When I first joined Kaplow and told my mom I was hired as a Community Producer, she was thrilled for me, but had absolutely no idea what that meant – I got a complete blank stare.

I understand that there is a generation gap between us – she loves Johnny Mathis and Criminal Minds, while I love Drake and Watch What Happens Live. But more than our differing entertainment preferences, my mom was a teacher and when she told other people what she did, they got it. For those of us with careers in the evolving world of social media and PR, the idea of what we actually do every day is a little less clear.

So how do you convey what you do every day to a parent?

I explained that brands need someone to tell their story to the thousands (if not millions) of fans they have online. I told her that brands have to be accessible in this age of the “super-consumer” and that I help do that.

Bringing a brand to life is what I love most about this job. It gives me a chance to be creative and give a little bit of flavor and humanity to things, like body lotion and hair products. You might not think a face scrub could be personified, but I assure you, it can!

Take St. Ives, for example. Their products are filled with fresh ingredients, are available at drugstores nationwide and provide simple, classic and effective skincare solutions. Our fans are passionate about their skin and love talking about their favorites and why they love them. Customers have so many options to choose from nowadays; we love helping St. Ives fans feel like they can identify with the brand and that we are listening and want to hear from them.

Interacting directly with fans is increasingly important in order to develop a loyal relationship between them and the brand. Consumers are inundated with choices. If you don’t make that personal connection with them, they will find another brand that will. It’s my job to make sure that they feel appreciated and loved, because they are!

So, after numerous conversations, I think my mom sort of understands what I do for a living. And if after a few more months she still doesn’t get it, I will be the first to suggest a “Bring Your Mom to Work Day” at Kaplow.

At the beginning of my PR career, it was easy to identify who the key media players were. If you worked for a beauty brand, you pitched the Allures, InStyles, and Vogues of the world. You could easily recite the names of the last few articles an editor wrote at the drop of a dime. Today, things are a bit more complicated.

Print magazines took a massive hit in the late 2000s, leaving many editors to look for new work. Over the past few months, magazines have come back into prominence – however, they look a bit different and are less glossy in the traditional sense. Many outlets have expanded their reach beyond the printed page, influencing consumers via Pinterest boards, Twitter feeds and Tumblr pages, all of which are updated multiple times daily with new tips, promotions, videos and artistic imagery.

Real Simple has taken Pinterest by storm thanks to its visual tutorials and storage solutions. It is now arguably even more influential in this new medium than it is in print (more than 92,000 followers and counting)! Eva Chen, Teen Vogue’s  Beauty & Health Director, has become a go-to guru for teens and twenty-somethings via her popular Tumblr and Twitter pages, where she documents her wardrobe choices and encounters with different beauty brands, giving readers an inside view of her life.

Several long-time print journalists have made the switch to short-lead, online outlets, which gives them more flexibility to cover time-sensitive content. Dawn Spinner Davis, formally of Cosmopolitan, recently began writing for Total Beauty. Jane Pratt, former editor of Sassy and Jane (my teenage favorites!) launched a women’s lifestyle site called xoJane and established it as a top lifestyle destination for women within a year (as named by Forbes).

With all of these new communication tools, the way we communicate with media influencers has changed, too. No longer can you just pick up the phone and expect to get a moment of their time. Media influencers are busier than ever, so developing strong relationships is key to getting your point across. When you do have the chance to speak with an influencer in person, take a few moments to ask them questions about themselves and how they’d like to be pitched in the future. Let them know that you’re listening by following their instructions. Comment on a blog post or repin/retweet something interesting they’ve shared so they see your name outside of their (jampacked) inboxes.

When you put the same time and care into your communications that influencers put into the content they write/post/pin/etc., you’ll start seeing results!

(photo via evachen212.tumblr.com)

Several weeks ago, a very prominent sports reporter tweeted that Twitter Chats were the place to be if you’re interested in working in the sports industry. Since I work with a few of Kaplow’s sports clients, I decided to participate in one. I thought perhaps I would gain some insight on cutting-edge tactics or interact with a power player to connect with at a later date.

So, for the past few weeks, I’ve spent my Tuesday nights with the folks in #sportsPRchat, going back and forth on the latest developments in sports.  What have I learned from my time spent with these folks?

If you are a student, these Twitter chats are EXACTLY the sort of thing you should be participating in.

Aside from the larger group conversation (easy to follow by tracking the #sportsPRchat hashtag), I found myself breaking off into side conversations with individuals who I either agreed with, or completely disagreed with. Most of these discussions occurred with current students looking for work after graduation, or testing the “PR waters” to see if it’s a profession they want to go into. In my eyes, these college students truly set themselves apart from the rest of the pack – what a great way to get noticed by professionals in the field and learn something while you’re at it.

