Cruella de Vil: Blog Pitcher Extraordinaire

Cruella de Vil has been a fixture in the fashion industry for a long time. People respect her for her fur coats and her extensive knowledge of fashion and the fashion industry. She is always looking out for the next big idea in the fashion world so she can get a jump on it and be a trend setter. She also is fantastic at creating her own trends that spread throughout the world.

To be a trend setter, she must have good relations with writers. This is where she acts as her own public relations specialist. She must contacts writers to help her spread her style to the masses through the use of fashion bloggers. She knows that these people can be very picky about what they write about and are also extremely influential with their readers.

1. The first thing that she does is use a personal email address when sending bloggers a blog pitch idea. This insures that the blogger feels a special connection with the person who is giving the pitch and they are more than likely going to write a piece about the idea. Also, since bloggers get a lot of spam emails from websites, viruses and companies, this ensures that the blogger knows exactly what the email is about and they know the source of the idea.
2. Cruella always makes her subject lines quick and to the point. The more mysterious that the line is, the more often the blogger will pass over it and not pay any attention to what the point of the pitch is.
3. She always address the blogger’s name if she can find it. It adds a personal touch to the message, making the blogger feel special.
4. Creuella makes the first paragraph of the article simple and clear. She includes all relevant information like answering who, what, when, where, why and even how.
5. The next paragraph she devotes to help bloggers find more about the information she presented in the previous paragraph. She links to her website that talks about her latest trend, where the inspiration for it came from and what exactly it details. She uses this portion of the pitch to start a conversation that, if the blogger wants, could have with Cruella.
6. At the end of each pitch, she reiterates why she was writing the pitch and what exactly she would like the blogger to do.
7. Her signature line reaffirms to the blogger who she actually is and where she is writing from.

By using these seven steps, Cruella had increased the amount of publicity she get in the blogging world. She has harnessed blogs with a great amount of success.

Original article here.

Sebastian Creates a Website

King Triton wanted to create a website for all of his kingdom to use. This site would be a source for news and updates from the castle. They would be about the daily goings on because Triton felt as if his subjects and himself were out of touch. He thought that this would be the best way to reconnect with them.

Such a goofball.

He went to his friend and advisor, Sebastian, who also happened to run the public relations department for the kingdom, for help. Sebastian already had created successful websites for other mermaids and fishes and had a proven track record of good, quality sites.

When Sebastian and the King got together, he filled him in on what he has done. Sebastian told Triton that he had not always been good with websites. His first one had the unfortunate name of speedofart.com. He told the King that he learned from his mistakes and that make him better at his job.

Sebastian told King Triton that one of the most important things to consider is the domain name for the website. The domain name can be a great asset to the company or it will only contribute to the demise of the company.

1. One piece of advice Sebastian told the King, was that a good domain name is like setting up shop on main street, “you get high visibility, reputation and natural traffic.” You do not want to choose something that is difficult to type like and address that has too many dashes or is confusing like a .biz ending.
2. The second piece of advice was to have a title that is:

-Key word rich

-Short

-Generic

-Descriptive

-Memorable

-Brandable

-Geographic

-Industry-wide

-And had proper names

1.  Also, Sebastian told Triton to be prepared to pay a lot of money for a good domain name. There are 138 million registered domain names on the web, but only 5-10% are actually usable. Average domain prices are skyrocketing as more and more people are looking to buy up names. Do not be surprised if the name that you want costs over $100,000.
2. Lastly, remember that the chosen domain name is an investment in the brand. Your domain will be unique to you and no one else can use it. Make it work for you.

King Triton took these factors into account and came up with a domain name that was approved by Sebastian. Now the entire kingdom has a place to go to get all of its news, information and what direction King Triton is taking his kingdom in. This made his subjects very happy and included.

For more info, click here.

Public Relations Dwarf and his Press Releases

Most people know about the seven dwarfs that lived with Snow White. What people do not know is that there are more dwarfs. Their names range anywhere from Athletic Dwarf to Party Dwarf to CEO Dwarf. They all work for the mine in some capacity whether it is for the mine headquarters or as a miner.

