Note: This article is one I was asked to write on behalf of San Miguel Catholic Middle School. It will be appear as part of a newsletter to parents, donors, community members and students.

The small group of half a dozen students gathered in the studio art room at Bishop Kelly High School shifted in their seats a bit as they contemplated the question they’d just been asked: “What would have been different if you hadn’t been a San Miguel student?” The most interesting thing about their answers is how closely they mirrored one another… and how much the prospect of what might have been different bothered them.

In each case, the young men and women, all juniors or seniors at BKHS and among the earliest San Miguel Tulsa middle school graduates, felt their middle school years taught far more than English and science…  they learned believe in themselves, to push themselves, to achieve.

“We were always encouraged to believe in the possibilities and to be committed to our goals,” said Juan. “It was just expected that we could, and so we did,” he said.

Joe O’Connor, President of San Miguel, understands. “That’s the mission, and it matters. Our students see success and it feeds on itself. We hold our students accountable for achieving, we support them all along the way and we don’t give up on them.” Students say that the accountability makes a difference. “We knew we couldn’t give up, we had to keep pushing and believe we could do it [be a graduate],” said Carlos.

The seniors and some of the juniors gathered for the interview now have goals they found nearly impossible to contemplate six years ago… college degrees and professional career paths. Some have already earned scholarships to their college of choice. With plans from international business to architecture, their horizons are as wide now as they want them to be… and every student in the room said being selected to attend San Miguel made the difference. Some are the first high school graduates in their families and are leading the way for their younger brothers and sisters and their community. Many return regularly to San Miguel for service projects and serve as leaders to the student community as they manifest the mission of believing in the possibilities inherent in each student. All demonstrated the politeness and respect that I’ve noticed are hallmarks of San Miguel students during the many visits I’ve made to the school over the past few years.

San Miguel students arrive early, stay late (study hall until 5 pm is mandatory) and depend on each other and their teachers to make it through the rigorous education. Parents provide service hours to the school, transport kids on trips, cook meals and attend conferences… last year saw a 100% participation rate from parents at parent-teacher conferences. The result is an education that changes more than the knowledge base of a student. It’s an education that changes the possibility base of each student… expanding the opportunities in the whole community along the way. It’s the heart of long-term economic development and growth and it makes a tangible difference in the lives of every family the school touches.

San Miguel is funded almost entirely through donations, and those donations change lives in very real ways. Please consider helping to fund the mission of San Miguel to provide a private, Catholic education to impoverished and underprivileged children, regardless of race or religion.

Last summer, I moderated the PR panel at the Get Social Conference in OKC (Oklahoma City for the uninitiated). The conversation turned quickly to How do I Get Media Coverage? Panelists were Dave Rhea from the statewide Journal Record newspaper, Andrew Speno from Fox25 News in OKC and Mike Koehler, blogger, PR pro and former reporter. Here are some of their PR pearls of wisdom:

1.) Don’t suck. Pretty simple, but powerful when you think about it. Don’t be a user… don’t lie… don’t spam… don’t be disrespectful. Don’t pitch news that isn’t news. If you’re in PR, you know what I’m talking about, whether or not you are following the advice. If you’re not in PR, what I mean is be human first. You need to reach out and interest another human in your story if you want it covered, and that means it needs to be interesting to other humans. And that you need to respect the time and attention of the media people you’re trying to reach.

2.) Write well. Headlines matter… and if you’re e-mailing, that means the subject line of your e-mail should be something OTHER than “News Advisory!” or “MEDIA ALERT!!!!” Special note: multiple exclamation points don’t make your news more newsworthy, they just make you seem desperate.

3.) Think about timing. Andew suggested having your press conference or announcement on Sunday afternoon. Stations spend all day Sunday scrambling to fill the same broadcast time they have to fill on Friday night. Mike mentioned a situation where a local group sponsoring a tournament wanted coverage… the same day as a major OU/OSU game, a draft and a coaching scandal. Obviously, some things are beyond control and cannot be planned for, but not planning your little league coaches awards ceremony on the same day as college football season kicks off will help your chances.

4.) Think about angles. Is something happening RIGHT NOW that you can add to, build on, be an expert for? For instance, as snow blankets Oklahoma, again, and people go into bunker mode, again, are you a mental health professional who can speak to the real aspects of “cabin fever” and how to help? Recognize that “Mental Health Service Adds Dr. X to Lineup” isn’t really interesting beyond anyone in Dr. X’s family. Dr. X talking about cabin fever, however, is timely, relevant, and his (new) affiliation with your practice will certainly be in the story.