However, I didn’t feel that I personally learned much – at least I didn’t walk away with any eye-opening ideas to use in my day-to-day work experience. That said, you cannot completely discount these sorts of gatherings once you have a diploma. They are a great means of networking with professionals from across the country, something that is normally reserved for awkward cocktail parties at nearby 3-star hotels. Through #sportsPRchat, I met publicists from five states and heard sports perspectives from fans in over a dozen states.

Cutting edge PR ideas – haven’t gotten any of those. A greater network of like-minded sports enthusiasts/professionals – goal!

When April rolls around, it means one thing: Baseball!

Each April, thirty-two teams begin their quest for the Commissioner’s Trophy. Awarded to the World Series Champions since 1967, it represents the end of the marathon season a team must survive in order to be crowned champions.

As a Phillies fan, I catch a lot of flak from the Yankees and Mets fans in New York. But what I want to discuss goes beyond team allegiance; it’s about the love of the game and what is being done to bring fans more of what they love!

Professional baseball has survived world wars, recessions, several strikes and lockouts and a still lingering steroid scandal. Yet, it keeps on evolving and its popularity waxes more than it wanes.  Fans used to be able to catch a game for less than 50 cents. That is now a fraction of what a fan pays for a pretzel at Yankee Stadium! Fans used to huddle around radios or the television set to enjoy a game, but the internet has given fans the ability to experience baseball in a whole new way.

Major League Baseball (MLB) has played a significant role in this transition, finding new ways for every fan to enjoy America’s game – and it’s all because of social media!

• In 2011, MLB introduced the MLB Fan Cave: Two fans were chosen from a pool of 10,000 and given the chance to watch all 2,430 regular season games and the postseason, and provide unique insights on their experience through Facebook and Twitter.

• This year, a “Starting 9” was chosen to vie for a spot in the cave and fans will decide who stays and who goes, ending with a champion being crowned to report on the World Series. This takes the concept to the next level and creates celebrities and brand journalists out of everyday fans.

• In the early life of professional baseball, fans used to be close enough to the players to touch them. Social media brings that closeness back to the sport, and Major League Baseball has taken recent steps to ensure that players, coaches and front office executives can use social media in a fun, exciting and responsible manner.

Bravo, Major League Baseball, thank you for thinking about the fans first – it is my hope that professional sports leagues and other brands follow suit. And of course, let’s play ball!

A picture is worth a thousand words.

This is increasingly true for brands on social media. Last year Twitter prioritized images by bringing native photo sharing to the platform layout; Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm shows preference to posts with photos; and the new Timeline format allows brands to add a huge banner cover image to their pages. Not only that, but social sites based around visuals are taking off – Tumblr, Pinterest, Polyvore and Instagram.

The most photography-focused of these is Instagram, the iPhone app that allows you to take, edit and share photos with your friends. It was the first social app to cross a million users in just three months, and today, over one million users add the app each week. Why is it so popular? Everyone wants to be an artist and looking at pretty pictures inspires people!

Brands are now entering the Instagram scene by showing off images that convey their core message, without looking like they came straight from Corporate. The emerging role of brand journalists is helpful for this. They look at your brand as an outsider would, and create content (in this case, filtered photographs), that is real and that others will want to look at. Brand journalists are experts at finding these unique nuances and interesting facets of a company.

The beauty of a photograph is that a person can truly “get” a brand through an image, without the brand having to spell out the approved marketing messaging. Here are a few examples of brands using Instagram well:

Levi’s: At the beginning of this year, Levi’s announced plans to cast their next ad campaign using Instagram. Users of the service could take any photo of themselves and tag it #IAMLEVIS for a chance to star in the September ad. Here was their announcement image:

Tiffany & Co: To celebrate Valentine’s Day, Tiffany & Co. asked fans to submit their favorite images of love with the hashtag, #TrueLovePictures and it then created a gallery of the top submissions within its What Makes Love True microsite, full of real love stories, a playlist of romantic songs, and Tiffany’s Tips for “when love gets serious.”

The City of NY: New Yorkers are known for being smart and savvy, so the city’s latest campaign, an Instagram Facebook photo contest announced last week, is sure to be a hit. Users are encouraged to snap pictures of the reasons they love NYC with the hashtag, #loveNYC for a chance to have their photo featured in Times Square, the city’s Facebook, YouTube and Twitter pages.

An image allows you to capture your personality, your point of view and your purpose, all through a single snapshot. Don’t you feel like you understand these brands so much better after looking at these images? Gives me the warm fuzzies and makes me appreciate the brands (and the city I live in!) that much more.

