Studio 31A

Test post

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 19:03:00 GMT

This is a test post from a mobile device. We're ready to roll out posting via iPhone and iPad, we we'll see if this works!

If you are reading this, be sure to contact us and see how you can keep your blog posted on the go.

- Posted on mobile

What PR Pros Do

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 16:41:00 GMT

So what do you do? Depends on who you ask!

Several industries have had their reputations on display the past few days as a new meme has spread across the Internet. So since everyone from media buyers and media sellers to political operatives have had their turn, we thought the world needed to understand PR professionals a little better too.

Agree? Disagree? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Create or Aggregate Content? Both.

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 19:26:00 GMT

Found this article on AmEx OPEN and wanted to share it with you all. If your job at all involves online activity or content (i.e., 99.9% of all PR professionals), then this is a must-read article on how to balance both creating original content as well as aggregating content from across the web. Marketing today revolves so much around providing solutions. And if clients are going to trust you (or customers trust your clients) then you have to be positioned as someone who can provide solutions.

"Blog posts, articles, e-books, comments and what we see on Facebook and Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn, all of that stand-alone information, is content. Content is evidence of knowledge and experience. It's useful and people like it.

"Many experts prove themselves by offering content. One of the very best ways to validate who you are is by publishing what you know. And we do most of that for free.

"Once, there was value to finding information. Now, there’s value to sorting through the vast oceans of available information and sifting the good from the bad, useful from useless..."

You can continue reading the article here, but first, do you both write original content and aggregate other content? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Studio Notes for December 16, 2011

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:16:00 GMT

A little over one week until Christmas, so this Friday's post will be a mashup of notes on articles that you might find interesting...

AddThis: Facebook Makes Up 52% of Sharing on the Web
Familiar with the ubiquitous AddThis button on websites these days? You should be, given the button appears on more than 11 billion websites today. And after looking at how their 1.2 billion users share stories online, over half of that sharing takes place on Facebook.

I advocate picking just one social network and going all-in on that one. Today, more and more data shows us that Facebook is that one...

What the World’s Biggest Websites Looked Like at Launch
We're always preaching that building a website is less like building a house and more like maintaining a lawn. To underscore this point, here's what some of the big boys looked like out of the gate...

Public Relations: Coming to a B-School Near You
The PRSA is (rightly) advocating that PR take a more prominent role in MBA programs. In a world increasingly reliant on freelancers, entrepreneurs, and individual branding, there can be no better skillset for emerging business leaders than the simple skills to effectively communicate via speaking, writing, and presenting. It will be interesting to see how academia responds to this acute real-world need.

14 Stats That Mattered for Media and Marketing in 2011
In October 2011, Facebook users spent more time on that site than all of recorded history. This and many other key metrics -- many pointing to long-term changes for communications and marketing -- courtesy the witty wizards at AdAge.

How Adobe Is Giving Madison Avenue Something Else to Worry About
We know, love, and use Adobe products and services every day. And with Flash out, there's new opportunities for this creative giant. See what might be in store for Adobe as it undergoes a shift that many other large companies should consider.

Digital Works to Lift Brand Awareness and Sales -- Without Direct Response
There has always been a divide between online and offline marketing. For the longest time, offline marketers refused to acknowledge digital. It was a child's plaything. Now that marketing budgets are increasingly moving to digital, the new guard are reluctant to cede ground to the old soldiers of print and TV. But increasingly, we're going to hear a new buzz phrase: Integrated campaigns. And this article shows how they work.

Integrated campaigns are and always have been
the future of marketing communications.

At least they should be. As communications professionals, we should focus first on the target audience, and what action we want them to take. The channels to reach and motiviate audiences are fragmented, but it is our responsibility not to break them further appart, but to weave them together into a comprehensive whole.

What are some other great articles and trends we should talk about as 2012 approaches?

Facebook Page? Check. Now What?

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:16:00 GMT

In society today, we love checking things off our lists. We love projects, because projects have an end point. We love finding new work to bring on our desks, then promptly and efficiently moving them off our desks.

I think that's one of the challenges with social media, and Facebook in particular. We love setting up a Facebook page. Adding the picture, putting in our address, inviting all our friends... it's a very satisfying thing to check off our lists.

But the problem is, social media is not a project, it is a process. Successful online outreach involves not creating but maintaining and improving over time.

So what does it take to build a successful Facebook page? Here are three things PR firms, communications professionals, and other organizers can do to make their presence on Facebook worthwhile:

1. Content

Without content, your Facebook page will wither. We see it over and over - organizations post content religiously for days or weeks. Their audience responds and their metrics jump. Then they quit. They let it slide. And the audience withers. The metrics crash.

People like Facebook pages from brands for the offer. If the page is for a retailer or consumer-facing organization, they want specials. That could be deals or special access (for bands or politicians). If this is a B2B presence, the offer is inside information. What's the scope? What new and interesting information do you have to share that they can't find anywhere else?

