Build Engagement

Instagram has reassured its users that the biggest way to leverage this algorithm is to boost your page engagement. Under the new algorithm, the only people who will see your post on their feed are the followers that engage with your account the most. One proven way to boost engagement is by posting on your story daily. A story on Instagram refers to a post that will disappear within 24 hours. You can post to your story by clicking the “plus” sign on your profile picture. This will open a camera and you can post a photo or a video that will appear in your story. Your followers will then see your story content on the top of their home page. Another best practice is to post content that requires responses such as polls, and/or questions. Your story is one of the easiest ways to get your followers engaging with your profile.

Step Up Your Photo Quality

The quality of the photos you post on your page has a significant impact on your profile’s engagement.  Photos should be clear and bright. The goal of each photo is to draw users to your page, so you need to be deliberate with your posts to curate an interesting profile. Your followers will look at your photo before they read the caption underneath, so it’s important to grab their attention right away. Instagram has become a platform where both businesses and personal accounts compete to get their pages recognized. Having a popular profile on Instagram can help to convey your brand’s message.

Go Live More Often

Another way to bolster traffic to your page is to “go live” on your story more often. This means your followers can see what you are doing at that very moment, and you can engage with them in real-time. When an account you follow goes live, Instagram sends you a notification informing you to watch. Not only will your name pop up on their phone screen, but a lot of the time people will click on the video just to see what’s happening. Going live sparks your follower’s curiosity and can bring them to your page.

Surviving the new Instagram algorithm is tricky but not impossible. The most important thing you can do is research. Find tips and tricks that will get your brand recognized and bring engagement to their page. There have been rumors of Instagram bringing back the chronological feed, but until then follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more tips!

The post The Instagram Algorithm: How to Survive and Thrive appeared first on Caster Communications.

The idea of landing a positive review for your client is great, but where do you begin? Here are some helpful tips to get you started.

Who to Pitch

The first step to selecting reviewers to pitch is to research the press or media who have recently written articles or reviews about technology similar to yours. Your pitch is more likely to receive a response if it is relevant to the writer. Researching press coverage of your company’s direct competitors is also good way to start to find targets to pitch your products to.

Before reaching out, research the writer’s background by reading other stories they have written. Make sure that they are still writing for the publication you are targeting by checking out their LinkedIn or Twitter profile. This also helps you determine if they are still covering smart home, security, IoT, or the topic that is most relevant to your business.

What to Pitch

The press are especially interested in unique features that set your product apart. In your pitch, explain features that can’t be seen with the naked eye or those that, without explanation, might not be immediately obvious. These features could include sirens embedded in a flood sensor, or an LED indicator for connectivity and energy monitoring on a smart wall plug. Reviewers might not know about these features if you don’t tell them, but they will be happy you did.

If you have a popular product that is not proprietary, highlighting a unique use-case can make your product seem more outstanding to the press. Be creative and upfront in explaining and highlighting the features you want covered, and don’t be afraid to think outside of the box on how to catch a reviewer’s attention.

Assets

When reviewers test products, they are likely to take their own images and videos throughout the process. However, reviewers appreciate being provided with high-resolution images to supplement their write up. One easy way to share assets is to create a Google, Dropbox, or OneDrive folder and send the shared link to the reviewer. In addition to images, share non-confidential product presentations and datasheets highlighting the features and specifications of your product.

As a PR professional, it’s your job to provide reviewers with as much information as possible. Make life easy for everyone and consider creating a dedicated reviewers’ guide that walks writers through the setup process and answers frequently asked questions that the writers might have. The reviewers’ guide is your opportunity to go beyond the pitch and explain in great detail everything you want the reviewer, as well as consumers, to know about your product.

Our pitches are usually pretty tailored for the tech press, but these rules could loosely apply to just about any product. Do you have a strategy that works for you? Drop me a line on Twitter @megannicole_pr!

The post Pitching Product Reviews: Where to Begin appeared first on Caster Communications.

Make sure your audience stays subscribed by crafting a newsletter that’s helpful and informative but still punchy and quick-to-read.

Read on to see a few tips on how to write an effective newsletter:

1. Color blocking is your friend

Think of when you open up a newsletter in your inbox: You don’t want to stare at a huge expanse of text. Instead, break up your newsletter into sections with your main ideas. Then, visually segment these sections with blocks of color and different sizes and styles of font.

