PR lessons from 'Kate' and Tarrant Area Food Bank's hunger campaign

The billboard asks a compelling question: What does hunger feel like? JustAskKate.org 

It strikes me that putting a (cartoon) face to hunger with a compelling narrative is a creative way to generate curiosity and hopefully leads to awareness, donations, volunteers, etc. The video component is simple but effective:

I reached out to Andrea Helms, Director of Communications for the Tarrant Area Food Bank and a Ft. Worth PRSA member for some insight into the campaign. I'm so thankful that she was wiling to share since I believe there are some interesting lessons and processes from this effort for PR and communication professionals:

Why did TAFB implement the 'Kate' concept campaign? 
Akron Canton Regional Food Bank in Ohio shared the Kate video concept with the Feeding America network of regional food banks, to which Tarrant Area Food Bank (TAFB) belongs. TAFB decided to customize this video for the organization not only because of the impact of Kate’s message, but to also join in creating a sense of unity across the network.

What are some of the strategic objectives you hope to achieve?
AWARENESS. We would like Kate’s message to be shared all over our community, through our Partner Agencies, donors and volunteers, and the general public. As part of our annual awareness initiative, we hope the community learns that hunger and food insecurity exist right here in our own neighborhood and we, together, can do something about it.

Through various print ads, billboards, and social media, we seek to increase awareness about hunger and direct people to the Kate video. We hope the Kate video and her message goes viral. The more that people share the video with their networks, the bigger the awareness of hunger we can create within our community. The video not only educates the public about the face of hunger--for example, Kate could be your next door neighbor, a co-worker or friend--but it also educates them about Tarrant Area Food Bank’s role in fighting local hunger.

When did it start and how long will the campaign run? 
The campaign started mid-October and will run through December. We will do another flight of the campaign in the Spring of 2013. The Kate video will remain active on our website and on justaskkate.org and through social media when the campaign is not active.

How would you say your version of the campaign differs from the original version?
We are the first Feeding America food bank to launch a traditional marketing campaign around the video. Up until now, the Kate video has been used as a tool in food banks for educating volunteers and donors and has been used through social media and word of mouth.

What communication channels are you using to share Kate? 
Facebook and Twitter posts, Facebook ads, billboards, print ads in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Fort Worth Business Press, the Just Ask Kate web page, the TAFB website, YouTube, e-blasts, email signatures, volunteer training and exclusive showings at TAFB related events.

We also have several collateral pieces our staff use for various audiences, such as children’s activities and giveaways, including Kate as a fan with suggestions on the backside for taking action to build awareness about hunger.  Our life-sized Kate cut-out is being used for photo opportunities with key people in our community for posting on social media.

How will you determine the success of this campaign?
Because this is an awareness campaign, we are most interested in how viral the campaign becomes. The more video views, shares and likes we get from the Kate video, the more we know the word is being spread around our community. We have been using Facebook and Google analytics to track where our viewers are coming from and what actions they are taking after they view the video, such as visiting our website or liking our Facebook page.
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What do you think? Is this a compelling campaign to help generate awareness for the food bank's fight against local hunger? As always, the comments are yours.

'The Mom Next Door' and School PR

A recent study found that more moms make in-person recommendations (83%) than recommendations via social media (53%) which should cause school PR people to pause a moment and think about your school district's in-person contact with parents, especially moms.

The recently released study entitled The Mom Next Door: Why and How Moms Make Recommendations by 360PR and Mom It Forward provides interesting data on how moms make recommendations in-person and online. I can see it being useful for brands to dig into for thoughts on trustworthiness.

Among the Mom Next Door survey findings:

• 71% of moms make recommendations about brands, products and services to other moms at least monthly; 
• 50% of moms making recommendations about brands daily; 
• 93% of moms are influenced to some extent by other moms’ recommendations.

The parts of the survey I found most relevant for school PR pros relate to trutworthiness and where moms meet-up. According to the survey, the majority of moms rate in-person recommendations as more trustworthy than recommendations via social media.