5.) Don’t always be selling. Be the person who’s always available, always good for a quote, or for an honest attempt to help source a story. Coming through for reporters means you get on their “people who don’t annoy me” list and you are much more likely to get their attention when you need it.

Dave Rhea summed it up this way: Be Real and Don’t Be Boring. Pretty succinct, I think.

In my opinion, here’s what small business owners should do, first, to start this process: Use the search functions in social media and find and follow every individual in their respective niche or local markets. Listen to and read what they tweet or share. Get to know them (that whole Be Real and Don’t Suck part mentioned above) and what makes them tick. Every reporter or blogger has trigger subjects… things they’re passionate about. Find out what they are. Re-share relevant information. I did a radio interview on this subject, and using social media to help achieve better PR, available here, if you wanna give it a listen for more info.

Using social media to achieve better PR results isn’t fundamentally different… it’s a connection engine that helps you find and then build relationships with media contacts. In the end, good public relations is still about relationships. Social media can help you build them more quickly and nurture them more easily.

There’s only 5 things on this list… anything you think is missing from our Don’t Be Ignored list?

(A version of this post was originally posted over at The Journal Record’s blog hub but this a topic I’ve been seeing a lot lately, so wanted to re-share with the audience over here… plus, some updates/edits have been made to this version. — Mandy)

Yes, you read that right. Blogging is dead. Over. Done. Time to move on…

What's next?

(take that deep breath, now… and then read on)

My almost-16-year-old son enjoys teasing me whenever something happens in my life with the phrase, “Oh, are you going to blog about it? Better blog about it!” Today, I thought about what his general disdain meant, aside from the normal teen angst part. It’s not that he doesn’t “get” blogging or that no one around him (other than me, natch) has a blog. It’s that he doesn’t think that way about connections. Blogging is not real time, and that’s how he connects to his life and his friends.

Think about this with me… in 10 years, he and millions of other kids who were born at the dawning of the Internet age (1995… we got our first home computer and signed up with AOL), will be the backbone of the work force. And they aren’t going to wake up in 5 or 10 years and decide they’d better blog about it. Teens don’t connect the same way adults do today for the same reasons that have been true for, well, ever. The connections of your average teen are primarily to those people who are part of said teen’s daily life. Friends from school, work, church, family and extended family, neighborhood friends. These are the people a teen is able to see on a regular basis without assistance. They’re people he or she knows personally for some reason.

Today, the primary way teens connect seems to be mobile text. They don’t email, and they don’t IM unless its through an app on their phones. They don’t like being tied to their computer for connectivity and the phone is (perceived at least) to be more private. So, what happens when their world expands in a few years, and connections to people they may not know well (or at all) personally become important? And they will, of course… digital connection is highly likely to remain a staple of business and personal networks. I asked my son what he thought. After all, it was his comment that started this train of thought. He said he enjoyed talking with his friends through his Playstation 3. When I asked why, he responded… because we’re all talking on a shared line, and we’re playing the same game at the same time. In other words, I said, it’s a shared real-time experience.

That is the “next big thing” I think. Let’s fast forward for a minute. My son wants to be a cave biologist when he grows up. Let’s follow his older, employed (please, Lord!) self on a trip to South America. Somewhere in a remote cave, he discovers a new species of cave beetle. Excited, he pings his network of subscribers that he’s on with a live feed. Everyone, everywhere who subscribes to him (because they find him relevant to their work, life, love, or interest) has the option of joining in to see his find, talk to him and to each other, and drop off the feed whenever they choose. A shared, real-time experience with a self-selected community. The community might include colleagues, friends and family, co-workers, supporters, interested persons, or, if he’s allowed it for this feed, complete strangers.

Think of your Google Reader, except the feeds are now opting-in to notifications of shared experiences happening real time, or the option to review and comment or share later on, or one-to-one. You opt in to someone’s life, in other words. Whatever portions of it they choose to share, and you choose to see or experience with them.

That all said… my son’s school is now incorporating blogging into the regular curriculum. When public education embraces a cultural movement and begins to teach it, it’s the death knell for the cool factor. So yeah, blogs like this one, and like yours… our days are numbered. But don’t stop blogging, because it’s going to take a good long while for the millenials to figure out how exactly they want to communicate with their expanding worlds, and even longer for the rest of the world to figure out how to harness the idea for business and for Google juice. Not blogging now would be like going back to 1985 and deciding that because cable TV was gaining ground, no one should advertise on broadcast TV ever again. Blogging is one of the best ways, today, for people, businesses and brands to build community, share expertise, listen, learn and connect. But tomorrow is coming, and we should already be thinking about what’s next, AB (after blogs).

