LT Public Relations

LT Public Relations recently became aware of Chatroulette as a potential new, important communications tool for businesses. According to Wikipedia,  Chatroulette is a website that pairs random strangers from around the world together for webcam-based conversations.

Originally designed for dating connections (or sometimes more risqué interactions), Chatroulette is slowly morphing into a communications vehicle for businesses to interact with their target audience through short video interactions.  Think Twitter meets Skype.

Companies such as Travelocity and French Connection UK (FCUK) have used Chatroulette to connect with their audience in various ways…and have seen some success.

We’re not certain if Chatroulette will be the long-term medium used to conduct these business video chats in the future, but we are certainly intrigued by the concept of having businesses interact–through video–with their customers or prospective customers.

LT Public Relations will keep a close eye on this space and will report on developments–as finding the best ways to communicate for our business partners/clients is our business.

It wasn’t too long ago that excess was in.

Whether it was frivolous spending to keep up with our friends and neighbors or a waiting list for an overpriced  handbag; it was okay to spend big whether or not we really had the money to afford the luxury. 

But times have changed (along with some people’s credit scores) and with that has become a new wave of forced responsibility for a generation that was all too familiar with buying now and paying later. For some, once that 19% interest rate credit card  (obtained on a college campus, of course) was in the wallet, there was no stopping them. Clothes, new computers and vacations with friends were all fair game and paid for with the magic credit card.

Flash forward a few years to a recession, Wall Street’s collapse and some serious headlines that consumers really couldn’t avoid. Suddenly, one couldn’t get a credit card online in two minutes and it wasn’t okay to max out a credit card on stuff that really wasn’t needed. The foreign notion of obtaining and using credit responsibly actually started to receive attention from media outlets.  

The term “recessionista” started to get used more than “fashionista” and budgeting was suddenly cool.  The idea of staying in with friends for a potluck dinner wasn’t viewed as boring, it was viewed as responsible. With this new mindset, came an entire generation of young people that were craving financial knowledge that they didn’t get in elementary school or even high school and college.  

As a result, budgeting blogs and sites that focus on making smart and frugal financial decisions are now sprouting up daily. Sites like Budgetsaresexy,  thebudgetbabe and Learnvest all make budgeting and responsible spending easy to comprehend and interesting.

Nonprofit organizations are also doing their part to educate on making smart financial decisions, that’s why LT Public Relations is so proud to offer pro bono communications services to organizations like Financial Beginnings, a nonprofit that provides free financial education to children and young adults in the Portland, OR area.  

The new face of budgeting and financial literacy is approachable, interactive and fun. Gone are the days when the only option was to read through dry black and white text and enter numbers into a spreadsheet. Now, users can access free software that allows you to plug-in where you are spending your money and within seconds receive a visual color-coded display of just how much was spent on morning (and afternoon) coffee, clothes, a gym membership, rent and to-go orders.

For as much pain as the economic meltdown has caused people, it has forced some to wake-up and take inventory. Budgeting doesn’t have to be boring and it doesn’t have to signal an end to being social and enjoying life.  The budgeting blogs and sites, like those mentioned above, educate on how to use credit and keep a budget, but also how to live life and enjoy it without overspending; something that every generation needs to embrace.

 

LT Public Relations Selects Financial Beginnings as Recipient  of the 2010 Nonprofit Challenge   

Financial Beginnings will receive pro bono communication services from LT Public Relations for one year 

PORTLAND, Ore., July 20, 2010—LT Public Relations, a comprehensive communications firm specializing in telling the stories of financial and professional services institutions, today announced that is has selected the recipient of the firm’s first annual LT Public Relations Nonprofit Challenge which provides pro bono public relations services to a nonprofit organization for one year. 

The 2010 recipient is Financial Beginnings, a Portland based nonprofit that provides finance education at no cost to children and young adults throughout the Pacific Northwest. Financial Beginnings’ educational programs incorporate all aspects of personal finance to give individuals the foundation they need to make informed financial decisions. Each year, the organization educates over 10,000 students through age-specific curriculum that teaches how to navigate and actively participate in the banking, credit and insurance industries.  

Over the next year, the LT Public Relations team will work collaboratively with Financial Beginnings to help raise awareness and support the nonprofit’s goals by providing public relations guidance such as news releases, media relations, media training, community outreach, social media and other related PR services.  

“We are thrilled to assist Financial Beginnings in telling their stories of how they are educating and empowering local students,” said Casey Boggs, president of LT Public Relations. “There has never been a greater need in our country for financial literacy programs, and we look forward to providing Financial Beginnings with the outreach tools that will result in more awareness and support for their programs.” 

