LaChapelle Communications

Branding With Social Media

Your professional FaceBook page, your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter account, and your professional blog - and any other social media outlet you utilize - should all have similar tone and a similar graphical ‘look’. You may be reaching different audiences, but YOU are the same. Yes, slight differences are allowed, even expected. But, overall, there should be a cohesive feeling - visitors should visit your FaceBook page and recognize it as your company’s.

Some Basic Tips

• Don’t use Twitter to tweet about your kids’ soccer practice if you also use it to tweet about your latest client. The same goes for FaceBook - if it’s a professional site, treat it as such. Don’t follow the path of this ‘wanker’.
• Don’t use the standard Twitter background - customize it to utilize your colors or, better yet, your actual design elements.
• Pick one item as your ‘core’, whether it’s your actual Web site or your blog, or anything else, and push to that from all your other areas.

Elementary, my dear Watson? Maybe. But we’ve all seen so many people do this wrong. A few who’ve gotten it right? McCormick & Co.’s Old Bay 70th Anniversary events. Black & Decker DeWalt Top 17 Finish Carpenters contest is another. They utilized various techniques cohesively, were fluid in their content and reactions, and attracted their core audience and then some.

Flies Carrying Ads

What? Flies carrying ads? Yes, you heard correct, folks. I’m still a little miffed at the ads on my cell phone, so this latest is truly interesting. I have no idea what the company is or what they’re selling, but the concept is amazing. Genius.

To Blog or Not to Blog

That is the question. FaceBook, LinkedIn, Twitter - many have jumped on the bandwagon. Increasingly, many people feel compelled to publish a blog. But how do you know if a blog is right for your company or for your  product? How do you k now whether or not you should publish or post a blog?

Honestly, a blog is not right for everyone. Let’s be frank - it’s a waste of time for you and your blogger to be writing posts that no one looks at.

First, determine your audience - who will your blog be aimed at? Your current customers, or potential customers? Maybe both. Alternatively, maybe it’s an internal blog aimed at your employees. Maybe you have a different audience entirely.

Next, determine your niche. What will set you apart? People are busy - they need a reason to come to your blog, and to come back. What will make them sign up for your RSS feed? How will you stand out, what fresh content will you provide?

Another question to ask is how often will you post? Is a post needed hourly, daily, or weekly? Maybe you just need a few a month! It’s a fine line between inundating your audience and losing them because you don’t post often enough to be relevant.

Determine your tone. Professional, humorous, serious, informative, personal? There are many choices, and who you are writing to will determine it.

Finally, decide who will write your blog. Will you use someone in-house, or find a freelancer? Do you need someone who is familiar with SEO techniques (yes, even for blog postings)? Or do you just need someone with a fresh writing style, or someone who, frankly, has the time to do it?

Don’t feel bad if you decide not to pursue a blog - it’s not right for everyone. But if you do choose to blog, be sure to plan it out beforehand to ensure you’re on the path to successful posting.

10 Questions to Ask when Developing Social Media Strategy

Simply slapping together a FaceBook page, LinkedIn site, and a Twitter account does not a social media strategy make. Per Dr. Sean Carton’s article in InView!, following are ten questions to ask yourself when developing a social media strategy.

1. What are we trying to accomplish?
2. Why social media?
3. What kind of social media will best help us achieve our goals?
4. Are we prepared to let go control of our brand?
5. What will we do to encourage participation? What are you planning on doing to drive people to your social media presence?
6. Who will maintain our social media presence?
7. Do we have the resource to keep this up, or will this be a short campaign?
8. How does engaging users via social meda integrate into our overall marketing/communications strategy?
9. How do we measure success?
10. What will we do less of if we’re spending resources on social media?

All important questions, and all need to be answered when putting together your social media strategy plan.

Krispy Kreme’s Demise

Ever since I’ve noticed that all the stand-alone Krispy Kreme locations were shutting down, I’ve been fascinated with the demise of Krispy Kreme. They sell a great product - cheap, delicious, well-known, everyone loves them. How have they failed so spectacularly?

I found my answers recently in an article by Carol Kopp on Yahoo Finance titled, The Tragedy of Krispy Kreme.

Per the article, it appears that Krispy Kreme fell victim to classic business mistakes: over expansion, too much debt, and rumored management misconduct. Additionally, they weren’t prepared for the increased interest in healthy foods, and many of their franchisees suffered.

However, Kopp also writes that with new management and a rise in both its share price and Standard & Poor’s junk credit rating, Krispy Kreme may be on a bit of an uptick. It will be interesting to see if they can turn it around - if they can utilize their great product and fix their business and marketing missteps.

