We were honored to be named the Best Small Agency to Work For at the 2013 SABRE Awards last week. We’ve long prided ourselves on creating and investing in a culture that’s rewarding – and just plain fun – for our employees to come to every day. But what does such an honor mean to clients, since they don’t work here and they have their own cultures to care about?

I’d like to be able to say I thought long and hard about the answer to that question but, to be honest, the answer was right there – it’s about talent. An agency that creates the best environment to work in is in the best position to attract and retain the very best talent from across the communications sector. For clients, that translates to the most engaged, skilled and motivated people working on their business.

It also means less turn-over. 360 was launched just over a decade ago and our practice leaders have all been with us 5+ years and many of our supervisors have been here just as long. They’ve created a strong base for us to add to with new talent – people who bring fresh ideas and new approaches that we readily integrate with established, proven practices.

Our key learning in building a “best agency to work for” over the years is that culture is everyone’s responsibility and can’t be owned by one person or one department. We rely on our entire staff to engage in employee engagement, whether they contribute to professional development, operational, social or other activities that enrich our collective experience and keep us at the forefront of emerging trends, tools and best practices for our clients. That means senior staff have to be open to ideas coming from all levels – and acting on those ideas. We are and we do.

One of our most recent employee engagement activities focused on “strength-training.” Each staff member had an opportunity to participate in a series of 1:1 coaching sessions to identify strengths, both realized and unrealized. Next, we hosted a “speed-dating” session, in which staff members compared strengths with co-workers and discussed how they can help each other convert unrealized strengths to realized ones. 360’s strength-training program culminated with a team-building exercise in which our coach tumbled up individual strength profiles to an agency strength profile and we discovered as a team what unrealized strength – courage – we needed to work on. We found senior team members were less willing to take risks than younger team members – and that the younger team members could be relied upon to help us be more courageous as an agency. That’s given rise to younger team members taking the reins more at weekly staff meetings, presenting their approaches and accomplishments for all of us to learn from and be inspired by.

I’m so thankful for and proud of our teams in Boston and New York, and can’t wait to see what they come up with next – for 360 and our clients!

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, PR Industry by LauraTomasetti - No Comments →

How important are your tweets? That is for Twitter to decide! One of the articles in our latest Digital Download discusses Twitter’s recent announcement that they are going to begin attaching value ratings to users’ tweets as none, low, medium and high.

According to Twitter, the new metadata will allow developers to sort through millions of tweets in their streaming API to help them find the conversations that are most useful to them.

Although Twitter did not say how they will actually determine each tweet’s value, it is likely the system will work the same way that “Top Tweets” currently appear in a Twitter search result. Basically, you can get your 140-characters-or-less as a ‘Top Tweet’ if you have a large following or if you manage to rack up a lot of retweets.

As we all know, some streams on Twitter have so much content and move so fast that it can be very hard to keep up. This new system may help brands find the most useful information – and the most influential individuals – in the often-overwhelming Twitter conversations. On the flip side, the new system could prevent great content from being seen if the user (or brand) is new to the ever-growing social platform.

What do you think? Do you find ‘value’ in Twitter’s new rating system?

Read more about Twitter’s new rating system in the latest 360Social Digital Download, a round-up of digital marketing news for brands.

• Twitter will now decide the ‘value’ of your tweets

  The value judgments will be assigned to the public metadata of tweeters’ posts, and used by Twitter’s streaming API to help developers more selectively curate massive amounts of status updates. More
• Social Fresh claims Facebook is turning into a mobile company

  According to Mark Zuckerberg, in 2013, Facebook is “going to get really good at building mobile-first experiences.” 680 million users access Facebook via mobile at least once a month. 157 million ONLY access Facebook via mobile (15% of the total user base). More
• Twitter launches Vine app – Facebook blocks its fan page

