The Byline: PR and Marketing Insights from Eiler Communications

Ann Arbor, Michigan

I was born here, grew up here, go to college here, plan on staying here for at least another 7 years to finish graduate school here and I’ve never had the desire to leave for three main reasons.

First of all, this city’s 27.7 square miles with a population of 114,000 residents is just the perfect size for me. Its clean streets are lined with trees and one can easily tell from living here that it’s always thinking green. It’s not over crowded nor over polluted, you can easily walk all over downtown, ride a bike, or take the Michivan as an easy and eco-friendly means of transportation.

Secondly, I love the diversity here. I’ve never been bored by living here because I meet people of different cultures every day. Downtown offers a wide range of restaurants, shops, and performance venues as well as a wide range of people.

Last of all, I am highly optimistic for the future of this city.

Although Michigan’s economy was declining, (but because of Michigander’s positive attitudes is now back on the rise), Ann Arbor has always been the city that thrives. Ann Arbor’s economy is shaped mainly by the University of Michigan but it is also influenced by high technology, health services and biotechnology. When the Pfizer plant closed down in 2007, everyone thought the city was doomed. While many of the ex-employees relocated to different states, many like my father, stayed. And Ann Arbor keeps on thriving. It attracts all sorts of companies and businesses such as Genetics Squared, Mich Bio, and Ensure Technologies.

There are plenty of opportunities for businesses to bloom here. Why? Because there is a ton of highly educated people that live here. One of the main reasons why high tech firms such as Google decided to locate here is because of the high quality employees that make up a successful business. According to MSNBC, Ann Arbor ranks as the 3rd smartest city in the nation based on the percentage of the population age over 25 with at least a bachelor’s degree. This is no doubt due to the excellent education system that we have here in Ann Arbor. Not only is this city lined with trees, it’s filled with smart people and smart people lead to better businesses which leads to a better economy!

So, will I live here my whole life? No one knows the future for certain, but I wouldn’t be surprised if 20 years down the road I found myself living here with a secure job in this beautiful tree-lined city that is booming with opportunities and just perfect for me.

Connie

I’ve always found it hard to leave.

In December I’ll leave Central Michigan University and the town of Mount Pleasant, the places that have been my home for the past four years.

Like many undergraduates today it has taken me longer than four years to finish school. I’m grateful to have one more semester, because at the end of that semester I have to join the real world.

The real world I’m about to join is one where jobs are getting harder to find, gas prices are skyrocketing and people cannot always afford the things they need, much less the things they want. This is especially true in Michigan. But I’m an optimistic person. I believe good things happen more often than many people think.

Scanning the Detroit News homepage today I came across stories about jobs leaving the area and the state budget looking bad, but I also came across a business success story. A 15-year-old girl scout in Dearborn broke the national cookie selling record this year by selling 17,328 boxes of cookies in one five-week season.

Stories like this illustrate that even in a tough economy, hard work and a positive attitude can accomplish things.

I’m not looking to break any national records when I join the real world—I just want to put my degree to use and make a difference.

I think to be successful today, people need to be able to adapt. College taught me how to adapt. In the last four years I’ve lived in four different dorms and apartments; I’ve had a variety of jobs and internships and I’ve watched the football team play for two different coaches.

December is still eight months away and I’m not ready to make any predictions about what my first job will be or where it will be, but I am ready to live in the same apartment for more than ten months at a time.

Beth Kieda

Launching a corporate blog? Here are three critical aspects to keep in mind, conveniently alliterated to enhance retention and recall:

1. Content
One word, Benjamin*, focus. Start the blogging process by thinking about two elements: what you want to say and to whom, and build your blog’s content scope from that vision. If you manage a software company, for example, you might choose to offer a resource for business leaders to learn about trends and new products. Having established your focus, you wouldn’t then decide blog about unrelated topics, like personal experiences, HR issues or the various mental troubles of Britney Spears. Blogs, like businesses, shouldn’t try to be everything to everyone.

