Author Archive
AJGpr client, Dr. Nina Shapiro, the Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and an Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA says snoring can be caused by enlarged tonsils or adenoids that block the airways. If you don’t breathe properly at night, you don’t get enough oxygen to your brain.
Watch the segment on The Doctors here.
Five Steps for a More Effective Facebook Page for Small Business
Emily Weaver wrote a great tip on Manta that AJGpr, a Los Angeles Public Relations Firm wanted to share. Here it is.
Representing your small business online can be difficult, but if done the right way you can reach an unlimited amount of customers. With social networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn it makes it easier for small businesses to truly stay in touch and on track with both potential and current customers.
1. Start with a Facebook Page
Facebook is generally used for social interaction anyway, so putting your business on Facebook will be second nature if you already use it for keeping in touch with friends and family.
- If you already have a profile on Facebook, you can add a page for a company or small business. This way you can still keep your personal profile active and under the same account.
- A great way to test out any new page online is to have a focus group you can trust. Who would be better than your friends list on your profile page.
2. Stay informed, get a routine
As a small business owner you want to keep your Facebook page up to date for customers. Not only does that fall under the category of posting content on a regular basis, it also means to be realistic when it comes to results.
- Post content – a photo, a news story, what you’re doing during the day – something that customers can only get from liking you on Facebook. If you get one ‘Like’ out of it you’ll be thrilled, but don’t expect it all to come at once.
- Have a goal of what you’d like to see happen out of what you post, just don’t get too distraught over a question you ask that gets no answer. As for posting, make it a habit to update your page at least once a day.
- There never is a wrong time to post, just as there isn’t a right time to post; whenever you get the time, whenever you have the content. Make it engaging for your customers so that they can get an idea of what you’re about!
3. Update your status with style
The status can be very daunting, but it’s an open space for you to share content with your customers. That’s exciting! Before posting, you might want to map out what you want to share.
- Do some research on other brands similar to yours and see what they’re posting. For instance a local bakery might post a photo of their famous hot chocolate, or a diner could post a question about what customers would like their special to be for dinner that day- something to involve customers, something that will keep their attention.
- Don’t think your content has to be completely formal. Make it your own, and represent the voice of your small business.
- Make sure to post mostly open-ended questions or thoughts to get more of a complete response out of your fans, this way you’re communicating back and forth with the person who matters most – the customer.
4. Keep in touch with customers
This may be an easy task, or a challenging one, depending on what you want to do.
- As the owner of your small business Facebook page you’ll be able to see who has ‘Liked’ your page. One way you can keep customers engaged is by sending them a message as soon as they ‘Like’ your page. This is a great way to let your new fans know that you’re going to be there to respond and interact with them promptly.
- Another way to keep customers engaged is to answer them via the messages section onFacebook. Some may just send you spam, but others will probably have legit questions. This section is something you’ll want to keep an eye on each day.
- In addition to your daily posts, answering your customer’s questions in a timely manner can only give them a positive perception of you. By keeping in touch with customers and answering their questions and suggestions you can keep a connection with them and they’ll definitely have nothing but good things to say about you and your business!
5. What you can offer fans
Think about it- they’re ‘Liking’ your page. What do they get out of it?
- If you can get something like a promotion going for your fans, or a coupon for 10% off your latest inventory it would guarantee their satisfaction and possibly get them to spread the word about ‘Liking’ your page.
For more ideas on what to post or just for best practices, visit Manta on Facebook to get an idea of how you can use Facebook for your small business.
Why Your Kid Whines — and How to Get Her to Stop iVillage Turns To Betsy Brown Braun For Strategies
2012
Why Your Kid Whines — and How to Get Her to Stop
Bonnie Vengrow posted and article on children and whining on iVillage. To get some perspective on this developmental stage of childhood, she turned to my client, Betsy Brown Braun, child development and behavior specialist and best selling author of Just Tell Me What to Say and You’re Not the Boss of Me.
Here are the “expert strategies to stop your kid’s whining.”
You and your kiddo are chugging along nicely when, one day, she figures out that if she raises her voice, repeats herself over and over, and tosses in a few tears — presto! — she’ll get what she wants. Her latest discovery may mean frustration, aggravation and plenty of headaches for you. But like most developmental phases, whining can be temporary — so long as you nip it in the bud. We turned to the experts for their take on whining, and got tried-and-true advice on how to stop it fast.