  Twitter has introduced a new video sharing service, Vine, that allows users to record and share brief looping videos up to six seconds in length. Upon its initial launch, Facebook made Vine’s unsearchable on its platform. Even at current date, it is not easy to get to the app’s fan page – and they only have 48 likes. More
• Mashable reports how in-app searches are taking searches away from Google
  Google accounts for two of every three searches done in the U.S., far and away the most of any core search engine. However, Mashable uncovers that more and more in-app searches are occurring on platforms like Facebook and Amazon. More
• Facebook admits critical bugs caused page reach to be misreported for months

  While trying to speed up its iOS and Android apps, Facebook accidentally stripped out too much data about news feed posts by Pages. This caused Page Insights to be misreported, leading admins to believe their posts reached fewer people than they actually did, in most cases. More

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, Digital Digest, Digital PR, FaceBook, Interactive Marketing, Internet, Mobile Industry, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Twitter, Uncategorized, YouTube by Kyle-Bishop - No Comments →

By Pamela Brill

It may still feel like winter, but when it comes to promoting outdoor play, things are starting to heat up in the toy business. Gone are the days when manufacturers relied on print and online-only ad campaigns to attract moms to their brand. Today, companies are expanding their reach by investing in new marketing methods to boost business and maintain their presence in a competitive marketplace.

Melissa & Doug, a veritable specialty toy favorite, hosts spring and early summer photo challenges, inviting its loyal customer base to share their experiences with other parents online. “We like to encourage our fan community to ‘spring into spring’ by doing fun, educational activities with kids outside, and our Sunny Patch line is big part of that,” says Public Relations/Social Media Specialist Anna Ritchie.

Last year, the company premiered its virtual Camp Sunny Patch campaign, inviting bloggers to share their ideas for outdoor play and providing weekly suggestions for activities involving Sunny Patch product. Participants were provided with downloadable badges for their young campers to wear, along with product for review.

One of the bloggers who participated in last year’s Camp Sunny Patch, Valerie of Inner Child Fun, commented on her experience with the program. “You could think of Camp Sunny Patch as a virtual go-to guide for creative summertime fun with the kids,” she says. “We provided the basic framework with imaginative play ideas, easy crafts and plenty of outdoor activities and then encouraged parents to connect with their kids, while exploring a different theme each week.”

“One Cup at a Time”

Enticing kids to get outdoors, while supporting a charitable cause, is also visible at the retail level. This coming summer, Toys “R” Us will be resuming its partnership with Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to finding a cure for childhood cancer. Last year, shoppers were encouraged to make donations to “help fight childhood cancer, one cup at a time” or by signing up to host Alex’s Lemonade Stands. Crayola was among the brands that got involved. As a result, Toys “R” Us and families across the country helped to raise nearly $1.9 million benefitting the organization.

“The simple, yet powerful, act of hosting a lemonade stand, and the story behind ALSF, has definitely struck a chord,” said Sloane Lucas, Director, Corporate Philanthropy, Toys “R” Us, Inc., Toys “R” Us, in an official statement. “We understand the importance of helping kids in times of need and hope that each dollar raised will help Alex’s dream of finding a cure for childhood cancer become a reality.”

Pamela Brill is a professional magazine editor and writer whose work has appeared in such national publications as Parents, Woman’s Day and Girls’ Life. The former editor of Small World magazine, she is currently an editor at large for Gifts & Decorative Accessories/Playthings magazine and produces her own blog, The Talking Walnut, which highlights new kids’ products. As a member of the Norwood Avenue School PTA in Northport, N.Y., Pam recently began volunteering for the Parents As Reading Partners (PARP) program to encourage literacy for young readers.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, 360PR - MomSquad, Blogger Relations, Charity, Trendletter by Admin - No Comments →

By Leticia Barr

Today, the most effective parent-to-parent conversations can occur beyond the blog post. The ever-evolving online space has witnessed the development of new social tools utilized by bloggers and other digital influencers that can convey a story about a product, provide an inside look at a brand, or enhance a brand’s customer service.

