Launching a New Company? Make Sure PR is in your Toolbox

You’ve got the idea. Your business plan is in place. The financing is ready to roll. Now you’re ready to launch. Let the media tour begin, right?

Wrong.

In today’s world, launching a new company isn’t just a news release or even a media tour. There are simply too many new companies and products are hitting the market every day. To ensure a successful launch, a complex set of variables must be considered before hit the market. A well-defined strategy is the key to providing a strong platform for not only the launch, but the on-going growth of your new venture.

Public relations unlocks the door to what, how and when you should be communicating. As the backbone for setting the tone for a new company, public relations shapes your firm’s personality, and provides the basis for its credibility and reputation from the time until your success peaks.

As a result, public relations is a critical tool that must be included in your new company’s launch toolbox.

Here are the top five things that must be included in your public relations campaign:

• What’s the message? Every company should have solid messaging developed before it launches. The messages should explore: What are the key factors that will drive the company personality? What do you want to be known for? What are the pillars that contribute to your team, product or service, and digital footprint?

These messages form the foundation for all future communications serve as a springboard for all public relations activities.

• What’s the end goal for the company?Your communications and public relations planning must address the following: Where do you want to go? Who is your primary and secondary audience? Creating a vision that your team and your audience(s) understand and embrace will provide clarity on the steps that must be taken to achieve success.

• What are the best channels for reaching your audience? Your PR campaign should integrate a variety of communications tools that support your goals. In today’s world, these include content generation, media placements, sponsored content, social media – LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat to name a few – branding, advertising, conference attendance, speaking engagements and more. Clearly, understanding your goals and knowing how to select the best tools and channels to put in your launch toolbox are crucial.

• What’s the launch budget? No company has an unlimited budget. A strong PR campaign means investing wisely in only those initiatives render the best possible return on your investment. That said, unexpected opportunities and challenges will come up as you move forward. You should consider a contingency budget to cover the costs of these unexpected issues – particularly during a launch. By planning for the unexpected, you’ll be able to explain – and move past – any hiccups that occur, as well as take advantage of any great, but costly opportunities that surface.

• Start Early. A strategic public relations plan means starting early. Providing relevant content to reporters, bloggers and influencers means generating consistent, on-going content that is timely and relevant. Preparing as much as possible in advance will make it easier and faster to roll out the program. Make sure your roll-out strategy is nailed down tight by asking yourself which key reporters you want to target first. Is an exclusive editorial ‘sit down’ with key targets worthwhile? Is a pre-launch ‘coming soon’ social media launch appropriate? Be sure to establish social media platforms in advance, complete with appropriate company information and initial content. Gather photography, create posts, and generate a pre-launch posting schedule.

So what’s the bottom line? Launching a company is exciting. There is no question that seeing it come to fruition provides a sense of satisfaction unlike any other. To make sure this happens, include a strong public relations campaign in your toolbox.

About the author: Leeza L. Hoyt, APR is the president of the Hoyt Organization, Inc., a full service, strategic public relations agency based in the Los Angeles area. Ranked on the Los Angeles Business Journal’s list of PR agencies, the 25+-year old firm is the Los Angeles agency partner of the Public Relations Global Network (PRGN.org) a group of more than 50 agencies located around the world. For more

How to get yourself noticed in today’s crazy online world

The ability to stand out from the crowd has always been a big part of success.

The world’s most accomplished business leaders, professionals, politicians, academics, social activists, and celebrities know how to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

But standing out from the crowd has taken on new meaning – and requires a new set of skills – in today’s digital world.

The digital and social media arenas are overrun with endless streams of information and postings from every conceivable source.

Getting Noticed Requires a New Set of Online Skills

With so much of the world clamouring to be seen and heard online, a new state of nonstop noise has been generated along with ridiculously stiff competition for audience attention.

The noise is so loud that entire industries have developed around the concept of inbound marketing and the creation of content so compelling it can grab attention in the crowded online universe.