A little perspective
Whining is about as aggravating as nails on the chalkboard and can make even the most level-headed mama want to scream. It’s the most annoying sound on earth, but it actually serves a good purpose. “It’s an all-important part of beginning to grow up,” says Betsy Brown Braun, child development and behavior specialist and author of Just Tell Me What to Say and You’re Not the Boss of Me. “Whining is his way of figuring out who he is separate from you, the parent. He’s not doing anything that’s wrong or unacceptable. We have to change the ways we react to it and how we reabsorb it.”
Back in June, my client, Betsy Brown Braun, blogged about spanking. I love what she has to say and wanted to share it with AJGpr readers.
Betsy is a parenting expert and the author of two best-selling books Just Tell Me What To Say and You’re Not The Boss Of Me.
To If Nor Spanking, Then What?
Seems like almost every parent today knows that spanking is verboten. Everyone except that parent who says, “My father spanked me, and I turned out fine.” To him I want to say, You don’t remember how you felt while you were being spanked—the terror, the helplessness, the anger.
Working with parents for 40 years has demonstrated to me that parents spank because they don’t know what else to do that “really works.” It is out of their simmering frustration that they resort to harsh physical actions like spanking, slapping, even pinching, or holding a shoulder just that much too tightly. But it’s all spanking. And it screams helpless parent, regardless of the child’s age, tot or tween. You are showing your weakness.
Children do not need to cry, to be hurt, to be shamed, or to shout “uncle” in order to learn the lesson you are trying to impart. The discipline (from the Latin root word which means learning or teaching) that is needed should be just that–the lesson that teaches not to do that again. It is a lesson that cultivates self-discipline. The child needs to learn; he doesn’t need to be hurt or humiliated. In fact, a child in those heightened emotional states will not learn. Rather, he will be focused on his anger at you, what a mean, bad daddy you are, not even thinking about what he did.
Here are some tips for what to do when you feel like spanking:
- Get a grip on your own anger. Grit your teeth and admit that you feel like walloping your kid. Then commit not to do it.
- Remind yourself that this is an opportunity for you teach and for your child to learn. Often children have to do the wrong thing on their way to doing the right thing. And yes, for that there is a consequence.
- Let the child know that whatever the behavior was, you are stopping it. Remove the child from the scene of the crime.
- Say as little as possible. “There is no throwing balls in the living room!” using your low, slow, icy voice. Mean business.
- Remove and isolate your child to a safe place away from you and the scene. No words.
- The key is to DISENGAGE. Do not give your attention of any kind, negative or positive. Nothing.
- When you have both come back to planet earth, even as long as an hour later depending upon the age of the child (the younger the child, the shorter the time), do your revisit.
- Have a short, direct conversation (and it may be one sided) about what happened and what will happen as a result.
- For children seven years old and younger, have your logical consequence ready to impose. (Logical consequences are directly related to the misbehavior.) You showed me that you do not know how to use balls responsibly. So, you will not be able to use balls of any kind for the rest of the week. If necessary, be prepared to take the rest of the family out to play ball. He’ll feel it! So sorry you can’t play with us
- For children older than seven, in addition to the logical consequence, there might be a removal of privileges, or he might have to earn the money to help pay the cost of replacing the window. He gets it.
- Know that it takes time for the lesson to take hold. Much like microwave cooking, it needs a standing time to begin to sink in.
- There is no one size-fits-all answer. Your response must be crafted to the particular child and the infraction.
- Remember, parenting by imposing fear is neither healthy nor effective.
You and your child need to be on the same team. You are both trying to get him to the same place, the place of making thoughtful, good choices for himself. And the very first chance you get, catch him doing the right thing. Praise works better than punishment and a whole lot better than spanking.
My client, Green Living and Holistic Lifestyle expert Randi Ragan, was a guest on KABC to share 5 Tips to Teach Kids About Going Green. Randi is the founder/Owner of GreenBliss EcoSpa, LA’s ONLY Award-winning eco-friendly mobile spa.
Here is the clip and transcript.
As you prepare your children for the new school year, maybe it’s time to try something new, like “going green.”
