Finding unique ways to reach and engage your target audience for a B2C company can be challenging, though social media is a great place to start. For instance, a social media contest can offer: 

• Potential for news media coverage,
• a further engaged fan base talking about your brand, and
• a way to show your company likes to have fun and give back to its customers.

Once you have an established profile, steady flow of information, and solid fan base (very important), you may be ready to experiment with the various applications available on Facebook, Twitter, or whichever social network best reaches your current customers and other target audiences.

Bayview recently launched a Facebook contest for Herman Home, an upscale interior design center in Downtown St. Petersburg, where fans have a chance to win a living room makeover.

The “Drab to Fab” contest encourages participants to upload a photo of their lackluster living room with an entertaining caption on why they deserve a new one. They then ask their friends to vote for them for the chance to win:

• Grand prize: $5,000 living room makeover
• Second place: Piece of artwork valued over $1,000
• Third place: Piece from the design center valued over $300

Feel free to participate or invite your friends, family and anyone else in need of a new living room.

That was one message of a Jan. 6 Tampa Bay Business Journal article describing the importance of communication for companies going through Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Kyle Parks was quoted in the article, saying that companies need to build goodwill, and think through communications, before a crisis happens.

As former Director of Corporate Communications for Walter Industries, a $1.5-billion conglomerate at the time, Kyle handled crisis communications related to a major coal mining accident, a violent employee strike, and environmental issues.

He stresses that having a comprehensive communications plan in place is important to an organization’s well-being. Here are three key elements of a crisis plan:

1. Identify potentially damaging scenarios, and assign a general action plan to each;
2. Designate an internal team for each scenario, including lead spokespeople;
3. For each scenario, prepare customizable key messages to use in crafting statements for internal audiences, the news media, customers/clients and the general public.

• Grew chapter membership by 18 percent
• Invested in members by offering four scholarships to the 2011 PRSA International Conference
• Supported seven chapter members in pursuing their Accreditation in Public Relations (APR)
• Created a YouTube channel to share key learnings from professional development
• Launched new website with upgraded features and interactivity

I’m thankful for the support of the 12 Board members and 20+ committee chairpersons and members who contributed to the Chapter’s successes. The Board and committees manage the most valuable chapter benefits – monthly continuing education programs, an annual media roundtable with FPRA, a daylong PR seminar, special interest groups and a bi-monthly newsletter, to name a few. Their dedication and determination keeps the all-volunteer organization vibrant and successful.

Just a few days ago, I passed the gavel to Angela Walters, marketing manager for Hillsborough Community College. I look forward to seeing her lead the chapter to new heights while preparing for the PRSA District Conference, sunshine2012, in June.

A version of this post first appeared in the PRSA Tampa Bay Chapter newsletter in early December 2011.

Residents of the Tampa Bay area will join St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital supporters in 80 communities across the country on Saturday, November 19, for the Give thanks. Walk., a family friendly event bringing teams and individuals together to support the children of St. Jude.

More than 500 participants are expected to join together at the USF Track & Field stadium for the noncompetitive 5K walk serving as the official kick-off event for the national St. Jude Thanks and Giving campaign.

Last year, the second year of Tampa’s Give thanks. Walk., more than 22,000 walkers participated in 63 events nationwide, raising more than $2.4 million. In Tampa alone, more than 400 walkers participated and raised $65,000.

The walk is nationally sponsored by New York & Company, Brooks Brothers and AutoTrader.com. Local sponsors include USF, 99.5 WQYK, 92.5 Maxima, Q105, Play 98.7, 1010 Sports, ABC Action News, ClearChannel Digital Outdoor and American Medical Response. Local volunteers from Epsilon Sigma Alpha will also be onsite helping with the event and Lily the Clown will be sponsoring the kids’ play area.

Money raised from the walk will go toward treatment for each child, as St. Jude never requires families that are not covered by insurance to cover the cost of their child’s treatment.

Check-in for the St. Jude Give thanks. Walk. begins at 8am at the USF Track & Field stadium, and a Zumba warm-up begins at 8:45am.

Leah is dedicating more time toward higher-level account management work, fulfilling a leadership role with clients’ social media strategies, and managing the firm’s internship program, as just a few examples of Leah’s role with Bayview.

She has also expanded her industry involvement, specifically with the Tampa Bay chapter of the Florida Public Relations Association (FPRA). Having served on FPRA Tampa Bay’s Board of Directors since 2009, Leah was recently named President-Elect for the 2011-2012 year.  

In preparation, she attended FPRA’s annual state conference in August, joining other organization leaders and PR professionals from around the state.

Accredited PR professionals demonstrate a commitment to the profession and to its ethical practice and competence in knowledge, skills and abilities associated with the profession, including strategic thinking and planning, business literacy and legal standards.

In the Accreditation process, professionals complete an extensive application and compile a campaign portfolio to present to a Readiness Review Panel; participate in a two-hour oral board comprised of three accredited practitioners who judge candidates on 16 areas of knowledge, skills and abilities; and, after a series of classes, pass a three-hour computer-based examination covering 44 key areas ranging from ethics and law to communication models and theories.