• 59% of moms give in-person recommendations the highest possible rating for trustworthiness; and
• only 14% of moms rated recommendations via social media as “most trustworthy.”

Moms interact with other moms most often at their child’s daycare or school (58%), at a friend’s house (54%) or another off-line get-together (48%) – meeting for coffee, shopping, working out, etc.

Why this is important for school PR

The data on in-person recommendations and locations of interactions with other moms at daycare or school should perk up the interest of school communicators. That 58% of moms interacting with other moms at their daycare or school is a useful data point because it points to an easily ignored truth when it comes to communication: moms come to the schools. 

We spend so much time thinking about how to leverage the digital communication channels through online outreach, social media tools, e-newsletters, etc. which is all well and good since we can be highly efficient with our efforts by using these channels. We should definitely keep using online tools to hopefully provide that 35% of moms meeting-up online with timely, honest, accurate, relevant information. But, we must be mindful of our in-person communication touch-points with moms (parents) so that the larger percentage get the information they need as well. Think of it this way with a few types of campus-parent interaction opportunities for communication success or failure: 

• campus/district special events, activities, or sports; 
• before/after school drop-off and pick-up;
• anytime volunteers are on campus; 
• PTA/PTO meetings;

How a campus appears, how its staff interacts with parents and the available messaging and signage locations are all three things never to be overlooked. I'd argue that many problems or misunderstandings could be mitigated with some consideration to communication. Sometimes we get caught up in the luster of the shiny objects and forget a simple explanatory handout would suffice. 

If we hope to be included among the (hopefully) positive in-person interactions and recommendations between moms, we'd better not forget when, where, and how we'll get those chances.

5 Reasons to Make Your In-house Editorial Calendar

How does your communication department function? Is it stuck in an old mindset of spray and pray (as in spray the press releases out to the media and then pray for coverage) or do you treat the department like your organization's own newsroom where content creation and direct communication with your community are the objectives? I'm an advocate of the latter as part of the department's function for public relations in school districts and nonprofits. An internal editorial calendar is a smart way to help in-house PR departments meet leadership goals and strategic communication objectives all year long.

Keeping an editorial calendar for your communication department allows you to:

1. Effectively plan around the monthly and yearly occurrences in the organization
2. Position yourself and department as the go-to source for information
3. Drop-in plans for special events and target dates
4. Establish timing for press releases, newsletters, blog posts, video production, etc.
5. Allows you to get back on track with messaging when things go wrong

That's great but how do you do it? 

Here's how to get started. I'm sure there are other possibly better or more creative ways to make an editorial calendar but here's what I did. I found a simple template in Google Docs (now Google Drive) for a blog Editorial Dashboard. Then I made the appropriate adjustments for a week-by-week calendar for the department to use all year long. 

First, drop in everything for which you have set dates on the calendar. You're looking for those things that happen every year. For a school district, we have many items to quickly drop in such as holidays, board meetings, first and last days of school, high school homecoming dates, graduations, etc. 

Next, add the target or scheduled dates for any special events like any facility ground-breaking events, building dedications, board elections, bond elections (referendums), etc. (Don't forget to include important weekend event dates.)

Once these items are in, it's time to work to include your planned schedule for your recurring communication channels: electronic and/or print newsletters (external and internal if applicable), regular video updates from leadership, blog post schedule, and planned Facebook page posts. This part is an ongoing exercise and and you never really feel finished because things inevitably get shifted and you'll have to make adjustments. The calendar just gives you a guide to bring things back in order. 

We've all had those days (weeks) when things are going wrong or we're in full-blown crisis communication mode and we know in the backs of our minds some things are getting lost in the shuffle. An editorial calendar can serve as your reference tool to get back on track. I've found ours to be a solid source for making sure our timing for important announcements doesn't interfere with something already planned. We've used the calendar to remind leadership of important issues and how they play among established plans, dates, and events.

What do you think? Have you created an editorial calendar for your communication department? Are there any other benefits or tips you can add? As always, the comments are yours.

Tweet with a Sense of Humor

Repeat after me, it's smart to have a personality and a good sense of humor when using social media. 

