Posted by redshoespr.com Admin on Wed, Aug 25, 2010 @ 09:07 PM
This is the notice I got the first day I started my internship at Red Shoes PR. Undeterred by the 7:1 gender ratio in the office, I was excited to get some experience in the public relations agency world. I wouldn’t have admitted it that first day, but I was definitely nervous—not nervous about getting along with people or being able to handle the workload, but nervous about the unknowns. Would I have the skills to do what was asked of me? Will I ask too many questions? What’s Hootsuite?
Thankfully, everyone at Red Shoes PR, including my fellow intern, Sara, have been extremely helpful—everyone was there not only to help me learn, but to challenge me and give me responsibility. They threw me into projects, introduced me to clients and exposed me to a broad spectrum of experiences ranging from building a desk from IKEA, to making videos and doing social media for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, to a little bit of crisis communication.
My public relations education at the University of Wisconsin—Stevens Point has been fantastic, but as the adage goes, and as I found this summer, “You can’t learn everything in a classroom.” Here are the top three things I learned this summer that I could’ve never learned in class:
1. Be yourself…everywhere. People will notice if you’re not the same online as in person. Self-control and being appropriate is important, but so is having a personality, both online and off.
2. Sweat the small stuff. Paying attention to details can be the difference between success and crisis, professional and sloppy or pride and embarrassment.
3. Finally, I learned what a successful business is built on: teamwork. Every member of Red Shoes PR was part of a team that trusts each other, and for the past three months, I was lucky enough to be part of that team. No one was ever hung out to dry, stranded with a tough project or expected to shoulder an entire client on his or her own. Knowing someone always had my back gave me a lot of confidence in my performance and made this summer more than just an internship, but the best start to and leg up on my career I could have asked for—that’s why I’m so proud to have been one of the @redshoesladies.
Thanks to all the awesome tweeps I got to know more this summer: @JessDennis, @LisaRedShoesPR, @KarenRedShoesPR, @RWollersheim, @MariaHeim, @SaralJeffers, @DianRedShoesPR, @tommytrc, @iamthomasbishop, @HarrisonLoveall @RossLaRocco @ryandietz, @tvorse, @alisonjns, @nikkivoelzke, @MrScottClark, @loveartlife, @AFiebig and @MironConstruct
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Tue, Aug 03, 2010 @ 03:28 PM
"I'm so excited about what I'm learning today on social media I called my PR person over the break and told her we are getting started!" Now that's the kind of comment I like to hear during a presentation.
Last week I was in Maine to present social media at St. Joseph College for their health care symposium and this was the comment I heard from an attendee. I was thrilled with her reaction. But she also commented about one of my key take-aways from the presentation: Implementing social media at an organization takes continuous learning through education.
However, I'm not sure many organizations understand this when they decide to take the plunge.
Here are some things to keep in mind as your organization moves forward:
Your internal audience is critical to your social media engagment but they need to be kept up to speed through continuous learning. This could include social media overviews, technology updates and in-house workshops on how to set up a Facebook account and more.
On-going education can and should reach as many people as possible throughout your organization. If employees are your best ambassadors, why would you restrict learning to a select group? Social media is not just for the marketing folks. Remember, it's for anyone who has a voice, opinion and Internet access. Take it far, wide and deep!
You want to also accommodate the many different levels of social media understanding present throughout your organization to tailor the education. For example (and forgive me while I generalize), while the Millenials might have a firm grasp of the tools, they may still need guidance on how best to represent the organization online through communications. And while Baby Boomers understand the intricacies of communications they might be a bit more unsure of how to use the tools. One shoe size does not fit all.
Give ongoing education some serious consideration as you move forward. You might even find there are more benefits to providing ongoing education than you anticipated.
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Mon, Jul 12, 2010 @ 04:11 PM
You probably weren't expecting me to include AARP.org in my blog post about my recent column! But here it is. One of my social media tips in this week's column in The Post-Crescent includes not overlooking the baby boomers when it comes to social media.
Click here for the complete column: The Post-Crescent. Let me know what you think. I always welcome feedback.
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Mon, Jun 21, 2010 @ 08:38 PM
About six weeks ago I received an email from Klout asking me if I was interested in receiving some free make up products from a big name brand. I was confused to say the least. I couldn't understand how they got my name and contact information until I remembered. I had voluntarily signed up on the Klout web site.
I remember seeing people post their tweets from the Klout web site. These tweets included a "Klout" score or rather showed what their ranking is when it comes to influence among their tweeps. While I was signing up to see what my influence was, Klout had another purpose. Klout's clients are companies or businesses who want to get their products or services in the hands of influential people online. There are a number of factors they review such as true reach, amplification, engagement and more. At my low Klout score of 41 out of a 100, I'm still a little stumped why they approached me but they did.
After I read through the first email from Klout, I decided to experiment and agreed to reviewing the CoverGirl products. After all, I do love my makeup! I also thought it would be interesting to see how Klout implements the process of soliciting reviews and subsequent policies requiring disclosures. I was pleasantly surprised.
Each email clearly stated that there were no expectations. I could simply enjoy the product and not say another word. Or, if I did talk about it I should include this link: http://cmp.ly/2 The tone of the emails was engaging, personal and lighthearted. I was definitely intrigued.