One dwarf in particular was named Public Relations Dwarf. It was his job to get information to Newspaper Dwarf so he could write stories in the Dwarf Times. He dealt with the most important topic in all of Dwarfdom, the mine. The Dwarfs relied heavily on the mine not only for a source of income but also for shelter, for you see, when a mine is tapped out of reasources, the Dwarfs move into the mine. It is their protection from the elements as well as from animals and humans.

PR Dwarf

Over the course of a week, PR Dwarf began to notice that his mine information was not getting published. He was puzzled because if the mine is so important, why aren’t his stories about the mine getting put in the paper. He immediately contacted Newspaper Dwarf to get to the bottom of this issue.

On the fifth ring of the phone, he finally got to Newspaper Dwarf. He asked about why his press releases were not being made into stories. Newspaper Dwarf had five reasons for him.

1. PR Dwarf’s releases were too long. PR Dwarf looked back on his recent press releases and realized that they had been over three pages. Newspaper Dwarf did not have the time to sift through three pages of information.
2. Next, PR Dwarf realized that he sent out way too many releases. On one day alone, he sent Newspaper Dwarf five press releases. Not everything that PR Dwarf sent was newsworthy. He understood that not every little thing that happens in the mine is newsworthy like an ax that broke today.
3. He promised Newspaper Dwarf that he could have exclusive coverage to a new tunnel that was being mined but much to the dismay of Newspaper Dwarf, PR Dwarf said the same thing to a rival newspaper and they broke the story first. PR Dwarf realized that integrity is key. He should have kept the exclusive report only for Newspaper Dwarf.
4. Newspaper Dwarf also told him that he would never return his calls for follow-up information and access to interviews. Since Newspaper Dwarf couldn’t get the information he needed for his story, he had to move on to another story.
5. In some press releases, Newspaper Dwarf showed PR Dwarf that he made some outrageous claims. He made it seem like the miners found diamonds in mass quantities when in reality, all they found was a little bit of coal. By making outrageous claims, PR Dwarf compromised his integrity and Newspaper Dwarf couldn’t really trust him.

They did not find diamonds.

PR Dwarf took all of Newspaper Dwarf’s critizism and started to change his ways. Now he has a better relationship with Newspaper Dwarf and now get all his important stories into the newspaper.

More info found here.

The Evil Step Sisters Strike

Before Cinderella met her Fairy God mother and Prince Charming, she was just a girl who had big dreams. She had her very own Twitter account that she uses to connect with her friends, Snow White, Ariel and Jasmine. She would share with them her hopes and her dreams as well as what her stepsisters are doing to make her life miserable.

One day, while Cinderella was out running errands for her mean stepmother, the evil stepsisters went into Cinderellas small corner room and decided to mess with with her Twitter account.

1. The first think that the Stepsisters did was to set up and auto response. This started to make people think that the account that they were following is actually a spam account and not actually Cinderella.
2. Next, they went through all her old tweets and started to repeat them. More and more people started to question the credibility of Cinderella’s Twitter account and unfollowed her because no one likes to see repeated information and tweets.
3. Next, the three evil stepsisters decided that they wanted to use her account to sell not only their own items but sell Cinderella’s items to obtain a larger profit. People can get very annoyed when all you are doing is selling stuff on Twitter. That is what Craigslist and Ebay are for.
4. Saying whatever the $&!% you want. They began to post obscenities left, right and center. There are some people that are on Twitter who do not like profanity. These people unfollowed Cinderella fast. They didn’t like to see the f-word all over their timeline and had enough.
5. The last thing that the evil stepsisters did was claiming other people’s tweets as their own. People do not like and respect those who plagiarize. There is a retweet button for a reason.

The actions that the stepsisters did over the course of a few weeks resulted in a huge drop in number of followers for Cinderella. She felt as if she had no friends and was alone in the world.

The Evil stepsisters took away all credibility that Cinderella had built-up over the past few years. It will probably take her a lot longer to get her credibility back, if ever.

