December 2013 - Konnect Agency

Gifts for Every Publicist on Your List

December 20, 2013 by Carmen Hernandez

As Brandy pointed out below, this public relations agency booked over 130 holiday gift guides for their clients. After all those wonderful placements, you might be wondering what the ladies and gents of this PR Firm would put on their wishlist.

Here are some of the items that our publicists would love to have:

1) A Wristband iPhone Holder, so we never have to put our phones down again.

2) A response from a writer we have been reaching out to for 9 months.

3) A Camelbak filled with endless amounts of coffee.

4) A gaggle of a-list celebrities endorsing our client to anyone who will listen.

5) A cute notebook, so their endless to-do lists look less daunting.

6) Godivas because chocolate

7) Most importantly, an extra 6 hours added to everyday.

I would personally be happy with just the chocolate [hint,hint], but the others would be nice as well.

Happy Holidays!

From the desk of…

Emily

5 Ways To Maximize PR During The Holidays

December 18, 2013 by Carmen Hernandez

When planning a strategic PR campaign, the holidays can be your best friend! Almost every media outlet produces a holiday story or gift roundup – often times, several – so this is your opportunity to get your product or service in front of millions of people looking to spend their hard-earned cash NOW. Here are a few tips from this public relations agency to help you maximize publicity during the holiday season.

1) BE PREPARED: You will want to be prepared as far in advance as possible, especially if you are targeting print magazines, which often start compiling gift guides as early as June. Business owners should be certain that their product will be available and fully stocked to support a large influx of orders.
2) BE TIMELY: Too early or too late will get your holiday pitch nowhere. Make sure you know what month your target publication is working on, and pitch accordingly. Businesses should have samples readily available for those quick-turnaround media requests!
3) GET CREATIVE: Think of out-of-the-box pitch angles to give your product a competitive edge. Which do you think is more likely to be covered – a roundup of Neckties for Dad (yawn) or a story on Dressing Your Family for the Annual Christmas Card?
4) KNOW THE KEY PLAYERS: Make sure your pitch reaches the correct writer or editor. Look for contacts who produced similar features the year before. A pitch to the wrong contact is a pitch down the drain.
5) FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP! FOLLOW UP!: If you have forgotten about your pitch, so will they…. So follow up often!

Here are a few examples of how this PR firm maximized the 2013 holiday season by booking more than 130 holiday gift guide media placements for our clients!

CNN Headline News
Women’s Health Magazine
EverydayHealth.com
Traditional Home Magazine
SheKnows.com

From our office to yours, happy holidays!!!

Xo Brandy Shuman

Tapping into the Social Media Influencer Market

December 10, 2013 by Carmen Hernandez

As Facebook attempts to clamp down on organic reach and a flurry of IPO’s force social media companies to think about their own bottom lines, marketers now seem to be getting cornered into buying more and more ads. In this environment, earned media increasingly starts to seem like a desperate and eventually futile attempt to keep engagement levels above water.

But not to be discouraged, as earned media will continue to stay relevant, and the reason behind that will almost certainly be due to influencers. In fact, the influencer market may soon be experiencing a total renaissance. And here’s why:

A social media influencer tends to be an expert on any given topic, who over time accumulates an engaged fan base that most importantly trusts them. The process of reaching out to these influencers involves a heck of a lot of research, and it’s something that our Konnect Interactive social media team is constantly on the lookout for. Once you’ve found yourself an influencer that fits the bill, you have to establish a relationship with them, which often requires a certain kind of finesse as well.

So how exactly will this process experience a rebirth?

It can be summed up in two simple words, Influencer Networks, or searchable databases that connect and match marketers with influencers in a more seamless, one-stop shop type of experience. Naturally, the success of these networks will hinge upon having considerable databases of both influencers and marketers to work with, but their success will also invariably depend on just how searchable and intuitive their interfaces will be.

Currently in the market, there are many variations of these types of networks available, some paid and others offering their narrow service for free. But connecting marketers and influencer’s remains to be a time-consuming, often expensive challenge for those trying to drive engagement to their social media pages.

So if necessity is the mother of all invention, and social media companies continue to try and milk every ad dollar they can, then we should expect to see some drastic developments in the influencer-marketer landscape in the months and years to come. And that would be a good thing!

Thanks for tuning in.

Tamir @ Konnect Interactive

Influencer Social Media — Social Media Influencers

The BEST and WORST of Social Media – Vol. 1

December 9, 2013 by Carmen Hernandez

As a Social Media Account Coordinator at Konnect Public Relations, I have been fully immersed in ALL that is the social media scope. The benefits of using Social Media in order to have a relationship with consumers and fans are ENDLESS. However, it’s safe to say that with every positive comes an unfortunate negative. From minor annoyances to major love, I have quite a few quips about Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest to share with you. Vine, Snapchat, Google+, Foursquare, etc. – you all are safe (for now).

Please see my own personal list of love and hate below:

Facebook

The Positive – Facebook has made creating Ads and Promoted Posts easy as 1-2-3 with Ads Manager. FB walks you through building the exact ad you’d like to create AND even tells you how much potential traction that ad has based on the amount your willing to spend. And spend you will…

The Negative – Organic growth is becoming near impossible on Facebook. FB makes reaching new users without ads increasingly difficult which in turn makes spending money on Ads/Promoted Posts basically mandatory. Additionally, this process is not fool proof and takes much trial & error so businesses must be willing to spend a buck (or fifty).

Twitter

The Positive – Unlike Facebook, Twitter’s interface makes connecting with users that fit a business’s targeted demographic very easy. With a little bit of work and a user-sweeping app, businesses can organically grow their following by hundreds each month. (Note: This will involved a lot of clicking and wrist exercises.)

The Negative – Getting your message across at 140 characters or less can be quite difficult, especially if 23 of those characters are TwitPic text. Still, statistics show that Twitter users don’t want to read more than that anyways so “abbrev” and use bit.ly links when possible.

Instagram

The Positive – Instagram has been having a major growth spurt since its inception in 2010. With over 150 million monthly active users, Instagram is the place to be for businesses who are seeking to gain exposure via social media. Why is Instagram the place to be? Well, I suppose it goes without even saying.

The Negative – Two words: CLICKABLE LINKS. Get it together, Insta!

Pinterest

The Positive – Ease of use. Pinterest is always updating their interface to make it as user-friendly as possible. Some of the newest features include swiping gestures for pinning and exploring and Place Pins which allow location tagging.

The Negative – Pinterest is not so user-friendly for business. Still belonging to the startup category, Pinterest has taken to drastic measures to keep their users from getting spammed. This means blocking marketers from using certain strategies they deem as “hyperactivity.” Marketers/businesses, prepare to be temporarily blocked from the site at least once or twice and do not, I repeat, DO NOT let it hurt your feelings.

All this being said, I could not be a BIGGER advocate for social media as a marketing tool. Social media is one of the only spaces for businesses to connect on a personal level with their fans and show a genuine interest in having a relationship with their consumers. The Konnect Interactive team at this LA-based PR agency is happy to offer insights like these whenever possible and will be back with another volume of Best & Worst.

Happy holidays to ALL and enjoy the below cartoon! 🙂

xx Alisa