Websites, blogs, texting and social media are serving as a viral PR and marketing platform for the recent Haiti disaster relief efforts.
The Red Cross texting campaign went viral through social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, and donations for Haiti alone have already doubled the $4 million that was donated to all charities by mobile texts in all of 2009.
Think about how you can use your own website, blog or social media network to spread the word and make it easy for people to access ways to donate. If you haven’t already done so, think of these possibilities for your business to help Haiti.
Add Tweets to your Twitter broadcasts linking to an organization such as the Red Cross
Post info on your Facebook
Add a link to your email signature
Donate some time to helping locally
For example help a local Red Cross chapter. My sister’s restaurant La Gondola donated food to the Chicago Red Cross on Friday via @PrSarahEvans Tweet media push. Evans spent the day on location with the Red Cross Tweeting and pitching in to help spread the social good. You can too.
The Buyer Group will continue to donate time and a portion of sales to the Clinton Bush Haiti Relief Fund as well as ShopToEarth’s partner Charity Water.
What can you do? Get creative! Below is a list of some ways the media and social media are spreading the word:
1. The Huffington Post has an ongoing list of relief efforts and how you can get involved that it is going to continue updating. Check it out here.
2. CNN has compiled a list of organizations that will be providing support to the estimated 3 million people that have been affected by the earthquake.
3. Many people are engaging the Twitter community to raise awareness, as well as funds. Search “Haiti” and see what the latest updates are.
Within moments of stepping into the Zappos headquarters in Las Vegas, it was easy to see the buzz CEO Tony Hsieh is generating by his company’s unique corporate culture is no fluke.
Employees ring cowbells and blow horns to greet guests, conference rooms are extravagantly themed, and Hsieh, one of the youngest and most successful CEOs out there, works from a cubicle that looks like it came straight out of a frat house. Sounds fun doesn’t it?
But the beauty of this zany atmosphere is there is so much more to this strategic culture than fun. It works. Period. See for yourself how Zappos turns happiness into powerful results.
Hsieh has proven that allowing employees to express themselves and in turn, truly connect with customers, fosters the perfect environment for relationships to develop.
As a public relations CEO for The Buyer Group, I look for ways to initiate and advance relationships on a day-to-day basis, and there is certainly a lesson to be learned from the way Zappos does business. Zappos and Hsieh proved to be my inspiration for 2010. I hope these pictures help bring a little fun to your New Year as well.
As 2009 comes to a close, Jeff Zbar of The South Florida Business Journal caught up with several marketing executives in the Sunshine State to see what they are wishing for in the New Year.
Lisa Buyer, President and CEO of The Buyer Group is hoping for some Google grace for her public relations clients and even more success bringing together the domains of social media and search engines.
Keep reading to see Lisa’s thoughts on client trust as well as which executive is wishing to land Tiger Woods as a client.
Happy New Year from The Buyer Group!
Marketing executives hope for success in the new year South Florida Business Journal – by Jeff Zbar
“What I want for the holidays is … to have more successful clients,” admitted Gary Schweikhart of PR-BS, in Boca Raton. “The better they do financially, the less likely it is that PR will get the budget ax in a tight economy.”
The grace of Google to find her clients’ releases, and greater acceptance and understanding of that place where social media and PR converge were Lisa Buyer’s wishes. The more they get it, the greater the chance for return on investment from a social media PR campaign.
While they’re at it, a little hands-off trust would be nice, too.
“Let go,” said Buyer, principal with The Buyer Group, a Deerfield Beach-based interactive PR and branding firm. “I would like the control freaks and micromanaging type of clients to consider letting go and trusting who they hire.”
It was 4:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving eve and Florida Real Estate Attorney Roy Oppenheim was in his office regrouping for a long weekend. Meanwhile, Wall Street Journal reporter James Bob Hagarty was working on a story about homeowners who are creating their own bailouts, the coined name “strategic defaults.”
