LinkedIn: Connect with the Right People

A holiday gathering was the setting of an introduction to the owner of a talent placement company. Over cocktails he told me a about a man he was trying to help find a job. The would-be new hire said his goal was to have 500 followers on LinkedIn by the beginning of the New Year. Hearing this nearly caused me to do a spit-take, though it’s not an uncommon philosophy.

For some reason the unemployed individual was certain that number would be the catalyst to multiple job offers. His methodology was akin to sending everyone in the phone book his resume. A more strategic approach would be to grow his LinkedIn contacts so that he creates a rolodex full of targeted decision makers and supporters.

The process for self-promotion is the same for businesses, products or services. Your message is lost on those who don’t hold your same values or interests. One should spend time on attracting a targeted audience, and providing content that interests them. In fact the more specific your niche, the better off you’ll be.

More fans, followers and alike won’t necessarily bring you job offers, or anything else. A targeted approach toward generating an organic audience base will serve you well. Focus more on the quality of your efforts rather than increasing the quantity of contacts and success will follow.

Holiday Fun with Press Releases

Never miss an opportunity to create a theme with press releases or announcements. I serve on the marketing committee for the Downtown Arlington Management Corporation. This is what we sent out to help raise awareness of the Black Friday/Small Business Saturday specials.

'Twas the night before the biggest shopping day of the year,
The sun set on Thanksgiving and Downtown Arlington retailers want all to hear:

Dear friends, neighbors and shoppers - Santa needs your help!
Kris Kringle has a large load on his back,
He asked us all to pick up the slack.
Our stores and our windows are filled to the max
Our new winter items are falling off racks.

We'll throw open our doors on Black Friday
And we'll do it again on Small Business Saturday.
Our restaurants are cooking and our parking is free!
Ten new businesses opened in downtown this year.
Come visit us and we'll give you good cheer!

Check us out online and see what we have to offer,
Downtown Arlington is growing - shop here and we all prosper!

Pop Quiz Gets A+ Media Attention

The Center for Cancer & Blood Disorders annually recognizes Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Every October the Fort Worth-based cancer services provider sponsors free lunch and learn events throughout the community. Record attendance was reported this year, with numbers more than doubling at some of the locations. Additionally, media attention was received from two local Dallas/Fort Worth television stations and news radio. The success is credited to two things: the positive message surrounding breast cancer prevention, and a clever on-line quiz created by The Center. 

Media valued the latest research on prevention laid out in an easy to understand format. The concept was fun and separated itself from the traditional black and white stats. The results got an A+ from a public relations standpoint. The backlinks from the media's websites and all the additional clicks on The Center's site increased search engine optimization. Additionally, The Center was able to leverage the quiz and media attention in e-blasts, newspaper ads, and on social media.

This concept is easily applied to other industries. If you can't identify third party research, consider developing your own with a free online research tool that allows you to create a survey and send it out to your clients/the public. Report the facts and voila! You created a low budget news item!

Top 5 Reasons to Outsource Pitching >> Media Pitching

The World Series has a lot of people talking about pitching. It's always a hot topic in the world of public relations, but in PR it's not about championships - it's about coverage. Media pitching is a challenging sport filled with home runs and strike outs. It can be stressful and chances are if you give someone the duties of media pitching and something else, they will always do the something else first.

Media pitching provides a great return on investment, but the fear of rejection and the anxiety associated with calling a newsroom can push the job to the bottom of the to-do list.  

Top five reasons to outsource media pitching include:

5. Experience. Public relations professionals who specialize in media pitching often come from a news background. They understand all the elements of a good pitch and know what’s needed to entice a reporter to cover your story.

4. Connections. Phone numbers, email addresses, editorial calendars - all of this is critical to successful media pitching.
3. Intelligence. We’re able to better prepare clients because we’ve worked with the reporters and know their style.

2. Insight. We often find several angles to an event or story topic. This means companies sometimes have more to pitch than initially thought.

