The holidays are a stressful time of year, especially if you have to run around doing last minute gift buying.  C3/CustomerContactChannels recently offered great tips for reducing holiday shopping stress.  These tips were picked up by publications around the country, proving that holiday shopping stresses out more than just Floridians!

Here are their secrets:

Do your homework and ask questions.  Learn the store’s return and exchange policies before you buy something; know which coupons a store will accept and ask about promotional deals before you get to payment.  Read product reviews to maximize the valuable time you have with a busy employee.

Be prepared. Lines may be a mile long, so be courteous to other shoppers.  The cash register is not the place to realize you don’t have your wallet.  If you’re buying over the phone, be prepared with the recipient’s shipping information and your payment details.

Communicate clearly. If you have a problem or complaint, get to the root of the situation immediately and state what went wrong without raising your voice.  Tell a salesperson what you expect to be resolved and what you’d like them to do.  Bring up your brand loyalty as appropriate, but don’t overstate your store experience.

Be solution oriented. Focus on what can be done to resolve a situation.  If a product is out of stock, find out when the store will receive new inventory.  Find productive solutions and recognize that the ideal resolution may not be possible in all cases.  Customer service is a two-way street.

Take a deep breath. Take a moment to think clearly before you escalate a situation. Don’t use profanity at other shoppers or customer service agents.  Be the type of person you would want your grandma to speak with – anger and frustration will get you nowhere.

For more of C3’s shopping tips, click here.

Let’s face it— there’s no such thing as a straight print journalist anymore. If you’re in the journalism field, never has going multi-platform been more important.

Miami Herald reporter, columnist, blogger (and tweeter!) Cindy Goodman agrees, encouraging all journalists to use new media to enhance their brand as well as the quality and readership of their stories.

This is 2011. If you’re not on the new media train, you are most likely soon without a job.

Goodman was one of the first writers at The Miami Herald to start a blog (eight long years ago!), The Work/Life Balancing Act, and is an active voice on Twitter. She has additionally developed her own blog, Raising Teenagers in The Digital Age, uses a website for her own personal branding, and has Facebook pages devoted to her stories.

Goodman is an awesome example of using new media to stay alive in journalism, without sacrificing her journalistic integrity. Here are some tips and tools you can use to follow this new media maverick into the realms of multi-platform journalism:

BLOGGING

• Have fun with voice and personality in your blog. It’s a platform where there’s some wiggle room for editorializing. But don’t go overboard! You are still a journalist at heart.
• Make sure your blog has a consistent theme, voice, or message to establish yourself as an “expert” or “go-to” on your topic.
• Use your blog as a place to put ancillary, fun, less relevant information that didn’t necessarily fit into your stories.
• Keep up a conversation with your readers on your blog. Listen to their opinions and give them what they want!

TWITTER

• Be smart about your tweets to bring traffic back to your news story rather than give it all away in 140 characters.  Always try to tweet with links to a bigger story unless you are giving periodic updates from an event.
• Create a conversation with your followers. Don’t simply promote yourself, your brand, and your stories.
• Be careful about retweets: even if you’re not the one writing them, they still reflect on you and your journalistic voice and integrity. Make sure your retweets are reputable and that you are willing to be liable for them.
• Follow and retweet relevant sources to expose your readers. Twitter is all about vanity, so retweeting twitpics from your followers will encourage others to send in their photos, and ultimately follow you.

VIDEOREPORTING

• Be sure your videos complement the print/online story. They should not reiterate the print but augment it.
• Keep your videos short, from 90 seconds to 3 minutes.
• Sometimes you can use footage from an interview as online video; an interesting fact that didn’t necessarily fit into the story could make it in to the piece this way.
• Again, don’t shoot video for the sake of shooting video. There has to be a reason for people to play it.

With regards to all of this new media, take a deep breath before you post or upload. Think, do you really want to say this? Once you click submit, your words, pics, and video have free reign in the online vortex. You can never really take anything back! So next time you write a story, grab your flip-cam and your smartphone, because you’ll need them!

As a journalist, you may be entering uncharted waters, but with street smarts and adaptability, you should be a-okay.

The University of Miami football scandal has rocked the college sports community, players, and coaches for almost a month now.

In mid-August Yahoo! Sports reported the corruption within the University of Miami football program- detailing a UM football booster’s showering of 72 players (and even administrators!) with lavish gifts including parties at night clubs, prostitutes, jewelry, clothing, and electronics. Nevin Shapiro, the culprit who is currently serving time for a $930 million dollar Ponzi scheme, wined and dined the players to get into the “in crowd,” and develop a posse of top players turning top recruits and then pro. Shapiro is serving a 20-year prison sentence for his actions- but the University of Miami as a college, community, and brand is facing serious repercussions. In fact, in their September 5^th game against Maryland, certain UM players who were deemed ineligible to play because of their part in the scandal left many inexperienced freshmen taking over their positions. The investigation will continue on.

The scandal floats like a black cloud over campus, and University President Donna E. Shalala has only recently instated a crisis communications plan. As WPLG-Miami reporter Michael Putney writes in his opinion piece in The Miami Herald on August 23^rd, “UM President Donna Shalala certainly didn’t look good the other day striding around the campus with a pasted-on grin as she welcomed reporters, none of whose questions she would answer…Not even ‘no comment.’” Even if Shalala didn’t have all of the facts, we at Boardroom Communications would have advised her to at least let reporters know she was on their side. She could have said, “I have no comment at this time other than to say that we are taking this very seriously and investigating it,” or something of this nature, from the very start. Putney puts it well, asking, “Why didn’t Shalala just call a news conference, say she wouldn’t be answering questions and read the limp, ineffectual statement her office issued…?” Maybe the media would’ve given her a break if she went humbly to the camera right away.