But creating fascinating content that cuts through today’s digital landscape is no easy feat.

Here are 10 ways successful communicators get noticed in today’s crowded online world:

1, Be Ruthlessly Succinct

Less is more; this has always been the bedrock of effective communicating.

With attention spans at all-time lows, brevity has never been more crucial to engaging any online audience.

In terms of online postings, the key is to develop what you want to say and then be ruthless about editing it down to its bare minimum – and then editing it down again.

Putting no more than three lines in a paragraph makes your copy pleasing to the online eye and easy for audiences to scan.

You want your audience to get the gist of what you are communicating quickly and easily without having to wade through a complex web of material.

2, Know What your Audience Wants

Knowing your audience is the price of admission for any successful online communication initiative.

Understanding their demographics and characteristics determines what kind of information they are interested in receiving.

It also determines how they like to receive information and which channels and platforms – both online and off – they are likely to turn to for content.

3, Master the Art of Compelling Online Headlines

Your audience needs to be irresistibly drawn into your postings when they have so many other things to click on and look at.

You could have amazing content, but without the right grabber your audience will probably never see it.

With so much information being cascaded online, grabbing attention is not easy.

Providing compelling headlines and titles that are newsworthy, unusual and even shocking encourages audiences to dig deeper into what you have to say.

4, Communicate in Threes

One of the tactics used by leading communicators is to express content in threes; this is a particularly powerful communication approach.

It means deciding on three core messages or ideas you want an audience to take away from your postings.

Three is generally a digestible amount of information for the human mind to absorb and remember.

Less than three main ideas tends to be seen as too sparse to be considered substantial content; more than three broad ideas can overwhelm short attention spans and leave a blurry perception of your overall message.

5, Use Fascinating Facts

We are living in the era of data and big data.

With so much information available at our finger tips, audiences today crave new and fresh facts.

Fascinating facts that are not widely known can add a great deal of punch to online postings and keep an audience engaged.

6, Tell a Story

While fascinating facts matter, people ultimately respond to and remember stories, not simply stand-alone data.

While it’s important to have compelling facts, the body of what you are communicating should tell a story that your online audience finds intriguing, entertaining and memorable.

7, Leverage your Expertise

Create online postings around topics you know.

People who are online today crave specialized knowledge, wisdom and thought leadership.

By zeroing in on the topics you are intimate with, you can develop postings that provide audiences with the sense they are getting wisdom and knowledge from a subject-matter expert.

This becomes self-perpetuating value because the more you communicate within you knowledge zone, the more you shore up individual credibility and position yourself as a leader in your field.

8, Include Compelling Visuals

We are entrenched in the visual era.

Whether in the form of pictures, graphics or videos, visuals bring content to life.

The key is to embrace the adage that a picture paints a thousand words by taking the time to curate or create arresting visuals.

The best visuals draw audiences into your content. Vibrant colours, unusual shapes, and anything depicting motion are generally arresting to the human eye.

But like copy, visuals should be simple for an audience to absorb.

The audience should understand in a matter of seconds what the visual is communicating and how it fits with your overall message.

Despite the appeal of bright colours, black and white visuals can also punctuate content, particularly if the images are sharp and distinct.

Videos, of course, have become part of the standard content mix. But they too should be well thought out, to the point and should illuminate, not take over, the core message of your postings.

9, Pull on the Heartstrings

The right dose of emotion is almost a guaranteed way to make an online posting compelling.

Infusing content with references that are amusing, sentimental, and even frightening can go a long way to engaging an audience.

For instance visuals of animals almost always tap audience emotions in a big way.

10, Tap into Topics of the Moment

We are living in the trending era.

Audiences are captivated by world trends that shift daily and sometimes hourly.

Tapping into these topics by linking your postings to what’s going on in the world gives your communication a relevancy that attracts attention.

Beyond this, taking a stand on trending topics can trigger significant interest and even dialogue about your postings.