See below for an example of one newsletter I put together for Caster client AdaSky, where I used different color blocks and fonts to break up and differentiate content.

By segmenting your text with varying sizes and shapes, it makes it easier for the reader to skim quickly and find the information that’s most important to them.

2. Use images—but be careful

An effective newsletter is informative, but it’s also dynamic and easy-to-read. A simple way to add vibrancy to your letter is to include images within your text—but be careful to pay attention to the scale of your images.

If the images are too big, they’ll take up too much room in the body of the newsletter and obstruct your readers from seeing your text. (This might seem like a minor inconvenience, but in the ruthless world of inboxes, one second of hassle can get you deleted—or worse, unsubscribed.)

You also want to watch out for large image files, as they can sometimes crash your readers’ inboxes—definitely a no-go. If you use a tool like Mailchimp to build your newsletter, it’ll often tell you if the image file you’ve uploaded is too big and will help you resize it.

3. Less is more

This is kind of a ubiquitous epigram when it comes to the world of PR, but it cannot be overstated for your newsletter. Yes, you want your newsletter to deliver useful information, but if it’s too long, your readers will likely unsubscribe.

If you want to send out quarterly updates on your client (like I’ve done above for our client AdaSky), then the below formula is a good guideline:

1. What has the company done recently?
2. What is the company currently doing or will do son?
3. A call to action.

Of course, the call to action is often the most important part of the newsletter, as it tells your readers where to go next, whether that’s sending an email, watching a video, or visiting a website.

To make your call to action extra enticing, you can format it as a Button or an image.

Ready to start building a newsletter for your client? Share your comments, questions, or tips with me on Twitter @merryshoebell.

The post How to Write an Effective Newsletter appeared first on Caster Communications.

How Hayley found Caster

Hayley has been a member of the Caster team since October 2017, when she crossed paths with Kimberly Lancaster. The two met when Hayley applied for a childcare position. Having just declared herself a PR major, Hayley reached out to Kim for an informational PR interview, citing that, in applying for the childcare job, she had done background research and realized Kim was the owner of Caster.

Kim cannot ignore ambition, so the two met. Even though Caster already had an intern for the fall semester, Kim—keenly aware that ambition, resourcefulness, and a baseline skillset are all needed to succeed in PR and at Caster—saw a spark in Hayley and decided to call in the bright ingénue for a quick-turn-around, high-demand project.

Hayley was swift to set her own trajectory from there. Throughout her tenure at Caster, Hayley has consistently demonstrated a keen attention to detail and an impressive learnedness, proving herself a true asset for her valuable contributions to PR projects, social media work, research, and even pitching.

A PR internship—what it takes

Internships are reliant on two things: the people who take them and those who provide them.

At Caster, we touch all sides: We have hired our interns with no PR experience; we have hired interns based on outside internships; and we have worked with URI to develop a curated PR internship program. It’s been a commitment.

Admittedly, we’ve had good years and bad. Sometimes, it’s on us. Sometimes, we just can’t carve out the time or resources to deliver the goods, and sometimes we’ve found we just can’t deal with those who lack ambition (e.g., those who call in sick and then run into Kim at the local coffee shop or those who fall asleep at the conference room table). Just as 90 percent of startups fail, so do internships—but that also means 10 percent of them succeed.

Hayley might have crossed our path by accident, but her internship here proved incredibly purposeful—for her and for us. Hayley’s internship helped us develop a stellar learning-incubator to act as a dedicated training path for becoming an account coordinator at an agency (because we’ve learned that nearly every account person we’ve ever hired has lacked agency exposure). Simultaneously, our relationship with Hayley and URI has helped us advocate our internship program to other PR students, building our recruitment initiative to develop a stronger bench.

The results have been incredibly rewarding for all of us.

A perfect PR match

From the start of her internship, Hayley quickly became the go-to at Caster, because she is responsible, reliable, and can pivot to perform a variety of duties with ease. Hayley perseveres and achieves the goals of a project, and she is genuinely excited when she learns something new. She has continually proven that she can own more pieces of projects and has demonstrated, without a doubt, that she is someone who will have her teams’ backs.