1. Determination. Our success is related to the ability to get media placements. We work hard to get clients in the news.

Prestige to Profit - Leveraging National Media Attention



Teresa Berg being interviewed by CBS
corespondent Steve Hartman.

Gaining national media attention is a coup for any company, but leveraging the coverage can make the event more than prestigious - it can become profitable. Jamie Brown Public Relations client Teresa Berg Photography was featured on CBS News This Morning. The upscale Dallas photography studio features portraits of homeless pups looking posh. The pictures of canines in bows and pearls capture the hearts of would-be owners and get the dogs adopted faster.

The story had tremendous impact on Berg's business. The phone rang constantly, she gained 300 more Facebook fans and for about a week she averaged more than 90 inquiries a day on her website. Additionally, she nearly sold all of the copies of her book on how to photograph dogs.

The response from people wanting to learn how to help rescue animals through photography was rapid, but responding to each individually was impossible. Our solution was to develop a webinar series. Information was placed on her website, outgoing voicemail message, blog, and Facebook page. For a small fee, those interested could attend a two hour webinar. We scheduled a day time session and an evening session. Sixty attendees signed up making the event a success!

No Visuals? No Problem - How to Save a Video Poor Pitch

Pitches that are short on visuals might just be better suited for newspaper or radio. However, there are ways to salvage your story and land a successful pitch. Here are a few ways to get ready for primetime.

- Tie into something topical. - The Greenovation Contest didn't offer many visuals, but the story tied into one of the top stories of the summer - the drought!

- Provide tips that solve a common problem.  - Four ways to save on college tuition didn't have a visual punch, but it did provide great information on practical ways to save money.

- Be compelling. Pitching a sponsor for a marathon that hasn't happened yet isn't easy, but this story of how a diabetic runner manages her disease to do more than most makes you want to watch!

Handling Negative Press In Your Industry

A client of mine called concerned that his competitor was featured on the evening news for all the wrong reasons. The investigative story focused on the competition’s alleged poor customer service and bad business practices. My client had two immediate questions– does one bad apple spoil the whole cart and what does this mean for our pending coverage scheduled for the next day? My answer to both questions – this is an opportunity.


We tackled the latter first. We reviewed the coverage and determined the story focused primarily on the competition and not the industry. The reporter who did the story was a member of the investigative station’s team. The reporter who was scheduled to cover my client was a feature reporter. He’s not known for gotcha stories. I contacted him to see if the angle I pitched him was still the one that interested him. He confirmed it was.

Now back to the cart and apples. We used the story as an opportunity to share advice about how to spot scams, and offered to answer questions about the industry to anyone – free of charge. We shared the information on our social media channels and via email. We developed talking points for staff and fielded a few questions from clients and the public.

Utilizing some key public relations tactics we leveraged the situation to work in our favor. An event like this can happen in any industry. Be prepared and think things through before you react. Had we buried our head in the sand on this one, we would have missed out on some great press and goodwill.

Promotional Items – 4 Questions to Ask Before You Buy

I’ve got a junk drawer full of pens, notepads and portfolios with names of bankers, accountants, printers and others. I can remember collecting some of the logo laden swag from networking events, but to be honest - I have vague recollection of many of the gilded printed names. So, why do so many devote a significant portion of their public relations/marketing budgets to chotchkies?

A couple of reasons come to mind quickly – there’s a sense of pride when you see your name or logo on something, it’s fun to give things away and hey - everybody else does it. But will a multicolored mug really help you further your public relations goals or just end up holding coffee for someone who is not your target demographic? My suspicion is the latter. I’m not anti promotional products, but I encourage clients to use them wisely.

Consider the following:

- How are they going to be used? (If you’re headed to a trade show – you had better have something more sophisticated than a notepad to get people talking.)

- How do you intend on delivering them?

- What’s the purpose?

- How will it help you further your public relations/marketing goals?

So what's worth your money? An informal survey amongst the savvy JBPR Facebook Fans unveiled an affinity for useful promotional items such as hand sanitizer, chap stick and stress balls.

