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East Village High School to Host Recruitment Event

 

East Village High School, formerly San Diego Early/Middle College, is hosting a Fall Recruitment and Student Showcase event on Wednesday, June 15th from 4:00 PM-7:00 PM at, 1405 Park Blvd, San Diego. East Village High School welcomes the community and prospective 9th-12th grade students and their families to this free event, which will include campus tours led by current East Village High School students, student artwork showcase, food and live music, and teachers and City College counselors on site to answer any questions.

East Village High School is for students who are motivated to go to college. Their partnership with San Diego City College allows them to offer students a chance to earn up 52 college credits while earning their high school diploma, for free! This unique, personalized education provides students with rigorous, college-focused courses in a small-classroom environment, to help them succeed in college and in their future career.

For more information, please visit their website at www.sandiegounified.org/eastvillage or view the event flyer at HY16196-MAILER-8.5X14-press.pdf

5 Indications Your Startup Is Ready to Dive Into PR

Starting a company is an exciting yet scary time. One of the critical decisions you have to make is knowing when your company is ready to start its initial media outreach. If you jump too soon, you will likely end up not getting any media coverage. Even worse, you might get unfavorable coverage, which could be hard to recover from.

Here are five criteria your startup should meet before you are ready to take the plunge:

  1. You have a working product that is available or coming soon. It is a risky move to announce a product when it is still in the idea or Beta phase. Make sure your product is reliable, functional, and useful before considering a launch. Waiting until your product is ready for market will result in a bigger splash.
  2. You have developed a narrative. Being able to explain what makes your company excellent is the first step toward developing a comprehensive narrative, and it is a key component of a company’s PR strategy. A PR firm can help you fine-tune your messaging and develop it into a comprehensive story arc.
  3. You have the money. PR does not happen overnight. You will need to make a consistent long-term investment in order to see results. You should have enough money to hire a PR firm for at least a few months.
  4. You have realistic expectations. Not seeing results can be frustrating for some. Before investing in PR, make sure you understand that it usually does not have an immediate return on investment. Most firms will track metrics to ensure they’re on the right path toward hitting your goal.
  5. You are willing to make the time. Your PR team needs your help developing key messages and angles that accurately reflect your business. Designated someone to manage outsourced PR, and be sure they are prepared to participate in weekly phone calls and daily email conversations in order to keep things moving.

Beat Summertime Sadness at Your PR Firm

Summertime at any PR agency is different than other seasons because the nice weather can add a distracting feature to the work environment.

Here are four tips to help PR firms beat the summer heat and stay focused, so that they are better prepared for the rest of the year.

  1. Manage vacation schedules early: Vacations are important because they allow employees to relax and clear their mind. Just make sure everyone isn’t taking their hard-earned vacation all at once. For operational continuity, it’s vital for staffers to book in the spring, so there will be no surprises in July and August. Sounds simple, but it requires foresight from the management.
  2. Choose your launch date wisely for maximum impact: Think carefully about conducting big product launches during the beach season. It gets a lot more challenging to reach reporters, analysts, and bloggers about their projects when they’re on vacation.
  3. Start thinking ahead: Although it may be mentally difficult, it’s important to start crafting story angles for the winter holidays to compete with those bigger publications who are already putting together their holiday issues.
  4. Offer summertime work perks: Try offering more free time or an earlier start to the weekends. Some agencies offer “summer Fridays” to employees, meaning that work wraps at about 1 p.m., assuming that client work is wrapped up for the week.

Maintaining privileges such as these helps employees focus on work, rather than dreading work and waiting for the clock to run out.

Memorial Day PR Mishaps

As both a somber holiday and the joyful unofficial start to summer, Memorial Day is the day in which Americans remember those who died in service to the country, while also spending time barbequing with family and friends. It is especially important that PR professionals take this into consideration when planning campaigns or events to avoid what many turn into a PR disaster. PR professionals should thoroughly think through the potential downsides of any campaign, but when coordinating programs around this holiday it is important to be extra cautious.