Info found here.

Zazu’s Pride Land Blog

Social Media has finally found its way to the Pride Lands, and King Simba wants to use it to show other animals what a great home he has. He decided to employ his trusted friend and adviser, Zazu.

Smartest hornbill in all the Pride Lands

Zazu has been with Simba since he was born. He previously worked for Simba’s evil uncle, Scar, and Simba’s own father, Musfasa. He has extensive knowledge about Social Media already because he visited his cousin, Iago, who is an expert in the Middle East.

Simba commissioned Zazu to start a blog. He told him some guidelines that he must follow that would up the creativity of the blog.

1. He had to brainstorm ideas. Whenever he had to do a blog post, he had to consult with Simba, Nala or another one of the royal court to make sure that his idea was appropriate to write about.
2. Most of the time, Zazu’s blog post was going to feature one of the inhabitants of the Pride Lands. He has to interview animals fairly and accurately and tell a story. Plus, by interviewing people, it would make writing a blog easier because other people answer the questions that you had for them. It would write itself.
3. If he really wanted to change it up and provide credibility, he would let a guest writer submit a blog post. Simba could write a feature about the state of the Pride Lands, similar to the State of the Union that the President of the United States gives.
4. Another possible blog post that would be creative would be to have a best-case study and a worst-case study. The topic could be wide ranging from watering holes, to hangout places.
5. A big thing that could be an interesting post is for Zazu would be to share his successes and failures in his own professional life. This could provide some insight for other potential bloggers to learn from his success and failures.
6. Combine two seemingly unrelated topics, and mash them together to make content more interesting. For instance, Zazu could talk about ruling a kingdom and how that compares to hunting. This is where Zazu can let his creativity grow and flourish.
7. Zazu will need to look at current trends to see what people are talking about so his post’s can stay relevant. He will get more people to read his blog if he writes about things that animals are currently into.
8. Write about that famous animal. Zazu could talk about, and interview that one giraff who save the monkey children from the rising flood waters. It would provide hard-hitting reporting while keeping people interested.
9. Finally, the last piece of advice that was provided to Zazu was to make his blog as personal as possible. This will make it easier for people to relate to the blog posts and Zazu.

If Zazu follows these guidelines for blog posts, then his blog will be a success and a perfect model for others who want to get into the blogging game.

For full list, click here.

Peter Pan’s Social Media Overload

It has been a hard time for Never Never Land.

Peter Pan has not been seen for weeks and the Indians and the Lost Children are beginning to worry about him. They have heard of Peter not being around or playing for a long time, but never this long.

The Lost Children decided that they needed to do something. They were tired of sitting around and waiting for Peter Pan to show his face. They thought something could be seriously wrong with him. The looked all over Never Never Land trying to find him. They first went to ask the Mermaids in their lagoon, then traveled to Crocidile Creek and even made the trecherous journey out to Skull Rock just to be sure. The Lost Children climbed the tallest mountains and explored the deepest caves, but Peter Pan could not be found.

They were about to give up when they all realized that they never checked Peter’s home. The rushed to his front door and threw it open. What they saw was a red-eye, open-mouthed Peter Pan staring at his computer screen which had both a Twitter page and a Facebook page open. They realized they needed help fast.

Boy did Peter Pan need help!

The Lost Children called upon their old friend Wendy, who just so happened to be a social media expert in the real world. She came as fast as she could in order to help Peter Pan. She helped him off the computer and laid him down to rest. Peter Pan soon fell fast asleep.

When he awoke, he was startled to realize that he spent a week on social media sites. He knew that he had to cut back his usage and asked Wendy for some help. She laid down some simple rules for him to follow.

Rule #1: Determine when you are most productive.

It wasn’t doing any good to keep posting updates during all times of the day. Peter needed to focus on what impacted his productivity the most, like the times he posts updates. Wendy told Peter that the best time for Twitter updates are:

• 5 p.m. is the best time for retweets
• the middle of the week
• and 12-6 p.m. is  the best time overall for tweets.

