August 04, 2015 - Gaining Control Over Social Media

Tonight I want to address an issue I am seeing on an continued basis. Your personal online content. I read a terrible Facebook rant over the weekend and I’m sickened that a publicist would put her hateful opinions for clients and peers to read on her personal Facebook page.

Now, some of you might say that it is her personal page. Sure it is, it is just archived onto Google’s search engine for the world to read. Sure, the publicist is entitled to her hateful opinion - but she is going to have business lost because of it. Peers will soon catch on to her hateful rants and stop referring her out to overload business.

I can’t stress enough that nothing you write is personal anymore. Friends can quickly become enemies and take screen shots of your “private” social media accounts for all the world to see- including your clients!  Don’t ever write anything on your personal pages that you wouldn’t want to proudly read- out-loud- in front of a client or potential client.

As a publicist, I want you to know that you no longer have a personal life. Your clients’ lives are your obligation- both personally and professionally- when it comes to branding and visibility. Voicing your own opinions online (even via a personal account) will harm your own reputation- right or wrong. This is the culture we live in, and as a publicist you are in the public eye.......

Keep it professional and keep those negative or opinionated posts off of social media!

Velma Trayham

Make Your Services Your Own!

You are a brand. Period. You may buy a franchise, a program, or start from the ground up. Either way, your business is a brand and it has to be personal or it will fail. The saying, “it’s not business, it’s personal” is complete and utter crap. Get this out of your head. Business is how we support our families. It’s why we sacrifice time so our kids and elderly parents can have better lives. We do everything to build a business, which is why our financial and time investments become personal.

This personal approach has to extend from our own selves to our clients. Don’t buy a program and slap your logo on it. Don't call yourself a publicist without investing in your own brand. While the program may sell, people may not become connected to you. They won’t seek out further products and services. People need to feel like they know the person who they are buying from. They also want their consumer experience to be personal!

My business advice to you today is to take a look at your products. Ask yourself what about them gives consumers a personal experience? Is your weight loss program offering your personal story or is it just a glorified set of instructions and recipes? Are you connecting with people on social media? Is your website showcasing relateable content or is it just a bought template with no personal touch?

 No one likes to be treated like a number. Are you committing this sin with your demographic?

Until tomorrow, 

Velma Trayham of ThinkZILLA

Two Ways Facebook Can Work For You!

People tend to believe Facebook is all about branding and can't generate real business. NOT TRUE. If you use Facebook right, you can convert visibility to profitability. Here are my top two tips for doing this;

Here are my top four tricks for Facebook use in direct relation to business ROI and brand engagement;

1. Ask for input. This helps your demographic not only take ownership of your brand in a way, but it can help you from spending money where it doesn’t need to be spent! Whether you customers to vote on a new logo or product color, use their input to reasonably guide the direction of your next business decision.

2.  Be your own biggest fan. Facebook is where you want to promote yourself without limits. Be bold, talk yourself up, and post relevant information and graphics. Your customers will engage with you more often when you are confident about your services and products.

Until tomorrow,

Velma Trayham

PR Rules of the Road

As a publicist, you owe it to your client to pitch him every minute of every day. This said, how dare you be reading this right now and not pitching! While you know that’s a joke, your client is sitting at home – hopeful that you are on the phone with a media outlet right now pitching him.

On this Friday, I want to discuss the rules for the road when dealing with client expectations. It isn’t easy to promise the world to clients and give them a timeline. Breaking news happens, editors change jobs, clients become difficult and spend time doing everything but approving copy, etc.  So, when you work pitching- you may be up against challenges that clients don’t see. When you’re not producing, and we all have periods of this, then the clients get upset. These are just the rules of our road in the PR field.

Try to spend this weekend, if the above paragraph applies to you, thinking about how you can refrain from over promising and under delivering to quite the opposite.  It will not be easy to not pitch yourself to clients, hey – it’s in our nature, but when it comes to pitching performance measurements- know it is always best to be bashful and show up with numbers that speak the bold truth about your capabilities.

Remember, pitch the client- not yourself- and you will always have success.