We met up with green living expert Randi Ragan, who gave us five tips to get you started. First, try to create “zero trash” lunches, which means using a lot of reusable or re-washable containers.
“Zero waste lunch is about figuring out how to pack your kids lunch to school without creating trash at the end of it,” said Ragan.
Stackable tins are a great “green-friendly” choice. But those thin, plastic sandwich bags are hard to replace. Instead, try washable sandwich bags kids can use every day. Also, lose the plastic silverware, choose metal or branch out with bamboo chopsticks.
Next up, lose the batteries. Ragan said 14 billion batteries are thrown away into landfills every year in America.
“So anytime you can help them find a way to play and be creative without a battery, it’s a win,” said Regan.
Powering off those games might be tough, but arts and crafts will send their imagination soaring. Or try to create a fun project, like documenting the ecosystem in their backyard.
Ragan also stresses the importance of getting your children involved in the ecosystem around them. By observing the plants, animals and insects, they can get an appreciation of the environment.
Start an organic garden. You’ll end up with great homegrown food and the opportunity to teach your children about how plants grow.
Finally, pay attention to ingredients and read the labels on food and beauty products.
“It gets you thinking about what is going on your skin, and what is going in your body,” said Ragan. “It’s mostly about teaching them to just engage and not pushing it so much, but just actively nurturing their curiosity.”
My client, Dr. Nina Shapiro, Director of Pediatric Otolaryngology and an Associate Professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA has her say about parents choosing or not choosing to vaccinate their kids in a recent blog. Dr. Shapiro is the author of Take A Deep Breath: Clear the Air for the Health of Your Child.
“Nut-free”, “Peanut-free”, and the latest and greatest: “Nut sensitive”. The rage in preschools and elementary schools across the country is to protect our nut-challenged children from nut exposure, even if it means not exposing them to nuts in the same building or playground, to minimize their risk of life-threatening allergic reactions. Allergic concerns have expanded beyond nuts, to gluten and dairy, to the degree that some schools now prohibit ‘powdered cheese products’, to protect children who are especially dairy sensitive. Some schools are not ‘nut-‘ or ‘dairy’-free, but are merely ‘nut’ or ‘dairy’-sensitive. I hope that this means that they take special precautions, beyond just discussing the inner feelings and emotions of those ‘sensitive’ to certain foods.
Please don’t take any of this as sarcasm. I am fully aware that food allergies are bona fide, and when they occur to the point of danger, kids can die, or nearly die, from a severe food reaction. An elementary school girl recently died of a previously undocumented allergic reaction recently, while at school. So an institution’s decision to either ban or, well, ‘sensitize’, potential food allergens, for the greater good, becomes a public health issue, even on the small scale of a school’s microcosm. This is a good thing. By not sending your child to school with their favorite PBJ or cheese puff, you are protecting others. Not necessarily your nut-insensitive child, who happily gobbles powdery cheese products and peanut butter cups in the comfort of your BPA-free hybrid vehicle, but others. Your child’s sacrifice for the greater good is worth it; seeing a small friend go into anaphylactic shock can scar a tyke for life, not to mention the allergic child himself. And this protection of others is important. Equally important is teachers knowing and being re-certified in CPR (which, by the way, might have saved that elementary school girl, had it been initiated before paramedics arrived). Maybe even as important as getting immunized.
Is there a lunch table for the vaccine-sensitive? We promise not to serve nuts. I just wonder if schools would consider instituting ‘vaccine-free’ zones. You know, for the greater good? Just as we are protective of the nut-challenged from life-threatening reactions, what about protecting children from life-threatening illnesses? Public schools can mandate that all must be immunized, but do allow for exemptions, which are pretty easy to get. Many public schools report immunization rates of less than 50% of their students. Private and parochial schools can strongly encourage immunizations, but they cannot mandate that all must be immunized. Some private schools have immunization rates of less than 20%. Yes, that’s right a parent might pay $25,000 a year to a school where less than one in five of their classmates are immunized against life-threatening illnesses such as measles, polio, bacteria which cause meningitis, or pertussis (the one that causes whooping cough). In order for a school to be considered truly immunized, from a public health (or ‘greater good’) standpoint, that particular school’s immunization rate needs to be 90% or higher. Parents have varied reasons, primarily personal, why they choose not to immunize their children. Some parents are concerned about autism risk, even though all of the studies connecting the rise in autism with immunizations have been debunked. Some are concerned that their child’s body is too small to tolerate a large dose of so many vaccines at once, so they spread out the schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to create their own ‘tailor-made’ schedule. Some parents think that the illnesses kids are getting immunized against don’t exist anymore, so why bother getting immunized, since illnesses such as polio, measles, mumps, and tetanus have been eradicated anyway.
