middle child marketing inc.: Publicist Sandra Garcia, Event Publicity, Lifestyle PR, Public Relations, Media coverage, Vancouver BC

Ever been burned by double tweeting?

Oh, how I love Hootsuite. It makes our lives so much easier – the messages across all of our social networks, the scheduling of tweets, all of our mentions and private messages and the lists we like at a glance in separate columns… Hootsuite is indeed a great thing, and bonus that it was borne right here in our fine city of Vancouver.

The other great thing about Hootsuite is it allows us to Tweet across several Twitter accounts. But is this always a good thing?

Over the last year or so I’ve seen duplicate messages simultaneously going out from personal Twitter accounts and business accounts. I get that perhaps a CEO doesn’t mind sharing his/her personal news to followers of his/her company as well. As they say, you want to show that your business is run by a person, right? I can also understand a company with several departments (@VancouverSun or @GeorgiaStraight, for example) with different followers on these accounts who may all want to hear the news. Sometimes those 5 tweets at a time get annoying, but I understand.

But I’ve seen some really bad tweets out there… whether followers recognize it or not, I’ve seen very obvious personal tweets going out on company accounts… or individuals who perhaps didn’t want to reveal that they were tweeting for the company they work for (Interns? Hello, I see you!). I tried to find an example right now, but no one’s tweeting for business at night…

So while Hootsuite (or Tweetdeck, or other similar socmed tool) is a great timesaver tool and makes business and personal life much easier on social media, if you’re not careful with those thumbs and mouse-clicks, your double tweet might cost you.

After trying out the auto tweet-on-Facebook feature (I rarely like to use @ references on Facebook), and the Facebook post-on-Twitter features, my personal preference is still to think about the message, and whether or not it’s appropriate for each network. And I’ve done my share of tweets that weren’t meant to go out, but always try and rectify them by deleting right away.

Have you ever been burned by a Hootsuite mishap?

The future is online…duh.

After today’s media tour hosted by IABC BC, I came to a realization today, as did many of the other attending PR practitioners, I assume: the future is online.

The ladies at IABC know how to do it. In the course of about 4 hours, we visited the Vancouver Sun, CKNW, CBC, and were treated to lunch with Global TVBC’s Wesla Wong. There were some common messages that have been clubbed into my head over the years, which the gracious media hosts were still asking us to do: be relevant… be newsy… understand our programs… don’t blanket pitch. But the standout message of the day was that, at the end of the day, media aren’t just covering for one outlet anymore. They’ve evolved to include online.

Vancouver Sun newsroom meeting

This was not huge news to me, but when I sat down at Vancouver Sun’s first editorial meeting of the day – focused on their WEB content – I think that did it for me. To my knowledge, CKNW hasn’t quite evolved to the level of showing video on their site, but the other three all have separate web staff. The CBC is so organized now – physically – that their entire multimedia news team works on the same floor and the stories that go on radio and/or TV are almost guaranteed to go online. It made me think about all the stories I might have lost for my clients if I had not even thought of pitching for online exclusively. (Because yes, no matter how good you think your story is, it is rarely applicable to all three media types.)

CBC Vancouver Newsroom

Case in point, my boyfriend Leo, who writes on VancouverBeerBlog.com. He isn’t a web expert, and is too modest to even call himself a beer expert. I helped him set up his WordPress blog in October of 2010 and taught him how to use Twitter and keywords in his tags, posts, and categories. Though he certainly isn’t the only beer blogger in the city or province, his traffic is quite substantial (according to his interpretation of Google Analytics) and he reached over 1,000 followers faster than I did (two years). At last weekend’s Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) Annual General Meeting, he was given the first Gold Award for Best Beer Blogger/Writer for 2012. My boyfriend, who, when starting the blog almost couldn’t tell the difference between your and you’re, won Best Beer Writer of 2012.

Continue reading…

Nurture your website: WP Security & Plugins

This is somewhat of a test post, but even apart from the practice of Public Relations, I think that developing and nurturing a website and the way in interacts with visitors and blog readers is an extremely important part of the Marketing and branding process.

