“I’m looking forward to participating in this event for a few reasons, said Kramer, CEO of V3 Integrated Marketing headquartered in Kansas City, MO. “The foremost being it’s my first trip to BlogWorld. It’s a fantastic conference and I’m excited to get the chance to experience it.”
“I’m also looking forward to participating because my co-panelists are a bunch of the most wicked smart, successful and downright amazing people I know,” she added. “BlogWorld is very much a conference attended by thought leaders in the integrated marketing, PR and social media space, so it’s a great honor to be invited to speak.”
“We’ll discuss the whole #ToyotaFail ordeal and how the misguided ambition of a mommy blogger and the already struggling reputation of Toyota collided in a spectacular hot mess. We’ll look at how their social media team dealt with what could have been a full on brand crisis,” she said.
“We’ll look at the dangers of working with inexperienced bloggers and the damage that could happen to you and your brand as a result. And we’ll also discuss best practices in brand crisis management in general, including how your PR and social teams must work together and how dealing with crises in real time can make all the difference in the world,” she said.
Kramer’s panel will be meet Wednesday, May 25th from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
The world’s largest social media business conference and new media industry tradeshow, BlogWorld & New Media Expo is the first and only industry-wide tradeshow, conference and media event dedicated to promoting the dynamic industry of new media. Thousands of attendees learn about Content Creation, Distribution, Monetization and Social Media Marketing strategies, including step-by-step techniques and bleeding-edge tools from the most successful and influential Bloggers, Podcasters, Vloggers, Web TV & Radio Broadcasters, Social Influencers, New Media Pro’s and Online Journalists.
“If you can’t make it to the conference – keep an eye out for our discussion on Twitter and join in the conversation.” Hashtags are #ToyotaFail and #BWEEAST. For more information on Blogworld, visit http://www.blogworldexpo.com/2011-nyc/ .
Kramer is the CEO of V3 Integrated Marketing http://www.v3im.com , a full service digital communications agency headquartered in Kansas City, MO. A 20+ year marketing veteran, Kramer is a digital marketing specialist, content creator, speaker and web savvy geek particularly adept at helping individuals and brands find their respective voices in the realm of new media and all forms of digital communication and marketing. To the astonishment of her many mathematics professors, she’s also become partial to stats, numbers, analyses and measurement of all kinds, which is quite fortunate for her clients. Forbes has named the V3 blog as one of the Top 20 Best Marketing + Social Media Blogs and PostRank ranks the V3 blog as one of the top blogs about Marketing + Social Media.
She has written for numerous publications, including AmEx OPENForum and Mint.com and SocialTimes.com. Kramer has been named as one of the top 150 Most Influential Women on Twitter and recognized by Forbes as one of the 30 Women Entrepreneurs to Follow on Twitter. Kramer writes about marketing, brand strategies, industry trends, social media and anything else that moves her at http://www.v3im.com/blog.
I’m not a big list maker and definitely not the only one who’s pretty sick of the “Top Three This” or the “Ten Things That” type of blog posts. However, just like ordering “Combo Meal #3″ is faster than saying “I’ll have a single cheese, chili instead of fries, medium Sprite and hold the fingertip,” I’ll break my own rule and offer three easy (once you get the hang of it) things you can do to get your business noticed.
Before I commence, I should add that these three suggestions aren’t one size fits all. Your business may not benefit from all, some or any of these three things. If that is the case, well, sorry–but at least it’s only a list of three rather than ten and I only wasted a third of your time by comparison.
1. Blog. Yep. Blog. As in Weblog. You’re reading one now. But don’t set one up and then never write in it. You need to blog everyday–okay at least every business day. I try to blog everyday (don’t always, but I try). If I do a weekend post, I try to make it a little lighter–as in more fun than a weekday post which for some reason I feel has to be more serious. Write about what you know and how it effects your business or clients/customers. If you’re a Realtor, talk about what’s going on in your sales territory. My buddy Mary Hutchison excels at this on her blog. She’s like (hell, she is) a reporter–blogging about neighborhood association meetings, school happenings, etc. She even does restaurant reviews! People know that Mary knows her stuff, and that gets her noticed. Note: if you aren’t going to blog often, don’t blog at all. Nothing worse than a blog tab on your site with precisely two entries, like it’s some abandoned car you left on the side of the information superhighway.