Share your favorite items in the comments section below.

5 things to Avoid in Your PowerPoint Presentations

I had the opportunity to see TCU instructors Kelly O’Brien and Tracy Williams give guidance on the art of presenting to the five finalists of the Fort Worth Business Assistance Center’s business plan competition. In less than a month, the business owners will present their plans to a panel of judges in hopes of winning thousands of dollars in cash and prizes.

The entrepreneurs are about to embark on a high-pressured show and tell demonstration of a lifetime. O’Brien and Williams gave a lively tag-team presentation aimed at relieving the presentors' nervousness (read nausea and sweaty palms), and the participation of the future audience (read rotten tomatoes).

My favorite tidbits were in the How Not to Give a PowerPoint Presentation section. Here are the top five things to avoid:

-No more than 24 words on a slide – the more text on the screen the less your audience will retain (Try using pictures instead of words to illustrate your point)

-Limit the number of slides – (15 minutes = 8-10 slides)

-Don't turn your back on your audience and/or read word for word from your slide

-Animation – seriously people this is a distraction - use it judiciously

-A sans serif font (ie. Arial) is easier to read from the back of the room than a funky type face

In sum, less is more. Flashy fonts and animation just lead to more confusion and lower retention.

The Answer to Good or Bad in Three Questions

Good or bad is easy to determine in many situations. Movie? "Gone with the Wind" – Good. "Mars Needs Moms" – Bad. However, other decisions aren’t so easy. As a public relations professional I have spent numerous hours in conference rooms and corner offices questioning the font choice of a brochure, pondering the best picture for an annual report cover and belaboring the abundant choices that come with developing a public relations piece that is the face of a company.

However, when I find myself stuck in the creative process – bleary eyed and weary of the minutia – I take a deep breath, put on a cup of tea and review the following:

1.  What are the goals for this piece? Are we asking people to sign up for something, visit a location, learn more about a particular issue, go online, pick up the phone? Ensuring your goals are clearly defined will help you know if you are achieving them.
2. Who is the intended audience? Make sure you’re piece isn’t overworked. People will often want to use one piece for a variety of targeted groups. Limit yourself to just one or two and your piece will be far more effective.
3. Does the piece look professionally done? These kind of projects are often done by committee – as they should be. It is always beneficial to get buy in from all the key decision makers from the beginning. However, don’t get hung up on color choices or artwork. In the end it isn’t likely to matter if your folder is chartreuse or magenta – what matter is if it looks as if it was given life by a professional graphic designer, printer, writer, etc.

Keeping these questions in mind will help you meet your intended goal and save you time when critical decisions need to be made.

Generating Awareness with Public Relations in 5-7 Impressions

I am continually baffled by the fact that I have to see a television commercial an average of six times before I know what advertisers are trying to sell me. However, I have struggled more times than I can count with remembering the dish soap ad or car commercial that interrupted my program du jour.

Five to seven impressions can seem daunting, and a bit like stalking. However, it can be done successfully with the appropriate use of public relations tools - meaning greater awareness of you and/or your business and no restraining order.

Consider the following chain of events for a prospective client/customer:

1. Prospective client sees editorial in trade publication that was written by you or someone in your organization
2. They then visit your website (since it was referred to in the About the Author section of article)
3. While on your website - signs up for e-newsletter
4. Reads e-newsletter and views video you produced that was linked in the newsletter
5. Decides to follow you/your company on Twitter
6. You reply with thank you tweet and send link to frequently asked questions about your company/industry.
7. You/your company receive media coverage which prospective client sees.

Five to seven impressions wrapped up in a week. Trust that it doesn’t always happen so conveniently in the real world, but you get the idea.

E-Newsletters – Reach Customers for Only Pennies Per Person

Electronic newsletters are a cost efficient way to target your customers, clients, and potential buyers. They establish you, or your business, as an authority on an issue. Additionally, they can be shared via Facebook or Twitter, or simply forwarded to other email accounts by the recipients.

