Archive for the ‘Highlights’ Category

« Older Entries

A Year As President

Thursday, January 12th, 2012 by Missy

In 2011, I served as president of the Tampa Bay Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). With nearly 200 members, it is one of Florida’s largest professional organizations for public relations practitioners, serving members representing corporations, nonprofits, agencies, municipalities, hospitals, schools, professional services firms and non-profit organizations.
PRSA Tampa Bay Chapter logo
The organization focuses on advancing the PR profession and educating the PR professional. I was honored to have the opportunity to serve the chapter, and my fellow PR practitioners. I’m happy to reflect on a successful year:

  • 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.

Posted in Agency, Highlights, Industry Commentary | No Comments »

Missy MacFarlane Achieves Professional Accreditation

Thursday, September 15th, 2011 by Leah

Missy MacFarlane, principal and account director with Bayview Public Relations, has successfully achieved Accreditation in Public Relations. The APR designation is the mark of distinction for public relations professionals.

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.

Posted in Agency, Agency Announcements, Highlights | Comments Off

Dream team concept makes news

Monday, August 1st, 2011 by Missy

On Friday, the Tampa Bay Business Journal wrote about Bayview and its role with Ybor City Development Corp. in “Mercury takes on marketing Ybor City (sub. req’d).”

Cover of the Tampa Bay Business Journal on July 29, 2011

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.

 

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Agency Announcements, Highlights | Comments Off

A How-to on Social Media for Real Estate

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011 by Leah

Bayview presented to the Florida Gulfcoast Commercial Association of Realtors (FGCAR) this week on Social Media for the Real Estate World. The presentation included how to implement Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogging and e-newsletters into everyday commercial real estate business practices.

Download-able PDF of presentation is below

Here are a few of the questions we were asked, with our answers, which might be helpful for any company’s social media strategy.

Why is it important NOT to delete comments on a company’s Facebook page?

People “like” brands and companies on Facebook for many reasons, and they appreciate the two-way communication it allows through comments. With that said, negative comments are bound to happen. Instead of deleting a negative comment, managers of social media pages should address the comment in a respectable way and request the conversation be moved offline to a phone call or email. Deleting the comment will only increase the person’s frustration. Be sure your company has excellent  customer service capabilities if you decide to dive into social media. A plus is that when a comment is addressed effectively online, it’s very powerful.

If all the social media channels are implemented for a business, is it still important to have an actual website?

Absolutely. The first thing a potential customer will do to research a company is search online – and not finding a website can be very frustrating.  Although they may easily find your Facebook or LinkedIn profile, having a website allows for more information and is more professional than only utilizing social media.

If I start a blog, how do I get people to actually read it?

Feed your blog directly to Twitter and Facebook and consider repurposing the content for an e-newsletter. Use your existing database for your e-newsletter, and include the option to unsubscribe.

Download-able PDF of social media presentation

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Agency, Highlights, Trends | Comments Off

10 tips for real estate marketing and PR

Thursday, February 3rd, 2011 by Leah

It’s a whole new world in real estate, which means sellers simply have to alter their marketing and PR techniques to attract buyers.

Bayview president Kyle Parks recently spoke to approximately 100 attendees of the Urban Land Institute’s Real Estate Trends Conference, part of a panel that presented the audience with tips on how to “market in the new real estate market.”

Kyle speaking on "marketing to the new market" alongside Jennifer Lugar of Standard Pacific Homes and John Rymer of Rymer Strategies.

Credibility is job 1, and no marketing channel – whether it’s social media, traditional news media or advertising – will work if you can’t show that in a compelling way. To build credibility and support your buying proposition, marketing and PR need to show a buyer why they are getting a good value, instead of just telling them.

Here’s a list of marketing tips to think about for the new market.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Events, Highlights, Industry Commentary, Trends | Comments Off

Social media results

Wednesday, January 26th, 2011 by Missy

Bayview Public Relations was retained last year to generate interest in The Reproductive Medical Group’s second annual “New Beginnings” fertility conference at the Marriott Waterside Hotel in April 2010.

Bayview’s objectives were to increase registrations for “New Beginnings” by 50 percent and increase the ratio of prospective patients to current patients attending the fertility conference. In addition to leveraging existing relationships with key reporters and editors, Bayview set up a Facebook fan page for the Reproductive Medicine Group, and counseled the RMG on effective social media engagement.

The Reproductive Medicine Group's Facebook pageThe Reproductive Medicine Group’s Facebook page was started in February 2010 and quickly has grown into an online community for past patients to share their success, support current patients and provide hope to prospective patients. It has become a clearinghouse for patient testimonials and includes images of children conceived with the Reproductive Medicine Group’s help.

Bayview initially set up the Facebook page and spent six months assisting in the management. The Reproductive Medicine Group has managed the Facebook page on its own since November 2010, and its community continues to thrive. Throughout the 2010 campaign, Bayview worked closely with the Reproductive Medicine Group’s marketing/advertising agency of record, Schifino Lee, to leverage the event-specific landing page, an online media buy on GoMamma! section of TampaBay.com and text-to-register capabilities.

