​My colleague, Lori Johnson, was recently asked to speak to a group of college students at the University of Central Oklahoma’s Mass Communication Week. Lori’s intense media relations experience is similar to my digital marketing experience - some of the same strategies, just different medium. Her dual presentation with Sara Terry-Cobo of The Journal Record was so illuminating! They presented the right (and wrong) way for PR professionals to pitch stories to journalists. You know what they say about getting back to basics? Learning the basics of PR pitching was a great reminder of some important core concepts in digital marketing.

1. Keep it short and sweet. If two or three sentences will get the job done, for heaven’s sake don’t write four. Journalists get many emailed pitches every day and they don’t have time to read a novel. The goal is to grab their attention. The same goes for social media or email marketing, right? 40 characters is the optimal length for a Facebook post. Shorter than the previous sentence. Maybe this PR thing isn’t so different from creating digital content.
2. Is it really news? Before you send a pitch to a journalist, hopefully you already know why you’re sending it and what about it is newsworthy. The why is endlessly important. The same goes for digital media. We shouldn’t be updating social media and creating content without goals in mind. Keeping in mind the “newsworthiness” of your digital content will keep your audience from getting bored and will help you grow your following. 
3. Know your audience. No, really, Lori and Sara hit home the importance of getting to know the journalists you’re pitching to. That may mean regular coffee dates! You should know a journalist’s beat, their interests and what they’ve written in the past. Isn’t that what we like to do in digital marketing? Looking at the kind of content that your online audience interacts with is a great way to determine how to plan out your future content. You may not be able to ask your target audience out for a cup of coffee to get to know them, but sometimes data can give you insight that will make your “digital pitch” successful.

Working in both the news industry and public relations may seem like balancing two different worlds, but they both speak to my passion of connecting and communicating with the public. Although having two jobs can be stressful, I know this experience will help guide me to eventually make the right career transition. As an intern for Anglin PR, I am writing social media messages, creating communication materials and talking to news media about great client news.  

I am also an associate producer at News 9 in Oklahoma City. Getting started in broadcast news has given me a solid foundation in areas such as news writing, time management and being detail oriented.
 
I graduated from the University of Oklahoma in May of 2016 with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism with an emphasis in public relations. My first exposure to an agency was as a digital intern at Lindsey + Asp, a student-run agency. I learned about an agency’s overall functions and stayed on top of the latest social media trends. I also had the opportunity to be chosen as a strategy intern at 360i Chicago, a global digital marketing agency. I learned what it was like to work on a national brand, such as Nestlé’s Skinny Cow, a brand with offerings in ice cream, coffee and candy.
 
In my spare time, I’m a contributing writer for Mogul, a platform dedicated to women worldwide. I specifically like to cover ambitious millennial women and their careers. I’m also a member of the National Association of Black Journalists and the Public Relations Society of America. 
 
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Fun Facts:

What’s your spirit animal?
Probably a koala, because I’m usually calm and laid back.

What’s your favorite TV show?
Hands down, AMC’s Breaking Bad and HBO’s The Wire are the best TV shows of all time.

What do you like to do for fun?
I love to travel to diverse places, especially big cities. I’m completely obsessed with New York City after living there for a brief period. I’d like to believe that I can pretty much navigate any major city with no problem.

If you could visit any place in the world, where would it be?
I have my passport, but I haven’t been anywhere abroad yet. My goal is to take a trip abroad next year with couple of friends to either London, Tokyo or New Zealand.

What are you most excited about learning during your internship?
I’m excited to continue learning more about account management while also honing my PR skills. Coming from a broadcast news background, I’m learning news from another perspective: writing news releases, creating media lists and pitching to media outlets. Although there’s still a lot more to learn, it’s been an incredible experience gaining mentorship and working so closely with the women at the agency who have tons of industry experience.

Anglin PR is hiring for a digital marketing specialist.  The job description is below, but to give a sense of cultural fit - we have 3 enduring characteristics that define us:  (1) Humble - understanding that other peoples' skills and input can make their work better (2) Hungry - a natural curiosity that likes to explore new ideas and try new things and (3) Smart - learns from successes and mistakes and displays good decision making and follow through.  Know someone like that? 

Job Description for Digital Marketing Specialist – Full Time 
Anglin PR specializes in communication strategy and implementation. The firm provides services ranging from strategic planning and image development to customer, community and media outreach.
 
Anglin PR is hiring a digital marketing specialist to participate with the team in the research, planning, implementation and evaluation of client programs.  This team member will have marketing and PR experience with a specialty in digital marketing.
 