During yesterday's Mansfield Area Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Texas State Senator Wendy Davis accidentally tweeted the wrong name of my school district's superintendent during his state of district presentation.

It was a silly mistake, but what I found particularly awesome was how she handled it. Here's how it went down:

Bravo to Senator Davis. I'm glad she (or someone on her communication team) has a good sense of humor. The original tweet was funny all by itself, but the follow-up was clever, lighthearted and fun. The PR lesson: If you tweet a mistake, try to admit it and move on. 

Oh and if you can work in a reference to The Doors, do it!

Photo credit: steffireichert via Flickr Creative Commons

JPS Health Network: A Changing Vision and Communication Lessons

The best way to tour a hospital and check out its fluorescent lighting is from a standing position, not while lying on your back. At least that's what we were told by JPS Health Network President and CEO, Robert Earley.

For the record, he's right.

Robert Earley, 

 JPS Health Network
President and CEO

Recently, the Ft. Worth Chapter of PRSA took its monthly lunch program on the road and got an "unfiltered view tour" [his words] of Tarrant County's public hospital with Mr. Robert Earley. This tour was our chance to hear from this local leader who is using a strategic communication and community outreach campaign to help change hearts and minds about the Tarrant County Hospital District.

"We're in the life and death business," said Earley of the work JPS does for what last year was over 1 million people. "We hope it's more life." 

As the county's public hospital, JPS gets a bit of bad rap. There's a misconception that since it's funded by tax dollars, people tend to think the care would be sub-par and that there's no need to provide additional resources through private funding. To be clear, his pre-tour talk did not come across to me like a fundraising effort. Instead, he just pointed out parallels to other publicly funded institutions getting additional resources from benefactors to programs they support. (cough - college football coaches salaries - cough) Funding challenges are typical for public institutions and there were many of those challenges he inherited.

As for the care, he explains that he wants a cultural shift. They had previously been operating in a realm of mediocrity. "We're not there yet," he said. Earley recognized, "while the care was good, [they] weren't treating people right." So he made some changes and expected more.

He wants JPS to be a place where best-practices in healthcare are created and then followed by others. Earley expects more from his 4,500 employees: "When people walk in the front door, everybody gets respect."

When they hire, he says they take a "360° approach." They want people with the right skill-set and heart.

Robert Earley has Three Rules for the JPS Health Network staff:

1. Own It. He wants staff to be proud of where they work. When they hear about the good, it's ok to share that they work for JPS. When there are challenges, it's still ok to share that they work for JPS.
2. Seek Joy. He wants employees to smile. Ideally, he hopes they have reasons to smile throughout the day. Healthcare can make for a stressful environment, providing clear direction and positivity can go a long way.  
3. Don't Be A Jerk! Earley is on a personal campaign to against "jerkdom." He cites examples in our society where we seem to raise up jerks and jerk-like behavior ahead of being simply good people.

"We are trying to be a transparent organization." Earley is using what I consider to be a smart community relations tactic with on-site tours. One example of this unfiltered view was that we were encouraged to ask any question along the way; anything was fair game. He's proud of JPS being the Level 1 Trauma Center for Tarrant County. We saw operating rooms, including two that stay staffed, stocked, and ready 24-hours a day, seven days a week. Honestly, it's highly impressive.

Here are some additional public relations take-aways from Robert Earley and the JPS tour:

• The JPS team observe other healthcare systems going through challenges and then they look internally to see if they have the same issue(s).
• They want to establish a network by which they can communicate directly with stakeholders and not be reliant on traditional media methods.
• The quality and safety standards as an organization are constantly in need improvement.
• Training is top-notch: A JPS nurse receive approximately $64,000 in training. (Trauma nurses get double that amount!) The problem they have is talent retention. Nurse get well-trained, work a while then split. Earley said they have about a 20% turnover rate, which is way too high. (I wouldn't be surprised if JPS starts an aggressive campaign to keep their talent.)
• Earley instituted a chair policy in the hospital. A folding chair hangs behind the door of the hospital rooms and doctors are required to remove the chair and set it next to patients so that they can be at eye-level with them to talk.
• There are so many electronic and networked aspects of healthcare in general and especially within the hospital, but not much in their communication. Yet.