Until Monday,

Coco the CEO 

Public Relations and Customer Relations

Here’s a phrase you should never say to a client, “I’ll pick you up in my beamer.” Why? Well, if a client knows you are doing well, the client is going to ask for a discount. Further, that client may not pay his or her bills on time and may even become spiteful at your success while he waits for clippings to pour in.

I recently overheard a competing agency rep yap about his nude weekend in the Bahamas with a certain celebrity. Then he talked about his beamer collection, how much cash he dropped in a Vegas strip club coming back from the Bahamas, and then about his potential addiction to Valium. By right, his client- who was on the receiving end of this conversation- had every right to not only be worried about the account rep’s performance with his campaign, but to foster concern about where his retainer was really going!

I wanted to briefly touch on knowing your manners around clients tonight. We spend a lot of time with our clients. Sometimes we are left spending more time with our clients versus our friends and family.  While we may feel a stronger bond with clients because of this, the professional boundary lines should never be crossed.

I am hopeful you use the conversation example I overheard to discuss appropriate fodder with your client reps when it comes to being close and how much information is too much information. Not only can TMI conversations cost you clients and money, they can be legally liable too.

Until tomorrow,

Coco the CEO

Working with the Enemy

We’ve all heard of the movie ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’, right? Well, what if you have to work with the enemy. There is always going to be someone within the office (or your company) whom you dread working with. From personality differences to professional differences, no one gets along with everyone all of the time. However, you do have to overcome differences in order to keep your job or your business.

My best advice is to gently exploit your arch enemy if kindness fails. This doesn’t mean go after him or her or their job, it simply means make it noticeable, nicely, to your boss or other employees what this person is doing wrong.

For example, if the person constantly forgets to put in a proper computer code- you may want to send out an email stating “I know Tasha keeps entering “z” into the “y” spaces.  Don’t worry, I had some free time to go in and correct all these mistakes as I am sure Tasha didn’t realize the error and I wanted to be a team player.”

If someone truly is becoming a rival, it has to be addressed. Sometimes a face-to-face can make it worse so polite exploitation may be the right way to go. Use your best judgment but also play fair. Don’t look for trouble unless you are pushed.

Until Tuesday (Happy Memorial Day everyone),

Coco the CEO

Two Things Business Owners Have in Common- Always

There are certain traits business owners tend to have in common. However, there are two traits successful business owners always (throughout history) share. What are they?

1.       They don’t expect to have a perfect  product / service out the gate. They launch and then the adapt or back into a business plan based on concept to sales.

2.       Sustaining war. Yes, people who are able to sustain a clear vision of what they want to do, what their brand represents, and who can stay the course when everything else has gone wrong and everyone has abandoned them (and they will) come out on the rainbow’s side.

So, if you want to almost guaranteed success you will need to know your first attempt at selling a product or a service may indeed sell- but it will not be perfect and sooner or later you will have to adjust some things to grow. Second, you are going to have to beat the heat.  The battle will come and you will be pressured to give up and to go to work for someone else almost daily – especially when a breakthrough is near. If you don’t give up, you will thrive.

Until tomorrow,

Coco the CEO  

Recovering From A Mistake.

It happens. We make a mistake and then we beat ourselves up about it.  Sometimes, however, others tend to continually beat us up over mistakes. Why? We are human. We should easily forgive as no one on Earth is perfect. It is hard to recover face from mistakes but it is possible. Here’s how; 

I tell everyone in business not to make immediate decisions after a mistake is made because they are usually rash decisions. Instead, don’t make any decisions for the next 24 hours.  Use this time to take a deep breath and let the emotional pain run its course. People now at days want to recover and cover quickly but that can lead to a bad situation becoming worse. There is no time limit on recovery so make sure you take the time to recover properly – not hurriedly. 

I also tell people to admit the mistake first versus being “found out.” Stating you know you screwed is lessens the possibility for speculation and gossip. Look at James Franco’s latest social media mistake. He publically asked a 17 year old girl out online. Did he run from it? No. Did he take down his Instagram account? No. Did he go on television and admit he made a mistake, yep! And his career isn’t harmed at all. 

Here’s the link to the James Franco video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWQGECiTpOE

My point today is to take things slow as far as reacting as long as you admit you made the mistake. Get ahead of the mistake and you are ahead of the game.

Coco the CEO