Storytelling for PR

By Livia Trevino

A new strategy that many brands are starting to focus on for promotion is great storytelling. With a new generation, there are many things that brands have to adapt to, one of them being the need for a story to keep the audience’s interest. The old practice of repetition is no longer needed as much as the polishing of your content.

Leo Windrich wrote an article about what storytelling does to our brain that explains why it is so important to audiences. He says, “Not only are the language processing parts in our brain activated, but any other area in our brain that we would use when experiencing the events of the story are too.” Stories are proven to interact with multiple parts of our brain, which perfectly explains the appeal.

Windrich also gives great examples on how to use storytelling in everyday life, but I’m going to change them to have a PR purpose:

1. “Make others come up with your idea: Exchange telling suggestions for telling stories”: Your audience could be the best way to create content. I personally love when brands reach out to their audience for their personal stories because that shows they care. It also shows their audience that they matter.
2. “Write more persuasively – bring in stories from yourself or an expert”: In your field, there are key influencers that your audience listens to and, most importantly, listens to. It would do your brand well to share stories from them to gain trust and popularity within your own audience.
3. “The simple story is more successful than the complicated one”: We all know that most audiences don’t have time to digest a complex story, so why give them one? There is no shame in keeping it simple.

Keep in mind that storytelling shouldn’t just be designated for PR purposes, it can be used in almost anything you do. Science shows that people love to hear stories, so why not use it for anything you can? I know I will.

 

Sources

(2016). Why you need to become a storyteller. CP Communications. Retrieved from https://publicrelationssydney.com.au/why-you-need-to-become-a-storyteller/

Elena. (2016). The Art of Storytelling in PR. PR in Your Pajamas. Retrieved from http://prinyourpajamas.com/the-art-of-storytelling-pr/

Windrich, Leo. (29 November 2012). The Science of Storytelling: What Listening to a Story Does to Our Brains. Buffer. Retrieved from https://blog.bufferapp.com/science-of-storytelling-why-telling-a-story-is-the-most-powerful-way-to-activate-our-brains

Problems PR Pros Never Expect, But Should Prepare For

By Livia Trevino

In the past few weeks, our country has been plagued by possibly the weirdest, yet kind of scary phenomenon ever: the clown problem. People began reporting people dressed as clowns trying to lure kids into the woods. Then clowns started popping up everywhere, even in my small town of Denton, TX. This obviously created a problem for people living in American cities where “clown sightings” happened. What is more of an afterthought is the problems this caused for brands and companies.

For instance, McDonald’s had to limit the appearances made by their clown mascot, Ronald McDonald. Target and Party City even decided to halt sales of most of their clown masks and costumes.

Target spokesman, Joshua Thomas told USA Today, “Given the current environment, we have made the decision to remove a variety of clown masks from our assortment, both in stores and online.”

This shows that sometimes, PR professionals have to deal with problems that their training or experience have never prepared them for. I am willing to bet that the PR department at Target did not have a contingency plan for what to do when clowns started to terrorize the country.

Many people questioned if Target was right in taking the clown costumes off their shelves. In my opinion, Target was following a trend, which is something many companies do. They saw that clown sightings were a growing trend and instead of giving into the 300% rise in sales for clown costumes, they decided to pull all costumes from their shelves. It was right of them to pull the costumes and I think they will gain recognition for it.

It is refreshing to see a company take a stance on something and take actions according to it.

 

Sources

Allen, Kevin. (19 October 2016). Target takes stance on creepy clowns, pulls related items from stock. PR Daily. Retrieved from http://www.prdaily.com/Main/Articles/2e65575f-d1a2-4d26-8d9d-27bc372b6bb5.aspx?utm_content=buffera3558&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Bowerman, Mary. (17 October 2016). Target pulls clown masks from shelves amid creepy clown threats. USA Today. Retrieved from http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation-now/2016/10/17/target-pulls-clown-masks-shelves-amid-creepy-clown-threats/92276390/

PR in Everything

By Livia Trevino

This week for my blog I wanted to do something different. Instead of talking about a topical PR subject, I wanted to discuss something that is personal to me. As my bio states, I am a PR student at the University of North Texas. I have been studying public relations for a little over two years, but little did I know I have been preparing for my career for way longer than that.

As people in the PR field, we get asked a lot about what exactly PR is. When the inevitable question comes, we hesitate, not for the lack of knowing but for the lack of not knowing where to start. Like many career fields, PR cannot be explained by any simple definition. There are a lot of things that PR professionals can do. That means that people practice basic PR practices every day without even knowing it.

Every time you have to explain to your kids why something “isn’t fair”, you’re practicing PR. Every time you plan a surprise party for somebody you know, you’re practicing PR. Even the times you answer an email or send a tweet, you’re practicing some sort of PR. This might put me out of a job in the future, but everybody inherently practices things that PR pros do on a daily basis, you just don’t know it.

The thing that I love the most about PR is that it is simple enough for anybody to practice the basics in their everyday lives, but at the same time it’s too complex for everybody to be able to do it as a job. It takes a certain kind of student to be able to have a PR job and be good at it. I see it in my classmates and I also see it in myself. We are all like-minded people who bring different experiences to our classes.

