Tag Archives: Social Media

A Direct PR Tip

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The idea for this blog came to while watching the Academy Award nominated Sony film “Moneyball” starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. “Moneyball” is the real-life story of Billy Beane, general manager of the Major League Baseball’s Oakland Athletics. I highly recommend this movie if you haven’t seen it for there’s one scene in the movie that strongly resonated with me for its PR application.

Pitt and Hill are both students of each other's games in MONEYBALL.

There’s one particular section toward the middle of the movie where GM Billy Beane (Brad Pitt) teaches *Asst. GM Peter Brand (Jonah Hill) a lesson on how to fire or trade players. Beane tells Brand that the best way is the quickest way – to come right out and say it with no sugar coating. And after a few beats, I thought that this was great advice for us all.

LESS IS ALWAYS BEST!

I’ve always taught executives and students to say the least amount whenever questioned about a particular subject that is “sticky” like a contract dispute, layoffs, work stoppage or a late delivery and especially if what they say could be used in a court of law.

I also believe it’s best to get right to the elephant in the room and not beat around the bush. If a client was arrested, verify it. If damage was caused by one of your workers say so. Diffuse the situation at hand right away. Hemming and hawing in PR always backfires.

Here’s an example that might help you see exactly what I mean.

Scenario – A reporter called you about something you didn’t want known and now you have a “gotcha” moment. He/she found out something that you didn’t want the press to know. Let’s say that you are firing your CEO and it has leaked. 

Taking a page out of Beane’s book the best response would be…”Yes, Mr. Reporter, it’s true John Doe is leaving our company as CEO and will be pursuing other endeavors.  The separation details are still being worked out and there are no announcements as to a successor.” The Reporter will try to ask you a few more details, but you hold firm and reinterate what you’ve communicated. But, by coming clean and not going further into detail, you’ve diluted the story and taken the wind out of its sails. Therefore, the best approach is a direct reproach. In Beane’s world – a direct approach is just like a fastball pitch. It’s fast, on target and hard to hit.

So practice throwing fastballs and less PR curve balls.

What do you think? I’d love to know.

*The character of Peter Brand is fictional. The real-life Brand is Paul DePodesta who chose not to have his name used in the movie. DePodesta left Beane 18 months after the 2002 season in which the movie is based. DePodesta is a Vice President of player development at the Mets. 

About The Author

When not observing PR trends, Cindy actively seeks out the day’s headlines to communicate and learn from real-life applications and that sometimes does take her to the ballpark.  Bring on Spring Training. Practice pitching.

 

 

Social Media Home Runs for Press Conferences

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Press Tip of the Day - Use Flickr as your Consumer Photo Press Room

The Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour is in session and as such, major media corporations are presenting their new mid-season programming and providing re-caps of their performances by their top executives.

As of this writing, two corporations have been in house – PBS and NBC.  And with those two, I have found a couple of highlights regarding great press conference tools that I thought were brilliantly used.

FLICKR – PBS utilized Flickr as its Official Photo Press Room. They posted photos immediately after each session and because it was on the Flickr platform, bloggers could easily share these photos on their Facebook walls and twitter feeds. I LOVED THIS FEATURE and highly recommend other agencies consider using it when organizing press conferences. AWESOMENESS. Kudos to great PR work PBS.

Tag logos with Facebook calls to action and Twitter Account Names

LOGOS/GRAPHICS - I absolutely love how NBC is tagging each on-screen graphic of its shows with the respective twitter handle as well as  a call to action to “Like” the show on Facebook. Great social branding! Hat’s off to NBC for remembering these touches which aren’t small and have a large impact.

 

A New You In 2012

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                                                      Lot’s to Celebrate About

I’m Super Excited about 2012. Why? Because of one word “New.”  Throw out everything old and usher in everything New.

Who doesn’t love new things right? Is there anything better than a new car or new house. Or a new dress or a new love or a new baby! New is awesome, don’t you agree. With that, I’ve been spending time looking at what “newness” I can bring to my life and I highly recommend this practice for you too. These aren’t necessarily resolutions, but certainly can be, the choice is up to you.

My “New” Plan includes the following To Do Items.

(1) New Online Branding – With so many social platforms that have my image attached, I’ve been updating each one with a current image of who I am. When I worked in TV, the networks always re-freshed their logos once a year to energize the viewers. Well, the same principle applies here in regards to social photos.