This increases the likelihood of your content being widely shared across diverse online channels.------Andrew Pelletier

The Mind set of the Rich and Famous

Mind Set of the Rich and Famous

Am sure you are familiar with the adage; the rich gets richer and the poor gets poorer. Success is a journey and not a destination.
This is so because success has a formula. If you must be rich and famous, you must abide by the formula. Thus, this formula is what I refer to as DGP; that's Dream + Goals + Purpose.
Every successful man you can think of today, has a dream. Mark Zucherberg had the dream of connecting the world together. And today, Facebook is the biggest, largest and most reliable source of connecting people world wide.
When dreaming, dream big. Dream of what you can do to touch lives and live comfortably. Translate your dream into goals by solving problems in the society.
That is the driving purpose of being successful, which eventually leads to greatness.

Thomas Edison saw the purpose of inventing electrical bulb, tried several times, failed several times. But that, he, discovered many ways of getting it right. Today, there different types of bulbs which all started from the dream of Edison.
Despite the many times he failed, he equally realised that success is not the absence of failure and that failure is also a journey not a destination.

To every level, there is a devil. Defeat the devil and meet new level. This is the mindset of the rich and famous. In other words, the rich and famous works SMART rather than HARD.
The formula to greatness follows the road of SMART.
S for making dreams specific
M for knowing that the dream should be measurable; as in how big is the dream
A for achievable. Is there any dream that is not attainable?
R for reality.
T for time frame. Set your dream today and give it time to come to reality by working towards it.

The word poor does not imply not having a reasonable amount of money in one's own bank account or not being able to feed oneself three times daily. Poor simply means passing Over Opportunity Repeatedly.
This is one thing the rich and famous does not miss; opportunity.

What are the basic weapons the rich and famous needs to be great?

Prayer and Attitude are basics of greatness. Attitude has only three components; A, B and C.
A for Attribute
B for Behaviour
C for Character.

Show me a rich and famous person without attitude and I will show you a POOR man. Bill Gate,  Aliko Dangote, Oprah Wilfred to mention but a few, showed enviable attitude to be who they are. Attitude determines FOCUS.
F for Follow
O for One
C for Course
U for Until
S for Success
Follow one course until success with the best attitude.
Identify one human problem today and try to solve it. And at the end, you will have a purpose for living.

The mind set of the rich and famous.

Frederick Oxford is the Corporate Affairs Manager of Oxford PR Consultancy LTD.
Basically, our company specializes in
Human Development,
Business Management
and Crisis Management.

http://kingdomprinciplessite.wordpress.com💭

Life is A Choice

Life is not a lonely adventure. Some people help to make your journey memorable while others make it regrettable.
Any of the above adjectives you find yourself is a result of the choice or decision or indecision you made.

Can Your Field of Study Leads to your Career Opportunity?

