MarketingMel

Editor’s note: The following blog post was written by MarketingMel Associate Sarah Kinsler. (Sarah and Mel tried out the Vine app in the lobby of  WJCW Radio last month before going on the air to talk about social media trends.)

Mary Ellen Miller and Sarah Kinsler at the Tri-Cities TN/VA PRSA awards.

You can break a bull riding record, cross three state lines or experience an amazing “he’s the one” kiss. You can also post your adorable toddler’s toe-tapping hoe-down to international acclaim.

Now Twitter founders have introduced a way to capture these six second memories and share them! Vine, an app that allows users to shoot, combine and loop video is now the #1 app on iTunes. This app is quickly becoming the preferred outlet of social interaction amongst young adults and teens. However, large corporations and brands are jumping on the bandwagon as well.

But here’s the real question: Can brands tell their full story in six seconds? Maybe not the full narrative, but it is a  definite way to get a person intrigued. Including Vine in your marketing plan can increase brand awareness and add some personality to your updates and news. While a Vine video is only one-fifth of a typical commercial, it can generate buzz to a specific audience that would otherwise ignore alternative media outlets.

Which brings me to my next question: With apps such as Vine, Snapchat and Twitter, delivering information in a such a quick and effortless way is becoming the norm. What does that mean for the future of print media? Are our short attention spans going to change the process of how we get our news? What do you  think?

Continue Reading

MarketingMel (center) with current intern Kristen Pierce and past intern Sarah Rowan who is now employed by the Johnson City Chamber of Commerce.

MarketingMel was honored to be featured in a recent issue of Ragan.com’s PR Daily for the post “How to Find a Job in Public Relations.”

Here is the link to that post in case you missed it and I have re-printed it below. It was my most popular blog post ever and I refreshed it when PR Daily asked if they could publish it.

It seems like every week I field a call from a desperate college student seeking advice on how to break into public relations. I’ve answered their questions so often that I thought I would jot down a few tips I’ve learned during my more than 25-year career.

1. Think strategically. What is your goal, and how can you accomplish it? Have a plan. Write it down as you would a business plan, and then work it.

2. Seek internships. Be sure to have one; they often lead to jobs. Furthermore, internships help you understand if this business is really for you. (It can be stressful!)

Treat an internship as if it’s a job. Be ready with a professional resume and photo. Be prepared with questions and skill sets you to have offer.

3. Set yourself up for success. Have an outlet after your internship. Look for opportunities, volunteer and play up your accomplishments. For example, my recent intern Sarah Rowan, was the top PR student at her community college. That impressed me.

4. Communicate with communicators. Communicate on their terms through their channels, and be sure to identify yourself. Since I founded my firm, there was only one time a college student reached out to me in such an engaging way that I asked to meet with him. If you want to see what the pros are doing, listen to Twitter chats like #soloPR and #journchat, and say hello.

5. Study the thought leaders. Look who’s leading the way in your chosen field, your community and the world. I treasure my virtual friendships with my international friends.

6. Innovate. Use the latest tools and learn about new ones. The communications field changes daily. Be sure you keep up with it. (My assistant and I recently used Vine to create a video message, and have fun, too.)

Are your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles up to date? Ninety-five percent of all headhunters are on LinkedIn, so you need to be there. Use YouTube to present yourself on video to a future employer. Skype is another handy tool.

7. Learn something new. Do you know a foreign language? Spend time abroad. Be open to opportunities elsewhere. There will never be a better time in your life to move somewhere and do something different. It will expose you to a new way of thinking.

8. Show kindness. Put the phone away in class and have some real face time with your teachers and friends. This goes for online behavior as well. Others can tell when you genuinely care about them.

9. Follow journalists. Media relations is part of public relations. Follow your favorite journalists and engage with them. I often chat on Twitter with my local news anchor, Josh Smith. We are both early risers, and our friendship has deepened with our regular Twitter banter.

10. Know your strengths and weaknesses, but focus on your strengths. “Now, Discover Your Strengths” by Buckingham and Clifton is a book worth reading. It includes an easy-to-take online quiz that will help you determine your strengths.

11. Create your personal brand. Put some thought into this one. Again, there are some great books available (see Tom Peters’ article, The Brand Called You). Remember, your personal brand will follow you from job to job for the rest of your life.

