Monthly Archives: April 2010

GITLA 4/22 Event: Buzz PR & Marketing 3.0

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I attended my first GITLA event last week in Hollywood. The April 22nd event “The Buzz PR & Marketing 3.0″ featured Christine Kirk (@luxuryprgal) – Social Muse Communications; Amanda Coolong (@acoolong) – TechZulu and ThisWeekIn.com; Heather Meeker (@heathermeeker) – Whrrl; Babette Pepaj (@bakespace) – Bakespace; and Rynda Laurel (@rynda) – AF83.

The event was held at H. Wood in the Hollywood & Highland complex. First, the good: hurrah for plentiful parking – the H&H complex costs $2 for 4 hours as long as you validate. (Correct me if I’m wrong, parking gods.) Second, the bad: it was near impossible to find the entrance to H.Wood, and the space was very tight with attendees in nice clothes sitting on the floor of a bar. The panelists themselves were stuck to one back end of a wall, on a sofa, which made it hard to see them from around the corner of the bar.

There are some fantastic notes written by Janice Reinold (@chasinghiromi), whom I had the pleasure of meeting, and Christine Kirk (panelist @luxuryprgal).

My notes are sparse. I was writing notes down and tweeting at the same time. I hashtagged my tweets #gitla so do a search if you are so inclined.

  • Press releases serves the purpose of SEO
    • It’s the only time it goes out in your own words
    • There’s no need for syndication – pick one market; then Google/Bing will find it
  • Reach
    • Choose a media list of about 20 outlets
      • Find out who the outlets target
      • Target those contacts
    • It’s not all about Twitter
    • Find key influencers who have a pulse on your target online or offline network
  • Measurement
    • What is the goal of measuring?
    • What is the goal of your client’s social media?
    • Is it to increase search engine ranking?
    • Increase sales?
    • The goals of corporate social media are hard to quantify in numbers
    • Social media is about engagement.
  • Geolocation is not going away
    • It can help build your personal brand
    • Nervous about stalkers? Find a service that allows you to control your level of privacy and check-in AFTER you’ve left

PRSA-LA Pasadena 4/14 Event: Online News Media

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It’s late but I’m posting it now. Here are my notes from the PRSA-LA event  “Navigate the Online Newsroom to Get Your Message and Organizations Noticed.” This was held at the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena – who knew?!

Panelists:

Steven Rosenberg, Online Editor,  Los Angeles Daily News
Christine Miceli, Executive producer/online editor of KTLA.com
James Macpherson, Editor, PasadenaNow.com
Alysia Gray Painter, Editor, NBCLosAngeles.com

Main points:

  • Send multimedia!!!! (Reiterated by all panelists) They are looking for photos and videos to post along with the story.
    • Send 1-2 high-res photos with your pitch/email
    • Use Youtube and send the link with the pitch
    • Attach the video or link of the embedded video from the client site
    • Raw video is ok. If they are interested, they will come out and shoot their own (union rules)
  • Know the demographic the online publication serves
  • Know the publication
  • Send your pitch about 2-3 weeks in advance
    • Send a reminder email a week prior
    • Send a reminder email the day before
  • If this is an event, spell it out “This will sell out”
    • They will most likely know this already but this is a good reminder for them to flag
  • Prewritten blog posts/articles are ok as long as it is an original piece
  • Emails
    • Format your emails so that they are easy to follow (bolds, headers, et al)
    • Attachments are fine
    • NO PDFs
  • Experts
    • Make your client available to them as an expert
    • When they’re up against a deadline, they will always go to the one expert
  • Social Media
    • They all have social media accounts, you should too.
    • They use RSS readers and Google alerts to find news to break

Blaze is Hiring Interns – Plural

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Blaze PR is hiring interns for the summer. If you know of anyone who would like to work in PR or social media, get thee to contact the office! Here’s the job desc for the PR intern on the Blaze PR Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=106384712734448

Sadly, our interns from this spring are leaving us this month. They’ve been a huge help to everyone at the office. I started out as an intern as well, and I can tell you that Blaze doesn’t give the random “make me copies” assignment. Blaze lets you work on writing releases, help manage clients’ social media accounts, research (a lot of it), media outreach, get your two-cents in in brainstorming meetings, et al.

Alas I’ve been fortunate to intern at companies that gave me a lot of freedom to get work done and to learn. Blaze was definitely one of these companies.

I would encourage MBA and grad students to apply as well.