As much as Caster would love to lay claim to all of this, all we did was nurture the PR maven inside an already incredibly bright young person—and URI recognized the same things Caster did.

Each year, the Harrington School at URI awards students in the school’s communication and media program to recognize their unique accomplishments across a range of categories. Hayley was originally nominated in the Outstanding Internship category for her 18-month program at Caster; however, she was quickly recognized for her broader body of work and PR experience and ended up taking home the PR Excellence Award in the Leadership category.

This award honors a PR student who has embraced key qualities associated with leadership: intuition, perseverance, integrity, dedication, responsibility, critical thinking, and compassion. Hayley emulates these virtues—but then also doubles down by demonstrating how they correlate with PR.

Hayley Keen (left) with Lisa Bergson, Lecturer, Public Relations, Communication Studies, University of Rhode Island

“I am so thankful to have had the opportunity to build my skills in PR here at Caster,” says Hayley. “Caster taught me the true definition of public relations and opened my eyes to researching, planning, being strategic, and building a brand for a client.”

From left: Carley Gomes, Lexie Gardiner, Patrick Keating, Joshua Reyes, Christopher Alves, Olivia Ross, Nina Toscano, Julija Paulius, Alex Jarmatz, Dean of the Colleges of Arts and Sciences Jeannette Riley, Hayley Keen, Communications Studies Chair Norbert Mundorf and Juliana Dellamarggio. (URI Photo/Michael Salerno)

With her natural tendency for leadership, Hayley even took on the training of two new interns at Caster in her final semester at the agency—a solid demonstration of her firm grasp of what it takes to make a public relations internship meaningful, as well as the start of a new legacy for the Caster PR internship program with URI.

Every member of the Caster office can attest that there could be no better recipient for this award. Hayley will be missed greatly in our RI-based office, but we appreciate her ambitious draw to New York City. We wish her great things on what is sure to be a striking career ahead.

Congrats, Hayley!

Photos courtesy of URI, Michael Salerno.

The post Our Senior Intern Wins Big at URI with PR Excellence Award appeared first on Caster Communications.

Twitter as a research tool

Twitter is more than just a place to share, it is also a place to learn. We use Twitter to catch up on world news, news specific to our clients and their industries, emerging trends and other as-they-happen events.

You can see which accounts we follow and use for research here. While users can follow news accounts directly on Twitter, you can also follow hashtags, trending topics, or create lists with users you are focused on to better optimize your time spent researching on Twitter.

Connect with press

Twitter is not only being used extensively by PR pros, but also by journalists. And with the vast number of journalists on Twitter, it offers another potential touchpoint for contact and communication we can have with them. Whether it is finding local media to write about an event in San Francisco, or something broader like finding “technology writers” across multiple publications, Twitter is an excellent way to get the scoop on where and what journalists are writing about. Many journalists list their occupation, location, email address, and even how they would like to be contacted right in their Twitter bios.

Connect with other professionals

Twitter is also a thriving outlet for connecting with other PR professionals, as well. Where LinkedIn is known as the site that allows for a professional voice of people in the workforce, Twitter is where people can share a little more personality and be less formal. You can reach out to new contacts that look interesting for new business or projects and connect with press to build a familiar relationship before you try to throw ideas and pitches at them.

Follow Trends

Twitter is an essential tool for PR pros to follow, find, and understand trends. Twitter is a budding community of users sharing with hashtags, GIFs, memes, and all sorts of new ways to communicate and share ideas. These tools can lend a hand in your company or client’s voice and engagement and how impressionable they are. Join conversations using hashtags, invite users to stop by your page with an interesting video, or just make your post stand out by adding a clever GIF.

You can follow me on Twitter @HayleyKeenPR or see how the Caster team tweets by following us @CasterComm.

The post Beyond the Tweet: How to Leverage Twitter as a PR Tool appeared first on Caster Communications.

1. Twitter never actually went away.

Between 2013 and 2018, I’d thought Twitter was a goner. As it turns out, the platform poses real purpose other than hosting the diaries of Kim K. and our chief of state. In fact, according to Hootsuite, 500 million tweets are sent each day. In PR, we use Twitter for a number of different reasons, from research to outreach, all of which make our work lives a little bit easier. Many of our tech PR colleagues are active on Twitter, as well as the media who we talk to every day. With @ mentions, hashtags, gifs, Twitter chats, and more, it’s how we stay connected in so many tech industries for our clients.