More content and media-oriented organizations can build a Facebook page by simply bringing the content from their site onto Facebook. Look at the success of social sharing apps like the Washington Post and Yahoo.

2. Community

Once you have a baseline of content streaming onto your page, engage the community. Ask questions, engage in debates, make it personal. Highlight members of your community (especially when they create great content). Facebook pages are the perfect example of the new model of two-way communications. It is not enough to produce outbound communications, you must foster and engage inbound communications as well. Facebook pages are the perfect place to create these forums for engagement. Because not only is your audience on Facebook, but Facebook's Insights make it exceptionally easy to get a snapshot of what your audience looks like and how you are reaching them.

3. Promotion

If a tree falls in the woods.... you know the saying. Most social media experts will tell you that it's not about the number of likes you have, it's about the quality of engagement. True.

But if you don't have any Likes, you won't have any engagement. So you need to build traffic to the page, and there's a couple of good ways to promote your Facebook page.

First, use your other media channels to promote it. Send email blasts or put links on your website and employee email signatures. Email clients and supporters, encouraging them to participate. Add your personal friends, and encourage other stakeholders to do the same. This should be a product you're proud of, so tell the world.

Second, use Facebook advertising. It is easy and it is affordable. You can target down to the ZIP code even. In order to reach people who might be interested in your brand, and especially to engage them on Facebook, there's no better way than to do so with Facebook's own advertising tools.

Promote your site to new audiences. Convert them to fans with fresh, original content. Engage them in community. Repeat.

It may not result in the same satisfaction as checking tasks off a list, but it will bring long-term benefit to your brand or your client's brand.

-----
If you found this content at all interesting, consider liking our Facebook page, where we add new articles every day to help communications professionals keep up-to-date with the latest in digital strategies.

Email Newsletter Tips for the Ages

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:16:00 GMT

FourSquare. Facebook. MySpace. Friendster. Blogs.

Track the evolution of social media, and one thing is constant -- change.

If you do the same with email marketing you see... email.

While so many web technologies have come and gone, and consultants hop from social media to search engine optimization, email marketing remains the most robust and consistent tool for reaching online audiences.

Are you using email to the max? Here's a few best practices for this ageless online tool:

Follow the stats

Any reputable email service provider will give you stats of how many recipients open and click on an email. Our platform even shows you what actions recipients took on your website. Use this information religiously.

Send to your audience's preference

The rule of thumb is to send to your list once a month. But for certain industries (and audiences) people prefer to receive information more often than that. The trick is to hit the pace where you stay top of mind with your target audiences but don't annoy them.

Segment, segment, segment

You have rich data on who your audience is and how they want to hear from you. Use this information to send different emails to different segments. Slice and dice your list to send different messages and see what works.

Build lists organically

Nothing will kill your email outreach campaign faster than using an old, rented, purchased, or donated list. You might look at 50,000 additional addresses and think that's a gold mine. It's a trap. Those people don't know you, and if just 0.01% mark you as spam on Comcast, AOL, or another ISP, they will block all of your emails from coming through.

Studies have shown that opt-in (organic) lists not only have a higher rate of engagement, but also have higher raw numbers of engagement. A recent study showed even within different units of the same company, brands that sent to only opt-in lists had a higher number (as well as rate) of opens and clicks, even though brands that sent only to opt-out (purchased or rented) lists sent over 60 million additional emails in the same period.

I hope this helps as you plan for 2012. What other email tips should communicators keep in mind?

(Speaking of opt-in emails, please take a minute to sign up for ours using the form on the right! We'd love to get in touch and send you regular updates on how to leverage digital communications.)

Pitching Digital

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:16:00 GMT

There's a great article in Digiday today about how CBSSports.com is gearing up to compete with its larger rivals ESPN.com and Yahoo!:

"Can CBS ever catch Yahoo and ESPN for digital sports dominance? CBSSports.com is doubling down on premium, original content and reporting talent. The site has brought on veteran journalist Jon Heyman to spearhead its Major League Baseball coverage. Heyman, who starts on Dec. 12, spent the past five years at Sports Illustrated, and is a frequent contributor to MLB Network and the sports radio station WFAN in New York.

"Heyman’s hire is the latest move by CBSSports.com as it looks to build a roster of high-profile reporters in each of the major professional and college sports..."

With recent changes to Google's search engine algorithm, as well as consumers' increasing reliance on digital as a primary source of news and information, traditional media pitching to online outlets could be a great source of coverage for clients.

The next time you're putting together an earned media plan for your clients, don't forget to include online outlets as well. They're clearly hungry for "premium, original content" and it could be a great partnership for both them and your client.

3 Things PR Firms need to know about the new YouTube

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:17:00 GMT

This week, Google rolled out the most extensive redesign in YouTube's history, and there are several important changes PR firms can leverage to add value to their clients.

