POMA Donation: Social Media Marketing Crash Course

One day of consultation from Sherry Kerr of Outdoor Media Resources for initiating or enhancing your social media marketing program.

Social media marketing is no longer optional, and having a Facebook page is not the same as having a marketing program. We will work with the winning bidder to:

• evaluate existing marketing efforts and assets
• determine what you need to accomplish through social media
• create a strategy
• plan tactics for engaging an online community and “getting found” online
• create accounts/pages and/or enhance existing pages.

We’ll also show you many tips for marketing your brand online, along with do’s and don’ts and how to conduct promotions while remaining in compliance with online platforms’ Terms of Service. We’ll include such platforms as blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube and other video sites, LinkedIn, social bookmarking, etc. As time permits, we will also address other inbound marketing activities with which social media is integrated, such as search engine optimization (SEO), content development, email marketing, websites, landing pages, and more.

Your one-day crash course will save you months of trial and error and significantly advance your social media marketing efforts.

Available to individuals, businesses, and organizations. (No agencies, please.)

Consultation can be by phone and web or in OMR’s office in Anniston, Alabama.

Sherry Kerr is an Inbound Marketing Certified Professional with over 21 years of experience doing Public Relations and Marketing Communications exclusively for the outdoors industry.

POMA

POMA – Professional Outdoor Media Association 
Writers, photographers, and broadcasters who communicate about hunting, shooting, fishing, and traditional outdoor sports. www.professionaloutdoormedia.org

What Are We Doing Here?

I was lucky in my draw of genes. As is typical of her family, my mother has only a few grey hairs at an age when most people have more salt than pepper.  She has fewer wrinkles than most of my friends from high school, and it certainly wasn’t from living a cushy life. So if being in the shooting industry for 25 years and owning a PR business for 20 hasn’t given me grey hair and too many wrinkles, what have I gotten out of it?  Well, I ache in a few places I didn’t know I had when I started, and, oh yes — I’ve learned a few things about how this complex relationship between manufacturers and the press works. Or how it ought to. 

I’m not one of those PR people who think outdoor writers have their hands out for “free stuff.” On the contrary, most of the writers I know have more “stuff” than they have room in which to store it. I’ve always considered it a privilege to help writers and editors with their projects, and that’s what my PR philosophy centers around: I want to help you do your job. Sometimes that takes the form of overnighting products to you, writing copy that will exactly fit your 7¼-inch sidebar, or creating a makeshift studio on my credenza or fence post to quickly set up exactly the photo you need. It’s my job and my pleasure.

But times have changed. In the same way that digital photography, email, and the internet have changed the manner and speed with which we can fill your editorial needs, they have changed your jobs. Your editors have different expectations of you. You have more competition among other writers, photographers, and editors. A tight economy means magazines are closing or getting thinner, dropping writers, paying less for your work, or requiring greater rights for what they’re paying.

I’ve made a genuine effort over the years to stay abreast of trends so I could service my accounts and help writers in the way they need to work — but at the same time, to bring them along to new ideas and new and better ways of working. In the 1980s, I insisted that many writers buy fax machines so we could improve our communications. In the 1990s, I walked writers through the process of setting up email accounts, sending and receiving attachments, and other activities you now do with your eyes closed. Now I consider myself a social media evangelist bent on bringing outdoor writers and organizations online and in real-time communication with their readers, customers, and colleagues.

So that’s what we’re doing here. I want to help you do your job; in some cases, just to help you see things through another set of eyes, and in other cases, to give you ideas of new ways to do your job easier, better, and more competitively. How can I help you?

Get Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Dave is a 20-ish, adventurous young college student who made a road trip from New York to Alabama last July with his sister and two friends, just to hear some great music. He and his pals ended up at a party I was hosting for a large group of strangers from all over the U.S. and around the world. Why I did something so bizarre but fun is another story. This one is about Dave.

The party was off to a great start, and a crowd had gathered around someone telling a story on the deck. Dave and his crew were in the circle surrounding the story-teller when he suddenly stood up and said quietly, “I have to get out of my comfort zone.” He moved around the crowd until he was on the opposite side, positioned himself between a couple of strangers, and shook hands with both.

Dave was on an adventure. He recognized that he couldn’t make new friends and have a memorable night unless he moved away from his traveling companions with whom he was comfortable.  I saw him make about 30 friends that night, get invited to visit people all over the world, and become part of a group traveling to Atlanta the next evening.

Some of the most successful writers and editors I’ve worked with were those who were willing to get out of their comfort zone.  My clients and I taught them to shoot and hunt with a muzzleloader for the first time, and they developed a new skill to write about.  We taught riflemen to hunt with handguns and shoot clays with shotguns. Like Dave, they wanted to meet the writers and editors they didn’t already know and learn from them.  Editors listened to our ideas for new columns and new subject matter. Writers and editors asked us for introductions to one another.

When did you last take up a new shooting discipline?  If you’re a gun writer, have you ever written about fishing, bowhunting, birdwatching, camping, or canoeing?  When you go on a sponsored hunt, do you hang out with the writers you already know or make a point of meeting the ones you don’t?  When was the last time you queried an editor of a magazine that was larger, more prestigious, or better-paying than your current markets? Have you ever queried a non-endemic publication?

Dave may still be a student, but we can all learn something from him. When was the last time you were out of your comfort zone professionally?