What suggestions would you add to this list?

Mary Ellen Miller, “MarketingMel,” mentors a rising, young PR pro each year as part of her firm’s mission. Connect with her @MarketingMel. A version of this article originally appeared on MarketingMel.com.

Continue Reading

Editor’s note: The following is a guest blog post by attorney, friend (and former colleague from my law firm marketing days) Laura Steel Woods. She wrote this article in response to several well publicized social media identity theft cases.

Remember these?

Many years ago, before phones were used to update your Facebook status and check-in on Foursquare, they were used to call people. Sometimes, those calls included prank calls, which were intended to be a joke, for the most part. The thought that it might be “stealing” someone’s identity probably never crossed a prank caller’s mind. Now, with ready-made access to accounts on LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+, or creation of a Facebook fan page, the implications of what used to amount to prank calling have ramped up significantly.

Think about it—most phone calls are directed to one person/location, where you consciously select a contact from your electronic phone book or pull the number from your head and individually enter the digits. Deliberate. Calculated. Intentional. Controlled.

Social media is different. The reach is intended to be broad. Control is relinquished, while not always thoughtful at least knowingly, once you post your status update. As with so many other parts of our lives, social media has certainly changed the landscape, or at least raised the stakes, of identity theft. Consider the mass in which we communicate. The “victims” in the SM setting, just like a prank call, go beyond the person whose identity was compromised and can include those who relied upon the prank information. The breadth of victims in the SM setting is vastly different. Whose identity is stolen does, in part, determine whether there are legal consequences, just like IRL (example: impersonating a police officer versus impersonating me. One will get you jail time, the other will get you a lot of student loan debt.).

The legal system faces a huge challenge as it attempts to keep up with a medium that can’t even keep up with itself. How do you handcuff wireless communications, the internet, the Web or avatars? The remarkable resiliency of the justice system will probably find a solution, just like it has in all other advances along the timeline of history. Another interesting watch will be how much push-back the legal system receives given how protective the public is over the “right” to do anything and everything it wants with social media.

What I’m pretty confident won’t change is the need for us to be ever-conscious of our social media presence. It may seem like a small inconvenience or, at worst, momentary embarrassment if your identity is pranked on social media. The speed at which information travels, though, can cause the fallout to balloon beyond your world before you know it.

Laura Steel Woods

Laura Woods is Vice President of Legal Affairs for a local consulting company. In a previous life, she was a labor/employment partner with a regional law firm where she started the firm’s social media program with a Twitter account and a blog. You can find her on Twitter as @LauraSWoods.

Continue Reading

Mark W. Schaefer met up with MarketingMel at SoloPR Summit for the interview.

Social Marketing Guru and Author Mark W. Schaefer took time to sit down with MarketingMel at the recent SoloPR Summit in Atlanta. Mark has written the best selling books Tao of Twitter and Return on Influence. I first met Mark in person at SocialSlam. SoSlam 2013 is coming up on Friday, April 5 and I’ll be heading to Knoxville for it as I do every year. I  hope to see many of you there. Meanwhile, MarketingMel got this interview “scoop” on Mark’s third and newest book, written with Stanford Smith, Born to Blog.

Continue Reading

Editor’s note: This week’s post is from Part 1 of 2 from guest blogger Aundrea Y. Wilcox, a professional business consultant and author of the book, Startup Savvy: Strategies for Optimizing Small Business Survival and Success.

I think that I’m a pretty easy going person.  I’m open-minded to most ideas and willing to try new things even if it’s outside of my comfort zone.  But my daughter says that once I get stuck on something, it’s hard to get me off of it.  I admit it’s hard for me to let go of something when I’m really ticked off, which takes some doing by the way.  Right now, I’m stuck on something that I witnessed yesterday that was mind-blowing to me.

Knock, knock … Your pizza is here. 

When my husband received his pizza order from a local pizza store last night, a bright pink flyer was glued to the box top.  The flyer advertised a new nail salon a mile or two down the road.  There is an existing nail salon right next door to the pizza store, which has been in business for at least a couple of years as far as I know.  I was surprised by the flyer for two reasons.  First, the pizza store was a major chain.  You would think there would be a lot of red tape involved in getting the required permission to attach a local flyer to each box.  Second, the pizza store was promoting another nail shop located in another retail center.  Would this not be an act of negligence of tenant?