The major barrier companies face when embarking on an Instagram campaign is that it limits exposure to iPhone users. It depends on your target demographic – campaigns using this platform will resonate better with Gen X & Yers, and those who enjoy social sharing and trying fun new technologies. Good news, though – Instagram should be launching on Android phones any time now!

Most of us already know how to share our whereabouts, interests and random thoughts through Facebook and Twitter, but have you started checking-in to your favorite television shows yet (you can earn stickers!)? Have you logged in to a channel’s website to chat with talent and other fans live throughout an episode? Have you joined the hashtag conversation and had your tweet aired in real time?

All of this is now possible, as TV goes social. Most networks and cable channels have finally accepted the fact that we are all multitasking, which means we are on our laptops while we are watching TV. The smart ones have learned to capitalize on this. Social TV check-in sites such as www.Miso.com and www.GetGlue.com allow networks to create pages on their sites for popular shows where fans can “check-in” (as you would on Foursquare) and share what they are watching with their friends. GetGlue will send you a bunch of stickers when you reach a certain plateau; Miso will unlock exclusive content for you. Overall, it’s a good deal for everyone.

If you’re not into letting people know that you watch The Bachelor every Monday, you can still participate in the revolution by becoming one of the millions of viewers who log on to sites like WE tv’s Sync or NBC Live to chat with other fans as your program of choice airs. These dual-screen applications are being utilized by networks to increase engagement, drive fans to their websites and social platforms and keep viewers from changing the channel during commercial breaks. Being able to sell ad space on them is an additional perk as well.

Lastly, for those of us wanting our 15 minutes of Twitter fame, more and more shows are soliciting tweets from their audience during episodes, which they then showcase live on-air. Having been in the control room pulling tweets myself, I can tell you it’s not an easy task, but it’s a proven driver for gaining brand followers.

So, the next time you sit on the couch with your laptop and remote, think about the fun ways you can bridge the gap between your TV and your computer. It’s the next big thing and you don’t want to be left behind, after all…

There’s been one theme that has come up in every conversation here at SXSW: LISTEN. But the context of this worthy advice has varied widely.

For budding entrepreneurs, it is vital to listen and acknowledge the users’ needs. We happen to be in Austin with one of our clients, Brian Cohen, the Chairman of the New York Angels, who also holds the distinction of being the first investor in Pinterest. As he explains in this Mashable article, the site’s success was rooted in their commitment to listening to smart people throughout the development process. Had the founders of Pinterest missed a simple observation in their early users’ behavior, the site likely wouldn’t be the phenomenon we’re seeing today – getting nearly 12MM unique monthly visitors with the average user spending 89 minutes on the site.

For brands, there is, of course, a lot of discussion about the need to listen to what consumers are saying about your brand online. This was illustrated very poignantly by a case study that was presented during a panel titled, “The Sports Fan in 2015.” The panelists talked about Nike Basketball’s “Black Mamba” campaign: a microsite was built around an alternate persona of Kobe Bryant – each time 1750 tweets per hour used the hashtag, #MambaMoment or talked about Kobe, the site would dynamically change and unlock access to exclusive content for a six hour stretch. This inherent ability to respond to users’ interests in real-time is a perfect illustration of what listening is all about. It gives brands the opportunity to become even more relevant to a topic that is of high interest at any given time.

In fact, there are dozens of vendors (both new and established) hawking social media listening, monitoring or management tools here in Austin. We hope to spend time with them and see which are best suited to help our clients listen to what the online community is saying about their brands. The practice of listening will ultimately make your brand’s engagement with fans more authentic and impactful, which will, in turn, result in greater brand loyalty.

At SXSW 2012, in Austin, TX, beyond panels and solo talks and forums and Meet Ups and blogger lounge interviews, lies a world of possibility to actually connect with people who might literally blow you away. Take David Eagleman for example. Eagleman runs the Eagleman Laboratory for Perception and Action and this is the mission: “The long range goal of our lab is to understand how the brain constructs perception, how different brains do so differently, and how this matters for society. To that end, our three main prongs involve time perception, synesthesia, and neurolaw.” What did he just say? Ok, it may be a little above our heads, but not that much. One of the things he is focusing on is how the part of the brain that assesses and perceives other humans perceives and sizes up brands. “It’s almost the same,” says Eagleman. What does that bode for brands and their creation/adoption of a persona and development of a voice? The more human, personable and engaging you are the better chance you will connect with customers, who will then become an advocate/ambassador for you. Keeping it real is great: keeping it human is even better!