There are several email distribution services that will allow you to create a custom design for little money, and in some cases no money at all. Depending on your number of contacts, you can spend nothing at all with services such as Mail Chimp or slightly more than free ($8) with Mad Mimi. Others will charge you around $30 for approximately 1,000 contacts. Additional fees may apply – be sure to read the fine print. Other popular services include Constant Contact and My Emma.

Before you move forward create a plan and consider these following tips:

-Send it out once a month.

-Include a few sentences of each story and link to the entire story on your website or blog so you can track what your target audience wants to read.

-Delegate it to someone or hire out for the job – otherwise, it will never get done. Depending if you want to use a professional graphic designer and hire a writer, such as yours truly, you’ll spend approximately $300-$500.

If you’re still not sold on the idea – run the numbers. Say you spend $500/month and

you send it to a thousand people. You’ve spent 50 cents per person. Depending on your business – you may only need a couple of sales to cover the cost – now that’s a good return on your investment!

Why Twitter Can be Better for Research Than Google

Jamie Brown Public Relations gained several television placements for a Dallas health care client. Naturally, the company was interested in the return on investment. However, many of the media monitoring services are expensive and require contracts - making them unattainable for small to medium-sized businesses. Google searches only turned up the top tier companies with budgets for large websites and search engine optimization (SEO). Desperate to help a client, I went to Twitter hoping some of my public relations tweeps could provide a solution. Sure enough my tweet for help was spotted by a boutique company on the East coast. After a phone call and a few emails, we began working together. Without Twitter we never would have made our cyber connection.

A similar situation came about when another client needed a robust research tool. The popular low-cost electronic survey websites available just couldn't provide all of the requirements to get the job done. Google searches couldn't give me what I needed. Back to Twitter I went, and in less than 140 characters an answer arrived. A company following hashtags pertinent to their industry picked up my query, and not long after a relationship was formed.

I'm not promoting giving up Google, rather suggesting Twitter for the answers that are elusive in a SEO driven environment.

Can a Contract Controlling What Your Customers Say Prevent a Public Relations Crisis?

I spoke with a friend the other day who mentioned she was reviewing a contract for a vacation house rental. She couldn’t help but notice a clause that prohibited renters from writing reviews on websites that didn’t provide the owner an opportunity to comment on the complaints.

Attempting to control what your customers say about you with strong legal language doesn’t promote healthy customer relations – much less prevent a public relations crisis. Regardless of contracts you may have with your customers – people will talk, type and text about the experience they had with you. Taking customers to court is expensive. A public relations crisis communications plan will cost you far less coin.


Start with the following:

• have a public relations crisis communications plan in place

• set your Google alerts to notify you when your company’s name is mentioned

• and most importantly always think before you type

Finally, do what you can to patch up a misunderstanding, and do it publicly so that people can see that you care about your customers and are willing to make changes when you can.

Four Reasons Why Blogging Is Good for Business

I’m not a dedicated blogger. In fact the only reason I started was for business development. I began my blog and my company simultaneously. It was easy then to find a couple of hours a week to devote to sharing recent insights.

Recently, the challenges of running a small business have taken hold, and it has become far too easy to put off blogging for other activities that are directly connected to revenue. However, its time I follow my own advice and commit to blogging. Here’s why I’m re-dedicating myself:

- My blog has gotten me business. I can think of at least two clients that have seen my blog and requested my services. Gee – now if I just did it more regularly!

- Most of my potential clients will examine my blog before my website. It is a demonstration of my skills and services.

- People have actually said something I wrote helped them. No, really – that actually happened, more than once!

- It helps with SEO on my website.

I’m always pleasantly surprised when someone says, “I saw your blog and was wondering if you could tell me more about....” I shouldn’t be. I know better, but self-doubt and flat out laziness have kept me from blogging more regularly.

I advise my clients to blog for all the same reasons listed above. It is time that I take my own medicine and commit to what is good for business and the right thing to do. What better time of year for a fresh start?