Top 10 Tips to Integrate Traditional PR & Digital Marketing

As marketing and PR are changing rapidly with the constant evolution and expansion of the digital ecosystem, success requires integrated efforts that combine the smartest tactics in traditional PR combined with online marketing and SEO practices. The Internet has changed how we receive information, how we interact and engage with each other, with brands and with media. PR is a critical aspect of the marketing mix and there are fundamental shifts in strategy and approach that Zenzi Communications, an integrated marketing and PR agency, works with daily.

First and foremost, it is critical for PR professionals to be knowledgeable in all digital tools, including social media, blogs, mobile apps, SEO and email marketing. PR and online marketing are two areas of expertise that should go hand-in-hand.

Click here to read the rest of Sarah’s article

The featured article on TECH cocktail’s blog today is from Zenzi, by our own Sarah Hardwick.  Keep an eye out for part 2 next week!

This is the first part of a two part post by Sarah Hardwick, Founder & CEO of Zenzi Communications.

Starting a business is challenging enough, let alone managing the ins and outs of PR to successfully promote your product or service. Here are the first 5 easy tips to help you through this process, and get your startup the attention and exposure it deserves!

Get the first 5 tips here!

CHIQUITA HIRES ZENZI COMMUNICATIONS TO HANDLE PUBLICITY FOR STICKER DESIGN CONTEST

San Diego, CA, July 22, 2010—Zenzi Communications, an award-winning integrated marketing and PR agency dedicated to helping clients to ‘Be Known’™ and ‘Be Found,’ has been retained by Chiquita Brands to launch and manage media relations efforts for the Chiquita Banana Sticker Design Contest.

“We are having so much fun working on this project for Chiquita and have been getting a great response from the media since launching the campaign,” said Sarah Hardwick, CEO of Zenzi Communications.  “Our consumer product goods experience has uniquely positioned us to handle this campaign for Chiquita and we are excited to continue expanding the line-up of national consumer brands that we represent.”

Chiquita Brands is inviting consumers to visit www.EatAChiquita.com^TM and put their own spin on the company’s iconic brand image as part of the Chiquita Banana Sticker Design Contest.  Eighteen participants will be awarded the ultimate satisfaction and recognition of personalizing an old classic, and having their winning design featured on millions of Chiquita® bananas nationwide.

Chiquita has taken a rather unique approach when it comes to their beloved logo – one that is collaborative and more accessible to fans than ever. “We created the Chiquita Banana Sticker Design Contest to encourage consumers to interact with the Chiquita brand and make the brand their own,” said Judy Chen, Corporate Marketing Group Leader at Chiquita.  For the first time ever, Chiquita is giving consumers the opportunity to create their own sticker design based on the iconic blue Chiquita sticker or vote for their favorite design by visiting the Silver Addy Award-winning www.EatAChiquita.com website. “It’s a fun way for consumers to engage with the brand through self-expression.”

Entries were submitted at www.EatAChiquita.com/sticker-contest between June 21, 2010 and July 18, 2010.  The top fifty finalists will be announced on August 23, 2010, and the site will open to the general public for voting on the 18 grand prizewinners through September 12, 2010. No purchase is necessary and official contest rules are available online. The top 50 finalists will receive a prize package of an EatAChiquita.com t-shirt and merchandise from Chiquita’s Shop A Peel Zazzle store (www.zazzle.com/ShopAPeel) customized with their very own sticker design.

Finalists and winners will be notified by email and mail during the length of the promotion.  All 18 winners will be announced on www.EatAChiquita.com on September 13, 2010.

Headquartered in San Diego, Zenzi is one of the city’s fastest growing companies and specializes in working with consumer product goods, hospitality, technology and B2B clients. In addition to Chiquita, Zenzi’s consumer industry clients have included Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, including Nestlé Drumstick®, Lil’ Drums, Dibs and Fruit Bars, plus Fresh Express Artisanal Salads, Olay and Emergen-C.