Being the person that I am, it was impossible for me not to immediately look up the chain’s Values and Philosophy.  They say that their mission statement and guiding principles make up the core commitments that govern their business decisions.  They say they are committed to an inclusive culture which values the contributions of their customers, team members, suppliers and neighbors.  If that is true, then why would they treat their next door neighbor so poorly (as in this case)?  Not only is this un-neighborly and in bad taste, it’s setting a fellow small business owner up for failure.

Sadly, 80% of small businesses fail before they ever reach the five-year mark.

Common reasons for failure include: lack of money; lack of experience or education related to their business endeavor; lack of a written business plan; and lack of passion.  If you are a small business owner, how enthusiastic would you be about your neighbor helping one of your competitors promote their business across town?  Even if you are not a business owner, how would you feel about anyone sabotaging your progress?

Instead, wouldn’t it be nice if someone shared with you what has worked for them and what has not worked— ultimately saving you money, time and frustration? Wouldn’t it be nice if we all followed mom’s advice to love thy neighbor as we love ourselves, or as the GOLDEN RULE says: treat others as we would have them treat us?

If you’ve been in business for more than five years, someone out there has undoubtedly helped you grow your business into what it is at the moment.  Every day is an opportunity for you to return the favor to someone else.  Small business owners should be looking for ways to help their neighbors not hurt them.

Next week: Four things that you can do right now to help your neighbor rather than hurt them.

Aundrea Y. Wilcox is a professional business consultant and the author of the book, Startup Savvy: Strategies for Optimizing Small Business Survival and Success.  To connect with Aundrea, follow her on Twitter @StartupSavvy, and “Like” her Facebook Author Page, StartupSavvy.  Visit startupsavvy.biz for more insights and tips about small business ownership and management.

Continue Reading

The MarketingMel team, including intern Kristen Pierce, worked on the highly successful Johnson City Turkey Trot.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to February, a month where we think about the wonderful relationships in our life! On that note I am showcasing several guest bloggers starting with Kristen Pierce, my wonderful public relations intern.

I am an intern with MarketingMel. Mary Ellen Miller (Mel) chooses one intern to mentor each school year. The amazing opportunity was awarded to me for the 2012-2013 academic year.

My time with Mel started off a little differently than most internships. Yes, I sent her my resume, headshot and several writing samples like most hopefuls do when applying for a job. What was different about Mel was that she requested me to complete an assignment before our interview and before we had ever met! She had me research personal training marketing strategies. I was confused on why she needed this information but was determined to impress. At the time I had no idea the “trial-run” would turn into one of the tasks I would be working on with Mel.

As you know, I got the position as her intern! My time with Mel has been crucial to my growth as a young public relations professional. She has taught me how to apply the skills I learned at East Tennessee State University to real world situations. Some of my responsibilities include: meeting with Mel and her clients, accompanying Mel to Chamber of Commerce events, writing news releases and stories for the student newspaper for Mel’s clients, compiling agendas, helping her enter awards programs and so much more.

To elaborate on my responsibilities, I would like to talk in depth about my work with the Johnson City Turkey Trot. During this project, I was able to work with another fabulous mentor, Jenny Brock. Some tasks I was to complete included: writing a Turkey Trot article to run in the East Tennessean, ascertain quotes for yard signs and banners, link sponsor logos to their websites on the Turkey Trot webpage, create the sponsor appreciation flyer that was in every race packet and distribute promotional posters on the ETSU campus. It was a great learning experience to be a part of such a huge event in the Tri-cities area. This year the event was the largest ever with over 4000 participants!

Another venture I worked on is Mel’s Personal Branding How-To Webinar. As I mentioned earlier, I was confused on my pre-interview assignment. This project is where it came into play. I learned how and where to send press releases for a national project. That’s something I did not learn in Writing for PR! I was able to see how much work it really does take to launch such a huge product. I saw first-hand how to promote and sell products. Overall, this is something I think I’ll be able to implement in a new job when I graduate.