2. Social Media.Specifically, Twitter. I know, I know. I thought it was all bullshit myself only a short time ago. (Please spare me the “It’s people telling you what they had for lunch.” It isn’t.) If you do it right, it pays dividends in many ways. How do you do it right? First, follow people who are ethical and good at it. Like my pal Shelly Kramer or the Orange Sock King himself, Mike Brown. They don’t just broadcast or sell. They interact in a positive way. They form communities that share information and encouragement. They’re human. And kinda funny (looking.) Kidding. They are funny and informative and you should follow them and their example. As in #1, if you don’t intend to stick with it and contribute, don’t do it. It’s worse to have a Twitter account that sits idle than it is to go without. (Also instructional is Redhead Writing–she drills down deeper into whether you should be on Twitter or not here.)
3. Do Good. Do the right thing, even when nobody’s looking. I assure you that even if you don’t get caught doing the right thing. eventually somebody’s going to notice. Maybe you’ll hire a PR guy who knows how to get your good deeds front and center without being obnoxious (ahem). Or just maybe somebody will read about it in a modest, humble post on your blog (see #1). Perhaps they will Tweet about it (see #2) and you will become an international sensation. Getting noticed often comes with doing good. Ask these guys. (And okay, if nobody finds out but you and your employees or family, what have you lost?)
That’s my three. I confess that none of this stuff is “easy” right off the bat. It takes effort. But anything worthwhile does, right? Now get out there and get noticed. If you need a PR firm to help, you can find us right here, trying to do good. Or on Twitter. Whichever.
Shelly Kramer of V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency talks about making your PowerPoint perfect and your Keynote kool (yeah, terrible punning, I know). She even mentions the Keynote presentation of a certain PR firm, brought back from the dead by the talents of Al Bonner. Read on….click the link at the end to read the entire piece (with the before and after presentation slides) on her blog. Thanks Shelly!
I’ll be the first to admit that developing PowerPoint presentations (or any other kind) isn’t my strong suit. But as a Comms major in college, standing up in front of a roomful of people has never been an issue – big surprise, I know.
For me, words are infinitely more important than slides – so treating them as accoutrement to the topic – not as the star of the show, is important. Less is usually more (and better) and clean, simple and direct is rarely a bad strategy.
Al Bonner, a friend and frequent collaborator, however, is a presentation pro. I’ve really learned a lot from him in the past year, as I’ve watched him build his company, Presentation Transformations from an idea into a successful business.
After sitting through more presentations than I can count, I know this to be true – most of them suck. And most lack an element that really wows the audience. Presenters often cram too much information onto a slide, making them boring, overwhelming and sometimes even impossible to read. Do you find yourself zoning out in the middle of the majority of the presentations you’re sitting through? I know that I do – and sometimes they’re presentations being made by people who know better – they just don’t know how to create a compelling visual presentation.
There’s no better way to illustrate the difference between an okay presentation and a killer one than to show you, so here it is. Below you’ll see two presentations. The first is the original developed by my other friend and frequent collaborator, Alex Greenwood of AlexanderG PR. Alex is a terrific communicator and sought-after PR pro but, like most of us, his forte is not in developing slide presentations.
Social media has created a fantastic world of opportunities for networking, interaction and sharing. It has also created a whole new set of consequences for people who don’t fully think-through their actions.
My colleague Shelly Kramer and I were interviewed over a dust-up here in Kansas City (which has gone national) over Facebook photos featuring a medical student and a placenta. Bad judgment on the part of the students and an unclear social media policy (see Shelly’s comments on that serious issue) at Johnson County Community College have culminated in a PR mess.
We were asked to weigh in about the potentially negative consequences of social media as well as corporate and personal crisis communications:
Shelly Kramer, founder of v3 Integrated Marketing says that a social media policy should be a part of the employee handbook, much like a company dress code.
“If its not appropriate for us to take pictures while we’re at work, if its not appropriate for us to be on Facebook while we’re at work, we need to spell those things out for people,” said Kramer, who says that such a policy is for any type of business or school. “Young people go everywhere with these devices in their hands, and everything they do they document.”