PR is in everything I do now, the only difference is that I can see it.

Negative Feedback

By Livia Trevino

According to a research done at Harvard University, “people tend to move away from those who provide feedback that is more negative than their view of themselves.” The researchers examined employee’s peer reviews and saw that they were less likely to work with people who gave them negative feedback.

I’ve always had the belief that it is harder for most people to take criticism, especially in an academic setting.

Once, a professor took me aside to talk to me about a feature I wrote. I already knew my professor was going to say that it was terrible, because I already knew that it was. When I easily accepted my professor’s feedback, which was expectedly negative, my professor was astounded.

A day later, they came up to me to see if I was okay. When I said that I was fine and I knew the feature was not acceptable, my professor still didn’t seem convinced. They then told me something that has since stuck with me: no other student in the class has accepted and agreed with the professor’s negative feedback as easily as I did.

When you search, “How to take negative feedback” there are millions of results, many of them are step-by-step ways to use negative feedback to better yourself.

According to a study done by Leadership IQ, “[Leadership IQ] found that 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback.”

The problem seems simple, but the solution is complex. There’s no certain way to learn how to take negative feedback but apparently, there are millions of ways to start.

 

Sources

Gino, Francesca. (16 September 2016). Research: We Drop People Who Give Us Critical Feedback. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2016/09/research-we-drop-people-who-give-us-critical-feedback

Green, P., Gino, F., & Staats, B. (2016). Shopping for confirmation: How threatening feedback leads people to reshape their social network. Working paper.

Murphy, Mark. (22 June, 2015). Why New Hires Fail (Emotional Intelligence Vs. Skills). Leadership IQ. Retrieved from http://www.leadershipiq.com/blogs/leadershipiq/35354241-why-new-hires-fail-emotional-intelligence-vs-skills

Social Media Positivity

Photo from Chevrolet

By Livia Trevino

There are several elements that companies have to take into consideration when it comes to managing a social media account. The content of a company’s social media account has always been important, but what is most forgotten about is the tone of an account.

According to Buffer, “studies have shown that positivity in social media wins in online interactions.”

People want to have interactions with companies, but more than anything, they want those interactions to be positive. The tone of each post shapes the tone of an entire account, so it is important to choose each word carefully.

Chevrolet is trying to help people be more positive on social media by providing a measurement tool that “uses IBM Watson to evaluate how positive people are on social media.”

The measurement tool is easy to use and anybody, including companies can see how positive their Twitter and Facebook is by simply syncing their accounts. The scale of positivity is from 1 to 200, 1 being the least positive and 200 being the most positive. The average positivity score according to the website, is 114. They also give you key words that helped determined your score.

The next step for a company that received a low score can do several things.

Melyssa Griffin suggests for Twitter accounts you should “Think of a simple, but positive topic and hold yourself to tweeting about it everyday for a certain amount of time.”

Griffin also suggest for Facebook to simply “Start a positivity/motivational group.”

Little changes to a social media account can make a big difference. There can be a lot of tips and tricks that you can pull from, but the most important thing is to pay attention to what your audience responds to.

 

Sources

Griffin, Melyssa. HOW TO SPREAD POSITIVITY THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA. Melyssa Griffin. Retrieved from http://www.melyssagriffin.com/how-to-spread-positivity-through-social-media/

Lee, Kevan. (2014, October 16). Want to Improve Your Social Media Sharing? Harness the Power of Positivity in Social Media. Buffer. Retrieved from https://blog.bufferapp.com/positivity-social-media

Schultz, E.J.. (2016, September 16). Chevy and IBM Will Rate Your Social Media ‘Positivity’. AdvertisingAge. Retrieved from http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/chevy-ibm-rate-social-media-positivity/305843/

How PR is Adjusting to Millennials

By Livia Trevino

Every generation has grown up in different versions of the same world. This creates different experiences that PR professionals have to adjust their marketing strategies to accommodate.

The most important generation that PR has been currently focusing on are millennials. Merriam Webster give the general definition of a millennial as, “a person who was born in the 1980s or 1990s.” Being a millennial means many different things, such as the way they want to communicate with their favorite brands.

According to Anna Stanley of Cues.org, engagement in multiple forms of communication is important to millennials.

Stanley says, “Reaching Millennials through social media channels, such as Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook (not to mention on smartphone apps), is the first step in attracting this unique demographic.”

Millennials care about truth in brands which includes engagement and two-way communication. But has Chipotle has recently proven that not every effort to reach millennials works.

Chipotle has recently tried to appeal to their millennial public by tweeting a survey that asked “How many burritos?” and the answer choices were either 69 or 420. One number is a reference to sex while the other is a reference to marijuana. The tweet soon went viral and currently has 6,903 retweets.

Photo retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/chipotle-tweets-about-sex-and-marijuana-to-win-back-millennials-2016-9

The amount of votes that Chipotle received can be perceived as a success because of the high rate of engagement, but the response tells a different story.

According to Business Insider, “It appeared to be an attempt by Chipotle to seem cool and win back young customers, but it was mostly mocked on Twitter.”