(2) About Me – Several “Blogworld” Conference sessions pointed out that the most overlooked section of our online branding dealt with the “About Us” section of our profiles. Have you read how you are describing yourself on LinkedIn, twitter and Google lately? If not, go back in and do some updating. Let us know about some of your recent hobbies and other such news.

(3) New Job – I’m going to actively pursue a new fulltime corporate job, but, this time I’ve opened my options to include areas that are “new” and will be stretching. I’m so excited to see what transpires as I walk down new paths.

(4) A “New” Attitude – Instead of automatically waiting for the other shoe to drop, I’m going to drink from my half full glass. Yep, I’ve read enough studies lately that prove that individuals who have life-altering events handle them so much better with a positive outlook. Pessimism was so 2011…Optimism is what’s in store for me in 2012.  Here’s what I mean.

  • I will land a new job.
  • I will lose weight.
  • I will continue to exercise.
  • I will continue to take the high road.
  • I will ask for forgiveness and forgive others.
  • I will find love and exude it to others.
  • I will continue to stretch myself and continue to learn new things.

Being Nice To Yourself

(5). I will look for opportunities to “Be Good To Myself.” We are always so hard on ourselves and well, this year, I’m going to be more mindful of what my body and mind are really saying to me and heed that advice. What does this look like? Below are some samples of what I mean.

  • I’ve consolidated my blogs down from four to two now. It was just too hard for me to keep up producing content for each one – so I’m making it easier for myself. And it still is just as effective.
  • I’m reaching out to friends/family whom I cherish and being proactive in staying in touch.
  • I’m looking at groups and clubs in my life and assessing which ones I enjoy and learn from and then spending less time with the others.
  • I’m realizing that life is short and thus, I am not procrastinating on planning things that I want to do.
  • I’m trusting God and putting all worry in His hands. And as such, I’m freeing myself up to enjoy more moments and be the person He wants me to be.

That’s just a quick glance at what “newness” I hope to achieve. I do hope that I’m able to live up to at least half of them…for it sure would be great to enjoy life to its fullest.

I’d love to hear what new things you’re bringing into the “New” Year.

Happy New Year,

Cindy

 

 

 

 

 

Ford’s Social Game

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Ford and Zynga partner to present the world's first social game for a product reveal

Attending the Los Angeles Auto Show as a member of the press, I thought that I was going to hear an earful about added horsepower, hemi engines and fuel-efficient cars. Never did I imagine I’d be learning about the world’s first social gaming initiative for a product reveal.

FORD AND ZYNGA PARTNER ON PRODUCT LAUNCH

In full disclosure, Ford Motor Corporation through Scott Monty offered me the opportunity to receive a press credential to cover the LA Auto Show.  That offer did indeed impact my desire to cover Ford’s press conference, but, even if I hadn’t been a guest of Ford, I’d cover this story for it’s game changing and absolutely brilliant. Ford is definitely breaking new marketing ground and thinking outside the box in connecting with consumers.

Ford has partnered with Zynga, the world’s largest social gaming developer. What? Yes Ford, one of the largest car manufacturers on the globe has partnered with Zynga’s Words with Friends game (think online Scrabble) to launch the all-new model of the Escape, the company’s newest sport utility vehicle which will arrive next year. This new model includes 11 new exclusive features, including an available hands-free power liftgate that allows quick and easy access to cargo with a kick of the foot.

Just a kick of the foot and your hatch can open! Pretty smart thinking Ford.

Yeah, this stuff is cool…but I can’t get over Ford’s brilliance in understanding the power behind social gaming, which a few years ago was known as casual gaming. According to a survey conducted last February for Popcap Games by Information Services Group, one hundred million people are playing social games and approximately $1 billion in revenue is expected this year. Did you see that figure – over 100 million people play social games.  So, if word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising, Ford is on to something marrying a launch of a product with a social game. What a brilliant move. Bravo Ford.

SOCIAL GAMING IS GOOD PR

I was able to videotape Jim Farley, Ford Motor Co.’s Group Vice President of Marketing, Sales and Service, as he announced the Zynga deal as well as their new reality web component called Escape Routes. Ford is teaming with Emmy award-winning reality producers to create an interactive web series and are going to send out six teams of two in a Ford Escape and embed a blogger in each car. The teams will be cast and the series should resemble CBS’ “Amazing Race.” To find out more or to learn about local casting calls, visit Escaperoutes.com.

