter or producer interested in you or your business and eventually, something should happen. It’s important to understand the different ways you can get TV coverage. I covered pitching events, your breaking news or getting included as an expert source in the How To Pitch Assignment Editors post. The other ways you can get coverage are through feature stories (sometimes called “packages”) and as guests on the morning shows. (more…)

Recently I got one of my clients an interview on one of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s stories on CNN. My client (check out the drumming circle in the video below) told me I had paid for myself for a year with this clip. (more…)

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Once again, I started to write a blog post about pitching Good Morning America and found this great article with the basics from a guy named Mort Fleischner. (Who couldn’t trust a guy named Mort?) I’ve included the first part, but please click through to the original article as well – his ‘don’ts’ are excellent advice!

I would add also that having video “in the can” is a big plus. But sorry, your Flip won’t be enough. If you really have a good story, hire a professional and go shoot some background footage. Great visuals always give you a leg up and worst case, you can always use it for a Video News Release later.

Questions about pitching morning shows?

Photo from fOTOGLIF

Whenever I’m discussing the prospect of blogging for a new client, one of the first questions I’m asked by those who don’t already have a blog setup is “should it be on my website?” My answer is always “yes, of course!” That isn’t because I offer blog setup or design services (well, I do coordinate them, when necessary) so that’s not my answer because it means a greater profit for me; it’s because I want my clients to get the best results possible from their blog. Usually, that’s where the discussion about it ends, and since I never get to share the “why”; now seems like a good time.

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