Kramer says a company’s legal team can find a balance between broad and specific guidelines for the social media policy. And it should be updated or revisited every six months as technology changes.
Public relations expert Alex Greenwood agrees with setting a policy because Tweeting and status updates are now such common practices.
“Nine times out of 10, I think folks who do that are completely oblivious to any consequences whatsoever, because nine times out of 10 there are no consequences,” said Greenwood of Alexander G. Public Relations.
Greenwood says that the Johnson County Community College nursing student who posted a picture of herself and a placenta from a class is a perfect example of someone who didn’t realize the possible consequences.
“This is going to be with these young ladies,” said Greenwood.
As I said, most of the time actions made in bad judgment on Facebook, Twitter or anywhere else online goes virtually unnoticed. But there’s always the chance that something that seemed harmless (or was given less thought than what you’d order at Burger King) at the time will become fodder for an incident that could ruin a career or even a life.
What didn’t make it to the broadcast was my assertion that though this would indeed “be with these young ladies” for a long time, I believe a proper amount of contrition, time and perspective could leaven its effects. Examples of this include Tiger Woods, Gov. Mark Sanford, Toyota and just about any tabloid-addled celeb you can name.
However, this takes a concerted effort on both sides to get past this as soon as possible. If the college and the students can agree that there were mistakes made on both sides–and if the students can be allowed to complete their educations–this can be overcome. However, if it becomes a damaging, drawn-out legal battle played out in the media, it can become a scarlet letter for the students and a black eye for the school.
The public attention span can be mercifully short. This episode is clearly damaging to these students and the school, but it’s not insurmountable. Reasonable efforts to make amends on both sides will make it go away. Further acrimony will create sensationalism and it will soon be out of their control.
“…if your work is something you truly believe has everything it takes except the approval of some random gatekeeper, then here’s what you do: Shoot that gatekeeper (the bird).”
Most PR folks know the syndrome: we’re great at promoting and telling the story of our clients, but not so great at doing the same for ourselves. That’s why it’s important to have someone in your corner who’s a pal–and by pal I mean someone who will tell you the truth when you need to hear it.
A good pal will tell you when your breath isn’t so fresh or you have a stain on your tie. (A pal will tell you when you’re full of it, too–but that’s a different post.)
Professionally, a pal will also tell you that your website needs work or to get your butt in gear and start blogging (in my case, that honor goes to Ms. Shelly Kramer at V3 Integrated Marketing). In that vein, I created a Keynote slide deck for my media training seminar and found it was okay, but more often than not it impeded the flow of my presentation. I showed it to Shelly–and she gently (!) told me that my media training slide presentation needed some…er…okay…a lot of polish.
Shelly recommended I show it to Al.
Al Bonner of Presentation Transformations evaluated my lackluster presentation and told me a number of ways to make it more effective. He zeroed in on the elements that were holding back my presentation (and yes, I am using bullet points–it’s a hard habit to break, Al):
Too many bullet points. Heck, I had bullet points with bullet points under them.
Images that were hackneyed and tired.
Colors and fonts were inconsistent.
Audio and video slides were clunky.
I also went a little crazy with the animated transitions–a lot of fancy flights and typewriter effects. I needed to go to Animation Abusers Anonymous.
All of these issues conspired to distract from my message rather than enhancing it.
When Al kindly showed me how distracting those elements are, I blushed a little. I’m a professional communicator for Pete’s sake! (Though he did say he had seen worse.) But Al was right. He was that pal who tells you when you’re wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.
So, Al took my clunky Keynote presentation (he can do PowerPoint, too) and smoothed out the rough spots, cleaned up the transitions, fonts and multimedia elements. What he gave me was a consistent, creative presentation that enhanced my message and will help me focus on sharing information rather than fooling with a gimmicky, clunky slide show.
I’ve posted a truncated version on Slideshare (see below). The limitations of Slideshare prevent you from seeing the video, hearing the audio or experiencing the transitions; but what you do see is a clean, easy to follow slide presentation. Have a look, and if you want to see what Al can do for you, email him.
If you’d like to see the entire transformed presentation live with the video, audio and wisecracking PR dude, contact me and we’ll schedule your very own media training seminar.