She also told him the best time for Facebook:

• Saturday is the best time to share
• Noon is the most effective time to post.

Rule #2: Time Saving Tools

Peter Pan spent so much time trying to find links to articles and website pages that he was spending all day in his computer. Wendy told his that there were websites that could store all his links in categories and makes them easier to access. These sites include:

• Reddit
• StumpleUpon
• Delicious

Also, to get rid of having both Facebook and Twitter up on the same tab, she recommended he use  social aggregators to help manage such as:

• Hootsuite
• Tweetdeck
• Seesmic

Peter Pan followed Wendy’s advice and now he doesn’t spend so much time on social media sites. He is now free to roam Never Never Land and play with all of it inhabitants.

Social media can be a powerful tool.

For more info, click here.

Jack Sparrow, Public Relations Expert

Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean was Disneyland’s famous log fume ride turned movie. Producer extraordinaire, Jerry Bruckheimer took a child’s fantasy ride and created a movie that lasted two hours and grossed over $46.6 million on the first weekend.

Bruckheimer and Johnny Depp brought the main character of Captain Jack Sparrow to the main screen. Sparrow captivated audiences with his wit, charm and his wavering allegiances to both the good side and the bad side. He single-handedly made the pirate look cool again.

See how cool he looks?

The movie franchise went on to create three more movies and grossed over $3.7 billion worldwide.

I just recently decided to watch the movie out of sheer boredness, and after I finished with the first movie, I thought that Captain Jack Sparrow would be a good Vice President of Public Relations for a pirating business (if they had a legit business).

Here are the reasons why:

1. Knowledge: Sparrow has been a pirate for pretty much all his life. He knows the ins and outs of the trade. He knows what common mistakes that young pirates make and knows the general public perception of pirating. He could possibly use this knowledge to combat peoples pre-determined misconceptions of how pirates act and behave and counter their attacks. There is once scene in particular where he is talking to Captain Norrington and is trying to explain why Norrington should let him go free and actually succeeded.
2. This brings me to my second point, Captain Jack Sparrow is charismatic. He is able to woo women and charm his way into what he wants. He used his charismatic ways on the rum traders that came to the island he was trapped on. He managed to cop a ride with them back to civilization instead of what people believed his did, which was ride off on sea turtles.
3. He doesn’t give up. Sparrow always goes for what he wants, whether it be gold or his ship. He commandeered the fastest ship in the Royal Navy just so he could chase his beloved Black Pearl. He always goes after what he want and wont stop until he gets its. Gold is another thing that Sparrow loves and tries at all times to procure more of it. He will do what it takes to get what he wants.
4. Experience: He might not have any public relations experience but he sure does have a lot of pirating experience to draw upon!

I feel as if all of Sparrow’s qualities are expressed nicely in this video of him by the Lonely Island featuring Michael Bolton:

What they Mighty Ducks Can Teach Us About Public Relations

I don’t know whether it is the fact that it is snowing right now in Eugene or that the NHL season is in full swing, but I have found myself watching Disney’s,  The Mighty Ducks. It might be the music or the constant “quack” chants, but the movie still gets me. The story of Adam Banks, Charlie Conway, Gordon Bombay and of course the Bash Bros. is a wonderful story about teamwork and the will to success and overcome any obstacle.

Julie "The Cat" Gaffney

In watching these movies for probably the 100th time, I began to draw parallels between coaching in sports, and the public relations industry.