After the release of the Timeline for Facebook Profile Pages in September, chatter around when Facebook would release Timeline for brand pages surfaced. With no clear answer as to when to anticipate any changes, it seemed inevitable Facebook would announce an official roll out of Timeline for brand pages. In this case, they choose to do so at their very first marketing conference, fMC (Facebook Marketing Conference) held this week. The brand pages include a heavy focus on visual elements, brand heritage and changes to the previous functionalities for admins. Here are the significant changes every brand marketer should be aware of.

Say Goodbye To Default Landing Tabs:

Tabs are no more! Banking on a Default Landing Tab is no longer the way of the future. Having been pushed into a section designated for apps, you are now limited to 12 apps, 4 visibly shown at the top of your page. Along with being given the option to customize the image former tabs, the dimensions of apps have also changed giving you added freedom with more space. What marketers previously used as a way to encourage Likes, now seems obsolete as fans will no longer be required to like your page.

Cover Photo:

Similar to what you will see on Timeline for Profile Pages, Cover Photo gives fans an immediate visual impact of what your brand represents. A new take on the welcome banner, it does come with some limitations. The inclusion of any calls to action, references to Facebook features, purchasing or brand information, are not allowed according to Facebook guidelines.

Friend Activity: Interactions your friends have had with a page are now highlighted in this section. Likes, tagged posts and comments are just one of the new ways Timeline for Brand Pages is trying to leverage brand story telling.

Pinning, Milestones And Starring:

Pinning allows you to anchor an important post to the top of your page for 7 days, a great way to keep posts from getting lost in a sea of content. This particular option will be a huge benefit for keeping fans up to date with promotions.

Milestones and starring enable you to tell the story of your brand. Starting from inception, you can now share with your community all your special dates and moments. When adding a Milestone, a photo is mandatory; you are also able to specify the location, exact date and story behind the mandatory photo. Starring also enables you to highlight particular moments, and stretch the width of the page like Milestones.

Activity Log And Admin Panel:

The new Admin Panel is meant to better assist provide you with greater awareness as to what is happening on your page, including the following items: insights, new likes, page tips, notifications, private messages and activity log. Private messaging gives your community the opportunity to reach out like they never have before. In order to utilize this feature, fans must initiate the conversation.

Your Activity Log, located in the Admin Panel, shows all post you have made to your page, including those which have been hidden. Here you can also change dates, star, unhide and delete posts.

Other Important Features To Note:

Ability to change the name of your Page: Facebook is now giving brand Pages the opportunity to change their name, should it be misspelled or inaccurate.

Pencil Icon: The Pencil Icon, located on the corner of each post, gives you the option to pin, hide, delete, change the date of posts and reposition for photos.

For a crash course into the new Facebook Pages, take a look at the video learning module provided by Facebook. Also important to note, as of March 30^th the new Timeline for Brand Pages will be mandatory, meaning brands will have one month to devise new strategies for how to best leverage these new features.

Awards season is big in the beauty industry, which always means an overload on “Get-the-Look” red carpet trend pitches in media’s inboxes.  So how can you make your pitch stand out from the crowd?  Here are some strategies to break through the clutter:

Timing is Everything – The day after any awards show, you can expect online editors to be flooded with an overwhelming amount of post-show pitches.  The old adage, the early bird gets the worm applies here, and it pays to send your pitch out the night of an event rather than the next day.  Another tactic: send the pitch the week prior to an awards show with a pre-awards prep focus.  While the pitch has to be more general and can’t include night-of images, it allows the products to take center stage and gives bloggers a different type of content to share.

Collaborate Cross-Agency – By including multiple brands in one pitch, you can offer a more complete translation of how the chosen trend or celebrity look is achieved.  This approach takes the pitch beyond a singular focus to offer editors a head-to-toe guide to the look.  It also appeals to a wider audience by offering more variety.  Once the conversation is started around one brand, it opens the door to pitch others.

Write from the Blogger’s Perspective – Since media is tasked with rapid, of-the-moment reporting around awards shows, write your pitch content and tips from the perspective of your contact to minimize editing on their end.  We’ve found that many times when pitches are written this way, bloggers will copy and paste the text almost word for word, ensuring quality coverage and key message pull-through.

Add Expert Input – While we may start to feel like beauty experts thanks to our constant pitch creation and proximity to industry leaders, it helps to include tips from the real thing!  Insider tips from an expert can help your pitch stand out from the pack and provides editors with the kind of proprietary content their readers crave.

The Oscars may be over but these tips can be applied to pitching other widely covered events like blockbuster movie premieres, fashion week and celebrity studded festivals throughout the year.