Hagarty searched the various Internet sites and came across some of Oppenheim’s past media coverage. The real estate reporter called Oppenheim and interviewed him about what a homeowner should know before they stop paying the mortgage: a tough decision and one that Oppenheim helps his clients make each day.
It’s a fact: 91% of journalists use standard search to fulfill a component of their job whether researching a story or locating a subject matter expert. Traditional PR efforts combined with savvy optimization will increase your on-line visibility.
Read the full story Debtor’s Dilemma: Pay the Mortgage or Walk Away on the Oppenheim Law News Room or in today’s Wall Street Journal on page A22.
Follow @JamesRHagarty on Twitter for more excellent reporting from The Wall Street Journal
Lisa Buyer and Sarah Van Elzen interview with Greg Jarboe at SES Chicago. The question? What can Google give me for Christmas this year? The answer. Page one in search!
Let it snow for SEO at Chicago’s Search Engine Strategies conference where Lisa Buyer presents on the News Search SEO panel today with Newsforce CMO Dana Todd (@danatodd) and YouTube and Video Marketing author Greg Jarboe (@gregjarboe), moderated by Top Rank Blogger Lee Odden (@leeodden).
The power of search is changing the game for public relations and social media says Buyer, president and CEO of The Buyer Group, an interactive online PR and branding agency.
Presenting to Internet savvy CEOs, senior marketing executives and search engine optimization professionals, Buyer offers insight and examples of ways to use public relations techniques, social media channels and SEO strategies to leverage an increase in online visibility.
“Google’s roll out of Real Time Search yesterday is a big indicator of the direction in search and social media,” Buyer said. “News is happening in real time, and now Tweets as part of Google Search shrinks the press release down to 140 characters or less. Let’s not forget Facebook alone has added 50 million new users in the past two months to reach a total of more than 350 million.”
“Interactive media has taken the communications industry by storm in the past year,” Buyer said. “With this enormous growth comes a frequent and exciting shift in strategy and practice. Implementing SEO strategies into public relations is the latest movement as search engines begin to place increased importance on these messages.”
“Writing a killer press release and distributing promotional materials is not enough in today’s multimedia landscape,” Buyer said. “Journalists in today’s fast-paced environment are using search to find or add to stories, while consumers are finding their news via the search engine, alternative networks like YouTube, and even through social networks.”
For more information, join the conversation on Twitter by following @lisabuyer and @SESConf.
Did you know 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media, according to our favorite site www.mashable.com. Talk about chemistry!
As an interactive PR agency, The Buyer Group says people need a reason to interact with you on social media. It’s kind of like building a little chemistry for that first kiss. If you can’t relate by being engaging, entertaining or humorous, not only will you get the awkward “turn-of-the-cheek move” on your date’s doorstep, but your efforts on Facebook and Twitter could be all for not.
This notion was backed by my recent trip to PubCon Las Vegas. I met Jennifer Laycock, editor of SearchEngineGuide.com: A small business guide to search marketing. As a PubCon panelist Laylock summed up how to successfully relate online.
Seven Tips to Build Relationships on Social Media
1. Listen. Find out what makes customers happy, what they are saying and what changes you can make. Get personal insights on media or bloggers, and find a common point for interaction.
2. Be romantic. Relationships require work and effort. Use Yelp or Google Reviews to identify loyal and passionate customers. Encourage and invite these customers to take part in your business through special offers.
3. No sex on the first date. Long-term customer relationships don’t develop over night. Invest the time, and be confident that the “score” will come.
4. Don’t pretend to be someone else. Be yourself. Insincerity is easy to recognize online.
5. Make yourself available. You need to put yourself out there and find a way to interact with customers. Wallflowers won’t make the cut in social media. Interaction and conversations are key.
6. Seek out the right match. The right connections may not be available through every social media channel. Find out which sites your key publics frequent and engage with them there. It is easier to connect with customers on their terms than trying to attract them to a new forum.
7. Value the long-term relationship. Accomplish this by delivering value time and time again. It is far cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new customer, so give them reasons to come back.