2. Home technology isn’t perfect.

Exhibit A: In the most inconvenient of times, technology has been known to take form as the Caster Crew’s public enemy number one. For the record, it’s best to avoid saying “Alexa” anywhere in the Caster office.

Another major smart home issue we hear about all the time is privacy. If you haven’t heard the backlash Facebook, and many other technology companies have gotten as a result of their consumers’ privacy concerns, let me just tell you, it’s pretty bad. Fortunately, tech companies have us! We perform hours of research so that we are able to help our clients in better understanding consumers’ needs and wants, and how they relate to privacy.

3. Voice assistants are only the gateway to home automation – who knew?

Before joining Caster, I wasn’t aware of the importance of a voice assistant’s interoperability capabilities. You can actually use voice assistants to control nearly any feature of your smart home, or office. Pre-Caster, I thought voice assistants were just used for ordering pizza, playing music, checking the weather, and silly joke telling. When I joined the Control4 account and become integrated with their business, I quickly became acquainted with the world of home technology, and the role that voice assistants play. Control4 believes everything is better when it works together, which is why their products interoperate with over 13,000 third-party devices. Movie night? Simply cozy up on the couch with a bowl of popcorn and say, “Alexa, movie time” to set the lights low, and get the movie up and running. Pretty cool if you ask me!

4. PR crisis waits for no one.

Finishing out the work week without a disaster is the ultimate goal, but in tech PR we’re always ready in case a crisis occurs, big or small. In the fast-paced, digital world we live in, news travels fast, and bad news could jeopardize a brand’s reputation. The Caster team is trained to hope for the best but expect the worst, so that we’re always prepared, and never panicked, in the case of a disaster unfolding. In the technology industry, brands run the risk of negative reviews or misrepresentation when launching a new product or making a big announcement. The way a company responds to or handles a crisis can be the determining factor in maintaining their brand’s reputation. Over the past year I’ve only seen a handful of PR crises occur with our clients. Luckily, they don’t happen often but when they do, we approach each crisis gracefully. You can’t predict the future, so it’s best to always have some form of crisis management, everything from proactivity training to keeping your cool, going into any big client launch or event.

Are you new to tech or interested in tech PR? I’d love to chat about the differences and similarities in our job roles. Send me a message on Twitter: @ash_collazo!

The post 4 Things I Learned About Technology After One Year in Tech PR appeared first on Caster Communications.

In the fast-paced world of public relations, you will speak in front of an audience whether it’s presenting a pitch to your client, or speaking to the public on behalf of them. When presenting, it’s important to have practiced effective public speaking methods so your audience views you as professional, credible, and persuasive.

In order to avoid an unsettling experience, here are 3 tips public relations professionals should master before speaking in front of an audience:

 1. Know Your Audience

For any speaking engagement, it’s important to effectively communicate your message in a way that develops a connection with your intended audience. When your audience feels connected to you, they’re more likely to be impacted by your words and more receptive to your message.

Forming a connection with your audience is simple. You can begin the process by talking to the event director (or whoever’s in charge) to ask for any available background information on your audience and solidify their expectations for your speech. For example, if you’re pitching a PR plan to a new client, they might be unaware of the specific services you offer. If you’re presenting your pitch to a current client, however, they’re likely familiar with you and your company therefore, a company introduction wouldn’t be necessary. Once you know what the audience desires to walk away with, altering your delivery to fit their needs will help to enhance your connection with them.

2. Paralanguage

Have you ever been in front of a dreadfully monotone speaker up at the podium, and all you can think about it how hungry you are, or how many Emails you must respond to once the presentation is over? Paralanguage helps speakers break through to an inattentive audience and is evaluated by their rate, tone, and pitch.

Rate refers to the speed in which you speak, the tone refers to the volume you speak at, and the pitch is the natural lowness or highness of your voice. When these three communication methods are used effectively to perfect your delivery, you convey emotion, confidence, and power throughout your entire presentation which results in your audience never reaching a state of boredom.