But here’s the reality: these diseases do exist, and we’re going to see more of them come back. I read about pertussis, the bacterium that causes whooping cough, when I was in medical school. We would learn about this horrible respiratory disease and how it afflicted and took the lives of so many of those poor shlubs from the 1930’s, who hadn’t figure out prevention yet. We would read about them as if they were some primitive Neanderthal tribe, barely able to put two sticks together to make fire. Occasionally a crusty old professor would tell tales of the ‘days of whooping cough’. Ho hum. Well, it’s back. Not so ho-hum anymore. The hundred-day cough, which became an outbreak in California and other states, resulted in many children dying. During the tail end of medical school, I saw H. flu infections, a bacterium that caused severe respiratory illnesses, meningitis, eye infections, and blocked breathing. The miracle of the vaccine for H. flu, which became widely used in 1999, nearly wiped it out. Until now. It’s back, too. Dr. Jonas Salk, the co-creator of the polio vaccine, spoke at my medical school graduation. Polio killed millions, and paralyzed millions more. Thank you, Jonas Salk, and your sidekick Albert Sabin. We haven’t seen polio outbreaks in the U.S. since the 1950’s, when Salk and Sabin’s vaccine began being given widely. Well, we haven’t seen outbreaks yet. We might have to wait until the immunization rates drop some more. But let’s hope not. Polio, whooping cough, meningitis, and measles, to name a few, are still out there – and they could once again be coming to a school near you.
My client, Green Living and Holistic Lifestyle expert, Randi Ragan recently posted these great vegan recipes for football season on her blog. Randi is the owner/founder of GreenBliss EcoSpa, LA’s award-winning and ONLY eco-friendly mobile spa.
Never thought you’d see those “vegan” and “football” side by side, did ya? Well, neither did I until I wrote them. But I’ve been thinking alot lately about autumn rituals (see previous posts). I grew up in Texas, where football is the ultimate fall ritual, and tv – watching parties are abundant and plentiful excuses for socializing and eating. Something about the cool crisp air of an autumn afternoon sliding into evening brings up these memories for me. Even though I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 20 years now and haven’t watched a football game in almost as long, the urge to snack and hang with friends has never left me. Only now I seek out healthier food, and look for things to make from scratch that are easy, tasty, and will fly in a room full of picky eaters (re: children, adults with suspicions of anything “vegan” in the title). Here are a few delicious recipes to fulfill your own snacking urges and make bountiful use of fall fruits and veggies in the markets now. Go team!
Cheezy Kale Chips
I’d fallen in love with the commercial varieties of these unfortunately expensive grocery store snacks. My motivation in creating this recipe was to see if I could replicate them easily and save, like, $8 a pop. Done.
Ingredients:
1 cup of raw cashews
½ large red bell pepper, seeded
Juice of 1 lemon
½ tsp. salt
1/2 – 3/4 tsp. red pepper flakes (or to taste)
¼ c. water
1 large bunch of curly kale
Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
Blend/puree everything except the kale in a food processor. Drizzle water after the initial ¼ cup, as needed, to make the mixture have a consistency like a creamy tomato soup.
Wash the kale and tear the leaves into half dollar sized pieces. Place in a large bowl.
Pour cashew/red pepper mixture over the kale and toss with your hands until the kale is well coated on both sides.
Cover two large cookie sheets with parchment paper or grease lightly with olive or other oil, such as grapeseed or canola.
Arrange the kale on the cookie sheets so that none of the leaves are overlapping.
Place in the oven for 20 minutes, then use a spatula to flip over and re-arrange the bigger pieces that are still wet.
The idea is to slowly dry out the kale without burning it. This might take 30 minutes. Be patient!
Keep flipping the bigger pieces with the spatula until all of them are dried out and crispy to the touch.
Store in an airtight container.