Twitter and PR

Jeff Davis, a recent speaker at the 2009 Chesapeake Conference, is somewhat of a local expert on social media and, specifically, how to use it for public relations and marketing. He has nicely uploaded the Twitter and PR Resources that he used in his presentation onto his blog and Web site, Sawmill Marketing.

Another great tool is their Sawmill Guide to Baltimore Media on Twitter - an invaluable resource.

2009 Chesapeake Conference

The 2009 Chesapeake Conference and Best in Maryland Awards on Tuesday, October 6 was a great day of learning, networking, connecting, and planning. It was a jam-packed day of multiple same-time sessions, covering topics including Twitter and PR, How to Get Big Agency Results from a Small Shop, Defending Corporate Reputation in the Age of Social Media, and Networking with New Media, among many others.

A keynote speech by Sandy Hillman of Sandy Hillman Communications started the day off - sessions by Jeff Davis, David Warschawski, Dave Imre and his panel, Bill Atkinson, Peggy Hoffman, and Dave Harrison, among others, followed. At lunch, the Best in Maryland Awards were announced and given out - congratulations to all the winners, incluging Best in Show winner Sandy Hillman Communications for their work on the 39th Annual World Series of Poker.

Overall, attendees had glowing feedback - some even calling it “the best conference I’ve been to since 1999!”. Many others raved about the Learning Journal given out instead of the usual binder and bag. The day was packed with learning and networking opportunities - including the happy hour after the sessions were over.

There were a few reporters in attandance for the Speed Pitching sessions, including Liz Farmer (who brought a photographer!) from The Daily Record.

Want to attend the Conference after the fact? Follow up on via the Conference’s Twitter stream under #Chessie09.

Chesapeake Conference

Does your social media knowledge need a shot in the arm? Looking for a way to network with public relations professionals? Want to hear the latest PR trends, tips, and tactics? If you’ve answered yes to any of these, then you should attend the 2009 Chesapeake Conference next Tuesday, October 6.

With sessions like “The Latest in Twitter and PR,” “Defending Corporate Reputation in the Age of Social Media,” “Activating Grassroots PR”, and “Networking With New Media,” among many more, and speakers such as David Warschawski, Jeff Davis, David Harrison, Bill Atkinson, Dave Imre, and Peggy Hoffman, along with keynoter Sandy Hillman, the Conference will have something for everyone.

Visit the Conference site for more information and to register. Hope to see you there!

Setting up a Shingle

I’ve written before about the hit that marketing, advetising, and public relations takes during a recession. I serve on the Board for PRSA-MD, and half of the Board members have gotten laid off this year. This statistic is also high for our members. With a plethora of talented advertising, marketing, and public relations professionals glutting the workforce, hitting up against a limited number of available jobs, particularly for senior-level professionals, it’s no wonder that more and more advertising, marketing, and public relations mavens are deciding to set up shop on their own.

Some advice:

Find your niche. Have you dealt with alot of restaurants? Maybe a larger percentage of your past work has been with automotive? Do you have alot of experience planning large events? Small events? Whatever it is, find your niche, and market it. Just like any large company, you need to differentiate yourself from all the other sole practitioners out there.

Professionalism. Answer voicemails and e-mails promptly. Put together a slick Web site. Have business cards made up. From day one, put your best foot forward - after all, in this industry, more than any other (other than the straight beauty industry), impressions have a huge impact.

Hit up your contacts. Hey, it can’t hurt, and it may even help. Get the word out that you’re providing your considerable knowledge and experience under your own name. You never know who knows who, or who has heard of what opportunity.

Network. Join a professional group, join a local networking group, attend career educational events. Come armed with business cards.

Elevator speech. Have your standard ‘elevator speech’ - a one or two sentence description of what your company does, and why you do it better than anyone else - down pat.

Essentially, start out with how you want to finish. Take the time to put together a business plan - it will guide all your decisions.

Good luck!

Social Media Guidelines

We’ve all heard about the companies whose social media policies reek of Big Brother - no blogging, tweeting, posting, e-mailing about the companies, its clients, or its products. The most recent induction into this group is ESPN.

ESPN recently established new social media guidelines, outlining that their employees are banned from discussing anything related to ESPN or sports on any social network. While companies do need to be aware of the legal risks their social-media-involved employees invite, broad-sweeping policies like ESPN’s are more often than not considered detrimental.

Banning employees from talking about ESPN or sports is harmful for employee moral and it hinders employee professional growth. Looking at the bigger picture, restrictive social guidelines hinder the company from benefiting from all that social media has to offer. They can’t use it to promote themselves or their product, develop relationships, or invite feedback or ideas.

While putting social media guidelines in place is a necessity today, it is important to weigh the pros and cons of these tools when determining how strict those guidelines should be.