It’s no secret we’re fans of dogs at Lyman PR. So when Mammoth Mountain posted a photo to their Facebook page of Atlas, the newest on-mountain team member, getting his RFID season pass picture taken, our pick of the week was an easy one.
Nov
18
Lyman PR Pick (pic) of the Week: Atlas
Nov
10
Facebook Open Graph – What Is It and What Can It Do?
In September Facebook debuted Open Graph at F8. In just one week Open Graph plug-ins were found on 50,000 sites, and during its first six weeks users listened to 1.5 billion songs with Facebook Music, Open Graph’s most visible manifestation. This demonstration was telling of it’s potential for an array of businesses, but more significantly, how do you harness it? Let’s start from the top.
What is Open Graph? Essentially it allows for more sophisticated interaction between a website and Facebook. Instead of simply ‘Liking’ something, Open Graph allows apps to model user activities based on actions and objects. The result is a status update that would read something like the following: Susie (User) shredded (action) the Unbound Terrain Park (Object).
Open Graph also allows for easy creation of aggregations and reports, which basically function as summaries of Open Graph activities that showcase a user’s interactions with an app.
What opportunity does this present for brands? Facebook says it will “Create a deep, persistent connection between you and your users, and drive new users to your app.” Certainly that’s the goal, but the question is how to achieve it. A couple suggestions:
–Word selection will become important, the word’s you use to describe the action and object must align with the brand. Establishing and using a consistent voice for all your platforms has always been important. You have one or two words, choose them carefully.
–Content, content, content (video, photos, coupons etc). That hasn’t changed one bit, what’s changed is that through the aggregations and reports, your users repeated interactions are catalogued and displayed in a meaningful way. If you can give them reason to come back, you’ll be rewarded for it.
Have you integrated Open Graph or are you planning to? Post a comment, we’d love you hear about your experience.
Nov
08
Google+ Rolls Out to Brands and Businesses
Yesterday Google+ opened up to brands and businesses, much like a Facebook Page. While the jury is out on +’s staying power, it’s worth grabbing for your business before someone else does. At the very least you can use it to point people to other active SM channels in the near term.
The process is pretty straightforward. If you already have a personal page, sign in. On the right column you’ll see “Create a Google+ page”
From there it’s a matter of following the directions to secure a name. Once it’s set up you can easily access from your personal profile, where you’ll see a drop menu appear for accessing pages.
Tip: the profile picture image is the same dimension as Facebook’s, so no need for custom sizing another icon.
Nov
03
Pick of the Week: Facebook Apps for Organizing Content
Facebook is a great way to distribute content for fans to engage around. However, posts to the Wall eventually fall below the fold, and content lacks any degree of organization.
Perhaps this isn’t a significant issue for a brand communicating about one primary subject, but for those wanted to categorize multiple streams of topics, apps are a great solution.
Our pick of the Week is Clif Bar’s app use to highlight their newsletter signup, video content and foster dialogue with Discussions.
Customizable apps such as these can easily be integrated to your Facebook page for fans to more easily find and engage with useful content.
Oct
26
LPR Pick of the Week: Legitimately Viral
The phrase “viral is an outcome, not a strategy” has been said enough times that we’re not sure who to attribute it to. But this one potentially hits the Holy Grail with potential, and we break down why in our Pick of the Week.
• It’s loaded with serious star power appealing to a wide variety of interests — a sure attention grabber
• High entertainment value yet a clear, concise and relevant message
• Right tone, right time, right audience: San Francisco is very progressive and the theme is one that resonates
• Influence and reach and reach spans business, tech, sports, politics, music, and pop culture – all important topics to the target audience
• The spark: MC, Michael Arrington, Kevin Rose, Ron Conway and Brian Wilson put it in circulation via Twitter; the five of them alone reach more than 4 million followers
• Media are piling on: TechCrunch, CNET, SFGate, Laughing Squid and reporters from Fortune and Wired have already written on it or re-tweeted
• Who knew Brian Wilson was so fly?
Oct
06
PRWeek Master Class: Experiential Marketing
PRWeek published a recent article with a panel of PR pros providing their views and tips about experiential marketing. LPR’s own Tim LeRoy jumped in to add his thoughts on the topic.
Britt Bulla, VP and director of strategy, Jack Morton:
Tomorrow’s big brands will be the ones that create and sustain experiences that make a difference for the people who matter most to them. The challenge is in making that difference.
The rise of mobile, digital, and social channels of interaction means consumers have access to more information than ever before, they’re better at filtering it, and they already have habits, expectations, and routines in place for investigating and connecting with the brands, topics, and people important to them.
Consumers will choose how, when, and where they interact with brands. In addition, how they do that interacting will often change from day to day. As marketers, we talk about the customer journey as if it’s something monolithic – but we’re already at a point where each consumer has his or her own intricate and unique journey that has been developed for interacting with brands.