Savvy marketing professionals are designing blogger outreach programs with a more holistic approach – taking into account bloggers’ use of Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Forward-thinking companies have moved beyond ‘spray and pray’ blogger outreach to engage bloggers in more meaningful ways – leading to compelling content that’s of higher value to parent audiences.

General Motors stands out as a leader for two innovative campaigns that tapped bloggers to create cross-platform content.  When prepping for the debut of the 2013 Terrain Denali, GMC invited a dozen bloggers to Michigan. Like other auto press events it included time to learn about the new Denali through a vehicle walk-around and drive-time. But the entire event was wisely designed to be interactive and capitalize on bloggers’ influence across multiple social media platforms.

Drive routes to showcase Northern Michigan at the start of summer were planned in conjunction with the Michigan Bureau of Tourism. Inspired by the scenery, bloggers captured images of the car during morning drives using Olympus PL-3 cameras provided through a partnership with Olympus. By the afternoon, we had not only experienced the car, but also learned how to shoot incredible images for our blogs.

Bloggers were invited to select a favorite image of the Denali to appear on the GMC Facebook page for the opportunity to be their new Timeline photo. As soon as the photos were up on the GMC page, each blogger went to work reaching out to our social networks by Tweeting, emailing, and sharing in Facebook groups to get our friends to like our images for the chance to be featured as the new Timeline photo. The well-planned event generated brand awareness and new Facebook fans for the 2013 Terrain Denali, as well as deepened brand relationships with bloggers for long-term gain.

As further evidence of GMC’s strategy to both spotlight and leverage digital influencers and their rich content, GMC also recently tapped leading fashion bloggers to showcase design inspirations for a custom Buick Encore digital look book, called Buick Pinboard to Dashboard.

The effectiveness of both of these campaigns is rooted in GMC’s recognition of bloggers’ digital influence across the broader social media sphere and a focus on the development of rich, compelling content. I’m excited about this evolution in how bloggers and brands are working together, and to see how consumers react to the new content we create together.

Leticia Barr is known throughout the social media sphere as Tech Savvy Mama, her award winning technology and education blog. She is also a Parents.com columnist, and a contributor to several brands’ content streams. Reach her on Twitter @TechSavvyMama.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, 360PR - MomSquad, Blogger Relations, Digital PR, FaceBook, Facebook, Internet, Social Media, Trendletter, Twitter by Admin - No Comments →

By Emily Roach

Over the past year, I’ve had the opportunity to share new products with friends and bloggers in a variety of settings. I hosted a home party in collaboration with the Healthy Child Healthy World organization that featured Seventh Generation and Plum Organics. The discussion centered on how moms can keep kids safe from toxins, and the products provided actionable take-aways for moms to incorporate in their daily lives.

In the fall, I hosted a tasting event at our neighborhood playground to celebrate the launch of Unreal candy. Moms – not just the kids – were excited to try this “healthier” candy.  We had some grandmothers join us too, broadening the audience. Moms especially like to touch and taste things before buying, and both of these events were a hit for that reason.

There’s more mom pay-off for brands when their story is presented in a hands-on, natural environment, within a community of moms. Those real-life interactions count for a lot. I tend to remember products more when there’s an event or other activity built around them. And other moms do, as well.

Bloggers can be a great entry point to offline networks of moms. I’ve often had moms at our preschool tell me they purchased something because I recommended it. I appreciate their trust, and there’s nothing like seeing your readers in-person to make you accountable for the review posts you write for your blog. Readers and friends will notice if you rave about one laundry detergent one week and a different one the following week.

Spend time getting to know bloggers – ask them about their life beyond their blog, including organizations they may be involved with in their local community that could provide an avenue for relationship-building with a broader network of moms. The value may be far greater, and not limited to, a blog’s online readership.

Emily Roach is the writer/owner of Random Recycling, a blog focused on green living for modern families. She lives outside of Boston with her husband, two children, and is expecting baby number-three this summer. She loves to cook, garden and spend time at the beach.

Filed under: 360 Public Relations, 360PR - MomSquad, Blogger Relations, Trendletter by Admin - 1 Comment →