 

Sources

Peterson, Hayley. (2016, September 6). Chipotle tweets about sex and marijuana in desperate attempt to win back millennials. Business Insider. Retrieved from http://www.businessinsider.com/chipotle-tweets-about-sex-and-marijuana-to-win-back-millennials-2016-9

Stanley, Anna. (2015, July). PR Insight: Marketing to Millennials. Cues.org. Retrieved from https://www.cues.org/article/view/id/PR-Insight-Marketing-to-Millennials

ITT Technical Institute Closures- Local Colleges React

By Livia Trevino

On Tuesday, September 6, ITT Education Services, Inc. ceased all operations at every ITT Technical Institute location across the country.

In a news release, ITT said, “The actions of and sanctions from the U.S. Department of Education have forced us to cease operations of the ITT Technical Institutes, and we will not be offering our September quarter.”

According to WFAA, there were three ITT locations in North Texas: Arlington, DeSoto and Richardson. Many of the students who were interviewed by WFAA on these campuses were not given any prior warnings about ITT closures. One student found out about the closure when they showed up to class that day. Another student was notified through an email.

In response to these unexpected closures, other colleges in the surrounding areas like the University of North Texas, Richland Community College and Dallas County Community College District have been offering solutions to help students who were affected, finish their degree.

The University of North Texas released a statement saying, “To begin classes this fall, qualified students will receive individualized attention and will be walked through the enrollment process.”

UNT, Richland and Dallas County had quick responses to the closures, which helped them earn news stories from several local media outlets.

These colleges displayed a great PR practice this week by responding to a crisis that was not their own, by providing a solution.

The difference between the two responses that ITT and other colleges released can be seen through the stories written about them.

WFAA wrote about both statements within a few days, but the story about ITT was negatively framed. ITT offered help to their students by providing them with their academic records, but the article shows that it was not enough.

On the other side, the story written about the other colleges shows that they are providing better solutions and frame them as saviors.

This is a perfect PR case that shows how important responses to the public are to a company’s image.

 

 

Sources

(2016, September 6). ITT Tech shutting down due to ban on federal aid. WFAA. Retrieved from http://www.wfaa.com/news/education/itt-tech-shutting-down-due-to-ban-on-federal-aid/314446173

(2016, September 6).ITT Educational Services, Inc. to Cease Operations at all ITT Technical Institutes Following Federal Actions. ITT Technical Institute. Retrieved from http://www.ittesi.com/2016-09-06-ITT-Educational-Services-Inc-to-Cease-Operations-at-all-ITT-Technical-Institutes-Following-Federal-Actions

WFAA Staff (2016, September 8).University, colleges offers to help ITT Tech students continue education. WFAA. Retrieved from http://www.wfaa.com/news/education/unt-offers-to-help-itt-tech-students-continue-education/315597418?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Cincinnati Zoo Deletes Their Twitter- Was it an Overreaction?

Retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/adopted-father-who-raised-endangered-8080082

By Livia Trevino

On May 29, 2016 a gorilla named Harambe was shot and killed to save a child who fell into the gorilla’s enclosure. After Harambe’s death, there was an uproar on social media in the form of memes and petitions. The petitions called for the arrest and prosecution of the mother of the child for her alleged negligence that led to Harambe’s death. The memes, which are defined as “an amusing or interesting picture, video, etc., that is spread widely through the Internet,” by Merriam-Webster, were the bulk of the Zoo’s problem.

The attention drawn from Harambe’s death was severe enough to make the Cincinnati zoo ask for the memes to stop.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the zoo’s director, Thane Maynard, told the Associated Press, “We are not amused by the memes, petitions and signs about Harambe. Our zoo family is still healing, and the constant mention of Harambe makes moving forward more difficult for us.”

The call for no more memes caused people to flood the Cincinnati Zoo’s Twitter account with even more mentions of Harambe. The relentless tweets and mentions of Harambe forced the Zoo’s hand and they deleted their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

When the Cincinnati Enquirer contacted the Zoo for comment about their account not being active, the spokesperson commented, “Thanks. We know.”

For a PR professional to comment in such a hasty way makes the Zoo look like a sore loser to the public.

However, the biggest problem is that the Zoo deleted their prominent social media account because of the public’s temporary obsession with a gorilla that was killed in their possession. Instead of trying to identify with their public and try to satisfy them, the Zoo simply gave up, which is not a standard PR practice.

The Zoo’s overreaction seems to make matters worse and will always blemish their reputation. The only thing that the Cincinnati zoo seemed to accomplish is the guarantee that Harambe will continue to haunt their image.

 

Bibliography

(2016, May 29). Outrage after gorilla killed at Cincinnati Zoo to save child. CBS News. Retrieved from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/outrage-after-gorilla-harambe-killed-at-cincinnati-zoo-to-save-child/

THR Staff. (2016, August 23). Cinncinati Zoo Deactivates Twitter Account; Is “Not Amused” by Harambe Memes. The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/cincinnati-zoo-deactivates-twitter-harambe-memes-922007?utm_source=twitter

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/meme

Picture retrieved from http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/adopted-father-who-raised-endangered-8080082