Missy is among a group of seven PRSA (Public Relations Society of America) Tampa Bay Chapter members achieving Accreditation in 2011. Other members successfully completing the APR process include: Susan Barnes of Girl Scouts of West Central Florida, Travis Claytor of Tampa Bay & Co., Lori Hudson of Hillsborough County (Fla.), Kate Sawa of American Heart Association, Heather Sugg of William Mills Agency, and Marissa Segundo of City of Largo Recycling.

Karen Mess Frashier, APR, chairs PRSA Tampa Bay Chapter’s Accreditation committee and mentors candidates throughout the process.

Jesse Landis, principal and strategy director with Bayview, is also Accredited in Public Relations.

We might say: “Well, client, the best that we can.”

There’re many ways to tell if a PR program is working – though, notably, there is no agreed-upon standardization by the governing body of our profession. (The Barcelona Principles provide some nice guidelines, but it’s not a formula where businesses can just enter numbers and simply quantify results).

And that makes sense, as the approach to PR measurement really has to be specifically tailored for each individual campaign. There’s an array of possible metrics to choose from – and a different combination is required for each unique situation.

Foremost, we look at: “What exactly are we trying to change?” Is it an enhanced reputation, or register-rings, or new customers, or more business with existing customers, or ticket sales, or increased attendance, or sponsorship money, or more volunteers, or votes, or web hits, or phone calls, or traffic in your store, or… you get the point? There needs to be at least one overlying objective to a campaign, and your PR representation should be clearly contributing to that.

Then, breaking that down, we consider such factors as:

• New relationships
• Improved relationships
• Changed opinions
• Spikes in web traffic
• Improved SEO
• Lead-to-sale ratio
• Newsletter click-throughs
• Social media activity/engagement
• A better informed and more actively communicating staff

If the campaign is mostly or heavily focused on media relations, we can also look at such factors as:

• Amount and type of news coverage
• Prominence and reach of coverage
• If key messages made it through
• If pictures are included
• Tone of the piece

And finally – sometimes most importantly – qualitative elements contribute to the long-term value of an organization’s brand, including:

• Validity
• Credibility
• Front-of-mind presence
• Positive perceptions

PR works (well, good PR works) – that’s why it’s a growing industry. But without a precise, uniform, accountant-friendly form of measurement, isn’t it sort of a gamble? Yeah, sure, especially with the abundance of firms out there that hide a lack of achievement in graphs and charts that are as colorful as they are meaningless. The key is to focus not on outputs but on outcomes – focus on what resulted from the PR results.

If you’re working with a firm that is still measuring column inches and using advertising-equivalency-values, maybe it’s time you suggest they leave their fancy charts back at grandpa’s agency, then shop around for a PR firm that’s focused on and proven in creating real-life bottom-line results.

Bottom line: Even in today’s digital age, it’s still beneficial to work with traditional news media as long as you’re taking some key steps to help ensure that your message is reported accurately. In the article, Kyle puts forward his top three tips for working with the news media:

• Keep your answers short and to the point.
• Don’t answer a question unless you are certain of the response and are the right person to be providing the information.
• Be extremely careful about going “off the record.”

Bayview was included in "Mercury takes on marketing Ybor City"

In the article, Bill McQueen, president of Mercury Productions, says “with low overhead and access to a variety of skills, the team will work to stretch dollars. ‘The adage ‘do more with less’ is pretty much everyone’s marching orders,’ he said.”

Bayview has been working under the “dream team” model on projects for several clients (more here). A dream team is a nimble team of independent practitioners or niche agencies with expertise in a particular area partnering to fulfill different aspects to reach client goals.

Each member of the team brings a specific set of skills or knowledge in an industry, or fills another specific need. With an affiliated team, organizations can select the team members most relevant to its business based on their criteria.

Our client benefits by having the best and brightest team members working toward goals and objectives, rather than having one full-service agency that is strong in one area, but is a less ideal fit in other areas.

More information on our contract with Ybor City Development Corp. can be found here.

Chosen after an extensive bidding process overseen by the City of Tampa, the winning team for Ybor City Development Corp. (YCDC) was assembled by Bill McQueen, of Mercury Productions. McQueen will serve as the primary liaison for the account and fulfill video production needs. John Walkinshaw of Mercury will assist with marketing strategy and community relations. Kim Thomason, of Thomason Creative, and Jane English, of Jane English Creative Design, will provide brand strategy and creative design. Missy MacFarlane, APR, of Bayview, will serve in public relations and community relations capacities. Media Focus will outline media strategy and conduct media buying.

Ybor City's 7th Avenue, then and now (courtesy of Ybor City Development Corp.)

A division of the City of Tampa’s Economic & Urban Development Department, YCDC facilitates the development, economic revitalization and improvement of Ybor City’s Historic District and the surrounding community.

YCDC also provides staff support to the nonprofit Ybor City Development Corporation, Inc., a community advisory group to the City and the Community Redevelopment Agency on issues affecting the development and improvement of Ybor City. The elected Board is comprised of major stakeholder groups – residential, retail, restaurant/bar, professional/office, hotel, entertainment/events – and ex-officio members representing neighborhood and community organizations in Ybor City. Our team will work closely with their marketing committee, led by Veronica Swiatek.