Want to hear about Ford’s social gaming initiatives yourself. Check out the video of Jim Farley below from the company’s LA Auto Show Ford press conference.

Simplifying Public Relations

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The Salvation Army Knows How to Relate On All Fronts - That's Good PR. Flickr credit: Tojosan

Yesterday I was interviewed by at third-year college student for an assignment in one of her public relations classes.  I do about a dozen of these a year for various students and I love how each one is always different. This particular student wanted me to define what public relations is…and so I threw it back in her court to answer first. She gave a very intelligent long answer about like its caring for a brand and communicating messages effectively through the use of journalists. But I told her my answer was in the title. Public Relations is just that. Public – Relations.

KEEP PR SIMPLE

It’s all about how you relate to the public, the media, colleagues, companies…public relations is about relating in any form or fashion.  It’s really that simple.

Public relations professionals are only as good as their contacts and as good as their strategies for spreading a message.  And that’s why social media is the perfect complement to public relations. Success on that platform deals with how well a person can provide engaging content.

Sometimes when looking for an answer, its right in front of your face. PR people often forget that at the end of day that it is how well we are able to communicate to others how they should write about whatever we are representing.  Therefore, for anyone starting out in the PR field or for those who are responsible for that area in their job, they should heed these simple suggestions.

TIPS FOR PR SUCCESS

(1). Don’t ever assume people will write about your product. Great content will get covered if its story is told interestingly for coverage.

(2.) A press release on its own is never a good strategy for pick up. Distributing press releases over a wire will not garner top-notch results, because you need to send it to a targeted list of people whom you know that cover that sort of product. It’s a left-right punch.

(3.) Relationships are the key to any business. Therefore, build up your followers and fans so that when you need some help in starting a movement, you have a terrific base to start from and grow upon. Keep meeting people online and in person – every connection made does present some opportunity.

Yep, it’s that simple. If you know how to relate to others, then you are on your way being a success in public relations. That’s my PR tip for the day.

Cindy Keeps It Simple

Cindy Ronzoni is a public relations veteran who has been building media relationships her entire career. She often speaks to college students and provides seminars to train small business professionals. In all her efforts, she exhorts simplicity in all that she does.

 

How to Best Use Google Plus

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What do you think about this new communication platform? It is a hit or miss?

In social media circles Google’s new social networking platform Google Plus is the most talked about new shiny toy. With Google Plus, people with gmail email accounts can organize their circle of friends in logical groupings and easily video chat with 10 people or less at the same time.

Many of its functions are similar to Facebook, so early adopters can understand its practical functionality.  For instance, you have status streams of recent posts from your friends on Google + and it easily allows for sharing of photos and video too.

If you haven’t received your invite yet to to Google +, don’t worry you will soon. I’m sure its Google intention to have everyone in the world on their social platform. Just wait, your invitation is forthcoming.

I’ve been experimenting with it over the last few days and I still am not sure of all its bells and whistles. So, with that, I’ve interviewed two social media strategists, Stacey Soleil and Darin McClure, about their views regarding Google Plus and that interview is below.  Enjoy and let me know what you think.

 

Add Cindy to your Circles

 

About the Author: Cindy Ronzoni frequently interviews colleagues about the latest new advancements in social media. Today, she tackled Google + with two experts who attend her social media club, Social Media Mastermind of Orange County (SMMOC). If you have a question about a social media tool, just let Cindy know. She’ll try and get an answer for you.

 

How to Write Killer Blog Content-Timeless Advice from C.S. Lewis

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C.S. Lewis' Advice is Timeless

C.S. Lewis never ceases to amaze me. For those of you who do not know C.S. Lewis, he was a renowned theologian who taught at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and authored more than 30 books in his lifetime, including the children’s Narnia series, Mere Christianity and The Screwtape Letters.

C.S. Lewis’ work is revered by many around the world. In fact, so much so that his life was portrayed by actor Anthony Hopkins in feature film “Shadowlands,” and his Narnia books such as “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” have been brought to the big screen. However, not only is his work memorable, he lived his life transparently and openly shared his thoughts and struggles through his powerful pen.

