Holiday Cheer Rings through Page One PR

I think you know your employer is cool when they ask you to sing on their behalf. At Page One PR, business isn't just about the press releases, the speaking abstracts or the contributed articles – but yes, we work hard on these. Our inspiration comes from engaging with clients, working to support real business goals and enjoying what we do.

We've been behind-the-scenes to build social media campaigns for our clients this year, but decided to turn the camera on ourselves this holiday season. Get ready for our 15 seconds of fame – lights, camera, action!

Rather than design and print our usual satirical holiday cards, we decided to save a few trees by dusting off our singing voices for your viewing pleasure.

I hope you'll check out our hi-res video – yes, that is a penguin in the photo! – and maybe even smile. I had a lot of fun filming, enjoyed singing and loved being merry. Hope you like the video. Here's to warm wishes for the holidays and to a happy new year. Cheers!

P.S.– If you like crazy reindeer, don't forget to check out this special feature from the Page One PR Santa Barbara office. Boy, that guy can deck the halls!

Building a Website Ain't Easy

When I joined the Winters Health team at Page One PR to help rebuild the foundation's website, I thought I was in for some fun and games. NOT the case!

Building a website takes an inordinate amount of time, attention to detail, and the ability to communicate clearly and manage meticulously while also inspiring the troops and keeping that "light" at the end of the tunnel within reach.

Working with the Winters Healthcare Foundation (WHF) was not my first experience with building a new website, but I did learn some key lessons:

1) Don't boil an ocean
Although we imagined a variety of "cool" elements to incorporate into our website, we had to focus on core marketing goals. For example, who do we want to attract? Who do we want to reach? How do we want to reach them? These are the questions that drove the design and content of the site.

2) Delegating less is more
The logistics of the site became complicated as we had we developers, a graphic designer, our PR team and several constituents from WHF involved. Although it seems intuitive "if you want something done, do it yourself," I learned that going the extra mile is even more important when working with vast groups of people with various specialties.

3) Pick your battles
Despite trying to tightly manage the process of creating a new web site, there are definitely times when you must surrender to outside forces. Content, design, artwork – these may turn out different than you pictured but, hang in there and everything will turn out fine.

My "lessons learned" are fairly vague, but trust me, they apply. I think any project that combines so many different talents will encounter the same challenges, but doesn't that make the finished product that much better?

Online Reviews are Second to Word of Mouth Marketing

According to a study published Wednesday by Rubicon Consulting, word of mouth marketing is still the #1 driver of purchase decisions. Among web users, online content has moved into second place, ahead of advice from salespeople and printed reviews.

The study upholds that roughly 10 percent of users create 90 percent of user-generated content on any given social media site. The report argues, however: "Web discussion is a performance in which a small group of people interact with each other, and with companies, for the benefit, education, and amusement of everyone else."

What this really means: even though a company might only interact with 10 percent of users online, you can bet your end-of-year bonus that a much larger percentage of customers will judge the company based on its online interactions.

When I've talked to various clients at Page One PR about incorporating social media campaigns into their existing marketing and PR plans, they're often unsure if target customers are receptive to social media tools. Interestingly, a recent poll by Forrester Research indicates 75 percent of Internet users participate in some form of social media in 2008 versus 56 percent in 2007.

Analyst Josh Bernoff argues this may just be a fad: "The novelty of today's social technologies will eventually wear off, and consumer adoption will plateau as all new media eventually do." Don't think that means social media's effectiveness will fade away, however, as Bernoff continues: "But consumers will expect marketers to continue the relationship they've formed over time and still listen to what they have to say."

Still skeptical about social media marketing? When was the last time you used online user-generated content to decide which book to buy or choose a new restaurant to try?

Who Says You Need a Press Release? MokaFive's iPhone Sentinel Blog Launch

Tired of drafting those pesky press releases? Why not use your blog to break news?

That's what we did with MokaFive last month for the company's iPhone Sentinel prototype. The News: Vinod Khosla-backed desktop virtualization vendor launches plug-in for iPhone users to carry a full desktop on the iPhone.

The Challenge: Drive prototype downloads during VMworld – one of the biggest virtualization industry events of the year. With Microsoft's own virtualization event the week prior and only seven days to prepare, we can generate buzz in the middle of this loud press circus, right?

Right! We skipped the formal press release and hit the blogosphere directly via the MokaFive corporate blog. Why? Rather than reach typical press release outlets, MokaFive wanted to target a very specific audience – cream-of-the-crop tech enthusiasts who would download and test the prototype, then offer helpful feedback on the product.

During VMworld, our news hit The New York Times, CNET, TechRepublic, jkOnTheRun, Life Hacker, Mobile Devices Today, DaniWeb, LinuxStreet and more. Many of the blogs were syndicated, too.

MokaFive's web traffic quadrupled on the day of the announcement. Life Hacker alone referred more than 2,800 people to MokaFive's web site. According to Radian6, there were 85 total blogs talking about MokaFive 15-29 Sept; 35 of these were posted the day of our blog announcement. There were also 50 blogs that mentioned "iPhone Sentinel" 15-29 Sept; 30 of which ran the same day as our blog announcement.