Tips to getting an internship:

1. Clean up your social media
2. Research the company before applying
3. Check with your schools advisement offices to learn of new opportunities
4. Polish your resume and cover letter
5. Dress to impress. Make sure you are completely put together.
6. Relax and be yourself in the interview

Mel has given me a wonderful opportunity and I will forever be grateful. Among teaching me the ins and outs of public relations, she has given me the gift of confidence. If it weren’t for Mel’s encouragement and belief in my abilities, I would not be the young professional I am today. I owe it all to my amazing mentor and am eager to continue with Mel this spring semester! 

Kristen Pierce is a senior public relations major at East Tennessee State University. She is active in the Public Relations Student Society of America. In her spare time she studies Chinese. She loves traveling, fashion, big jewelry and dogs. Connect with her on twitter @kristen_pierce.

Continue Reading

As twitter gains in popularity more and more people are both using the social media site and impersonating others there. Recently I received a phone call from WJHL-TV reporter Mike Lamia  asking my professional assessment of the twitter hoax that was committed on Sullivan County Schools ‘Director Dr. Jubal Yennie. It seems that just for fun an 18 year old student set up a false account and started making amusing tweets about snow days under Dr. Yennie’s name. The Sullivan County Sheriff’s department got wind of the case and  arrested the young man for identity theft.

As I sat at WJHL waiting for the interview, I pulled up ‘Dr. Yennie’s’ twitter accounts on my iPad. I noticed two things: The “real” Dr. Yennie (it appeared to be tweets from educational conferences several months ago) and the “fake” Dr. Yennie (one that was laced with profanity.)The fake Dr. Yennie even had his photo attached to the account. What struck me as puzzling was that the Sullivan County Sheriff’s department said the first fake account had already been taken down. So it appeared to us that there was now a second Dr. Yennie “Impersonator” once again pretending to be someone who is the face of education in Sullivan County. Several days later I saw this reported by the local newspapers. At this writing I do not yet know what happened to the impersonator behind the second , more caustic, “Dr. Yennie.”

What lessons can we as “average” citizens learn from all of this?

1. It’s important to protect and monitor our personal brands. Google provides a free tool called “Google Alerts” that is one way to catch news of you or others like you.
2. Each of us can also simply Google our name or our “brand” identity to see what is being said online about us. With so much of our lives now being lived online we need to be vigilant in protecting our personal brands.
3. Just as in password protection and phishing scams that I’ve written about in this column previously, some of the burden of safe computing falls on us. Remember to change your passwords often.

Finally, was this or was this not identity theft? Does the first guy, who was apparently more of a prankster, deserve lighter punishment than the profanity-laced second suspect? What would you have done if this was your name and your brand? Now that schools are in the forefront of safety questions are we a bit touchier about “cyber” safety issues there than in the past? A final thought: Remember to practice safe tweeting!

Continue Reading

Amanda Littlejohn and MarketingMel met in D.C. to plan our Personal Branding talk for SoloPR Summit

Next month I’ll be presenting about the Power of Personal Branding with SoloPR colleague and personal branding guru Amanda Littlejohn of Mopwater P.R. at the first ever Solo PR Summit in Atlanta.  When Amanda and I met in Washington, D.C. last weekend to talk about our presentation I shared the story of how having a personal brand helped me when I found myself suddenly unemployed for the first time in my life. It was early 2009 and the job market was tanking. My employer, an interactive, digital development firm, supplied web based products to Lexmark. Lexmark in turn supplied to Circuit City, which went belly up. That led to pay-cuts,  a first round of layoffs and then the second round that caught me and several of my colleagues in the cross hairs. But I was in a position quite different from many of the people who found themselves unemployed in the recession. Thanks to the power of social media and in particular twitter, I had a strong personal brand. In an age when Tom Peters says we are all “Me, Inc.’” and CEO’s of our own brands, I had created the MarketingMel presence on twitter. It was strong enough that a search on “MarketingMel” landed me several spots ahead of Mel Gibson in Google Search. I didn’t need to look any further for the name of my brand new public relations firm! If social media presence put me ahead of a famous actor then what can it do for you and your brand? No matter how secure you feel in your corporate job today, times could quickly change. Remember to build your brand both online and  in-person through face to face networking no matter where you are in your career.  It will pay off for you in the long haul. (If you’re and independent P.R. pro and haven’t already registered be sure to sign up now to get the early bird discount and save more than 20%. Hope to see you in Atlanta!)

Continue Reading