It has become an adage that what you read in school does not necessarily leads to your career, but what the opportunity offers you. Opportunity is just a time, place or person. What you need to get to your career opportunity is idea.
Some people would rather list those who are what they are today by opportunity against what they read in school than to easily agree that life has no generally acceptable formula.
It is against this backdrop that many would say 'let's just go to school; after all, its not what you study in school that determines who you become in future'
One time acting Head of Department and a senior lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Nasarawa State University, Keffi, Muhammad Sani Rabiu always degree that for one to succeed in life, he/she needs three 'life ingredients'--Education, Exposure and Experience.
Indeed, what you read, what your reading or what you will read in school actually will not guaranty you that dream career of yours but will make you a professional in any career you find yourself.
In the words of Nelson Modiba Mandela "education is the only weapon you can use to change the world". This means that education equips one morally, intellectually, professionally and even spiritually to lead you to your passionate career; thereby making you either an employee or employer. Thus, you can change 'your world' for others to enjoy.
Sometimes, even before you thought of going to school, you'd already have a predetermined career in mind. Out of exposure you may encounter in the school environment and other career eye-opening environs, you may be forced to make a better choice of career. Who said what you study can't lead to your career?
It is true that life is a teacher and that destinies are not the same but experience would make you become better and professional in what ever career fate decides to offer you.
According to the Hegelian statement "experience is the best teacher. That's actually correct. Experience is not what happens to a man but what he decides to do with what happens to him.
Your field of study is that Exposure, Education and Experience. Mass Communication, Law, Medicine, Engineering, Accountancy, Banking and Finance, Agricultural Science, Economy,Sociology, Psychology and any other field of study can only offer you the basic education, exposure and experience in relation to career opportunity environment.
If you can't proof to anybody that you can manipulate something to better someone in your field of study, then you can as well try proving that outside your field of study. But if you can't do anything positive at all in this 21st century, then blame no one if what you become tomorrow is not what you had in mind; especially if that career would be less professional and disgraceful.
I was opportune to speak to one of my cousins, who studies French in one of the most prestigious universities in Nigeria.
She's studying french because she wishes to work in an embassy. That's a very big career dream, I told her.
'I like presentation a lot. I like to speak in public. I like to act on stage. I like to be seen on television. I like to stand when others are sitting. I would love to make a career out of my passion but I don't know how and where to start' these are the words of my cousin, who is filled with enthusiasm but lacks the courage and insight to start from the right angle.
I know many are in this kind of dilemma. Now read my counsel to her.
My dear cousin, you have a big dream that can change the world to a better place for those within and beyond your sphere of coverage. You think you're faced with two choices; either to work with an embassy or to pursue your instinct of being a presenter.
Your fear is that since you're not studying mass communication, you can't be a professional when it comes to television presentation. That's a timid mind set. Have you not heard that it is not necessarily what you read in school that determines what and who you become? You are indeed a great person. What you have in your mind which you don't know are business and job. Is there any difference between business and job, she asked?
Of course yes, without citing dictionary, job makes you an employee and gives you monthly salaries while business makes you an innovator, inventor, an employer, life transformer, news source(news maker or news determinant).
Today, many are what they are today from the careers they've made for themselves in which the services they're rendering are different from what they read in school. Read the profiles of Nkem Owoh popularly known as Osofia, Genevive Nneji, Bill Gate, Frank Edoho, Chinda Monalisa, Wale Adenuga, Pastor Paul Enenche, GoodLuck Jonathan, Muhammad Buhari to mention but a few, you will see the difference between job and business.
You have to start putting down ideas each day you wake up. You have to start from your environment. While on campus, you can form a group of intelligent students who have great minds towards life. Since you have passion for television presention, you can produce programmes that are french oriented. The opportunity is there and the idea is equally there. So what stops you from soaring high?
Look around the media industries today especially in Nigeria, you can hardly find programmes presented by private individuals which are French oriented. Most programmes on television stations are mostly in English version. You can come up with a french programme written in french language. All you need is to search for a problem in the society that needs solution. From there, you can create a programme as a means of proffering solution.
Start right now by putting down your idea of a kind of programme. Build on the idea as you make your way through your area of study. The three E's of life would guide you in deciding how to shape your thoughts. When you graduate, you can still work in any embassy of your choice and at the same time be a television presenter. Then, people would meet you for counseling and professional ideas.
This, therefore, means that you can have a job and a business at the same time only when you know that what you read in school has the 3E's of life. This invariably, means that what you study in school can determine what you become in life.
Think about it...

7 ways communications students can jump-start their careers

7 ways communication students can jump-start their careers

My PR agency is perpetually hiring; we’re always looking for the next great fit.
It can be a formal process or a casual conversation; we often ask, “who’s next?”

I’m fortunate to meet many PR and journalism students, and some ask me, “How can I make myself more marketable to an agency like yours?” There are things any comms student can do to prepare for PR-agency life and stand out in a crowd of job candidates.

