Archive for Baltimore PR
A Snowed-In Buzz Wishes You a Merry One
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To all my friends and followers, I say Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas! Time to break out my favorite wine (Sawmill Creek, Barrel Select Dry White) and kick back a bit. The shoveling can wait.
I’ll still be around the next few weeks – Susan and Jeff will, too – but not working as hard, so Tweet or drop us a line if you need anything. That includes you, Tiger.
And buh-bye to 2009. Don’t let the door hit you on your way out!
- The Buzzed One
Susan Talks Crisis Communications with WMAR-TV
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That’s Sawmill Partner Susan Anthony, left, speaking with WMAR-TV Reporter Roosevelt Leftwich yesterday for a story on their evening newscast about Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon. For our national and international readers, the Baltimore mayor was found guilty this week of stealing gift cards that were meant to be distributed to needy children. A crisis PR situation if there ever was one!
The defense team kept Dixon off the witness stand during the trial, and since the jury’s verdict was announced on Wednesday we haven’t heard much from her, other than a few comments outside the courtroom and a brief “press conference” yesterday afternoon when she read a simple statement and took no questions from the media - nothing more than a move designed to deliver a soundbite for the evening news and the next news cycle.
Channel 2 contacted Sawmill Marketing Public Relations for insights into Dixon’s PR strategy and crisis communications efforts to date. Susan told Roosevelt that the Mayor needs to deliver the whole package (words, tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, et al) consistently and repeatedly before the citizens of Baltimore can begin to re-establish trust in her. She emphasized that the longer the Mayor goes without doing so, the deeper the hole she has likely dug for herself.
As if on cue, the Mayor was holding her “press conference” as Susan drove back to the office from Channel 2. She and Sawmill partner Jeff Davis commented that they could hear the nervousness in her voice as she read from the prepared statement that they agreed was an empty one.
LinkedIn and Twitter are SyncedIn
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If you’re like me, figuring out the boundaries of the various social networking sites can get confusing. I use Twitter primarily as a tool for staying on top of industry trends and communicating with fellow PR and social media professionals. On Facebook I have more personal friends than colleagues, while LinkedIn is more about building and communicating a professional identity. While I realize it’s an option, I haven’t allowed my tweets to appear in my Facebook feed and vice versa, as I have built them with different audiences in mind (not to menton the head-scratching that would go on if some comments were cross-posted).
However, a new development announced this week by LinkedIn and Twitter allows your LinkedIn status updates to simultaneously appear as a tweet on your Twitter account. And when you tweet, that same message goes to your LinkedIn connections as well. “Like peanut butter and chocolate,” according to company founders Reid Hoffman and Biz Stone. It’s worth checking out.
Maryland PR Firm Marks 15th Year Milestone
Posted by: | CommentsBALTIMORE, Md. (October 19, 2009) – Sawmill Marketing Public Relations, a public relations firm headquartered in Baltimore, Md., this month marks its 15th year in business, according to Susan J. Anthony, founder and partner of the Baltimore PR agency that provides social media, traditional media relations, media training and crisis communications planning and execution to business-to-business, business-to-consumer and professional services clients.
“Since our beginning in 1995, so much has changed about how business is conducted – the impact of how we communicate with one another being at the top of the list – as well as how public relations has changed, with the explosion of social media being the most far-reaching change,” Anthony said. “We remain as excited and passionate about the work we do and its positive impact on the business and marketing objectives of our clients as we did 15 years ago.”
In its first 15 years in business Sawmill Marketing Public Relations has provided its services to a variety of high profile clients including the family of Chandra Levy, the landmark Intelligent Design legal case of Kitzmiller, et al versus Dover Area School District that was covered by national and international media, and public relations for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
Today, the firm’s client roster includes companies with national and regional marketplaces in business and service sectors including global asset management, commercial and multi-family real estate development and property management, higher education, health care, architecture/construction management, design-build mechanical contracting and restaurant/food service.
Among the first firms nationwide to establish a social media practice, Anthony and partner Jeffrey A. Davis APR co-author the agency’s four-year-old blog, the PR Buzzsaw, and have developed an expertise in integrating corporate blogging, Facebook and Twitter strategies with traditional communications. In January the PR and social media agency launched the “Sawmill Guide to Baltimore Media on Twitter” listing that has been recognized nationally as the premiere resource of its kind.
About Sawmill Marketing Public Relations
Sawmill Marketing Public Relations is a Baltimore PR and social media marketing agency established in 1995 specializing in the development and execution of marketing public relations programs as business development strategies for business-to-business, business-to-consumer and professional services clients. The Maryland public relations company specializes in social media, traditional media relations, media training, and crisis communications. For additional information, visit www.sawmillmarketing.com.
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Here are links to some of the Web sites and resources I mentioned during my presentations today at the Maryland Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America’s 32nd Annual Chesapeake Conference at the Sheraton North in Towson, Md. These are good, basic Twiiter and PR tools to get started, and everything listed here is free. On Twitter, search the hashtag #chessie09 for more info, and give me a follow-back at @contactjeff
There are a number of directories to find Twitter followers. A good place to start is Wefollow, where you can search by topics such as ”Celebrity” or “Social Media” or “Baltimore.” Also try Muckrack.
Looking for a dashboard that allows you to better manage your Twitter follows and set up searches for key terms or competitors’ names? Try Hootsuite or Tweetdeck.
To shorten links prior to tweeting, use Bitly, and for a great new resource on Twitter tools, try OneForty.
To follow the media on Twitter, try this great compilation of national journalists by Jeremy Porter. Interested in Baltimore? Click on our ”Guide to Baltimore Media on Twitter” link on the upper right corner of this site.
Want to engage in a weekly Twitter conversation involving journalists, bloggers and PR professionals? Check out #journchat every Monday from 7 to 10 p.m., CST. More info at PRSarahEvans.
PitchEngine is a social media news release builder that enables PR pros to effectively package stories and share them with journalists, bloggers, and influencers worldwide via the social web.
Sign up for HARO to receive free daily summaries from media seeking sources for news stories in development. For urgent source needs, follow the companion Twitter account, @HelpAReporter. You can also follow Profnet on Twitter for leads.
For social media policy guidelines, Todd Defren (once again) shared a great resource at PR Squared, and also check out the policy guidelines at Mashable.
And 10 people in PR and social media worth following on Twitter? Love ‘em or not, here’s a variety pack to get your own list going (in no particular order): Scott Monty, Jason Falls, Todd Defren, Geoff Livingston, Amanda Chapel, Chris Brogan, Shel Holtz, Annie Heckenberger, Bill Sledzik and Katie Paine. [Update - here's a great list of 100 PR people to follow, compiled by Valeria Maltoni.]
Thanks for attending/reading. I’d love to see your comments!
