The Wax Blog

Without a good site strategy, it could be curtains for your PR campaign!

I can’t tell you how many times we’ve busted our butts to get media, especially bloggers, to consider a client only for them to tell me one of the following:

1. “Website took too long to load” or 2. “Couldn’t figure out what they do from their website” 3. “It’s all flash” or my favorite 4. “The website is down”

In public relations class we learned about the importance of understanding your ‘key publics’ – the audiences that include not only your customers but those that will heavily influence the success of your business. And that includes the media. Next step? Make sure all of your messaging is directed at least in part to ALL of your important key publics.

If you want exposure, the main way you’re going to get it is through media. The first place media will go is your website, but if they can’t find the information  they’re looking for, they’ll simply move on. So here’s a simple review list for your site – make sure you do this BEFORE you start promoting. Also, I’m providing an example of a company that gets it – the Natural Curtain Company. (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…)

Bart the Dumpster Dog

I realized right away that @bartthedog was gaining followers at a much faster rate than @waxgirl333 , my twitter handle. Not to mention the fact that he has more than ten times the number of Facebook fans for his Bart the Dumpster Dog fan page. Neither of us are megastars in the social media stratosphere (yet!) but I thought taking a look at how @bartthedog pays attention to his social media might give you an idea of how he’s added more than 3000 followers in such a short time – with very little effort.

1. Bart has a GREAT back story. Not everyone can say they were rescued starving and frozen from a dumpster on an Indian reservation.

2. Bart has a unique and consistent voice. This is probably because I have anthropomorphized Bart and his brother for the past three years to such an extent that I’m fairly fluent in Dog.  His followers call him “cutey” and “sweetie” and “lovey” so I guess it doesn’t matter that he’s over 90 pounds – his voice is crystal clear to them.

3. The dog lover niche, particularly for rescued dogs, is really strong, if not zealous. I told a car dealer once that if he supported his local humane society in a big way he’d have more customers than he could handle and I was right. One woman drove from South Dakota to Minnesota to buy a car from the guy – for helping rescued animals.

4. Bart’s not selling anything. He’s just a friendly guy that sends out tweets about interesting dogs for adoption on petfinder, cool doggy news and stuff he’s been doing lately.  He’s also very good at RT’ing information for animal rescue groups, so there’s a certain altruistic side to the boy.

5. Finally, Bart is always positive and never controversial. He doesn’t take sides and has no politics.

I started Bart’s accounts as a way to test some of the programs and apps for Twitter and Facebook, not to grow his profile.  Before long he’ll be writing a book and signing pawtographs.

Watching the Golden Globes last night and hearing all the references to Haiti made several questions come to  mind. Were they really “sad” to be there chugging champagne and getting awards? Did they really (like director Lee Daniels of Precious) think their work was suddenly ‘unimportant’? Or were most of them spewing talking points from their publicists so they didn’t look selfish in the light of a disaster? (more…)