Effective use of paralanguage will improve your overall delivery. A change in cadence can help highlight specific points of your presentation, making them more memorable for your audience. For example, if the audience’s attention begins to slip, simply pause before emphasizing an important word or concept. Alternatively, if you want to emphasize your excitement, speeding up your cadence will adjust your tone and make what you’re saying sound more urgent and compelling.

3. Confidence

Unfortunately, no one can build your confidence for you. On the bright side, there are methods you can practice for building upon this strength to appear completely self-assured. Confidence, to your audience, indicates you’re knowledgeable about the topic you’re speaking about and can be trusted. To portray this, you must have practiced and prepared your delivery well in advance.

There are many ways to build upon your confidence in public speaking. Some practices to help you appear more confident include:

• Rehearsing your message prior to make certain you catch minor errors before they appear in your live presentation
• Simplifying your speech by cutting out extraneous language and getting right to the point to maintain your audience’s attention span
• Practicing body language, like standing tall and making use of the space provided.

Final thoughts . . .

After practicing these tips, I hope you see an improvement in your public speaking abilities and your glossophobia will be a thing of the past. Do you have any tried and true tips for overcoming glossophobia or being a rock star at public speaking? I’d love to hear them! Let me know if the tips I’ve shared today worked for you or if there’s any that I missed by dropping me a line on Twitter at @val__murphy. Be sure to follow @CasterComm for even greater content and tips.

The post Abolish Glossophobia with These 3 Tips: appeared first on Caster Communications.

First, if you’re not already familiar, the Public Relations Student Society of America is the pre-professional-student-version of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA). Both organizations were established to help promote professional growth and provide networking opportunities for individuals in the PR field.  

I joined PRSSA my last semester of college to network with other PR students and allow myself a fluid transition into the working world. It’s always been one of my goals to remain involved, but with various jobs, internships and a volunteer position – it’s been a struggle to make time. It’s a great feeling to be surrounded by like-minded PR nerds, who get just as excited about finding a pitch opportunity as I do.    

The conference was an eye-opening experience that further solidified my passion for public relations, and I encourage everyone reading this to try and attend one next year! I identified three main themes of the conference after hearing all the keynote presentations:   

1. Know yourself, be yourself   

Cliché? Maybe. However, being yourself is the most valuable skill you can bring to any position in any organization. If you pour energy into being someone you’re not, it takes valuable time away from learning and growing in your career. As Anthony Harrison, director of corporate media relations at Facebook, said, “bring professional you and home you together.” It is possible to present yourself professionally without losing the fun parts of your personality, but it takes time and experience to find that balance.  

2. Feedback: give it, get it, use it 

Many professionals stressed the importance of soliciting feedback from coworkers and bosses. Getting feedback is especially important in a first job out of college and the first few years may feel like an extension of school. It’s a time where you navigate and adjust to the “real” world as an adult and you will make mistakes. 

While making a mistake may feel discouraging, it’s actually a great opportunity for growth. So, go ahead and ask your colleagues for feedback on a project or assignment. Ask for a performance review and take those suggestions and put them into goals and expectations for the next week, month, or year. It’s also important for employees to offer feedback to members of their organization because if they’re not succeeding, then the organization won’t either.  

3. There is no defined path in PR 

Many of us have immersed ourselves in the world of PR because we enjoy the endless options for movement and growth it provides. Whether you’re interested in tech, healthcare, food, fashion or whatever else – there’s a place for you somewhere. It’s also important to be mindful of your interests because if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, it will show through your work. Personally, I think my varied interests will provide me with great flexibility on my professional journey and I know that, if I find myself in a place where my passion is fleeting, it’s likely time to move on to the next chapter.   

Prior to the conference, I was feeling stressed and anxious about finding a career after college. I was too focused on finding the absolute perfect fit when that’s highly unlikely in a first job. Building a career takes a lot of trial and error – trying different roles with a variety of focuses and likely changing industries. Attending this conference relieved many of my worries and reminded me that all these prestigious companies are comprised of people who were once in the exact same position as I was.  

So, if you’re someone in my position or younger, just remember that you will get there. You will find a job. You will find your place. For those of you reading this that are already professionals in your organization, I encourage you to go be a mentor for someone else and tell them to join organizations like PRSSA. I’m a proud member of the URI PRSSA chapter and I look forward to becoming a member of PRSA in the future! 