Here are seven tips to help you land the PR job of your dreams:


1. Learn and practice writing. We can teach people about clients, industries or products, but you must come to our world ready to write succinctly, effectively, persuasively and creatively—sometimes in 140 characters or les



2. Find opportunities to lead. A wise former boss of mine once said, “Leadership is assumed, not granted.” Truer words were never spoken.

You’re not too young to lead. Whether it is a sorority or fraternity, service organization, church group or a community project, don’t be afraid to take the reins and the risk of leadership. Hold an office or chair a committee. Lead.

3. Complete internships. I can draw a simple line chart and trace my entire career back to my first internship nearly 30 years ago.

Do not underestimate the experience an internship will provide, and place particular value on the relationships you make along the way. Those folks will be moving up in the world. Over time, you may face them across the table in a job interview or they may be the key to getting in the door at the dream job you’ve always wanted.

Plus, internships are essential resume builders. Classes and good grades matter, but the power of real-life experience is unmatched.

4. Volunteer. Get involved. Volunteer at your school, church, sorority or in the community.

Volunteering is another resume builder. The networking and leadership opportunities are valuable; paying your “civic rent” shows a potential employer that you are well rounded and have a heart for service. That still matters.

5. Get comfortable being on the phone. It’s been said that younger generations should not call their phones “phones” anymore, because they never actually speak into them.

We’ve grown to be a world that is centered on texting and emailing, but in the world of client and media relationships, the phone still matters.

Email and texting are tone deaf, and much of the electronic correspondence we receive these days gets overlooked. Pick up the phone and call someone; voice-to-voice conversation is still alive and well in a successful agency.


6. Speak publicly. Get comfortable in front of an audience. Find reasons to lead a meeting, give a presentation or make a speech.

Whether you’re presenting a proposal to clients, conducting a media training or giving remarks at a student meeting, public speaking and the ability to speak with confidence to audiences remains a core part of what we do.


7. Network early and often. What you know and what you’ve done are still highly relevant, but the question of “whom you know” still matters.

Find reasons to put yourself in front of a wide range of people who aren’t your peers. Get their business cards and stay in touch with them. Update your resume as new things are added, and share it through your network. People often contact me to see if I have any potential employee referrals for a position they’re trying to fill. Build your network, and then use it when you’re looking for that first job.

Above all, step outside of your comfort zone. There are many interrelationships between these tips—and all of them will help you establish a level of confidence and experience that makes you stand out from other applicants.

To be Wise is to be Better

Its unfortunate to see people who hold on to what they know; even if what they know is not the best. Unless, what people know are put to test for others to judge; what they know may not be the best.

Why hide yourself in a transparent bottle thinking you've got away with that shy.
Unless someone is wise, that person can never be a better person. It has become a cliche to state that the world is becoming too challenging. Most scholars, authors, philosophers or theorists will always say that life is all about the survival of the fittest.

Why make life so competitive? Why complicate things? These rhetoric questions may turn out to be answerable if we are wise and get better.

To be wise is to be better; means love your neighbour as yourself, be your neighbours' keeper, treat others as you would want them treat you, think of a need and make provision for it. A good heart has human decency. Therefore, we need one another to make the world human friendly.

Be reminded that to be wise is to be better.

Challenges are Inevitable and Solutions Abound

Life is built on image building and corrections. Nothing is bad unless someone identifies it to be bad. We live in a world where solutions to our challenges are around us, yet we seek for them elsewhere.

Sometimes, we know where to find these solutions but we lack how to find them. And other times, we lack who to meet for a professional counseling for solving our challenges.

It is against this backdrop that Public Relations stands as the WHO to provide solutions to the ever unending human challenges.

We, therefore, advocate that Public Relations should be given a priority in our daily interactions with fellow beings in order to make the world a better place.

You can consult us by clicking on the link: www.publicrelationsstrategies.blogspot.com for professional advice and counseling.

The world seeks solutions to problems

There are of human wants that need to be satisfied by  others. How then can you be of help?