Think people don’t read something in to everything about the way you look and present yourself? Think again:
Those seeking clues as to what’s going on inside Procter & Gamble during these challenging economic times might do well to take a look at the firm’s just-released 2010 annual report to shareholders.
Right up front is a photo of Bob McDonald presiding over his first annual report as chairman and CEO of the Cincinnati-based consumer goods giant. It’s shot in profile, with McDonald wearing a conservative, dark, pin-striped suit, and looking off-camera.
That’s a big shift from the photos in recent years of A.G. Lafley, who had been chairman and CEO for eight years before his retirement in February. Lafley favored open-collared shirts and hadn’t appeared in a suit and tie since 2003.
The change in style is obvious. And glossy annual reports tend to be tightly controlled to convey precisely the messages and images that corporations want their shareholders, employees, and customers to receive. Few companies, if any, are more protective of their reputations than P&G.
P&G spokesman Paul Fox said people shouldn’t read anything into McDonald’s change of dress for the annual report photo.
“Tie or not, our purpose to touch and improve the lives of more consumers more completely in more parts of the world remains unchanged,” Fox said in an email.
Still, corporate annual reports are key tools for making strategic impressions, said LisaMarie Luccioni, a professor of communications at the University of Cincinnati and certified image professional. Whatever message McDonald’s photo conveys, it’s safe to assume it was meant to convey something, she said.
“I do think it is deliberate. When you’re talking about an annual report, you’re talking about the prime piece of nonverbal literature that represents not only the company but its vision, its leadership,” Luccioni said. “I am convinced that every picture, every word was very much scrutinized in an impression-management way.”
Of course, that excerpt is a rather extreme example–P&G is a huge company with loads of cash riding on perception–but it should give you pause when you consider your presentation to clients, partners, employees–heck everybody.
This isn’t about changing who you are. Certainly, you gotta be you (See: Writing, Redhead or Kramer, Shelly or Godin, Seth ). This is about putting your best foot forward, and thinking of how you will be perceived and what effect that perception will have on your bottom line.
Be reasonable. If you make your living as a banker, you better look like a banker. Doesn’t mean you can’t have style or be a tad irreverent at times–just remember nobody (especially these days) wants anyone being irreverent about their money. You’re a cook with long hair? Wear a hairnet–please. Sell real estate? Show clients around in a clean car.
I don’t shave everyday. It’s a thing with me–I hate shaving and my wife says a little stubble is attractive (honest!). However, I can assure you if I’m pitching to a conservative prospective client, I shave and will likely wear a suit. Maybe someday when I’m making huge coin that will be different; but for now, I shave. (It almost goes without saying; but if I am acting as a spokesperson for a client, of course I shave and look my best.)
Just as you shouldn’t show up to casual day at the office in sweat pants and a tube top (guys and gals), don’t run afoul of your business norms if it’s going to scare away the customers. Be yourself–but be smart about it. The default position is to present your best, most polished self.
Thanks for all the great comments, congratulations, suggestions and goodwill on the launch of AlexanderG Public Relations! I’m thrilled and blessed to have so many friends, peers and yes, even competitors.
I’m all about sharing and building partnerships, and you guys have just reinforced that it is indeed the best policy.
A special thanks to Shelly Kramer and her team. They did a magnificent job on this website and Shelly truly embodies the spirit of sharing, building and positivity.
Hope you have a great weekend. If you get a chance, come on by and join our Facebook fans, connect with me on LinkedIn or drop me a line. I’d love to have a cup of Joe with you and find ways we can help each other succeed.
The recent Toyota Mommy Blogger PR Debacle is to be the topic for marketing strategist (and frequent AlexanderG collaborator) Shelly Kramer, a panelist at BlogWorld and New Media Expo in New York City May 24-26.
I’m not a big list maker and definitely not the only one who’s pretty sick of the “Top Three This” or the “Ten Things That” type of blog posts. However, just like ordering “Combo Meal #3″ is faster than saying “I’ll have a single cheese, chili instead of fries, medium Sprite and hold the fingertip,” I’ll break my own rule and offer three easy (once you get the hang of it) things you can do to get your business noticed.