His work has had a profound impact in my life and I often re-visit his words when searching for answers about life circumstances. Recently I had such a time when I needed to heed his advice and as such, stumbled upon a jewel in regards to guidelines for creating incredible content.

Whenever I attend social media events, inevitably this one question comes up every time – how do you make content that others want to read? C.S. Lewis provides the answer.

In a letter written to a schoolgirl in America, who had written (at her teacher’s suggestion) to request advice on writing, here’s what he had to say. The letter is from December 14, 1959 and his advice is spot on for the 21st Century.

CREATING MEMORABLE BLOG CONTENT

C.S. Lewis’ 8 Tips for Writing Incredible Blog Content (Source: The Essential C.S. Lewis, edited by Lyle W. Dorsett)

  1. Turn off the radio. (Today that also includes the TV, Pandora, iPod, X-box, etc.)
  2. Read all the good books you can and avoid nearly all magazines. (This one is tough for me.)
  3. Always write (and read) with the ear, not the eye. (Excellent point)
  4. Write about what really interests you, whether it is real things or imaginary things, nothing else.
  5. Take great pains to be clear. Remember that though you start by knowing what you mean, the reader doesn’t, and a single ill-chosen word may lead him to a total misunderstanding. (Brilliant point)
  6. When you give up a bit of work don’t throw it away. Put it in a drawer. It may come in useful later.
  7. Don’t use a typewriter. The noise will destroy your sense of rhythm. (I think he wouldn’t mind the computer keyboards now.)
  8. Be sure you know the meaning of every word you use.

So don’t take it from me on how to write content that gets shared…use these 8 points from the literary master C.S. Lewis. Who if he were alive today, I’m sure would be answering every Facebook and Twitter post personally.  That’s the stand up man he was.

Off to do a bit more reading.

Cindy

 

 

TAKE A DAY OFF! It Works for Chick-fil-A

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When Is Your Business Closed

Sundays are my personal days to be more human-like and step off the grid. I frown on forwarding and receiving business on this day of rest because I need to recuperate from the past week and get restored for the next. When I receive business-type tweets from others on Sunday, I feel really sorry the people who sent them for those tweets tell me that they are not resting. I rarely tweet on Sundays and when I do it’s about something that I found shareable that occurred at church or another social event. I rarely tweet out anything that I would normally do during a business week. Why?

BECAUSE EVERYONE NEEDS A DAY OF REST

In order to stay  balanced as well as mentally and emotionally healthy you need a day to rest from your electronic devices. You need a day to re-charge your batteries and chat on the phone with friends or go to a social event. Or just some time to do laundry or take a walk.

If you think by not sending business messages out seven days a week you’ll lose business think again. Look at how well does Chick-fil-A restaurants do on a six day work week. It was reported that last year the company’s annual revenue was $3.4 billion. Not too shabby huh.

In an interview with ChristianityToday.com VP of Chick-fil-A Dee Ann Turner said this about being closed on Sundays.

“It is doubtful that a public board of directors would allow Chick-fil-A to stay closed on Sundays…When we started in the mall business, Chick-fil-A always led all the restaurants on sales even though we were only open six days to their seven. I think that is still true even though the majority of the restaurants are now free-standing restaurants.

People always say to S. Truett Cathy (Founder of Chick-fil-A), “You could make so much money if you opened on Sunday.” His response is that we’ve been so successful because we have not been open on Sunday.

Truett’s children, two sons and a daughter, actually wrote a covenant that they would not do two things: 1) Sell the company or go public, and 2) Open on Sunday.

A lot of people believe the no Sunday practice originated due to Truett Cathy’s faith. And it did evolve to relate to that over time, but originally they closed on Sunday because Truett was exhausted. He needed rest. He said that if a person couldn’t earn a living in six days, then he needs to do something else.

It was about rest, but also about spending the time to rejuvenate and get strong again to serve his customers. As he hired people, he also realized how important it was for his employees to also have a day off.”

So what’s your philosophy on taking a day off? Do you agree with Truett Cathy? I do. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

 

 

 

 

Social Media Day What A Success!

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Thank you Orange County Register for hosting a Mashable Social Media Day event.