2. Connections
The Internet gets more awesome every day. Because widespread RSS subscription availability and neat-o user-aggregated tools like Digg, Del.icio.us and Technorati, readers help boost your blog’s SEO by bookmarking your content if they think it’s valuable. You can also become a bona fide member of the blogger community by creating a blogroll, a list of related blogs you read regularly. Eventually, you’ll build your readership through reciprocated links in the blogrolls of others.

Connections are not all virtual. They also involve those real world relationships you’ve worked so hard to cultivate. Face it, you know people. In fact, you probably know some folks in your industry space who are blazing a trail. Invite them to guest blog or pick their brain in an interview and blog about your conversation. By adding new insights, you’ll build your credibility and grow your reader base.

3. Commitment
Readers like new content. Blogging experts say readers will stop visiting your blog shortly after you stop updating your content. Commit to frequent, regular updates and keep the content coming. An easy way to make this happen (and effectively fit blog maintenance into your busy business life) is to create a blog editorial calendar. Many hands make light work, so bring your leadership team or employees in on it. Make the blog a company-wide initiative.

Blogs take time and energy, but don’t stress. You can vary the length and content of your posts—write a unique post one week and just link to your favorite another week. Variety helps your readers stay interested, too.

Visit these sites to learn about the many buzzwords used in the post:

Lorelle VanFossen, author of Blogging Tips: What Bloggers Won’t Tell You About Blogging, shares how and why to add some of the above-mentioned neat-o tools to your blog in her article, “Adding Del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati and Slashdot Links to Your WordPress Blog.”

Internet security guru Robert Elamb’s article, “Putting a Del.icio.us, Digg, Technorati and Slashdot button into your blog” offers some great overview information in addition to step-by-step bookmark install instructions for those curious about the more technical aspects.

This Datamation article, “The Benefits of Corporate Blogging,” offers a rationale and some practical tips.

Posted by Nicole

I’ve become mildly addicted to Google Trends lately. If you’re not yet familiar, the free tool presents a list of the top Google search terms at this moment and allows you to enter your own terms to measure and compare search popularity around the world and over periods of time. Access Google Trends from your regular Google page (it’s under the “Google Labs“ option, or directly via the link above.

For example, I learned that Dr. Phil’s popularity jumped up in early January. If you’re following the Britney Spears saga (and you probably can’t help it), then you know why this is. Thanks to Google Trends, we also finally have concrete proof that chocolate is more popular than vanilla.

From a PR, marketing, and journalistic perspective, Google Trends can be helpful in a number of ways. It provides a quick pulse read about what people care about around the world (or by region) at any given time and is a great way to identify ways your company, clients or local news sources can fit into the bigger picture of cultural trends.

How could Google Trends be useful for businesses? Well, when I checked on Friday, “operation boot camp” was the #3 search term and “on fire” by Trends standards. This may or may not have been prompted by a story on CNN’s Web site about an Atlanta man who lost 128 pounds through a program called Operation Boot Camp. But people started searching for the topic of fitness boot camps in general.

If you own a gym (or better yet, run a fitness boot camp), this would be a great opportunity to contact your local newspaper or TV station and let them know you can see fitness boot camps are a hot topic on CNN right now, and if they are working on a local story on the topic, you are available as a source to talk about the advantages of boot camp programs for weight loss, and what makes a boot camp different than just hitting the gym.

Google Trends change in real time, so what’s hot today might not be tomorrow. But it’s a great and fun way to stay current.

Posted by Rebecca

I’ve had the pleasure to work with a diverse group of companies to help them become better known in their respective industries. In doing so, our firm has employed every conceivable traditional public relations tactic and some non-traditional ones.

While we’re calling and emailing media, securing speaking engagements, writing byline articles, conducting blogger relations and managing crises for our clients, it’s easy to forget about internal communications. If a company is introducing a new product, hiring a new CEO or going after a new type of customer, we advocate that public relations strategies be integrated with focused, internal communications strategies in order to maximize overall business results.