Scope of Responsibilities:

• Learn about client industries and provide expert advice on communication and image needs.
• Plan, budget and execute advertising campaigns on social media and digital outlets.
• Write and post original content for web, social media, blogs, email campaigns and other media.
• Report performance of marketing campaigns and measure against campaign and client goals.
• Identify insights related to campaign effectiveness and customer experience, and make recommendations to optimize budget and our time/effort based on the insights.
• Evaluate emerging technologies. Provide leadership for adoption where appropriate.
• Attend community meetings, represent clients and Anglin PR and speak to groups about areas of expertise.

 
Requirements:

• Bachelor’s or higher degree.
• At least 2 years of experience with marketing using databases, email, social media
• Strong writing skills.
• Strong interpersonal and relationship building skills, experience in dealing with multiple and diverse stakeholders, and interacting with business and technology partners.
• Requires familiarity/working knowledge of Google analytics tools, HTML and web creation tools, social media scheduling and monitoring tools, and email marketing platforms.
• Preferred experience with Photoshop, Hubspot, social and digital ad serving tools, Google Adwords

 
Salary
Range $35,000 - $45,000, depending on experience.
 
Please submit resume, 2 writing samples and descriptions with samples from 2 digital marketing campaigns:
Anglin Public Relations
720 N.W. 50th, Ste. 200a
Oklahoma City, OK 73116
jobs@AnglinPR.com
no phone calls please.

More than 50% of journalists visit online newsroom sections of organizations’ websites at least once a week. They are looking for background and information on a story they are researching or writing.  Being able to find what they need sometimes can mean the difference between a story, a brief or no mention at all.
 
Top things journalists are looking for in an online newsroom:

1. Media contacts for your company, including cell phone numbers for after-hours contact. Don’t use a web form for contacting the company or press@companyname.com  Use a human.
2. Hi-res photos (and video if you have them) of product or service.  Use JPEG file format that can be used for both electronic and print media.  Allow easy download and use fine print to spell out any copyright or attribution requirements.
3. Infographics if you have a product or a process that is difficult to explain or photograph.
4. News releases.  Make sure everything can be text searched, copied and edited.
5. Hi-res headshots and brief bios of key company leaders.  Keep bios consistent (length, level of detail, tone, etc).  Even better – list who is spokesperson and if you have more than one, list of who speaks to what based on expertise.
6. Stories or real reviews from customers, patients or clients who have used your product or service.  No marketing language (1-2 sentences of personal or professional background to indicate why they needed you, length of time they’ve been a client, 1-2 sentence outcome).  Have contact info ready to share in case the reporter wants to follow up with the customer.
7. Financial information (for publicly held)
8. Recent news coverage.  They’ll typically look at who else has covered you, especially if they are trying to write an exclusive or be first.  Don’t add your Newswire or other paid wire service clips - those don’t add credibility for reporters.
9. Succinct information about company background and products/services, how the company is organized, where it started and when, etc.
10. Upcoming events, presentations or other places people can “find” you (list of trade shows you’ll be attending allows media to add you to their list of who they might stop in to meet)
11. Presentations, Powerpoints or videos from past public presentations
12. RSS feed (sign up) and social media handles/links.

 
Tips to organize your online newsroom:

• Don’t be tempted to throw in too many extra things that you think a journalist might need, but design the media center for the widest range of journalists – those in your industry and those who aren’t.
• Add a filter and/or search function to find information or news releases by topic, product/service, date and other relevant details.
• Purge or archive the really old stuff.
• Start today. Add a tab on your top-level navigation “Media Room” or “Media Center.”  Add the 24/7 media contact name, email and cell phone.  As you have more elements, add them.

If you're going to spend the time to write a news release, make sure it gets read by following these best practices:

1. Headlines.  In this order: brief, summary of what you’re about to read, key words, probably not the company’s name, clever if you can do it.  Sometimes we write the release, then add the headline.
2. 90% of releases should use inverted pyramid. Start with key information (5Ws and the H) in the first paragraph. Occasionally, it’s highly effective to use a more narrative or storytelling approach, but don’t do so without serious thought and professional guidance.
3. New products or technology.  Introduce your product or service in the first paragraph.  Use your 15-second elevator pitch – don’t get overly formal with your language.
   1. Identify need.
   2. What problem do you solve?
   3. Use a hyperlink to point to a resource (your website or a subpage of your website) that will provide additional information, resources or images.  It can shorten the explanation needed. If you quote a statistic or another source, be sure to reference it with a hyperlink to that site.  See our blog “News Release Hyperlink How To.”
4. Keep language simple and fact-based.
   1. No selling. Releases typically don’t have marketing language or superlatives.  Be very careful about using qualifiers with price (“only”) and including product specs in the lead.
   2. Scan document for jargon—then hit “delete.” Jargon lets others know you have esoteric knowledge and it reinforces group identity. But when you need to communicate with the outside world, it alienates. Insider language in industries like technology is common. Cut it and explain what you mean in layman’s terms. 
   3. No hyperbole or self-congratulatory tone. Give the reporter direct access to real facts.  Certain words are so overused that reporters poke fun at those who use them: “first to market,” “innovative technology,” “market disruption,” “launched,” “state of the art” and “revolutionary” are a few.
5. No “plug and play” quotes--add something to the announcement. Use the 2nd or 3rd paragraph to add color with a quote. Don’t simply restate the lead or second graph or say anything that starts with “We are excited to offer….”  You’re the CEO and you are unique because you know lots of things the rest of us don’t.  Don’t quote multiple people within the company to be “fair” and spread the recognition among the founders.  Pick one person. Exceptions: future of the company from CEO and critical new feature from lead programmer. Try and be human and offer something other than facts that can be gleaned from the rest of the release or your website.
6. Formatting, grammar and other very boring aspects. If a release has grammatical, AP style, spelling or factual errors, a reporter has to correct your mistakes and what you’ve sent becomes less credible. 
7. Keep it Short.  No more than 2 pages, but try for less.
8. Keep credentials at a minimum.  Don’t include a string of credentials and degrees behind your name and especially not in the first or second paragraphs (if at all).  You can hyperlink to your website page where bios live.