Cheezy Cashew Dip
When I first started seeking out and experimenting with raw and vegan recipes, I was stunned by the ability of cashews to mimic cheese. I soon discovered they are ubiquitous in this world. They can stand in for cream cheese in a cheesecake, for ricotta in a lasagna, for parmesan in a pesto. Genius!
Ingredients:
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 4 oz pimentos
• 3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
• 2 tbsp tahini
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup unflavored non-dairy beverage ”milk” (rice, soy, almond are best choices)
• 1 tsp mild miso soybean paste
• 1 tsp dry mustard
Directions:
Grind your cashews in a coffee grinder first into a nice powder. Then dump them and every else into a food processor and blend into a creamy bright orange. Serve with your favorite dip chip, apple slice, or veggie stick. This cheeze dip will fool even the most die-hard dairy-lover.
Muhamarra Spread
This is a quick and easy version of the traditional Middle-Eastern classic. Sometimes it’s made with pomegranate seeds and or syrup, but I like this version which is less rich and more spicy. You can roast your red peppers yourself, but that adds a time factor that not many of us want to incur. We’d rather spend it chowing down, wouldn’t we?
Ingredients:
1 7-8 oz. jar fire roasted red peppers
½ cup walnuts, toasted
½ cup hulled hemp seeds
2/3 cup cracker/bread crumbs (I pulsed some almond crackers in the food processor so this recipe would be gluten-free, but use whatever kind of cracker you prefer)
1 clove garlic
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
juice of 1 lemon
1 tbsp sriracha or other hot sauce (optional)
1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
2 tbsp oil (I used grapeseed, but extra virgin olive oil would be fab)
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Toast walnuts in a dry skillet on low heat on the stove. This should take about 5 minutes. Take care not to burn!
Place all ingredients, except the peppers, into a food processor. Pulse just a few times to break up the nuts a bit.
Drain the peppers, saving the juice or brine in the jar. Add the peppers to the nut and seed mixture in the food processor. Flip it to high until the mixture starts to form a smooth paste. Scrape down the sides once or twice with a spatula. Add the 2 tbsp oil, or 1 tbsp oil and 1 tbsp of the leftover pepper juice, and season with salt and pepper to your liking.
Pulse a few times to combine. The texture should be like a thick, but spreadable peanut butter; add pepper juice or oil to get to this consistency.
Serve with flatbreads, veggie sticks, crackers, on as a spread on sandwiches.
AJGpr , A Los Angeles PR firm, found this great list of advice for PR professionals – especially newbies when dealing with journalists from Ragan’s PR Daily.
- Don’t be afraid: Reporters need you as much as you need them – sometimes more if you’ve got an awesome, sought-after client. They are being challenged to churn out content FAST and they’re often relying on others (you) to provide insight, quotes, access to spokespeople and in some cases, help educate them on a complicated or new (to them) topic – all by deadline. It’s a mutually beneficial relationship so don’t be afraid to make that first contact – you might be surprised.
- Get connected: I don’t advise blindly connecting to every reporter you’ve ever heard of on LinkedIn, but after that first client briefing or email trail, connect with them on LinkedIn. Even easier, follow them on Twitter or Google+ and subscribe to their feed. My best media contacts are people that I’m connected to on LinkedIn and I truly believe that sometimes, because they see my face pop up on their news feed, they remember to reach out with a source request.
- Reporters need to network, too: More than ever, reporters are being measured by their social networks and how many people – hits – they can get to their stories and to then go back and share with their own networks. That is stressful! That being said, reporters know PR pros tend to be outgoing, well-connected individuals, and they may lean on you to broaden their reach. I’ve connected a few reporter “friendlies” with other PR pros for stories that have led to success for all involved. I also sometimes send a reporter, if they’re in my region, a link to a networking event they might find interesting or that I’m attending.
- Freelance writers rock: And there’s more of them then there were four years ago. Get in good with a freelancer and you won’t regret it – these are smart, driven and often very KIND people who at any given point could be writing something super niche, for a “smaller” outlet, and then next thing, contributing regularly to a column in a major business publication. Because of the nature of operating solo and/or remote from the main news hub, freelancers are more likely to reach out with a media request and ask for help.