1. The new YouTube is about personalization.
With the redesign, YouTube has become more oriented around personal interaction with the site. They have organized content into channels, just like TV channels. Their goal is to do what any website does: Make people stay on the site longer.

If people are staying on the site longer, that makes it more important to have content there.

2. The new YouTube makes video a critical communications tool.
There are many services out there to embed video on a client's website. YouTube does that as well, but with this redesign, Google is making a statement that YouTube is more than a web tool, it is a destination. They are increasing the marketing value of YouTube itself.

That means not only should PR firms encourage clients to pursue a video channel as part of their overall communications strategy, but also that the quality of the video be better than a Flipcam or iPhone.

3. It is still all about content.
In the age where thought leadership and expertise are at a premium for brands, pursuing a video channel makes sense as a great way to position your client. More than handing them a camera and telling them to "shoot stuff", video needs to be part of the client or campaign's overall message. It needs to be scripted, shot, edited, and distributed in such a way that it delivers both entertainment and value to the target audience.

More organizations are creating online video, and that is one of the coming waves in 2012. Being so important, it can't be a standalone project. It needs to weave into all of the other channels where you are engaging your target audiences.

What do you think? Should PR firms encourage more clients to have a YouTube channel? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

10 Things Everyone Should Know To Update a Website

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:17:00 GMT

Nearly two decades after the advent of HTML, we still struggle with formatting words, paragraphs, and pages on the Web. For a website practitioner, using HTML and managing website content is second nature. But to other professionals, who are just now taking on the task of regular website and email content updates, the foreign system of tags and nuances might as well be an alien language.

So if you are newly tasked with managing your organization's website, blog, or email newsletter -- or if you've just launched a Studio 31A website -- here's a list of 10 things that will make your experience much, much easier.

1. Anyone can edit a web page. The modern website is typically powered by a content management system (CMS) that allows administrators to log in and change web pages on that site using a secure section of that website. You really don't need to know HTML. But you do need to understand a little of the behind the scenes that makes this work.

2. You can not copy and paste formatting from Microsoft Word. For those of us who learned desktop publishing at the same time we learned how to use computers, this can be an awkward change in our mindset. You know Word, and how to use it to create bullet lists, bold text, and centered paragraphs. All of this is possible on a web page, but you can not simply copy and paste from Word. Think of it as translating.

So the trick to formatting online content is to first copy and paste whatever you have in Microsoft Word into some sort of plain text editor. In Windows, this is Notepad. On a Mac, you can download the excellent plain-text editor TextWrangler and paste into it. Our websites come with a text editor that has a "Paste as plain text" button to make this easier.

But however you get it there, you must get a clean copy of your content without any formatting in it. Yes, of course there are exceptions to this, but if you want good, reliable, clean content every time, this is the most foolproof way to do it.

Once you have the plain text version of your content, then copy that into your website's text editor. This will give you fresh, clean content, which you can then format using the website's built-in text editor.

Most all content management systems (CMS) today have a text editor that will let you edit text just as you would in Microsoft Word. This is called a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editor. If you don't have one, contact your web provider and ask them to install one.

Online Advertising Getting More Complicated for Small Business

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:17:00 GMT

On Sunday the New York Times wrote about the increasing number of digital publishers who are developing their own ad networks. This will be good for businesses who want to advertise online, but will make buying ads a much, much more complicated process.

"For publishers, setting up exchanges has several advantages: they cut out the middlemen (those third-party ad networks that often sell cheaper remnant ads for teeth-whitening or weight-loss products across a broad range of sites) and they allow the publishers greater control over consumer data."

This move is bound to make buying online ads more complicated for small businesses and PR firms. In the past, even novice online marketers could go to Google AdWords and create everything they needed themselves.

But if more and more publishers -- like CBS, NBC, Weather.com and Forbes -- begin setting up their own ad networks, it will take more time and attention to actually target, budget, and buy online ads.

This is great news for businesses that want to use online advertising effectively! Instead of blanketing the Internet with a limited ad budget, thus diluting the campaign's effectiveness, advertisers will be able to reach out to specific, targeted audiences via specific, high-traffic websites. If search advertising is a shotgun, this approach is a rifle.

Has Social Media Replaced Blogging?

Thu, 16 Dec 2010 18:12:00 GMT

Different generations use the internet in different ways. Milliennials access the internet wirelessly to access social media sites, while older generations use the internet more frequently to access government and financial information. All generations now have two things in common when it comes to the internet, they are all using email, but blogging less than last year.

So why the decrease in blogging? Some may say social media is to blame. Social media allows a person to express their thoughts and opinions much like a personal blog, but in a more direct way to readers. Because essentially, all of your Facebook friends and Twitter followers are your captive audience so why direct your thoughts elsewhere?