Lately, we’ve been improving some websites for companies and have noticed some bad patterns.

1. Wrong amount of content.  There’s a healthy balance between a slogan and listing in great (too much) detail: every product, service and process on the landing page.  People want to read a brief overview of your company on your home page and quickly determine if they have found the company that can help them. It’s surprising how many websites don’t give a basic description of what they do on the first page.  
2. Confusing navigation that forces visitors to scroll or click in multiple places. Search engines (and customers for that matter) reward companies that make it easy to find information.  Keep your homepage as a nice intro and add information to subpages that are clearly labeled to help people understand your product or service and how your company is uniquely qualified in that area.
3. Low quality photos.  It’s unfortunate that first impressions are formed mostly by our appearances and not our substance.  The same is true for websites.  Trust, credibility and even readability, decrease with low-quality photos. Image to shoot for: clean, smart, attractive and when possible, original instead of stock photos.
4. Not looking at analytics.  How do you know what to improve if you don’t look at how people are using your site?  What are your most popular pages?  Do people return? What terms do they search to find your site?  It is surprising how many organizations (even big ones) don’t have Google Analytics or some other type of web analytics on their site.  Those who do have it don’t review their analytics often enough.  It’s free and easy to add. The challenge is to make reviewing analytics a priority.

 
This is not a complete list of website blunders, but hits the top barriers. People have a lot of angst about websites, but these fixes can be easy, quick and take your website from “meh” to “yeah!”

It’s Small Business Week April 30-May 6.  In my opinion, every week should be small business week since we employ almost 53% of Oklahomans.
 
Over the 18-year history of Anglin PR, we’ve worked with a lot of small businesses—hundreds.  When it comes to marketing, we’ve noticed missed opportunities – things that bigger businesses have figured out along the way—that any small business can, and should, do now.
 

1. Capturing data on your customers.  It sounds simple, but capturing data is one of the biggest missed opportunities. Start with potential customers – capturing the basics such as names, emails and other contact information.  As you make a sale, collect more – their household income, where they live, if they have children in the home, what they do for a living, etc.  Collecting psychographic information – why they are making a purchase, what need it will meet and if they compared you to competitors – can also be useful.  Use the data to better understand your current customers and help find new potential customers and “look-alike,” or similar audiences, in your future marketing efforts.
2. Tying social media back to your physical location.  Give customers more value and a reason to visit your small business by tying your social media to a call to action. For example, a kitchen store could offer cooking classes. A construction company could offer estimating workshops. Any retailer can offer a special for an in-store visit.  Social media value is difficult to measure if your audiences never think to call you, visit your website, make an appointment or stop in your retail location. Developing a personal relationship is an advantage that small business can have over large business.
3. Making sure your website is working for you.  A website is a 24/7 representation of your company.  Large businesses often have a person assigned to manage the website. Small businesses, busy with day-to-day operations, rarely review the content on their websites or look at analytics -the data that tells you who comes to your site and what they do or look at.  As a result, you don’t know what needs to be “fixed” or updated and you could be losing potential customers. Reviewing your website regularly can take as little as an hour a week. Look at the website from your customer’s perspective and by looking at your website’s analytics. The information will give you as much insight as the big business web marketer.

 
With today’s technology tools, small businesses can compete with big businesses to reach potential customers, develop more personal relationships and increase sales.

For a public relations practioner, storytelling is in our DNA. If we are not putting it down on paper or posting it online, it is a safe assumption we are busy crafting a story in our heads. It is a perk when we can use our craft to shine the spotlight on someone making a difference in our community. ​