How did you celebrate  #Mashable’s Social Media Day? I celebrated it with my local social media club, Social Media Mastermind of Orange County (SMMOC) at the Orange County Register. For those of you who know me, you know that I love to support journalists and their publications, therefore, it was a win-win for me to be at the OCRegister.

Kudos to everyone who was involved at this local gathering. Employees at the paper, like Kevin Sablan, did an amazing job of lining up speakers, equipment, parking access and food vendors. The content that was provided was definitely “remark-able” and hopefully, a good time was had by all.

YEAH FOR SOCIAL MEDIA DAY

To help give you a flavor of what our day was like, I put some pictures together and produced a short video. The best thing about this day is the fact if you couldn’t make it to any event – you could still participate by following on the dozens of twitter hashtags that cropped up representing social activities throughout the world. It’s now becoming one of my favorite days of the year.

Enjoy!

PR TIP: TAKE A STANCE TO HAVE YOUR VOICE HEARD

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Gray is Never a Safe Area Nor A Marketing Choice

One thing you are never going to hear from a medical doctor is that you’re half-pregnant. A woman is either pregnant or not. There are no other alternatives. It’s black or white, not gray. But, this doesn’t mean you can’t be half-pregnant in regards to business and/or marketing. In fact, in my humble opinion, I feel this diagnosis of late is in epidemic proportions.

How I define half-pregnancy in marketing and business is as such: “Trying to offend anyone or anything by choosing a side, even when a side is presented.” Again, this my definition and is not official.

GO AHEAD AND TAKE A SIDE

Half-pregnancy is a common practice in politics. Politicians are always trying to walk a fine line to please all parties. They are very careful when they make “stands” on issues and subjects that they try to make sure that both political parties will agree to some or all of the parts.

It’s this ‘not wanting’ to offend that impregnates the situation. And, that tightrope places that “said” person or thing in the vast and valueless wasteland of the dreaded “gray area.” Whenever you set out to become like Switzerland (slang meaning – not making waves or taking any sides… being neutral), then you are setting yourself up to not gain attention. Its similar to this saying – ‘When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make noise?’

Taking a stance, side and position is important in making noise. Politicians want to be remembered and not forgotten because their words lacked opinion or substance.  But in this day and age of transparency (being authentic), it’s very easy for people to find out information. If you want to hold the line that you don’t have a particular agenda, they can find out in a matter of seconds if that’s indeed true.

Hello, I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up! Does anyone hear me?- Flickr Credit: Sage

To make this point a bit clearer, let’s look at this hypothetical situation.  Jane Doe is running for State Governor and she says as a female she believes that women should have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies and that birth begins at the moment of conception. She is referring to both the pro-life and pro-choice abortion movements with her professed beliefs.  But, she has regularly attended pro-life rallies and fundraisers as a part of her Catholic parish, as such it would be easy to figure out she leans more toward that cause. Which to me is fine. I am trying to make the point here that is fine to take sides, in fact its beneficial. Be who you are and make stances. Otherwise, the noise you make maybe only heard by you and that’s not a good PR move.

LEARNING THE HARD WAY

I found this out myself.  Here’s what happened to me. When I entered college I wanted to pursue a career as as sportscaster (don’t laugh too hard). With that, I was able to finagle being the guest on a local radio sports show.  It was my first foray into media and I was nervous, yet excited about the opportunity.  Five minutes into the interview he asked me my opinion about who would win the “freeway series,” between The Los Angeles Dodgers and then the California Angels.  I said something to the effect like “both teams seemed to performed strongly in pre-season” – I was in Switzerland, I gave a valueless “gray answer” and boy I got ripped when we went to the next commercial. The local sportscaster told me if I wanted a future in the business, I needed to have an ‘opinion’ on everything and I had to boldly state it. Otherwise, I would never make it. I needed to take a stance; he was right and that thought has stuck with me ever since.

I also often use this statement that I overheard somewhere…”when throwing a dinner party, it’s best to invite guests of differing opinions. Otherwise, it would make for one boring and long dinner discussion if we all agreed on the same subjects.” I so agree. We all can learn from each other.

So I’m taking a stance against the gray area and half-pregnancy and hope that you will call me out if you see me falling into this common practice. Is this something you have experienced too? I’d love to hear your thoughts.