“The state of the economy has proven that personal finance is not so personal anymore.  This has been demonstrated locally by the foreclosure, bankruptcy, unemployment rates and of course the rollercoaster stock market from which everyone is feeling the effects. We are so excited to receive this generous support from LT Public Relations to help shine a spotlight on the need for financial literacy,” said Melody Thompson, Financial Beginnings’ executive director.  

About LT Public Relations 

Based in Portland, Oregon, LT Public Relations, LLC is a full-service communications firm specializing primarily in servicing professional and financial institutions, as well as small businesses, entrepreneurs and non-profits. The PR firm utilizes the most relevant and current communications tools—with a hybrid of traditional and new media approaches—to develop and execute strategic public relations initiatives for its clients.  More information is available at http://www.ltpublicrelations.com/.   

About Financial Beginnings 

Financial Beginnings is a Portland based nonprofit that began in 2005.  Its multi-session courses are offered free of charge to students and young adults throughout the Pacific Northwest through visits to their individual schools or community groups.  The program incorporates all aspects of personal finance to give individuals the foundation they need to make informed financial decisions. More information is available at www.financialbeginnings.org   

LT Public Relations continues to seek to uncover the most cost-effective, efficient and relevant ways to communicate for its financial/professional services clients (e.g. banks, credit unions, law firms, etc.) …and we adopted another communications gem…“Twitter Town Hall Meetings”

Two excellent traditional and modern ways to communicate (and listen) to your target audiences are:

1) Conducting periodic (monthly) town hall meetings at a designated location, date and time to both inform your audience of the latest developments from your company, while fielding questions from passionate, inquisitive and concerned customers/public

2) Informing and viewing tweets on a company’s Twitter page is a simple (and a now proven) way to directly connect with a company’s audience.

So why not combine the two communication forums to develop a Twitter Town Hall Meeting?

The concept is not entirely new, but appropriately conducting these “Twitter Town Hall Meetings” is still a nascent practice.

Generally, here’s how it works:

• Announce Town Hall Meeting. Notify target audience (via e-mail, news release, social media, etc.) that the company is conducting a “Twitter Town Hall Meeting” to discuss a topical issue affecting its audience, public and/or customers.
• Schedule. Designate an exact date and time (with time frame: e.g. from 9:00-9:30 AM PT).
• Title. Have a title or theme to the town hall meeting (e.g. “The State of XYZ Bank”).
• Preparation. Prepare a few tweets ahead of time (reminder: 140 characters per tweet!) to ignite the discussion.
• Keep it fairly brief. Write 10-12 tweets about the topic.
• Q&A. Allow 10-15 minutes or more to review and respond to appropriate tweets as they are tweeted.  *You won’t be able to respond to all questions/comments…but certainly respond to the most relevant.
• Blog. Follow-up the Twitter Town Hall Meeting with a blog to summarize the salient points and address some of the overarching questions/comments that were tweeted.

Each Twitter Town Hall Meeting will be different and each company should have its own unique style…but the preceding guidelines will help get things started.

Recently the National HIV Testing Day conducted a similar Twitter Town Hall Meeting and provided a blog recap.   With more than 243,000 followers and 145 participants, the town hall meeting appeared to be a huge success.

Remember, this is a forum to inform, listen and respond. THIS IS NOT A FORUM TO SELL.  The audience will appreciate the openness and transparency from the tweeting company.

Need help developing and facilitating a Twitter Town Hall Meeting?  Contact us: 503-477-9215 or pr@ltpublicrelations.com

A major credit union publication featured some interesting news on its front page this week.  No, not breaking news on the interchange amendment, it was instead news on a credit union hiring a full-time social media specialist. Social media positions are certainly not new, by now a good portion of companies, not to mention government agencies have full-time employees that are responsible for generating and monitoring Tweets, Facebook and blog postings. Credit unions however, have been late to adopt social media as a way to communicate with members and the community. Slowly, some are beginning to abandon their conservative marketing techniques for more modern methods. The number of credit union fans and followers aren’t quite as impressive as those of  the big banks, but they are catching up and learning that social media is an excellent way to promote community events, connect with members and to answer questions and concerns. It does potentially open the credit union to risk and is an open forum for members to vent their frustrations, however, if it’s monitored well and a response is carefully crafted, credit unions can learn from these service hiccups and acknowledge them publicly; members love to feel that they are heard and recognized.  

