Author: Garth Beyer

Hitting The Media Over And Over And Over And Over

Hitting The Media Over And Over And Over And Over

Garth Beyer

I have briefly stated before how PR is not advertising, but those in PR strategically use different forms of advertising to leverage the success of their goal. Cutting the crust off the whole debate of how influential media is to producing sales, you can check the case studies of Dr. Max McCombs and Dr. Donald Shaw who developed the theory of Agenda-Setting in their Chapel Hill Study (1968).

In essence, they discovered that media influence was a temporary result which would die down in the minds of the viewers within hours after being exposed to the particular piece of media persuasion, depending on the medium used. (How often do you get told during an advertisement to “Act Now!“)

When you find yourself complaining about a particular ad that is put on repeat (remember the tv commercial that played itself again right after the first one, or the radio ad which plays right after one song and before the next?) you are seeing the abused type of agenda setting.

Before McCombs and Shaw, a particular Bernard Cohen had begun building the theory by observing and stating that the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.”*

Next up were Rogers and Dearing (1996), who had tried to better explain the Agenda-Setting Theory by providing more key concepts and definitions in Agenda Setting: Communication Concepts.

For an understanding of the gist of Agenda Setting, here is a positive example of how you could use Agenda Setting for the grand opening of a Coffee Shop.

You are the Public Relations Specialist for the largest Coffee House in Seattle (largest, meaning square feet, not number of Coffee Houses) which will be having its grand opening in two months. Honestly speaking, you better have your news release and press kit developed already.

Now, the announcement has gone out and not only is the media interested, but so are a few local Coffee Shops. You then begin to accept and arrange media requests for interviews, pre-opening tours, and exclusive photo shoots.

Now that you have set the agenda for the media, you direct more of your efforts toward the public by sending personal invitations to all the Coffee Shops in the surrounding area. In addition, you apply direct messaging to the demographic of people who purchase coffee on a daily basis. By notifying these people of your event, you have set the agenda for the public.

The media and the public are all over the day of your grand opening and you obtain extraordinary coverage. Now you want to remain in the spotlight of the media and public by setting even more agendas for testimonials, follow-up features, and stories from those who converted to buying your business’s coffee.

Agenda-Setting: If you noticed, no where did you hit the media over and over and over and over with the same material. You set the agenda for coverage on all levels, devoting your focus to specific types of coverage which hit a target audience.

Remember, your agenda is to make theirs.

 

*Cohen, B (1963). The press and foreign policy. New York: Harcourt.

Re: A Manual For Daily Adventure

Garth Beyer

You’re in rut. Maybe you agree, maybe you don’t care. But you are.

I can’t say that I am or was in a rut, but I could ALWAYS use more adventure in my life. Lucky for me, and now you, Michelle Welsch created a list of 80 ways to get started. She calls it her manual for daily adventure.

I was not going to accept the challenge at first, but after fighting the lizard brain, I said “What the hell? Let’s do it!”

I’ve done four out of the eighty ways to get started. I’ll keep you posted later in the week with more accomplishments.

62. Visit a farmers market (Madison, WI farmers market on the square)
64. Buy yourself flowers (got them from farmers market)
14. Ride a bike (I have one but I rented the B cycle because I never have before and always wondered how they worked)
66. Style your hair differently (angled fohawk)

 

This wasn’t one but I got excited to try new things so I told the Smoothie Crafters to make me a surprise – it was a win!

Stay Positive & Adventurous

Garth E. Beyer

Going After Growth

Going After Growth

Garth Beyer

Plants are better than us. They grow taller, they accrue width, they are in the sunlight more than us, they stand stronger and admit it, when they lose a leaf or a branch they grow it back quicker too. Actually, I once wrote a haiku that went like this,

If A Tree Stays Standing in the Forest, And No One Is Around to Hear It

they sway in the wind

never break from much pressure

we must stand like trees

Trees or plants in general go after growth. They don’t wait for the sun to shine on them, or for it to rain, or for something to be thrown near it to feed off its nutrients. It goes after it!

The plant spawns its roots as far as it can to get as much carbon dioxide and nutrients as possible. It extends its leaves as far out as possible. It builds itself to acclimate, whether that means growing a thick strong stem that nothing can bring down or one that sways with the wind.

 

It’s in their genes, their programming, their ancestry – it’s what plants do.                                                                                            Us on the other hand, were given a tragic gift.

We can choose to live like a plant or not. And that choice makes all the difference.

 

So let me ask you, are you a Bonsai Tree or a General Sherman?

 

Stay Positive & Unlike Plants, You Have The Ability To Grow ANY Direction You Want

Garth E. Beyer

Coming To Terms

Garth Beyer

We all know what we need to do at any given time, during the rough patches and the smooth. No number of people we ask “what should I do” is going to help.

It’s the doing part that causes us to stop, makes us question what we are actually supposed to do, and search for the easy way out.

The thing about the doing is that it’s what you have to do. Not anyone else. You can question people what you should do all you want, but you can’t ask someone to do something only you can do.

The quicker you come to terms with it, the quicker you quit ignoring the action you need to take, the quicker you get in the habit of just doing what you need to do right away, the greater the acceleration of the quality of life you will have.

 

Stay Positive & The Only Direction Is Forward

Garth E. Beyer

 

W. Clement Stone, who built a hundred million dollar  insurance company empire, would make all his employees recite the phrase, “Do it now!” over and over at the start of each workday. W. Clement himself would repeat it fifty times each morning when he would wake up and fifty times before he would go to sleep. Go with Nike or go with Stone, whatever it is, Just Do It and Just Do It Now.

There Is Always A Guarantee

Garth Beyer

People get nudges, hunches and feelings in their stomach that they are 100% right about something, without a doubt, it’s guaranteed.

That impulse, that intuitive response is what every PR Specialist must produce for every client. Whether it is a small guarantee of reaching a specific person in the audience you are reaching out to or as big of a guarantee as increasing profits by 67% within the first week and a half of implementing the new customer relations strategy you created.

There is no trust between you and your client without a guarantee. For a PR Specialist, that connection must be there because the success rate of your “guarantee’s” is what defines your credibility.

Making a guarantee is an act of colossal responsibility, and with this responsibility lies a power which is often abused. That power being the construction of a guarantee of outcomes in sectors of the strategy which you have no control or influence over.

To make a successful connection between you and your client (financially speaking as well), you must work to discover the largest guarantee you can make.

To make a successful PR Specialist, you must do this with every client and know that crossing the line even once can set you back further than where you began.

While you may believe that you will simply provide small, simple guarantees, you need to accept the fact that your credibility, your status, your repertoire is only as substantial as the guarantees you make and live up to.