Follow my undefined career path on Twitter @rhiannonhwilson

The post My first time attending a PRSSA Regional Conference appeared first on Caster Communications.

Caster focuses on background, research, and understanding our clients, their industries, and technologies. To start on my pitch, I’m researching media in the client’s space, making notes of the content they seemed interested in. I also did extensive research about the case study and InFocus to give myself the background I need to start writing by viewing their website and the products they make as well as reading other pieces that covered InFocus. I then used Cision, a PR database that holds contact information for publications and authors, to search for  writers and publications that  cover  education technology. Through my background research, I got a better understanding for creating pitch angles for stories for a few different publications.   

Crafting a pitch is new to me; I’m unfamiliar with the writing style and the amount of research that is needed to write a simple, 120-word, email. I’m enjoying how writing the pitch gave me an inside look into how InFocus technology benefits classrooms through the case study,  and it’s been a great way for me to learn the tactics that go into writing a pitch and finding media contacts.   

I have learned the fundamentals of crafting a pitch through my PR coursework in school, but until I tried to write a pitch for a real case study, I didn’t realize how difficult it could be! In my classes, we are always taught to elaborate on our writing, always write as much as you can. But here I’ve learned that when it comes to pitching to the media, that’s not the case.  PR News says it’s important to keep pitches short, to-the-point, and relevant. But it’s challenging to summarize the information of a three-page case study into just a few short, interesting sentences.   

I appreciated the way writing a pitch forced me to rethink my writing style. My first step in creating the pitch was to think about how I was going to catch the right media’s attention, using what I’d learned in my research. After drafting (and redrafting) my ideas, I worked on a few angles that I think conveyed the basic main ideas of the case study. I learned that the subject line is important to make media contacts want to open my email, which was difficult but fun to draft. I took to my notebook, and after jotting down about 10 quirky subject lines, I chose the one that I thought was the most interesting but at the same time, gave a glimpse into what the pitch was about. After writing, I’ll start pitching  journalists to see if they want to cover the case study.   

All of my tasks at Caster are a learning process. In this project, I learned more about the education technology field and my  own writing style, and I’m excited to see how it works! Drafting my first pitch was challenging, and it’s rewarding as an intern to make progress towards becoming a PR professional. Follow me on twitter to stay updated on the rest of my journey with Caster Communications. @PaytonStLawren1  

The post Turning News and Research Into a PR Pitch appeared first on Caster Communications.

1. Being Consistent is Key. One of the most important tips I can give when growing a social page is to be consistent. Your followers want to see your content on their feed at least once a day. With Instagram’s new algorithm, it isn’t easy to be seen among millions of users. The more often you post, the more engagement your page will get. Now, this isn’t exactly easy for someone who works full time and can’t post every single day. In that case, recycling older content that had high engagement previously, is a good way to fill in your feed.

2. 1…2….3 Say Cheese! When I first started blogging and creating fun, original content, I never realized how important it was to have high-quality photos. Now, I’m not saying you have to run out and buy a fancy camera, but a higher-resolution photo will always be better for attracting followers and inviting engagement. When you’re trying to work with a brand, they want to see clear and precise photos on your page. There are so many apps out there for editing your photos, and I think it is important to find a specific look to your photos for a cohesive theme to your feed. I have found that when I have a cohesive look-and-feel to my page, more people engage with my post.

3. #Hashtags. It is difficult to be seen in a sea of millions on Instagram. A new feature that Instagram offers is the ability to follow hashtags. Popular photos using that hashtag will pop up on your feed. No matter what you’re posting a photo of, there are going to be popular hashtags that will guide users to your photo. For example, if you are posted a photo about food, the most popular hashtag is #instafood. If you want to post a photo of clothes, or your outfit, #ootd is the most popular hashtag used. There are hashtags out there for EVERYTHING. Do your research and learn which are interesting to your follower-base and will drive users to your page.

Whether you are trying to manage a personal Instagram page or one for your business, these tips and tricks are sure to help drive traffic to your page.

Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Twitter for more tips!

The post Instagram 101: Tips & Tricks to Drive Traffic to Your Page appeared first on Caster Communications.