MokaFive saw an increase of 273% in visitors to their downloads page. In addition, the MokaFive Player page went from fewer than 50 visits the week before VMworld to more than 8,000 visits during the week of our blog announcement. In addition, downloads from MokaFive's community site increased by 50%.

Key takeaways:
1) Consider strategies to build up your blog readership so your first blog-only launch is sure to reach your target audience.

2) Messaging and important talking points can easily get lost in the fast-paced start-up environment. While the exercise of writing a press release often helps distill key takeaways you want to communicate, it's not the only tool for grooming spokespeople. Make sure you always carefully prep spokespeople – with or without a press release – or they may look sloppy in interviews.

3) Don't expect your blog to do all the work. Consider ways to market your blog to make it visible within the communities you want to reach. Then, get your PR team to pitch like crazy. For example, our top blog hits (NYT, CNET) came from personal relationships and hardcore pitching.

4) Make sure the "news" is worthy. Although Microsoft, Sun, VMware, Citrix, HP, Dell, Red Hat and a variety of startups were making desktop virtualization product and customer announcements last month, MokaFive is the first to move virtual desktops to mobile phones.

If you're considering using your corporate blog as a platform for breaking news, go for it! If you're a seasoned PR pro with the right relationships in place, what's to lose?

Check out this post at the Page Wonder blog.

Penguins, Foxes, Cows, Oh My! "Open Source Idol" Exceeds Client Business Goals

If you went to LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco this summer, you might have noticed a herd of young ladies dressed up as open source mascots. Tux the penguin, the GNU, Mozilla's Firefox and BSD's Beastie devil roamed the show floor asking "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" and searching for willing souls to sing and dance on behalf of their favorite OSS mascot. Don't worry if you didn't make it to LinuxWorld this year, we were caught on tape. You can check out the outlandish fun here.

You might wonder what spurred this madness. Well, it wasn't all fun and games. We had concrete goals to accomplish on behalf of our client, GroundWork Open Source. First, demonstrate that GroundWork is a dedicated member of the open source developer community. Second, attract over 1000 views to GroundWork's YouTube channel over two months.

We needed to produce videos that would appeal to any open source enthusiast around the world. So, why not go straight for the patriotic spirit mascots have been known to inspire?

At this point, various forces in the universe collided: I was addicted to the popular reality show "So You Think You Can Dance?" which kept dancing on my mind. In addition, I had just learned about Cisco's first social media product launch, which helped me understand ways to integrate various social media tools for PR and marketing.

Lying in bed at 3 am the morning before we were to brainstorm fun ideas for GroundWork, the first flash of "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" popped into my head. I immediately jumped up and started researching iconic open source animals. Before dawn, I had begun brainstorming various traditional marketing and social media tools we could use to promote the contest. Of course, this all hinged on my confidence that we could convince a bunch of open source developers to sing and dance on camera. No problem, right?

The rest of the project is almost a blur as we proposed the idea to GroundWork only two days before the start of LinuxWorld. There was a lot to prepare and the Page One PR social media team worked hard to turn a crazy idea into reality. Our fearless leader, Craig Oda, and social media guru, Shelly Milam, led the charge while Kim Terca, Ariana Parasco and I were eager to dive in.

Here are some stats for what the social media team was able to produce in about a week's time:

Campaign Promotion and Social Media Integration

First, we needed to figure out creative ways to promote open source idol. We didn't have the luxury of building up momentum before the show because we only had a couple days to throw this project together. The videos for GroundWork's YouTube channel were required for the project, but we used them as "teasers" to drive traffic to an online polling widget posted on GroundWork's open source community site. We put out a social media release and used Twitter and Facebook to help promote our videos and online voting. We also took votes from people at LinuxWorld and offered them "I Voted" stickers. We gave out free "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" t-shirts to people for singing and dancing on camera. GroundWork blogged about the contest while we appealed to Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of Mozilla Foundation, and blasted open source community mailing lists encouraging developers to vote.

Outstanding Results

GroundWork's corporate website traffic increased by 43% during the first three days of the contest. 1,113 people went to GroundWork's open source community site to vote online. Combined, all four videos received 5000 views in one week (our goal was 1000 views over two months). GroundWork received a lot of chatter in the Twittersphere and also gained new followers. "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" was posted to Fark.com and was covered by Wired.com, Network World, and bounced around the blogosphere as well.

Highs and Lows
The amount of energy and adrenaline that went into "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" was amazing. I guess there weren't any lows here. Though the project was time-intensive and exhausting, it was really fun. If you watch the fourth video, you'll even see GroundWork's VP of Marketing hopping in on the open source idol conga line.

By the conclusion of this project, GroundWork had received remarkable attention from open source enthusiasts around the world. I am also proud to say that Firefox was the official contest winner! There are at least three different Firefox character throughout the four videos we produced. I wonder if you can recognize which one was me?