So forget the cheesy pick-up lines and go for quality in social media interaction. The best relationships are those developed slow and steady.
It may sound like a break up line, but in business, it’s true. Social media and search are changing how we do business – including everything from customer service to online branding to marketing.
Looking for me this week? Follow me on Twitter.com/lisabuyer for status tweets. (And if you’re wondering what Twitter is, then ummmm, we should talk.)
I’m a speaker at PubCon Las Vegas, a national search marketing and social media conference. You can find me on the panel “PR Experts and Twitter,” but better yet – I’m attending the coolest sessions, hand picked for today’s PR strategies.
How valuable is all this?
P-R-I-C-E-L-E-S-S – especially in this economy – forget about the way things used to be done, it’s a whole new ball game. Question is: Are you on the field or in the stands?
Always providing the punch line, Matt Innes, The Buyer Group’ssocial media intern, has been added to The Buyer Group full-time roster. Helping manage social media accounts and online public relations tasks, Matt Innes will continue working with The Buyer Group as he completes his final semester at The University of Florida.
Check out Matt’s video below for a sneak peak into Matt’s life at The Buyer Group.
A study released this week titled “Communications Industry Forecast” from the private equity firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson, indicates that despite all the bad news swirling about the media industry, it is expected to be the third-fastest-growing economic sector over the next five years, according to The New York Times article by Stephanie Clifford.
“Almost none of that growth is forecast to come from shrinking traditional media, however,” Clifford wrote. “Instead, it will be drawn from areas like word-of-mouth marketing and public relations (with a 9.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 2008 through 2013), branded entertainment (9.3 percent) and the Internet and mobile devices (10.2 percent).”
More than just a press release, online PR and branding agency programs offer investor relations, social media, search engine strategies, journalism, and digital media talent
Delray Beach, FL - July 31, 2009 – What assets should a business look for when hiring an online PR agency? Talent, credentials, resources and results, says Lisa Buyer, PR agency owner, blogger and SES speaker. The Buyer Group announces the addition of a diverse team of industry experts for clients looking for more than just a press release.
In addition to its in-house PR and social media talent, The Buyer Group pools together a virtual team of business consultants as part of the agency business model including: investment relations specialist Kelly McCarthy, SEO/SEM expert Joe Laratro, senior journalist and new media expert Jennifer LeClaire, award-winning brand guru Carah Von Funk, and search-savvy web agency owner Stephen Rosen.
“These additions to our team underline additional depth, breadth, and value of the online PR services from The Buyer Group,” said Lisa Buyer. “The future of the online public relations agency system is fluid, virtual, adaptable, and diverse,” said Buyer. “Our ability to tap into the diversity of industry expert minds when building a PR campaigns is priceless to clients.”
Industry Experts Joining The Buyer Group Team
Kelly McCarthy @kelly_mccarthy, president and CEO of Infusion Capital, an investor relations agency.
Joe Laratro @jlaratro, president and CEO of Tandem Interactive, an online marketing agency that specializes in search engine marketing and SEO strategies, education and training
Jennifer LeClaire @jleclaire, a new media entrepreneur offering expert journalism content and reporting.
Stephen Rosen @sitemind, owner of Sitemind, a search-savvy web site design and development studio.
The Buyer Group is an interactive public relations and branding agency that leverages 20 years of award-winning PR services and social media experience. Always dynamic and cutting-edge, The Buyer Group bolsters its personalized and boutique approach to public relations, offering skills and knowledge that larger PR agencies are not positioned to supply without sending clients to multiple sources.
About The Buyer Group @thebuyergroup
The Buyer Group is a member of the South Florida Interactive Marketing Association and is recognized as a Google Advertising Professional Company. Lisa Buyer is a regular speaker at Internet Marketing conferences including PubCon and Search Engine Strategies talking on the topics of online PR, News search SEO and the influences of social media. For more information about The Buyer Group and its interactive public relations, social media and online branding services visit http://www.thebuyergroup.com or follow Lisa Buyer on Twitter @lisabuyer.
