INK PUBLIC RELATIONS

I am pleased to officially introduce the INK running team. At INK, we continually strive to maximize efficiency. To that end, the idea for our running team was born at a company offsite many months ago and combines our love of the following:

Running: The love for running has spread virally among our group. I credit Blair Poloskey for introducing the bug. On her own will, she trained for the 2008 Austin Marathon. A self proclaimed “non-athlete,” she kicked that marathon’s booty and inspired yours truly to check out the pastime of putting one foot down in front of the other in a rapid fashion. The following year, I followed in Blair’s footsteps (pun intended) and bagged my first marathon medal in Austin. INK co-founder Kari Hernandez acquired a taste for the race with her first half at the same event. We continue to bring others into the fold.

Dogs: Blue Dog Rescue (BDR) is an Austin-based volunteer organization whose purpose is to end the needless killing of homeless dogs. To date, BDR has rescued 1,500 dogs including our own beloved Jack, who belongs to Blair. BDR dogs are fostered in private homes where they receive basic obedience lessons, house training and socialization skills until their permanent homes are found. Fosters receive full health exams, vaccinations and are spayed and neutered if necessary. Sadly, many dogs arrive with horrible and heartbreaking problems (heartworm positive, mange, burned or hit by cars). BDR covers the cost of needed medication, treatment and surgery. Funds are generated only through donations, fundraisers and adoption fees. Because of our love for dogs, the INK running team will pound the pavement to raise money for BDR. The team makes its debut at the 2010 Austin Marathon, but we plan on running in other races (like BDR’s own Run for the Rovers 5K) and supporting BDR in a variety of ways to generate much needed funds for the organization.

INK: To be honest, the running bug has not bitten quite EVERYBODY at INK but that does not mean we can’t throw our whole company’s support behind the BDR cause. Come February 14, 2010, expect to see Julie, Kari and myself on the Austin course. Who knows? We may recruit a few more colleagues yet. But those not lacing up their running shoes that day will be on hand volunteering at Blue Dog’s water stop and we will ALL be encouraging people to donate on our running team’s behalf. If you are interested in supporting our efforts in the 2010 Austin Marathon, please visit http://www.bluedogrescue.com/marathon.htm. There you will see our INK runners’ names and you can donate to any one of us. And certainly stay tuned to this blog to hear more from each of our runners about our training. We will have different perspectives as the experience will have unique meaning to each of us (more to come on that).

A common issue arose from the topic covered in yesterday’s post (re Nuventix in Scientific American) – what is the value of print vs. online coverage? Many of our long-standing tech clients still strongly believe that print is where it’s at and while I too have caught myself being a bit “old school” on certain topics, this is not one of them. While print stories make for good wall-mounted displays, online coverage is out there working for you, connecting the dots between PR and its impact on your business. Four reasons why online is king:

1) Online usually gets more eyeballs. In the case of SciAm, over 3x’s as many (2M unique monthly website visitors compared to 607K monthly print subscribers)

2) Online supports a company’s SEO objectives. Yesterday, when the Nuventix SciAm story hit, the company realized its 5th highest website traffic day ever.

3) Online can be “pushed” to more eyeballs than just the base website’s visitors via social media tools. The initial Tweet that went out from @sciam on this story reached 42,229 people, according to TweetReach – and that’s just one tool, one avenue.

4) Online has longevity. Last month’s print issue will be recycled when the new one arrives – online stories live on in databases much longer.

You tell me – still jonesin’ for that framed art for your office wall or are you more interested in marketing that contributes to the bottom line?

Very thorough, and interesting, story out today on our client Nuventix in Scientific American. Nuventix takes a unique approach to cooling down hot LEDs – a required part of the process if we all want to go green and be more efficient in our home (and commercial) lighting schemes. SynJets are essentially synthetic jets, using the same air moving process that jet airliners do to keep us in the air, only these move the air to cool hot LEDs.

From a PR perspective, this story represents the full process of what we as PR folk go through to secure coverage of our clients. Here’s how it worked:

Initially, I was reading up on Scientific American as a good fit for such a story and noticed that writer David Biello had written a story on LEDs with one line referencing the heat problem (but not a solution). I shot David a note re the missing piece of his story being Nuventix’ approach – the SynJet, and further checked him out on Twitter (interesting guy, covering quite a few topics close to my heart including clean energy (or our lack thereof!)). David and I maintained a conversation via email from April until August when he returned from paternity leave (congrats again David!). When he was back in the office, he passed on the Nuventix information to Larry Greenemeier who just so happened to be working on a synthetic jet story. Larry and I had recently worked together on a story for a different client and I must say it was a joy to work with him again – he knows his stuff. Interview happened, customer reference was secured, demo and images sent out, facts verified and ta-dah! Here we are today with a story that’s interesting to Larry’s readers and shines a light on the very cool, and unique, technology of our client.

These are the days that we do see the fruits of our labor – my favorite days for sure.

…be ready to dress as if they were headed to the Kentucky Derby.

Based on what I am hearing from friends and experts in the broadcast journalism field, more than ever reporters in this industry must wear many hats. As people increasingly turn to the Internet as their source of news, broadcast news organizations must ensure they maintain or grow their audience by hitting eyes via this medium. For the broadcast reporter (already a profession notorious for impossible workloads and timelines), the growth of the Internet is just another task on their massive daily “to do” list. No longer is the reporter simply creating stories for their TV newscast. Sure, they still do that, but now they are also creating a web version of that story and on top of that more of these journalists are expected to shoot and create web video to accompany online stories. And let’s not forget that the demand for turnaround on these online stories are as about as close to “real-time” as you can get. As if that was not enough, the rise of the Internet and in turn social media is demanding broadcast reporters develop a social media presence.

As PR professionals, keep this in mind when pitching broadcast reporters. Let them know you are savvy to their plight by indicating resources you can provide for any medium where they will publish their story (Online? No problem…here are web-ready images. TV? No problem…here is b-roll. Tight turnaround? No problem…here are stats and my spokesperson is at the ready). Don’t be afraid to suggest how they could tell your story on camera. For one client, we actually shot our own video of how the story would look on camera and received a great response as a result. Basically, put yourself in the well-worn shoes of these overworked souls and pitch accordingly.

Personally, I intend to learn more by following the blog of Elise Hu, a local TV news reporter who is venturing out in a new role as a multi-platform reporter for The Texas Tribune. Hopefully, I will pick up some insight in order to more effectively pitch the modern day multitasking broadcast reporter.