And of course I wrote a full review of the make up on my personal blog, you can read it here.
What do you think of their approach to product and service reviews? Does it make you uncomfortable? Do you think it's OK to do as long as people abide by full disclosure? Will the social media sphere accept or reject this approach? I look forward to your opinions.
In the meantime, I'll keep using my CoverGirl lip gloss and eye shadow. I'm a woman, I can't help it!
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Thu, May 20, 2010 @ 02:50 PM
I had a recent experience via social media that is a must-share. Last week online, I was searching for the next pair of red shoes. Finding red shoes can sometimes be a little bit of a challenge for me. The heel height cannot be too high or too low. They need to be a size 10 (big flippers yes I know). And, finding the right shade of red is imperative.
Of course one of my online shoe shopping behaviors is to peruse what's available at Zappos. I did find a pair that fit all of my criteria. I was in love. This dazzling pair of shoes included straps and gems -- a winning combination. So I tweeted about it, "Please tell me these shoes qualify as red shoes." And included a link to the shoes but did not identify @zappos in the post.
As tweeps comments came flying back at me via twitter, I quickly made my purchase. The time of this order was after 9 p.m. Wednesday night. In addition, the online @zappos customer service person that night also engaged in conversation with me. I'm assuming they are doing broad searches on Twitter for anyone talking about shoes and stumbled upon my tweet.
Then the @zappos customer service representative also pointed out to me that the name of the shoes is "Lisa." Yes, it was a match made in shoe heaven.
But, that's not where the story ends. The next day I got home from work around 3 p.m. Guess what was waiting for me on the kitchen counter. My precious, dazzling shoes. Zappos went above and beyond from beginning to end of my purchase. Think about how well run their processes have to be to be able to deliver those shoes by the next day. 24 hours had not even passed. I'm not even sure it was 15 hours.
The lesson here? Make sure you are listening on social media as much as you are participating in the conversation. And ... make sure you have the capabilities and processes set up on the back end to wow your customers.
Does the story end there? Absolutely not. Because now I have written this blog post and I'm going to share this experience online. Social media can really be the gift that keeps on giving. Kudos Zappos. You rocked my red shoes world.
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Mon, Apr 26, 2010 @ 10:35 PM
A couple of weeks ago I tweeted that I was only going to use Bing as my search engine tool of choice for the next five days. As a result of my experiment, this blogpost will be short.
I did my best to break my Google habit but, wow, is that hard. Every gadget I own is set up to naturally access Google. Funny enough, I found myself Googling Bing to get to their homepage.
Available Wisconsin news was also very limited. Only news generated out of Milwaukee or the Journal-Sentinel came up in searches. I know for a fact we generate quite a bit more news from around the state so I was surpised at the lackluster search results.
Many in my social media circles had plenty of opinions as I set forth in my non-scientific experiment. The majority sang high praises for the map offerings. Which I admit are pretty cool. But, my life requires a bit more than beautiful maps. I need content at my fingertips--quick!
Another interesting thing that I became aware of during my five-day odyssey? Bing has no credibility. Because I don't hear anything about it since it launched, there's no social media chatter ... nothing. Which equates to little if any credibility and that lead me to doubting my search results. And then wanting to double check my searches with a comparison of Google's results.
Google searches are a great reminder that content is truly king when it comes to the Internet. Forget the imagery, bring on the content.
My observations are also a good lesson for any company: Don't forget the power of generating continuous buzz --especially when you are launching a new service or product. But you better have the product or service to back up the buzz.
Posted by Lisa Cruz on Thu, Mar 04, 2010 @ 07:56 PM
1. You think the copy you wrote for the Web content will work for a news release
2. People are talking about your company online and you just found out
3. Your competitors are kicking your booty with media coverage
4. Your company offers the best product or service ever, but no one knows about it ... or for that matter, knows about your company
5. When a prospect Googles your company, your competitor shows up at the top of the search
6. You are still faxing news releases
7. You can't figure out why the media isn't interested in your story idea
8. You have no idea how to engage online
9. During the interview with a business editor you cross your fingers and hope for the best
10. Even though your industry is taking a beating online, and in the media, you think it won't impact your sales
11. You think social media is for B2C companies
12. Your blog content focuses on how great your company/products/services are
13. You think because you are a "people person" you should be able to handle PR
Posted by Jessica Dennis on Thu, Jan 14, 2010 @ 09:22 AM
Red Shoes Speaks No. 8 Social media, strategy or communication channel from Jessica Dennis on Vimeo.
Jess and Tommy talk about Jess' blog post called Social media, not a strategy or a tactic…a communication channel. How should companies be using social media and incorporating it into their marketing plans? Jess and Tommy discuss best practices for corporate social media use.
Be a part of the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #redshoesspeak.
Posted by Karen Buckoski on Mon, Jan 11, 2010 @ 11:08 AM
Karen Buckoski talks about how to effectively execute media relations for any organization. Media relations is not sending out press releases and keeping your
fingers crossed that it gets picked up. Nor is it calling a reporter when you
need something. Media relations is continuous, proactive communication that
builds relationships with reporters and bloggers.