It’s also important to point out what social media is not. It shouldn’t be another method of communicating auto loan rates or a new checking account. It should be personal and fun and assist in putting a face on the credit union. Letting the CEO post her thoughts on the interchange amendment in one post, along with pictures of a community event that the credit union sponsored in another post will keep followers interested and connected. Building these networks can be a full-time job, and interacting with the public shouldn’t be taken lightly. While not all credit unions are able to support a full time social media specialist internally, they should have a social media plan in place. LT Public Relations can assist credit union marketing and public relations staff in creating a social media plan that is engaging, informative and consistent.

There is no bigger corporate enemy on the planet than BP.  Throughout the devastating crisis in the Gulf, BP has suffered a horrific crushing of a its once fairly solid brand.

As public relations and crisis communications case studies go, it doesn’t get any more intriguing than this BP crisis.

At LT Public Relations, we’re not only closely following how BP is handling the crisis, but taking notice on how communication specialists, such as our strategic partners Spaeth Communications and thier “Lessons from BP’s Oil Spill,” are reacting to the issues.

We’ll continue to monitor BP’s communications, but we’re just as interested in how BP’s competitors are communicating (e.g. Shell, Chevron, Texaco, Mobil, Citgo, etc.).  Yes, we have heard that other gas giants are lending a hand to BP to help with the spill, but how proactive are Shell, Chevron and others communicating?

What a truly perfect opportunity for the competitors to step-up their PR, communications and PSAs with strong, supporting statements (for example):

• At Shell, we are incredibly concerned about the devastating situation in the Gulf of Mexico.  We are lending our complete support to BP during this horrific incident.  As we are concerned about the safety and well-being of the ocean, ocean life and the residents of the surrounding Gulf area, Shell is here to provide its ongoing support to stop the oil from spilling and assist with clean-up efforts.
• Like everyone, Chevron is deeply concerned about the continuous oil spill in the Gulf.  That’s why we are giving our full-support and commitment to help BP, our fellow energy provider, through this extraordinary incident. 

In addition to these communications, there appears to be an excellent opportunity for all “energy providers” to tout their support–while underscoring their “safety” and the preventable measures they take to ensure this type of situation will never happen again.

Granted, each competitor appears to have an active Twitter and Facebook communications to address the current situation, but this is a unique circumstance that requires much, much more proactive communications. 

Once again, while most of the attention is on BP, there really seems to be a missed opportunity by their counterparts to capitalize on the situation by highlighting their mutual concern, support and execution to stop this dreadful situation.  Now that would be excellent PR!

There’s no question that many young adults are now graduating high school with little knowledge of how credit works, the importance of creating (and sticking to) a budget, or what to do with their first big paycheck.  Financial literacy has been a hot topic in the last few years, and as a result, banks and credit unions across the country have been touting their youth financial literacy efforts.

In April, which also happens to be National Financial Literacy Month, Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth Duke spoke at a Washington DC Education Event and stated, “The need in this country for financial education is so great that we must continue to tackle it at all levels and with all available resources…We need to imbed financial concepts in every K-12 curriculum in the country.”  Educators know they need to be teaching it, and as a recent recap from brass|MEDIA Inc’s Bryan Sims indicates, students want to learn it. Through month-long classroom visits to high schools throughout Oregon, Sims found that students wanted to know the best ways to find a job, why attaining credit was a positive thing and about investing for future expenses.

These students were lucky to have access to an expert like Sims and his team, but what about the millions of other students that must rely on their teachers to inform them? A recent study conducted by NEFE (the National Endowment for Financial Education) found that, “Only 29 percent of teachers are teaching financial education in any way—in existing classes or special classes on finance topics. And fewer than 20 percent of teachers reported feeling ‘very competent’ to teach any of the six personal finance topics surveyed.” This leads to the question of who is educating the teachers, and perhaps more importantly, the parents of these students that are so hungry for this knowledge?

Banks and credit unions are viewed by the community as “experts” and should take advantage of this credibility. Instead of focusing all financial education efforts on children and teens, banks and credit unions may want to consider directing more of their education seminars and classes towards adults. Educating children and young adults is, of course, important.  The institutions who are making these efforts should be recognized, however, reaching out to those that are responsible for educating this next generation of clients and members is just as important. LT Public Relations can assist in developing and executing a community outreach and education program that will not only educate but will also raise awareness of your brand.