The disciplines of external vs. internal communications have been so specialized that owners of the functions all too often operate independently. Smart companies integrate the functions. They might not reside in the same department or under the same leader, but they work together to achieve exponentially larger results than either could achieve alone.

Southwest airlines’ Nuts About Southwest blog is a great example of an integrated tactic as it achieves greater online visibility while providing a forum for employees. Greater visibility and presence in cyberspace is certainly a public relations goal, and greater employee engagement is certainly an internal communications goal. Together, they help Southwest achieve the ultimate business goal of growing profits.

Posted by Linda

I came across some great blog posts the other day - some more recent than others.

The first two links are just great how-to lists when preparing for a panel discussion or product demo presentation. Both are important ways to enhance visibility for our companies and selves, but they also put us in grave danger of being really boring. Guy Kawasaki puts our concerns at ease with his two blog posts:

How to Kick Butt on a Panel, and
How to be a Demo God

I have to give a shout out to PR Insights for referring me to these posts, as well as this one, which is hilarious and sad depending on how you look at it: Hacking Cough provides great journalist perspective on how good news releases can be, and how boring they can become if they are ruined with PR/corporate speak.

On a separate note, The Byline has moved up on Brendan Cooper’s monthly list of PR Blogs, which is cool. It’s also good place to check for new/unfamiliar blogs similar to this one, which I encourage you to do.

Posted by Rebecca

It seems simple, right? We’re doing something cool, we want others to be aware of it, let’s send out a news release. While it’s true that frequent media outreach helps to build brand awareness and perceptions, it’s also true that needless news releases can annoy reporters and lessen your chance of productive media relationships.

Here are five questions to ask yourself before you hit the send button (or ask someone else to do it on your behalf):

1. Who, what, when, where and why? (well, that’s actually five different questions, but anyway…) If your release answers all of the above, you’re good to go. If not, reconsider. When one or more of these key facts are absent, it’s usually an indication your “news” is incomplete and wont be useful to journalists or others. Extra tip for success: try to answer all five briefly within your lead paragraph.

2. What’s new? As Larry always says, “three quarters of the word ‘news’ is the word ‘new.’”If you can’t explain the “new” part (product, growth milestone, client win, management team member, certification, award, etc.) clearly, easily and within the first sentence, don’t send.

3. What’s my goal? The old adage, “begin with the end in mind” helps with news releases, too. “XYZ Company is doing something cool over here” is not a very directive headline (or subhead), so it’s important to decide which specific part of the cool thing you want to emphasize. Do you want people to attend an event? Learn about a new product? Be impressed by your dramatic growth (and what it does for your industry and economy)? Note, the goal of your news release is not “to get media coverage.”

4. Why does my news matter? If your news release does not tell readers why your news is important, don’t send it. For example, a new client win means very little on its own, but when this new client win exemplifies your growth, industry expertise/specialization, etc. it’s more valuable.

5. Where does my news matter? Different aspects of your business have different levels of impact. Generally speaking, your news is regional, national, industry-specific or some combination of these. A new product launch release is best suited for your industry because it reaches your target consumers. On the other hand, noteworthy revenue or employee growth might be a regional success story about XYZ Company’s impact on the economy. For tips to leverage your national media outreach, check out my previous blog post, “National coverage for local organizations.”

Once you’ve addressed these five questions, read our “Meet the press” blog post for technical tips to maximize media relationships by meeting reporters’ needs.

Posted by Nicole

What has happened to moral values in our times? There has been lots of buzz about the lack of such. Where do we learn our code of ethics, our upbringing, our religion, education and example set by our influencers?

Each of us certainly should maintain a personal code of ethics but also a professional code of ethics. I applaud Dean David Mielke at EMU School of Business for his institution of Ethos Week. Students at EMU will have the opportunity to hear various speakers on the topics of business ethics.