What do you think… what is next? How do you see tomorrow’s connectivity happening, and how long is the horizon before we get there?

Takes courage to share your voice, but the reward is worth it.

I’ve talked to many groups, clients, friends, family members and even some random strangers (it’s my husband’s fault, he’s just like that) about blogging and content generation over the past year. Many of those hearing my words look at me like I’m a special kind of crazy. For all those out there who are struggling with the question, “Why do I (or does my business) need a blog?” or “Why do I need to update the content on my website more often than once every year or two?” here are some things to ponder:

Search engines are hungry, ok, voracious, creatures. They are always seeking new content to digest. And like any animal, the people they like best are the ones who regularly provide food. Feed the beast, and it will be your friend. Continuing with the analogy, make sure it’s good stuff you feed the beast… no one likes to receive rubber chicken when they were promised chicken cordon bleu.

If it takes three impressions at a minimum for someone to internalize a message and seven touches before they’ll take action (conventional marketing wisdom), why do you only want people to stop by your website once every 18 months? If they know fresh content is a mainstay on your digital hub (whether that’s your Facebook Fan/Like page, your website & blog, your Twitter stream, or ideally all of the above) they’ll return more frequently to check out what you’ve got.

Most of my clients tell me they want to be known as the expert in their niche or market. A blog is a great way to build that rep. Talk about what you know… about what you wish people knew about your field, about products, services, ideas or challenges in your field. Help educate your marketplace. If the challenge is no one knows they are making bad decisions, then HELP THEM know better.

Recognize that you’re in it for the long haul, and it costs way less to work with someone to help you develop a blog editorial calender, maybe edit or polish your posts and help you generate content ideas than your average yearly yellow pages ad buy.

Lots of resources are out there on blogging well. Here are a couple to get you started:

Mack Collier’s The Viral Garden

Copyblogger‘s site

Liz Strauss’s blog

And, if you’re on Twitter, follow and participate in #blogchat every Sunday night, 8PM central to 9PM central, to share, learn and connect with bloggers of all stripes, topics and backgrounds.

And that’s a very good thing. Unfortunately, it means that I haven’t had much time this week to write. I have a post titled, “What I’m Doing Differently and Why,” half-written and definitely not ready to share. One of the things it talks about is making sure the activities that build my business and build community don’t take a backseat to the “urgent” things that often take over chunks of time on any given day. As you can see, that’s one I’m continuing to work on… !

In the meantime, I am going to share this post with you: Crisis Communication: When You Can’t Escape. It’s one bit of public writing I did get accomplished this week, and I hope you’ll take a moment, read it, and let me know what you think. It’s not only for PR people… if you’re in business for yourself or working for a company in any kind of public-facing role, it’s applicable.

Oh… if you have ideas, tips, or commiseration you want to share on the whole, “What I’m Doing Differently and Why” post idea, please tell me. I’m hoping we can all help each other do better.

Happy Friday!

Go for WHY: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oberazzi/318947873/

List posts have their place, and I know they are good for traffic. I’ve written them, too. But our super-connected world and the constant flow of information seems to be driving us to oversimplify complex subjects and interactions. By creating lists. Lots of lists. In some cases, lists of lists.
I’m not against all lists… I believe in a to-do list, a grocery list and have tweeted & retweeted helpful design tip, font and how-to lists. But not all things can (or should) be reduced to a bulleted list.

If it’s a complex subject, treat it with the depth it deserves. A marketing communications plan, encompassing goals, objectives, strategies, tactics and metrics should be more than a list of items. A public relations plan should be more than a list of ideas or publications and an editorial calendar. When we start to work with a new client we ask a lot of questions about their business… not just about what they sell and who they sell it to, but about things like:

Where does your money come from? Revenue? Profit streams and margins?

What is the recent history of the market segment you inhabit? Near future changes or evolutions you expect? Long-term future or potential?

Adjacent markets? Competitive markets?

What factors in the market and within your company’s revenue map do you control or influence?

We augment with our own research and then we tackle goals and objectives, clearly grounded in the business case for what we’re doing. The marketing communications plan addresses how the goals and objectives fit the larger picture of the business and where it wants or needs to go. When you start with a good WHY, all the WHATs and HOWs become much easier to define and later on to sell to the people who have to sign the checks to see them implemented.

Humans are hardwired to communicate. My infant daughter cannot yet utter an intelligible syllable, yet she communicates quite effectively what she needs, wants and desires.