For many, the thought of living a day without a smart phone conjures up feelings of anxiety and nauseousness. Our dependency on our phones to access email, update statuses and know what celebrities wore on the red carpet has led us to be tied to them 24-7. When we thought they couldn’t play a bigger role in our lives, along comes an app like Square. Square Up (created by Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey) allows users to accept payments on their smart phone via a small card reader that attaches to the phone. The user swipes the card, the person making the purchase signs, and like magic, all of the payments are organized in a clean interface accessible securely from anywhere. If your friend still owes you cash from the cocktails that you covered at the bar, she’s got no excuse, you can now accept her credit card. A system like Square would also make the practice of accepting a potentially bad check from a stranger obsolete thanks to immediate verification.   

According to the Square website, they are “focused on providing the best payment experience in the world.” This system, and others like it, will no doubt change how retail purchases are made. It might take awhile for consumers to get comfortable with the notion of handing over their credit card to a stranger with an iphone that has a card reader attached, however,  banks are already allowing customers to take photos of checks to submit their deposits, and we seem to have no problem currently using our phones to pay bills and shop online.  The new system raises the obvious questions of security risks and of course, card fees.  Square will take 2.9% plus 15 cents per swiped transaction on each charge but apparently they don’t take any other fees. They will also donate one cent for every transaction to a charity of your choice.

As mobile banking evolves, LT Public Relations believes that credit unions and banks should be aware of applications like Square. First, for what it potentially means for their transaction fees and second for what it can tell us about the services that customers and members want and will be demanding in the near future. Convenience plus any easy way to be philanthropic will appeal to many that already use their phones to do almost everything else.

When news hit the media cycle this week about an Apple engineer leaving the new generation Apple iPhone (iPhone 4G) on a bar stool, the knee-jerk reaction here at LT Public Relations was that this was a calculated error by Apple to draw attention to the soon-to-be-released  phone.

After reading numerous related stories online, the majority of the corresponding comments were calling-out that this inadvertant left-behind phone was a public relations ploy by Apple…but most congratulated the innovative company for the brilliance behind the ploy.

Only Apple truly knows if this was an intended “leave-behind.”  Regardless, the public perception of the incident was that this was “PR stunt.”

Personally, LT Public Relations does not like the terms “PR stunt,” “public relations ploy,” or related terms, as they truly cheapen the overall intentions of conducting positive, credible public relations efforts for a company. Public relations should be conducted to communicate consistently, credibly and clearly to a company’s target audience.  By simply switching the two words around, we wholeheartedly believe PR is having positive “relations” with a company’s “public.”

Attempting to pull off a scam or ploy to attract attention will inevitably build distrust and hurt the relationship with the intended public. 

And don’t think that the public won’t figure out a deceptive ploy, because eventually they’ll learn it was all ”smoke and mirrors.”

Starting a relationship with the public based on a scam is a recipe for a disaster for the relationship.

LT Public Relations Introduces Workshop: Crisis Communications: Preparation, Aversion and Management

Successful crisis management is 99 percent preparation; one percent execution

PORTLAND, Ore., April 13, 2010—LT Public Relations, a full-service PR firm specializing in external, internal and crisis communications, introduces its proprietary workshop, “Crisis Communications: Preparation, Aversion and Management.”   The three-hour workshop on May 13th from 8:00-11:00 AM at LT Public Relations (930 NW 14th Ave. Suite 280) is designed to equip businesses of all sizes with the tools needed to plan for the unfortunate events of a crisis.  

The crisis communications workshop ($125 per person) is limited to 15 participants to ensure each business representative receives personalized attention. Participants will better understand the importance of preparing before a crisis occurs, as well as how to:
•   Identify a crisis
•   Prevent a crisis
•   Build internal guidelines and procedures
•   Manage a crisis
•   Communicate during a crisis (e.g. to victims, staff, media, company stakeholders)
•   Prepare spokespersons and staff

Workshop reservations are available at:
•   Online (http://ltpublicrelations.com/workshops.php)
•   E-mail (pr@ltpublicrelations.com)
•   Phone—503-477-9215

“Successful crisis management is 99 percent preparation and one percent execution,” says Casey Boggs, president of LT Public Relations. “This crisis workshop is a valuable insurance investment to ensure businesses are best prepared for the unexpected beforehand.”

About LT Public Relations
Based in Portland, Oregon, LT Public Relations, LLC is a full-service communications firm specializing primarily in servicing professional and financial institutions, as well as small businesses, entrepreneurs and non-profits. The PR firm utilizes the most relevant and current communications tools—with a hybrid of traditional and new media approaches—to develop and execute strategic public relations initiatives for its clients.  More information is available at www.ltpublicrelations.com