What is also sad at the same time is that this subject even needs to be addressed. What has happened to moral fiber and values of our society?

One of my staff, when discussing this issue said this is “capitalism on steroids.” The pervasive thought is that you can have anything that you want and it does not matter how you achieve it.

Perhaps it is time for each of us to think about how we can turn the current direction of society and make ethical issues of high importance.

Posted by Sandy

Reading Rebecca’s blog entry of Good to Great harkened me to the busload of people that we have had on our staff throughout our 20+ years.

I has been a very interesting time observing how people work, are they a team player, leader and a good PR practitioner. Can they deliver for Eiler Communications clients the caliber of service which we strive to deliver.

Some have been able to stay on the bus and others were off.

I think that it is inherent to human nature to want to succeed personally and professionally. Some are able to achieve in both realms and some in only one. Personal satisfaction is what really counts.

We have had several members of our firm become highly successful in their careers. Larry and I have seven children and have a strong nurturing component to the culture of our business. I am sure that is part of the reason that we have always had a young staff who have blossomed from the guidance and mentoring they have received. We have had staff who have entered careers in the corporate area, one started his own PR firm in DC.

What makes these folks unique is that they maintained humility and recognized the basis of their growth. We are all products of our influencers, experiences and opportunities. These folks flourished in their careers giving credit to those who nurtured and influenced them. They will stay on any bus they chose. They acknowledge their foundation.

Sometimes and fortunately not often, individuals develop exaggerated self-pride or confidence and a sense of arrogance. Someone like this climbs the ladder of success without any acknowledgment of how that success was achieved. By doing so each of the rungs of the ladder is destroyed leaving them no way to climb down. They delude themselves into thinking that they were self-made talent. These folks do not stay on the bus for long.

Posted by Sandy

Welcome to the first Byline Book Review. Unfortunately the book is not hot-off-the-presses, but if you like concentrated doses of truth and relevance, Jim Collins’ Good to Great is a crucial read and one that may change your perspective on business for good.

I finally committed to reading it during my flights to and from NYC this weekend, and I could feel the strangers next to me peering over my shoulder to read along.

The premise: Good is the enemy of great (do you love it?). Collins and his research team set out to determine how a select few companies were able to turn themselves around from just being “good,” or even bad, and achieve greatness. In order to define “great,” the research team examined Fortune 500 lists from 1965-1995 and narrowed down a list of companies that sustained great results (profits) for at least 15 years. It also compared these “great” companies to their “good” competitors, who were never able to sustain the same level of success.

It took five years, but Collins and his team were able to cull their findings down to a few key characteristics that define a great company, as well as the key characteristics that mark certain doom. Instead of me summarizing the empirical findings, I will just quote a few words of wisdom from within, which were backed by extensive and convincing research. Hopefully they will convince you to read the whole thing:

• Focusing solely on what you can potentially do better than any other organizaton is the only path to greatness.
• Not one of the good-to-great companies focused obsessively on growth.
• …culture of discipline. When you have disciplined people, you don’t need hierarchy. When you have disciplined thought, you don’t need bureaucracy.
• Everyone would like to be the best, but most organizations lack the discipline to figure out with egoless clarity what they can be the best at and the will to do whatever it takes to turn the potential into reality.
• The good-to-great leaders began the transformation by first getting the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus), and then figured out where to drive it. . . the key point is that “who” questions come before “what” decisions - before vision, before strategy, before organization structure, before tactics.
• “Level 5″ refers to a five-level hierarchy of executive capabilities. . . Level 5 leaders embody a paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will. They are ambitious, to be sure, but ambitious first and foremost for the company, not themselves.

* Collins believes that potential Level 5 leaders exist all around us, if we just know what to look for, and that many people have the potential to evolve into Level 5.

I will stop at seven, since Nicole and I believe that all lists should contain an odd number of items, unless of course there are 10

I encourage you to read the book and let me know what you think.

Posted by Rebecca