With blogging on the decline and social media on the rise, do you consider one more important to your business than the other? Do you have an active company blog or do you find that you use social media more often? It's important to know how your customers' online behavior so that you can adapt your online efforts accordingly.

For more information on the online behaviors of 2010 click here.

Holiday Recipes from the Studio 31A Team

Wed, 15 Dec 2010 16:34:00 GMT

We at Studio 31A love food especially all of the yummy treats available during the holiday season. Whether we are baking goodies for the office or our loved ones, we are always discussing our favorite holiday treats. Since it is the season for giving, we wanted to give you a few of our favorite holiday recipes. Enjoy!

Rachel’s Chess Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups white sugar

2 tbsp flour

5 eggs

2/3 cup buttermilk

1/2 cup melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:
Mix dry ingredients, then add milk, eggs, vanilla and butter (in that order). Preheat oven to 350, bake for 45 minutes or until top is golden brown and middle is fairly solid.

Becky’s Peppermint Bark

Ingredients:

1 (12 ounce) package white chocolate chips

24 hard peppermint candies

Directions:

LINE baking sheet with waxed paper.
MICROWAVE morsels in medium, microwave-safe bowl on medium-high for 1 minute; stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth.
PLACE peppermint candies in heavy-duty plastic bag. Crush candies using rolling pin or other heavy object. Pour crushed candy into melted white chocolate chips.
SPREAD mixture to desired thickness on prepared baking sheet. Let stand for about 1 hour or until firm. Break into pieces. Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Ally’s Famous No-Bake Cookies

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 stick butter

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

3 cups quick-cooking oatmeal

1/2 cup peanut butter

Directions:
Combine sugar, cocoa, butter and milk in a saucepan. On medium heat, bring to a boil for one full minute. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter (optional), vanilla and oatmeal.
Drop by spoonful onto wax paper. Let cool for at least 30 minutes.

Top 3 Gifts to Give Your Business This Year

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 19:37:00 GMT

'Tis the season for giving so why not give your business a few gifts that will keep on giving throughout the year! If you're not sure what your business needs this holiday season, let us help. We have the top 3 gifts your business will love receiving and you will be thankful for giving.

Website Redesign: A website redesign for your business is like giving a much needed makeover to your Aunt Linda who's still wearing her favorite track suit from the 80's. If your business website hasn't received a redesign in a few years, now is the perfect time. Start 2011 off right with a fresh look. Don't let your website get stuck in the past like Aunt Linda.

Social Media Management: Giving the gift of social media management will not only help your business, but allow you as an owner to focus on other aspects of your business. We find most small business owners have created the necessary social media profiles, but struggle keeping them updated with current and relevant information. Studio 31A offers multiple social media management packages for those just needing a little guidance, to those needing full management.

Email Marketing: We consider email marketing the perfect gift for any business regardless of size. Email marketing allows you to stay in touch with your clients and keep them updated with what's happening in your business. With email marketing you can extend offers and sales, promote other projects to your clients and much more. Giving the gift of email marketing is sure to be appreciated by your clients as well!

Contact us today about these gift options and more! Studio 31A is your one-stop-shop for all of your business' online needs.

A special offer for Studio 31A clients

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:18:00 GMT

2011 could be the year that changes everything. So we want to help you kick it off right. Through the end of the year, we are giving away one month free when you pre-pay for the year on any Studio 31A hosting or maintenance package.

So pay now for January through November, and December will be free. It's our way of saying thank you to our most loyal clients! Just contact your account manager if you'd like to take advantage of this offer, or for new customers contact us online, and we'll get you squared away.

Part III - Mobile App or Mobile Site: Which is best for your business?

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:21:00 GMT

Once your business has created an online presence by building a website, your next step should be considering a mobile presence. The popularity of smart phones is not going any where, so businesses must adapt to the need for on-the-go information from their customers. Creating a mobile website for your business will make the experience of viewing your website from a mobile device more enjoyable for your customers.

Creating a mobile website for your business is a great way to get your feet wet in the mobile game. The cost is relatively lower than creating a mobile app, so your business can start creating a mobile presence without reaching too deep in it's pockets. Your customers will become aware of your mobile presence, which will help when your business builds a mobile app.

While a mobile app can offer numerous features, your mobile website can offer features as well. A mobile website can offer ecommerce to your customers making it easy for them to pay an invoice or purchase services and products without having to be on their laptop. You can also create mobile-friendly content for your mobile site. Only including certain content from your original website or creating content specifically for your mobile site will give the user a more customized experience. A mobile website can target a new kind of customer all together.

A small business can truly benefit from building a mobile website. Going mobile can set your business apart from the rest. You are opening up a new way to connect with your customers. The statistics don't lie. With an estimated 75 millions Americans accessing the web through mobile devices, your business can not afford to miss out on a mobile opportunity.