Babies are masters of non-verbal communication

Writing with purpose

While talking with a friend and colleague today, discussing blog posts, I had an epiphany… writing blog posts isn’t the hard part. Knowing what to write about, in a general sense, isn’t hard. Writing for a specific audience is the hard part. Thinking in depth about who you’re writing for ~ really ~ is the key to good writing in any medium, anyway, so this isn’t an Earth-shattering revelation.
Everyone who writes “gets this.” Know your audience… yeah, yeah… whatever.
But I challenge you to go beyond “writing for people interested in marketing” (for instance)… are they neophytes? Experienced but still enthusiastic? Jaded? Bored with the field and seeking new inspiration? A post that would appeal to a neophyte marketer and one that would appeal to the jaded among us are likely very different posts even though both would be written for people interested in marketing.
If you’re blogging for more than the joy of self-expression, get that intimate with your goal and objectives, too. Think about (heavens, write down!) how reaching your more clearly-defined audience will help you achieve them. Be prepared to prune posts and post ideas so they serve the needs of your intended audience and further your objectives.

So… who are you writing for, and to what end? And, for fun and to see how well I’m targeting my writing, who do you think I’m writing for?

I dropped my oldest child, now a freshman, off at school to attend his first high school dance tonight. I’d already cautioned him about appropriate behaviour, being where he was supposed to be when he was supposed to be there, etc., etc., when I realized I was delivering the same admonitions my own parents slung at me before my first “real” dance way back when. I took a deep breath, looked him squarely in the eyes, and told him I knew that he knew what I expected from him, and I knew he’d come through. And to have a good time.

Now, I’m not a new-age parent, or parent-as-friend practitioner, either. We walk on the stricter side of life when it comes to expectations and consequences. I know that my son understands what my expectations are because I’ve clearly communicated them to him over the course of many, many interactions. I also know he understands the consequences if he violates my trust in him because he’s experienced those many times as well.

Clear communication is the foundation for successful interactions, be they in business, among friends and co-workers, or between parents and children. Do you…

1. Clearly communicate what you want to have happen in a given situation? Be home by 9:30. Call us to set up a free appointment to evaluate your current materials. Order online.
2. Clearly explain any options or choices? Think of menus in restaurants, options on cars, travel packages… so many things could be improved through clear communication of any choices the buyer may have. My kid can either have me drop him off and pick him up, or one of the parents I know and trust among a select group of his friends. Those are the options.
3. Set expectations for timeframes and urgency? If the deal expires at MIDNIGHT, let me know! If your grass seed only performs optimally when planted in March, tell me. If coming home 2 minutes past 9:30 is still considered late, better let the kid know.
4. Revisit the important points as needed? Did your kids eat their vegetables after only telling them to do so one time? Mine didn’t either. Sometimes you need to repeat yourself in your copy, in your verbal presentation or in your parenting.
5. Deliver the promised results? If he’s late, he’s grounded. When we say it will ship today, it will ship today. It really is a free, no strings attached evaluation of your current marketing material.

If you clearly set expectations with your customers (or your kids), including noting the choices or options available, sharing any relevant urgency, reminding them of the important parts and delivering what you promised, your interactions will be much more fruitful.

Have any additional basic communication rules? Please share them in the comments.

from photogirl7 on Flikr

I’m preparing to speak to the Social Media Mastermind (Tulsa… @smmtulsa on Twitter) group tomorrow. It’s not going to be a large crowd nor a long speech or involved presentation. It’s material I’m comfortable with (see earlier post on Making Social Media Matter For Business). And yet I’m still a little nervous about tomorrow.
Why the butterflies? I speak often to groups and long ago worked past my formerly-paralyzing fear of public speaking… it’s not that. I am not out of my depth (I don’t think, anyway) or presenting on short notice… it’s not those things, either. After some reflection, I think the wee bits of panic have surfaced because I really admire the people I’ll be speaking to. I learn much from them every time we meet and I hope the content I share will be as valuable to them.
A few butterflies before a presentation is a good thing… it’s been said that familiarity breeds contempt but I think it’s complacency that breeds contempt for your audience. If you approach every speaking, writing, sharing opportunity with a healthy respect for your audience (perhaps they DO know as much as you do about some things!) you will prepare more thoroughly, speak or write more thoughtfully and succeed in what really matters… sharing quality content and creating connections. Real respect for your audience means you’ll be motivated to give them your best. And what better way to build your business or brand than by showcasing your best in front of an interested audience?
Though I think the butterflies are healthy… what do YOU do to quell them?