1. You must think on your feet. Coach Bombay must decide when to make a line change to bring on fresh legs. PR practitioners must be ready to make a change on the fly to make sure their message is being delivered accurately. They must decided what is important and what needs to be seen by the right people.
2. Both must deal with adversity. Bombay had to face Team Iceland twice in the second Mighty Ducks movie. The Ducks/Team USA got their buts handed to them in the first game and where down for most of the second game. Bombay had to stay cool and keep a level head so he could coach his team to a gold medal in the Junior Goodwill Games. There will always be negative Nancy’s in the world and public relations professionals must learn how to deal with them. Some people might not like the plan that they drew up or how they are going about implementing it but it is up to the person to try their best to ignore these people and continue with what they think is the right idea and plan.
3. It feels great when a plan comes together. When the Ducks won, both players and Coach Bombay were extremely relieved and ecstatic. Same goes when a PR plan is realized and achieved. People are all around happy.
4. Both PR practitioners and Coach Bombay continue to look forward. Once a hockey game was over, Bombay brought his team together and they immediately began looking to the future and planning for the next game. PR pros must start preparing for their next assignment and not spend too much time reveling in their recent victory.

Movie info found here.

Aladdin’s PR Success Story

It took only a few rubs of a magic lamp for Aladdin’s life to completely change.

He went from a “street rat” to Prince in no time at all, and all it took was the voice of Robin Williams.

PR magic!

Of the three wishes the genie granted Aladdin, one was to be a Prince so he could catch the eye of the local Princess. He had seen her one day when she escaped the confines of her castle and set to roaming the streets of the city they both lived in. It was love at first sight for Aladdin but there was one problem; they were of a different social class and their marriage would be forbidden and shunned by everyone.

After his initial contact with the Princess, he was arrested, thrown in jail and then followed an old hermit into the desert. This is where he came upon the Cave of Wonders. He ventured into the cave (or the cave ate him because it entrance was a lions mouth) and came across huge piles of gold and more treasure than any one man could possibly have. In the very back of the cave, he came across the mother of all finds, a magic lamp. He released the genie from his cramped confines and in return, was granted three wishes.

Since Aladdin couldn’t wish for love, he wished for the next best thing, to be a Prince so he could marry the Princess. Then, using his magic, the genie turned Aladdin in to Prince Ali, complete with his own theme song. He waltzed into town and turned many head including the Sultan’s.

To get from living on the street to being a Prince, the genie had to use some magic, some PR magic!

No, not this kind of magic.

But really, I’m serious.

Dictionary.com defines “public relations” as “the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, and etc.”

I believe that the genie did this. All the genie used magic for was the clothing, conjuring up some people, and turning Abu into an elephant. Other than, the genie used public relations.

He created an event to let the people of the kingdom, and more importantly the royal family, know that he was a Prince. He set up the parade to show off the new Prince and how popular he is. The Genie tried his best to put his “client” in a good light and make him seem like a likeable person and marketable to the public.

Since the people in the kingdom didn’t have Facebook around back then, the genie had to get creative in his ways to “show-off” the new Prince. The parade was a huge success and scores of people turned out to witness it.

The genie took someone who was hated and  looked downed upon and turned them into someone regular people could cheer for.

A real rags to riches story.

Penn St. PR Fiasco

By now, it is well know what happened at Penn St.

Jerry Sandusky was accused of touching young children in the shower at the Penn St. University athletic showers in 2002. After it was discovered that Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary had previous knowledge of the situation, the Board of Trustees decided to take action and fire Joe Paterno and later McQueary. After the President of the university said he would stand behind his University and not judge the accused until later, the Board of Trustees took action again, this time axing the President of the University, Graham Spanier, himself.

What the Board of Trustees didn’t account for was the outpouring of support for the President Spanier and Joe Pa.

What followed was nothing more than a disaster for the Board of Trustees.

They reacted without first thinking of the consequences. They were extremely quick and didn’t use rash judgment in the firing of Spanier and the most celebrated college football coach of our time. There were pictures upon pictures of students gathered around the Paterno household as well as by his stature that bears his likeness at Beaver Stadium.

If the Board of Trustees has thought through their decision then they would have seen that the best course of action was the one that the former president took, wait and see what happens.

To put this in lighter terms, this is similar to what Mater from Car had to go through in the second movie. He came across an international crisis but when he told people what he saw, they did not believe him. If Lightning McQueen waited until hearing all the facts instead of just jumping to conclusions, then things might have been different. Mater would have saved the day a lot earlier and a lot more cars would have been saved in the process.

Mater Tow

Source here.