Drawing from the PR mistakes of other companies over recent years, here are three pitfalls to avoid this (and every) Memorial Day:

  1. Being distasteful or disrespectful. Last Memorial Day, retailer PacSun learned this lesson the hard way. In their store windows, they displayed a black t-shirt featuring an upside-down American flag. Customers took to social media to express how angry they were at the store for being disrespectful on a holiday meant to honor those who died in service to the flag. If freedom of speech or creative expression is a value your company holds, perhaps there are better times to showcase that edginess.
  2. Missing the forest for the trees. The swanky Standard Hotel in New York hurt its reputation last Memorial Day when a bouncer refused entry to a sailor in uniform due to its strict dress code. The sailor’s friends appealed to the managers, and the incident drew the attention of bystanders and the New York tabloids. Denying servicemen and women an evening of leisure any time of year, especially Memorial Day weekend, is not the best PR move. The Standard issued an apology, a public statement, and extended an invitation to the rebuffed sailor to come back anytime.
  3. Losing sight of the occasion. When hosting an event attended by media, it can be tempting to cater to what media want, to make a good impression and attempt to maximize coverage. But journalists covering the event should be held to the same standards of respect as everyone else. CNN host Anderson Cooper got this right when, while covering a commemoration for shooting victims in Canada, he reprimanded another reporter who approached him and asked for a selfie.

5 PR Lessons from Top Chef

On each season of Bravo’s Top Chef, talented restaurateurs and chefs compete for the title. The show has unique challenges for the contestants, and it features the who’s who of established chefs to serve as judges.

 

For PR professions, Top Chef has lessons that you can incorporate into your regular work day. Now you can feel less guilty about binge watching all of the episodes you have DRV-ed this weekend.

 

Here are five lesson PR pros can learn from Top Chef:

 

  1. Everyone has their own palette. There are a wide variety of guest judges on the show – a French chef, a molecular gastronomist, Jimmy Fallon, and even Pee-Wee Herman – that all have different views and tastes. Contestants need to make sure they are meeting individual expectations for the guest judges. This is something that PR professionals should consider when pitching stories.
  2. There are judges, but you’re not one of them. Every season a contestant gets voted off the show. In their post-production interview they will usually say something about how they still thought their dish was the best. But according to the people whose views matter most – the judges – they in fact did not have the best dish. The same is true for the relationship between PR and media. If a pitch is not being received well, changes need to be made.
  3. Sometimes, you have to give up on old recipes. There are some PR tactics that are outdated and need to be done away with. This can include everything from spray-and-pray PR, bombing the comments section with promotions drivel, and a variety of other practices that should be removed from our PR cookbooks.
  4. Half-baked is never okay. One of the quickest ways for a contestant to get kicked off the show is to serve raw or partially cooked meat. In the PR world, sending out pitches that are half-baked or not given a full effort does not get results.
  5. The amuse bouche. An amuse bouche course is typically one bite, served pre-appetizer, and offers diners an idea of what is to come. Many PR agencies send off an idea for a contributed piece with the whole article attached. There’s a pretty good chance you are pitching the same thing to multiple publications which means you are ignoring the whole “everyone has their own palette” thing (see point 1), and it is not giving the editor an opportunity to think about it.

The Perks of Video Marketing

Technology is advanced to the point that even the most amateur videographers can make great-looking videos for their companies. While traditional marketing techniques do work, making a video will boost your visibility and gain attention even more!

Here are seven benefits of creating and sharing videos online:

1.Increase Your SEO

SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” is the process of getting visibility through the non-paid search engines. Because social media’s market dominance is growing, big search engines give a lot of value to videos. This means that on your website, your video’s SEO will rank higher than your article’s SEO.

2. Distribute Content via Social Media

Add your videos to the popular video-sharing sites: YouTube, Daily Motion, Vimeo, etc., as well as social media sites such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. People are more likely to share a video than an article.

3. Increase Your Website’s Appeal

Add a video to your website’s homepage to increase visitor retention. People stick around if they see an entertaining video explaining your website or service.

4. Boost Sales by Alleviating Doubts

A video review can show things that cannot be conveyed with text, which is far more effective with increasing conversations about your product or service.

5. Better for Subscribers of Your Email Newsletters

A video-based email makes a nice change in someone’s inbox. Concepts can be explained clearer in a video, which will prompt the subscriber to open the more than a text-based email.

6. Personalize Your Customers’ Experiences

Make your customer’s experience similar to that of visiting an actual store. Use data mining to provide personalized video experiences, aimed at the individual customer’s buying habits, referencing past purchases.

7. Bonus: Get Famous on Facebook

Upload your videos to Facebook and share them to generate more engagement. Upload your video natively, not by using a YouTube link, so that you can boost all of your content and your page will get more visibility.