I was sitting with a former colleague (thanks Leon!) last night about how much we love to use WordPress. I learned about some security features that can cut down on the chance of WP websites getting hacked:

• Don’t leave the Login link on your website.
• Don’t use “admin” as your username. I think WP was encouraging this early on but then now you have the freedom to choose any username, but not to change it.
• Use the WP Security Plugin. I couldn’t find this one in a first search, so maybe someone can help me out with this one.
• Use the Captcha plugin to avoid comment spam. This one is a no-brainer; I implemented it on my review site already, but seem to be having problems with it on this website.

Second, I have learned that plugins are amazing. While I was under the impression that some plugins would only work on WordPress hosted websites, it looks like the upgraded version allows self-hosters like myself to use them. I have just installed three social media plugins for all of my blog posts:

• WP FB Like – Places the “Like” button in each post.
• Plus One – Adds the Google +1 button in each post.
• Tweet This – Adds the Twitter “Tweet This” button in each post.

While I’m sure there are variations of these, they seem to look and operate fine so far. Any other great (or better) plugins you swear by?

Let’s ex the niceties, and get down to business

It’s been a long while since I’ve written a blog post about business or marketing. Most of you who visit the site will know that my “blogs” are all about client news. Which is great, but sometimes you just want to hear from the people who run the business. So here’s my first of hopefully many more business-related blog posts in 2012.

2011 has been the most successful year for Middle Child Marketing. I won’t disclose actual numbers, but let’s say that sales increased by 377%. By a lot. And while I didn’t really change a lot about myself or the work that I do, I sure as hell looked for better opportunities than the situations that I found myself in compared to 2010 and in previous years. It’s really important to take what work you can get when you start out, but when you’re more experienced in my opinion, and a bit more successful, you can start going after what you want rather than wait around for big things to happen.

One thing that changed the game for me was sending emails. Thanks to my 6-month mentor Cathy Kuzel, I learned that if you’re going to send out a cold sales email, wording is of extreme importance. The other thing was being flexible. But later on in the year I started to learn that it was almost better to be firm than to be flexible, because if you’re TOO flexible, there’s a big chance you can take advantage of. On a few occasions I found myself charging the same rates I did three years before when I was starting out freelancing.

Which brings me to the point of my blog post – after four years of doing business in Vancouver on my own (which I LOVE, by the way) I’ve learned that people here are just too nice. This could very well include me, but I found that people were just too shy to tell me what their PR or Marketing budgets were, or what they needed help with. And this makes the business process run much slower. When we’re talking million dollar budgets, of course you want to do due diligence and call your lawyer before you close a deal. And when you’re searching for a marketer, of course you want to take your time, shop around, and make sure you’re paying for the service you want. But I’m talking about the ones who are just too NICE to say no. I had a 15 minute call with a potential client just a few weeks ago where we went back and forth on some ideas, and she said my ideas were great and might fit with a new product that will be launched in Spring, but that it made no sense to move forward now. I loved this call. 15 minutes of our time, and we re-book the discussion into the Spring. No time wasted.

Photo credit CartoonStock.com

Then there are others who I prepared a lengthy proposal for, which was a surprise to them because my rates were way far off from what their budget was, so I revise and send back, and wait, and wait some more. And then they say they aren’t ready because my services cost too much, and they decided to hold off on PR anyway. I would have rather had them ask for my rate, say it was too much, and let me get on with my business and them with theirs. 

Fit is everything. At the end of 2011 I made a few changes to my website that I hope reflect better what my company about and encourage those who are a fit to work with me to reach out, tell me their story, and get down to business. And I hope everyone else is doing the same, because it’s a new year and we just can’t waste any time being too nice, too scared, or too unprepared. Even if you have no idea what you might need and if I can help you, it’s important to just ask those questions. PR folks like me are great with referring to others who are a better fit. I even dish out 10% cash for successful referrals. I like to think that I’m a nice person – actually, a great person – to do business with, but in the end it’s not about being nice. It’s about making money and reaching our goals. So here’s to more of that for us both in 2012!

Episode 5 of “Video Mondays”: Ads vs. Editorial

Tried to do this week’s video outdoors, but the sun pretty much took over.

So here’s a regular old Video Monday on the difference and importance of knowing the difference between ads, editorial, and advertorials!