During the Q&A period, someone asked how do they tell the JPS story. Earley responded with a smile, "we hired J.R. Labbe."

Jill "J.R." Labbe is the former editorial director for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. I think this is an intriguing move for JPS and for Labbe. I'm interested to see how she can bring her skills to the other side of the news for storytelling and work from within the organization. She expressed some parting words in the newspaper about her new role:

While my responsibilities as vice president of communications and community affairs at JPS will differ greatly from what I've been doing the past 20 years -- and the irony of going from inflicting pain on government employees to being a government employee is not lost -- my love for this community and the people who call it home will not.

Wise move, JPS.

Robert Earley concluded by letting attendees know that others are welcome. They'd appreciate more people coming to JPS and seeing first-hand what's happening and how things are changing for the better. There's work to be done and it's wonderful to see organizational communications and community relations take starring roles in the process for this organization.

Back to #SchoolPR Tips: First Day Photos

Cute kid photos are like gold for school PR people. As a practice, we get to go around through the school year for events, programs, or any random opportunity to shoot photos in our campuses and school districts. We search for those elusive shots that capture the excitement, interest, and intrigue that can be found in education. A prime opportunity for these photos occurs during back to school.

But what happens when you can't be at all campuses at once? How can you get those first day photos with the bright smiles, carefully chosen threads, the occasional tears from the little ones and their parents, and other such images? Let the community submit these photos. Here's how:

User-Generated First Day Photos

I started our school district's first day photo concept back in 2008. The idea is simple: Put out the call for photo submissions via the communication channel(s) of  your choice website, blog, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

We do with a website posting like this 'Photo Gallery Request - Send us your first day photos' along with the criteria. We ask that users email photos taken during the first few days of school. I use Google applications for a number of other district-related items like the school district's blog, website analytics, and more so naturally I let folks email their photos to the Gmail account for quick access and labeling.  To make things even easier, we only accept .jpg format images.

We also note that by submitting photos, users are agreeing to allow the district to display the images among other submitted photos on the district's online gallery site. Users also agree to allow the district to use the images for other district-related print or electronic publications. 

These photos then get uploaded to a First Day Photos gallery for that year. (See our galleries from 2009, 2010, or 2011 for more samples.) We try not to show names or other easily identifiable images. 

Outcomes

I've been very impressed with some of the quality of images sent in by families. When I started this, I figured we get mostly younger kids. Surprisingly there are typically plenty of middle and high school students submitting photos as well. 

We get all kinds of shots like photos as kids walk out the door in their homes, standing in the driveway, climbing on the bus, walking up the school sidewalks, in the hallways and classrooms. 

In four years, we've posted over 540 photos that were sent in for the annual first day photos galleries. From these photos I've been able to pull images for use on the district's blog and website and in some cases, in print when the quality and resolution have both been high enough. Plus, there's the added bonus of being to get photos from almost every campus if we've done our job of effectively communicating the submission opportunity.

Creating a way for your users to submit photos is such an easy way to engage your families, drive traffic to various communication channels through cross-pollination of content, and mine that school PR gold. 

What do you think? What are some ways you have used back to school time for school public relations? The comments are yours.

Guest Work on the 'School Marketing Podcast'

I was recently asked by Randy Vaughn to join him as one his first guests on his School Marketing Podcast. His site has a primary audience of private, independent, or Christian school marketing. Prior to my current six years in a public school district, I worked five years at a private school in Ft. Worth as a communications director. There is a constant need for guidance in the areas of marketing communication and admissions for administrators of private schools. Private and public education both need capable and professional voices to help tell their stories, explain the challenges and sell their products - trust in education. 

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PODCAST: Schools & PR: Case Study from a Student Protest Gone Right with guest, (@vedo) Richie Escovedo - [25 minute episode]

(Thanks again, Randy for the opportunity to share with your audience.)