About Zenzi:

Zenzi means crescendo: the culmination of carefully crafted notes, harmonies and dynamic sounds. As a full service integrated creative marketing and PR agency, Zenzi’s mission is to create a similar phenomenon for our clients. Zenzi helps clients BE KNOWN and BE FOUND by developing creative integrated solutions that work in harmony for maximum effectiveness.  Zenzi specializes in getting the word out in a hurry using multiple touch points. Founded in 2002, Zenzi is one of San Diego’s Fastest Growing Companies and has been recognized by many of the nation’s leading PR, marketing and business organizations for creative and results-oriented campaigns. If your goal is to increase market share, break into new industries, find investors or generate qualified leads, Zenzi can help.  For more information: www.zenzi.com.

About Chiquita Brands International, Inc.

Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (NYSE: CQB) is a leading international marketer and distributor of high-quality fresh and value-added food products – from energy-rich bananas and other fruits to nutritious blends of convenient green salads.  The company markets its healthy, fresh products under the Chiquita® and Fresh Express® premium brands and other related trademarks.  With annual revenues of $3.5 billion, Chiquita employs approximately 21,000 people and has operations in nearly 80 countries worldwide.

About EatAChiquita.com

Chiquita created the fun and interactive website www.EatAChiquita.com as a platform for consumer engagement and entertainment. Since it launched in October 2009, over 500,000 people have visited the website and over 25,000 customized sticker faces have been created by fans using the site’s Sticker Studio application. The site also features a Photo Customizer, which allows fans to add their custom stickers to photos, a Banana Boogie Battle video game, hilarious viral videos and more. The company has also launched Shop A Peel by Chiquita, an online merchandise store on Zazzle.com where diehard Chiquita fans can go to customize a wide range of items with their personalized sticker faces.

For more information, please visit the following websites: www.EatAChiquita.com and www.Chiquita.com.

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1. 1. We’re living in a reality-TV obsessed world, so it’s best to use real people and real stories to spread the good word.
2. 2. Hearing it straight from the horses’ mouth adds credibility; generate an Employment Image campaign and let your employees and their experiences speak for you.
3. 3. The charities that you support are grateful; let them give back by acting as third-party spokespeople.
4. 4. Tell them yourself!  Include your good deeds in your company boilerplate and integrate the information into corporate sponsored events when relevant.
5. 5. Show them the numbers! Commission an economic impact report – internally and externally – and use that quantitative data to support your story.
6. 

Mashable reported this week that the AP Stylebook has added 42 new guidelines for social media.

In traditional media relations, AP style is a HUGE part of what we do.  At Zenzi we hold all of our communications and writing to high standards and aim to follow the rules and adhere to AP style for anything that goes to a reporter.  If it has the Zenzi name on it and a reporter is reading it, there are no excuses for anything but the proper style, not to mention correct, grammar, spelling and all that good stuff.

We often cringe when we run across what we perceive to be horrific abbreviations and misused capitalization in social media (think something along the lines of “RU coming 2 hpy Hr 2nyt?” – not really appropriate by professional standards).  It’s terribly common and someone needed to start setting out some rules, so leave it to the good folks at the AP to step up to the plate.  Interestingly, some abbreviations are now considered official, such as “POS” (Parent Over Shoulder, of course), and some Twitter-iffic vocabulary words have been added, including “trending,” “retweet,” and “unfriend.”

And now it’s time for us to all get up to speed and start implementing these basic guidelines in our own social media writing styles.  The new guidelines seem to cover the full spectrum of how journalists interact with social media, from how to refer to digital terminology to abbreviations and rules of thumb for how journalists should use social media, and how to confirm sources used from “blogs, tweets or other forms of social media,” according to Mashable.  I agree with the Mashable newsroom’s sentiments regarding one change in particular that was long overdue — changing the word “Web site” to “website.”  Guess websites are too common now for a formal name, and it just looked odd to me anyway.   Check out Mashable’s article on these changes, below, and visit www.apstylebook.com to get your own copy of what should be every PR professional’s writing bible.

The AP Stylebook has released its new social media guidelines, including the official change from “Web site” to “website” (a move first reported back in April) and 41 other definitions, use cases and rules that journalists should follow.

Read more here.