Overall, the 2010 campaign surrounding the “New Beginnings” fertility conference exceeded the goals set. Conference registrations doubled as compared to 2009 (200 in 2010 versus 100 in 2009) and a majority of 2010 attendees were prospective patients, whereas 2009 attendees were mostly current patients of the Reproductive Medicine Group. Bayview attributes the campaign’s success to a powerful marketing mix: significant coverage in the Tampa Tribune and TBO.com, targeted online ads and inclusion in the Working Women of Tampa Bay Facebook news feed (3,700 “fans” at the time).

Posted in Agency, Case Studies, Client News, Highlights | Comments Off

Solar model recognized as world’s first

Friday, January 21st, 2011 by Jesse

Bayview client, Regenesis Solar Power, is featured in this month’s edition of Sun & Wind Energy magazine, a leading international trade publication about trends and advances in renewable energy, published out of Germany.

This coverage, along with other trade and local coverage, validates our claim that the Regenesis business model, which offers consumers Solar Hot Water as a service through utility companies, is the first of its kind in the world.

Without start-up costs or maintenance worries, only a flat locked-in monthly fee, the Regenesis model represents perhaps the easiest and most economically viable way for an average household to not only adopt a form of clean and renewable energy, but to start saving money on electricity from day one.

Regenesis and Bayview are both psyched about the potential – we truly think that this model could help jumpstart widespread use of solar power in our country.

Information about the first program, in partnership with Lakeland Electric (Florida’s third largest public utility), is available at www.SolarLakeland.com. We expect to introduce the program in several other markets through 2011.

Posted in Client News, Highlights, Trends | Comments Off

What do you get with 40 TVs, a DJ booth, wine cellar and an $8 million home sale?

Monday, January 10th, 2011 by Leah

WFLA- Channel 8's 6.p.m news coverage of Matt Geiger selling his mansion

You get news coverage.

Sometimes PR involves finding a trend or niche for a client to tap into. And sometimes the client news is so interesting on its own, that it creates its own path and as Kyle likes to call it, gives it “legs” – meaning the story walks around on its own (with our help, of course).

Bayview PR was recently given the job of doing media outreach for Engel & Volkers’ sale of retired NBA player Matt Geiger’s 28,000-square-foot north Pinellas County mansion. And we quickly realized how many “legs” the news would have.

Since this was mainly a local story, we created a targeted list of local reporters and outlets to contact and thought, “Let’s see how much the media cares.” As we were finalizing our plans for outreach, the St. Petersburg Times’ Mark Puente broke the story of the sale on a tip. Then, after getting the news release out and doing follow-up with other outlets such as the Tampa Bay Business Journal, The Tampa Tribune and WFLA-Channel  8, our story walked all over the place.

Turns out the sale of a 6-bedroom, 8-bathroom house with a shark tank in the bathroom, 12 buffalo, and a 330,000-gallon pool with a fire pit in the middle is newsworthy, and even conversational. We started thinking it was a theme park with a 5,000-square-foot guest house attached.

Posted in Client News, Highlights, Media Relations | Comments Off

ULI housing forum draws attention

Thursday, July 1st, 2010 by Kyle

The outlook for the Tampa Bay area’s housing industry continues to be tough, but there are a few bright spots for the developers and builders who still have cash and are smart enough to find opportunities.

That was the message at last week’s Urban Land Institute housing forum at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Tampa. Among the panel members: Andrew Wright, managing partner of Bayview client Franklin Street Financial Partners, a fast-growing Tampa-based commercial real estate company.

Andrew used a Warren Buffett line to describe how tough times can show who’s smart and who isn’t. “When the tide goes out, you see who’s been swimming naked,” he said.

The event was covered by both the Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times, each included other thoughts by Andrew on the state of the market in their coverage.

St. Petersburg Times column by Robert Trigaux

Tampa Tribune story by Shannon Behnken

Posted in Agency, Agency Announcements, Case Studies, Client News, Highlights, Industry Commentary, Media Relations, Trends | Comments Off

Success for Southwind Hospitality

Monday, June 28th, 2010 by Jesse

Florida Real Estate Journal recently featured Bayview client Southwind Hospitality, a full-service hotel management company, in “Tips for Lenders Choosing Hotel Management.” Southwind Hospitality has also seen results from recent coverage in the St. Petersburg Times and the Gulf Coast Business Review.

Southwind Hospitality has properties from the Bay area to Jacksonville (and its executives have hotel experience from around the country). They handle all management responsibilities for a property owner or for a lender – and they move quickly, providing a sales and marketing plan and budget within 30 days of takeover of a property. The company is presently focused on distressed and underperforming properties, such as those in receivership or foreclosure.

Gilles Arditi guest column

Southwind Hospitality, small but growing quickly, offers high-level personal attention, with the experience to handle accounting, e-commerce, front desk operations, yield management, sales and marketing, food and beverage services, and general hotel operations. As just one example of their success, earlier this year Southwind led changes at a Jacksonville Howard Johnson that resulted in a 65% year-over-year increase in occupancy.

Posted in Agency, Case Studies, Client News, Highlights, Media Relations | Comments Off

« Older Entries