- Share the S*** out of their news — and not just when it’s yours: You have a reporter friend and they just wrote about your client and you’re PUMPED so you like it, tweet it, send it to your Mom (don’t lie, you’ve done it). Your reporter friend appreciates this because they want more web traffic to their article and in many cases today, their boss is counting how many hits, RTs, comments, etc. that article receives. On several occasions I’ve actually had reporters email me after coverage hits to let me know “Yay! It got a bunch of comments” or “Wow! The story got X number of click-throughs” and then thanked me for sharing it on LinkedIn or Twitter. But it’s not just YOUR coverage that should be shared – like any solid PR pro you want to be consistently reading your media “friendlies” work and sharing it with your network. Reporters recognize this and will not forget you when it comes time to write another story.
To that PR newbie I would then say: At the end of the day, if you’re doing your job right, a reporter will not only see you as a resource, but as an industry peer. And that makes public relations more valuable, powerful and better in terms of what we can offer our clients.
AJGpr was wondering how best to use Manta to promote its clients. A Google search brough up this article by Stepahnie Taylor Christensen for BusinessNewsDaily.
The best small businesses in the world can’t be a success until it becomes known within its community and industry. Budget and resource constraints can make that an especially challenging task for small businesses. That’s where a service like Manta comes into play.
The web site, which allows users to post information about their company and allows consumers to find them, currently hosts more than one million registered users and 64 million company profiles. Six years after its inception, Manta is ranked the third largest business news/research website by comScore.
Manta’s President and CEO Pamela Springer, explained how small businesses can use Manta to reach a broader customer based.
BusinessNewsDaily: How is Manta different/more valuable to a small business owner than Google or Hoovers listings?
Pamela Springer: Manta offers so much more than an online business listing. We’ve become the destination site for small business owners to promote their company and connect with customers, prospects and partners. Our comprehensive coverage of small companies, including details about the people who work for these companies, and the ability to connect with the business owners and professional directly, is the foundation of our community. Traditional online business listing sites may offer either a consumer-centric experience, or simple, often limited, business information. Manta’s focus is on capturing comprehensive, unique and accurate business information directly from the business owner .
The Manta company profile is truly a source of promotion for a company. The ability to update and enhance this profile so it is accurate and reflects what the business owner wants to communicate, is a key feature. It’s essentially business connecting with more business. More than 2,000 business owners claim or add their company on Manta each day, and more than 27 million unique visitors come to Manta to find these companies.
BND: How can small business owners use Manta to transform search activity into actionable prospecting tools?
P.S.: Manta members can request to become a contact of any registered user of Manta in order to promote their company or build business relationships with sales prospects and partners. Manta’s unique filters allow users to refine their requirements in finding a particular company or set of companies based on revenue, employee size, etc. They also can save and store information, including contact information, so they can create a forecast or sales pipeline. Manta also provides business owners weekly statistics as to how many users have visited their profile compared to their peer group along with charts comparing related businesses in their area.
BND: What is your recommended strategy for a small business with limited marketing budgets to use Manta most effectively?
P.S.: Business owners don’t need research to tell them their customer is spending more time online. Step 1 of any small business owner’s online strategy is to be found. Step 2 is to make sure the information found is accurate and engaging. A Manta profile successfully implements that strategy for no charge to the business owner. To take full advantage of Manta, a small business owner should add detailed information on products and services, logos, website links, photos, press coverage, videos, event information, association memberships, and Facebook and Twitter account details. Company profiles should be updated as often as necessary to keep the information fresh and compelling.
Business owners also can purchase a Premium Business Listing, which allows their profile to be found in distinct areas of the site based on keywords they choose. By choosing keywords that match your specialty, you become easier to find for Manta users seeking businesses like yours. You also can designate geographic areas for your keywords, so that you can be found by people outside of your immediate geographic area.
BND: What kind of small business owner should use Manta? Is it appropriate for businesses whose end-user is the consumer, or business-to-business sellers only?
P.S.: While our user-experience is oriented toward answering business questions, Manta can be used by any kind of business serving any type of customer. Our company profiles include accurate, in-depth business information necessary for making introductions and initiating potential business. In many instances, a Manta company profile ranks extremely high in search engine results page, helping promote a B2C or B2B company.
BND: You recently took a giant leap in traffic, growing from 12 million to 26 million users. Where did the audience boost come from?
