Category Archives: Keith Trivitt

Keith Trivitt

Channeling the Overwhelming Side of Public Relations

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Businessman with face pressed against wall, profile, close-upIt’s been about a month now since I joined Sternberg Strategic Communications and began, in earnest, working toward the career-long goal I have set for myself to “build something great. And in that month’s time, the biggest concept that has stuck out to me is one maybe I should have learned early in my public relations career: this really isn’t about me anymore; it’s about our company and it’s about building our clients’ business.

Throughout every contact I have with clients—whether that be a new business meeting, contract negotiations, day-to-day discussions about project work, etc.—it’s my thoughts, insight and expertise that has a lot to do with the success of a campaign, but ultimately, the only goal I have for myself is to build our client’s business. To “build something great,” and that’s really not about me, or my wants, desires, day-to-day stresses or anxieties. It’s about servicing wants, desires, day-to-day stresses and anxieties of our clients, and providing a value to them far greater than what I hope to receive out of the partnership. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

The Never-Ending Internal/External Review Process

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Portrait of a man reviewing a file in a home office settingAs communicators, we work with many different parties. From the marketing team, to C-level executives, the legal team and a whole slew of other internal and external parties, our days and activities can often be filled with balancing a series of discussions, hopes and wishes with a slew of people.

But at a certain point, after many meetings and conversations, we are tasked with writing that next big news release, or a big speech for our CEO or developing our company’s core brand messaging, and that’s where our big work really kicks in: the often never-ending internal/external review process. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Blippy’s #EpicFail Demonstrates Importance of Public Relations

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Credit card cut into mulitple pieces beside scissors, close-upDid you see the big social media news that broke Friday afternoon? Probably best to read up about how location-sharing site Blippy, which allows users to broadcast to their friends any and all of their credit card purchases, somehow managed to allow four users’ credit card numbers to slip through a public Google search.

This whole Blippy incident is an unbelievably epic fail, and frankly, not a good sign for the emerging, yet at times, controversial, location-sharing industry.

Here’s the explanation Blippy gave on its blog (from WSJ.com):

In a post on its blog, Blippy said the problem was “a lot less bad than it looks.” “While we take this very seriously and it is a headache for those involved (to whom we apologize and are contacting), it’s important to remember that you’re never responsible if someone uses your credit card without your permission,” the company wrote. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Twitter’s ‘Promoted Tweets’ Will Have Profound Effect on Public Relations

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Twitter Co-Founders Biz Stone And Evan Williams Address Developers ConferenceWith all of the buzz around the new Twitter “Promoted Tweets” (really, ‘sponsored tweets’), and how that will impact our viewing and tweeting and other fun times on the increasingly addictive platform, one facet of the new ad-based service that got a bit lost in the all of the buzz was the role this service may play in PR professionals’ lives, particularly the ability to utilize promoted tweets during reputation and crisis communications situations for clients in which it is imperative that an official viewpoint, messaging or news stays at the top of a relevant search-based (for now, until Twitter debuts ads within personal Twitter streams later this year, as it plans to do . . .) Twitter streams. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Who Do You Trust with Your Client’s Biggest News?

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Rolodex Filled with Business CardsDespite all of my love for social media, digital communications, community engagement etc., something that is beginning to particularly strike me as a clear fact of 21st-century PR is that yes, media relationships do matter. A whole lot. And dare I say it? It does matter who you know. More importantly, how well you know/trust them.

Let me put this into a bit more perspective: Say you’re working on a pretty time sensitive client announcement that has a lot of moving parts (e.g. 2-3 parties involved with multiple executives/personalities and many different times zones), which requires you to be both confidential with how closely you hold the client announcement/information and also proactive enough so you obtain the desired outcome from the announcement with a little extra audience reaction thrown in from a good pre-announcement story or two. Continue reading →

Jeff Esposito, Keith Trivitt

What Should Be Increasing in 2010: Branding

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Blank billboard in desert landscapeAs a recent Financial Times article noted, companies are looking to spend more money in terms of marketing over the next calendar year. While we would love to say that a large piece of the pie would be allocated towards branding and public relations, we are realists and know that the money—for the most part—will go towards ever more advertising efforts.

And that is a damn shame. While advertising may be the flashy cog that looks good in media forms, what does it all mean? Your company is much more than a singing fish, talking baby or another gimmick. Sure you can name what companies are associated with the previously mentioned gimmicks. The question is, do you know what these brands really stand for? Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

PR Spending Forecast: Are We Set for a Big Decade?

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Businesswoman Holding MoneyA Financial Times article from Friday, March 26 (online subscriber edition here; free PDF version here), noted that global advertising spending is set to rise 4 percent in 2011, as the advertising, PR and marketing industries start to see a surge in client confidence, revenues and overall re-emergence of the world’s economies. What I found particularly interesting was the note in the third paragraph of the article which explains that even with a strong overall global ad spending growth, the total 2011 global ad spending will still below 2006 levels, which is right about the time the US and UK—which are the world’s top spender on advertising, marketing and PR budgets—saw a drastic uptick in overall corporate market and stock values. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Is it Time to Introduce Analytics to E-mail Pitching?

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Businessman with graphI don’t usually write about the more tactical, day-to-day issues of PR and marketing, choosing instead to focus on the delicate work-life balance, thinking like an entrepreneur and why I think it’s OK to not have a traditional PR background. But today, bear with me for a bit, as I’m going to get pretty tactical on something every PR and marketing professional uses probably every single day of their jobs: the e-mail pitch.

Ahh, yes, the infamous “pitch.” Loathed by many, MANY, but in today’s smart phone-obsessed world, about as important as ever in terms of driving successful media outreach for brands and organizations. I won’t get into the whole debate about whether e-mail pitches should or should not be used, but there were a couple of interesting points I wanted to hit from Cone’s main points in the article on about how we can all make our e-mail pitches a bit more refined and increase the rate that our e-mails to bloggers and reporters will A) get opened; and B) actually get us some type of response. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Work-Life Balance is Your Decision

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Coffee Stained Sticky Pad with Broken Pencil and Telephone ReceiverThere is no doubt the public relations business is a busy, exciting and hyperactive assault on the mind, senses and body. Simply put: It is a profession that requires you to mentally (and sometimes physically, particularly with those pesky events) give it your all every day. And at one end of the spectrum, these indelible facets of the business are what makes it so great and such a wonderful profession to work in, but they can also be the downfall of many, the cause of extreme burnout, if not managed and dealt with properly.

Which is probably why there are so many damn blog posts, articles, books, and Web sites devoted to work/life balance and effective time management and whether you need to separate your personal life/time from your professional life/time, or if you should choose the new trendy time-management theory of “your job and your personal life should blend harmoniously and in perfect sequence with one another.”

I say bulls*** to all of that. Continue reading →

Keith Trivitt

Exploring with an Entrepreneur’s Mindset

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Technology Concepts 1I’m writing this post at the tail end of a very busy, but incredibly inspiring weekend for me, so I’ll make it pretty short and to the point. My thought for this week is: EXPLORE. Always. In PR and marketing—and particularly in a service industry—it is imperative that we constantly keep our minds engaged and exploring new ideas, opportunities and thoughts. Even the most simple of concepts that come to us at seemingly the most random time (“Hey, a weather-map like visual feature of what is hot and cold could be really cool for client XYZ!”) may not be something you implement today, but those little random ideas have a way of stewing together over time and becoming your next big idea. Continue reading →