Successful brands will earn a place within that journey not through a focus on what type of experiential marketing to pursue, but by being able to define a unique role within the customer’s life and journey. It’s key to create a consumer experience that is useful, compelling, desirable, and worth sharing.
The brands that get it right will consider, design, and deliver an experience across media and channels, including physical spaces, live interactions, digital and mobile, considering interplay, interaction, and amplification.
The brands that succeed will make sure the customer has the same caliber experience no matter where or when. They will also be sure to align all of their employees for experiences that occur over the Web, in the store, or on the phone.
Tim LeRoy, consultant, Lyman PR:
In travel and tourism marketing, creating a sense of place and an emotional connection are vitally important. As the sophistication of consumers has
Sep
26
Using Contributed Content to Convey Experiences to Both Media and Consumers
In travel and tourism marketing creating a sense of place and an emotional connection are vitally important. You want the audience to feel the sand between their toes or the snow crunch under their feet. As the sophistication of consumers has increased along with bombardment of information, it’s become more challenging to create the type of sensory experience that leads to a purchase decision. Suffice it to say, a press release will no longer get it done. But technology will, and thanks to advances in the cost and quality of video equipment in particular, experiential marketing is no longer a concept that carries a large price tag.
For many years, the familiarization visit, or ‘fam’, was a tried and true tactic for travel and tourism marketers. It involved inviting media to your location and providing them with an experience that spoke to the resort or destination’s best qualities. Through the power of words and pictures, their audience would then share in their experience. Simple enough.
Then things changed, media budgets were slashed and staff sizes cut in half. For many outlets, the resources necessary to send someone out for several days to participate in a ‘fam’ trip were no longer available.
If you can’t bring media to the your resort, bring the resort to the media, but why stop there – bring it directly to the consumer as well. Video and social media aren’t new to the experiential marketer’s kit. What’s changed is that they’re now so affordable to use, everyone can do it, all you need is a flip cam and some basic video editing software. From there, you’re limited only by creativity.
Distribution is a synch too. Offering the video as contributed content to bloggers and online publications meets their continuous need for fresh content and has obvious publicity and SEO benefits. Think of it as a VNR for the digital age, only without the stigma. Posting video to your Facebook page or YouTube channel provides direct engagement with your core audience. In short, creating an experience has never been easier, or, perhaps more importantly, cheaper.
Here are a few suggestions for creating experiential video:
• Don’t promote – producing content that is overtly promotional will limit your ability to place the video on blogs and onlines
• Entertain – Remember, you’re fighting the honey badger for views, give your audience a reason to watch
• Inform – If you use a spokesperson, choose someone with credible expertise, stay away from a suit
• Keep it brief – Attention spans are what they are, don’t fight it
Aug
24
SoMe: How Brands and Businesses can Put “Me” in Social Media
Think back to the last social gathering you attended consisting of mostly strangers (party, conference, mixer or other event). Were there dozens or even hundreds of people but only a handful that stand out in your memory? And we’ll bet that those handful of people were not shy wallflowers, rehearsed perfectionists or uptight bores but rather highly intelligent, slapstick funny or refreshingly honest…in short, people with dynamic personalities. Now imagine a room of thousands of people…how distinct would a person have to be to stand out now?
The social media landscape is more akin to this second scenario. If distinct personalities command our memories and attention span in a room of 100 or so strangers, imagine how important personality is for the social media space with millions of them. So as a company or brand, what are you doing to share your personality to gain the attention of a consumer with a thousand suitors?
Since a company’s personality often defines the brand, let’s turn to one that was founded and promoted as loud, sometimes brash, but always stands out: Virgin.
Aug
17
Case Study: Public Relations Campaign for Santa Catalina Island Company
If TMZ were around in Hollywood’s golden era it might have had a bureau on Catalina Island. As the playground for A-listers of the day, stars like Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Charlie Chaplin frequented Catalina. But in the decades that followed, the island faded from the collective conscious, settling in as sleepy getaway who’s charms were known only to handful of visitors, residents and boaters who relished the Island’s natural beauty.
In 2010, the Santa Catalina Island Company sought to bring Catalina back to the fore and kicked off a campaign that would update aging facilities, create new and exciting adventure activities and reinvigorate the island’s tourism industry. Infrastructure was an important part of the revitalization effort, but the marketing and communications campaign that followed set the stage for unprecedented growth. By reintroducing California to Catalina, Santa Catalina Island Company’s marketing efforts, in conjunction with Lyman PR, help usher in the Island’s next golden age. Relying heavily on public relations outreach, the campaign successfully influenced its target consumer audience in the key Southern California segment plus secondary markets nationwide.
But that was only the beginning. The resulting coverage also caught the attention of production teams working on some of television’s highest-rated TV shows. Eager to take advantage of Catalina’s updated facilities and aesthetic appeal, programs like the Bachelorette and the Ellen DeGeneres Show exposed the entire country to the new Catalina.
Research
The reintroduction campaign relied heavily on market research that would inform much of the strategic planning process and its subsequent execution.