P.S.: In a very short period of time we’ve become one of the largest sites on the web (#41 on Quantcast) and one of the most influential (comScore recently cited Manta as one of the top properties driving overall web growth).
As visitors search for companies on Manta, more companies claim, update and add their profiles and use the new features we’ve introduced to promote their business. Our repeat traffic from existing users is exploding. The more company profiles are claimed, the richer and more valuable our data becomes. The unique and in-depth details in our company profiles, and the ability to connect with business owners attached to those profiles, is developing a very strong following and fueling our huge audience growth.
BND: What advice would you give an entrepreneur just starting out in terms of the best and smartest ways to use the tools Manta provides?
P.S.: My advice for any entrepreneur is to use Manta to research and investigate the marketplace and use your findings to strategize and create a business plan. Using Manta, you can research and survey the business landscape by category or region and then use our “ChartIt” tool to visualize your findings.
Manta’s database of detailed company information allows anyone to research possible partners, vendors and suppliers; source products and materials, and seek information about competition or potential adjacent markets. Manta provides endless possibilities as a research tool. Finally, use Manta to network. Never underestimate what a personal connection can lead to.
BND: How might a small business listed on Manta whose owner is unsure how to use it effectively, make changes to beef up its value?
P.S: Manta gives a platform to promote business, so updating and changing the profile regularly with new information is key. In addition to our free profiles, our Premium Business Listings allow users a wider array of services and features to enhance their online presence. We send weekly activity reports on viewership and offer customer service support to our users.
BND: What is the most common misperception businesses have when it comes to using Manta? What’s the biggest missed opportunity?
P.S.: The biggest misconception is that Manta is simply a database. Manta is a community in which small businesses can promote their business and connect to customers. Through its rich, detailed profiles on nearly 64 million businesses worldwide, Manta serves as an unrivalled resource. The biggest missed opportunity for a small business owner is to simply not be a member of the Manta community.
Elena Verlee writes in her blog about the use of humor in PR. AJGpr, a Los Angeles PR firm thinks the topic is interesting enough to share with you.
Here it is:
What if there was a way for you to differentiate your PR from the rest of your competitors — but it’s slightly risky and not that easy. Would you try it?
Such a PR tool does exist. It’s called humor.
According to Marketing Profs, few companies are using humor in their marketing and PR that, whenever a company does — and does it well — it’s sure to stand out, especially among technology companies.
“High-tech suffers from terminal seriousness,” says Kathy Klotz-Guest in her article, “Humor in PR: Can You Hear Me Now?”
Companies that do harness humor in their PR are sure to catch the attention of media and the public.
Humor is also effective at engaging your target audience and getting more mileage out of social media.
“Consumers are, in fact, willing to engage with companies and brands in today’s online social forums,” says Aaron Perlut in his Forbes article, “Humor Can Create Engagements.”
Granted, using humor carries some risk. Context is everything, for one thing. If you have a global audience, your North American markets may get the joke, but your Asian markets may end up scratching their heads.
Furthermore, being funny does not excuse you from offering real news. Your PR materials, while humorous and entertaining, still have to have news value.
You have to know your audience to use humor effectively — something which is true of any type of communication, PR or otherwise.
This Brand Gets Humor Right
Many experts agree, self-deprecating humor works best. To give you an example, the satirical publisher, The Onion, once made fun of Tide in a parody article about how companies are using social media to promote themselves. The company got in on the joke, produced the fictitious video described in the article, and generated plenty of social media buzz, not to mention kudos from the writers of The Onion themselves. It was an excellent example of how a brand’s ability to laugh at itself can produce positive PR.
Click here for the original article in The Onion.
Is Humor Right for You?
The next question is, of course, whether humor is a good approach for your company or client.
I think it’s possible to find a humorous angle, if not several, in any product, service, market or industry. However, there are some things to keep in mind:
- Stay relevant. Humor brings positive PR only when it helps expand your core messages.
- Be sensitive. Humor’s impact depends on the attitudes and values of the audience. Be aware of cultural, religious, political and other sensitivities that may make your comedy backfire. This is where having a true understanding of your audience — developed through listening and interacting with them — pays off.
- Steer clear of humor bombs. Certain topics are bad jokes, no matter what. This includes child abuse, exploitation of women, racial discrimination and disabilities.
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