Then again, it probably wasn’t too fun greeting the parents and students of the Class of 2015 amidst the biggest scandal in University of Miami history.

Shalala did pen a letter to the community, and has made two videos reaching out to the university and community at large- directly addressing the incident from her own office. “When our values come into question, we only have one option,” she says in the video. “Do what is right and have confidence in tomorrow. The allegations leveled…are serious. And we are treating them with the urgency and priority they warrant.” Shalala also notes that the NCAA has instructed her and the university to not yet comment on specifics, and her personal frustration with being “unable to speak more freely and answer questions.”

Though initially faltering (and getting beaten for it), Shalala is starting to take the right steps by confidently looking straight into the camera and accepting responsibility for this scandal. When CEOS and corporate executives are faced with any sort of catastrophe, more often than not there is simply a press release, a general statement sent to publications and mass media, and nothing more. Shalala has employed a simple yet successful public relations strategy- appearing personal, humbled, and intimate with her audience and community. It’s obvious that she and the University of Miami administration are trying very hard to remain proactive in an attempt to redeem themselves and the reputation of their college. Thankfully, their current coach Al Golden remains untainted by the scandal- having arrived long after Shapiro’s departure. If he takes the reins and focuses on the future, maybe, just maybe, Miami can recover.

Sun Sentinel re-runs Miami Herald article on Boardroom PR Client Flamingo Road Nursery and Farmers Market

It’s no secret that many newspapers don’t have as many reporters as they used to, so securing home run media placements – such as the Miami Herald Business Monday Cover story on innovative ways that nurseries are bringing in more business – are often some of the most challenging part of a publicist’s job. But sometimes, it can work to your advantage.

The Sun Sentinel recently re-printed the original Miami Herald article featuring Jim Dezell, owner of Flamingo Road Nursery and Farmers Market.

Click the image to read the full story…again.

There are over 126 million blogs on the internet according to a Miami Herald article. So the question is how do you make your business blog stand out? Tasha Cunningham, web entrepreneur and PR expert, suggests the following tips to help boost your ranking in the search engines.

Tip #1: “Be Free” – Creating free blogs through Wordpress or Blogger will increase your chances of ranking higher in search engines.

Tip #2: “Good words are key,” – Instead of using your companies name all over the blog, pick a keyword related to your business and center your blog around that word.

Tip #3: “Think like an editor,” – After you have found your key word, do not over use it. It is recommended to use it in every other post.

Tip #4: “Inform,” – Make sure that when you post you are informing your readers about your business, not just using the blog to post advertisements.

Tip #5: “Educate,”- In your blog posts, teach your readers something they didn’t already know. You can also post instructional videos.

Tip #6: “Persuade,” – In each post, end with something that persuades the reader to try something or view something else. For example add a link at the bottom of the post relating to what you just wrote about.

Tip #7:  “Compliment your competitors,” – It is recommended to comment on the blogs of your competitors. Do things like talk about how well an article was written and then post a link to an article you wrote on the same topic.

For more blog marketing tips visit www.BizBytes101.com

Don Silver, COO of Boardroom Communications, was recently quoted in a Miami Herald article providing insight to the growing luxury magazine industry in South Florida. According to the article about 77 magazines across Florida have folded since 2008, however South Florida magazines have found their savior­­— affluent readers. Luxury lifestyle magazines have elicited a variety of techniques and media platforms. For example, Latin Trade Magazine holds the Bravo Business Awards, an event that hones in on its target audience. Cravings South Florida, a chic women’s magazine that launched in 2009, has created a radio show on 790 AM. Cravings has also added a wedding section to its publication and has created a preferred customer card, named “Cravings Card,” to get its name out to readers. Ocean Drive and Miami Magazine have already invested in apps for the iPad and the iPhone— despite the hefty 25,000 to 100,000 price tag. And just this March, Plum TV launched its luxury magazine titled, Plum Miami.

Having worked with many luxury lifestyle magazines, Mr. Silver shed light on the ongoing changes with lifestyle publications, emphasizing the transition of relying on luxury real estate to displaying South Florida’s thriving culture of art, fashion, food and entertainment. “In the days of luxury condo parties, that was a whole industry for these luxury publications,” said Silver. “That crashed and burned and fell off a cliff.” 

The template that has lead these luxury magazines to stay afloat despite the economic woes facing the industry today is targeting the wealthy, and do so by engaging readers across various platforms.

Our client and friend, David Roda CEO of Roda Asset Management,  shares his expertise and comments regarding the Fed’s QE2 plan in his article featured in the Miami Herald. David writes…

David Roda

“The financial markets have rallied on the Federal Reserve’s plan to help jump-start the foundering economy through the purchase of more than $850 billion of U.S. Treasury bonds over the next eight months.

Make no mistake, this strategy of quantitative easing, dubbed “QE2,’’ is a highly unorthodox and controversial initiative that is fraught with risks and potentially harmful side effects.

In order for QE2 to succeed, much of the new money needs to find its way into such job-creating investments as new production facilities and equipment, construction projects and new home loans. However, there are certain overwhelming structural imbalances in our economy that will block much of this new money from being channeled to its targeted uses.

I share the Fed’s fear that the economy is at risk of falling back into recession. Vital statistics such as the unemployment rate, housing prices, mortgage default rates, and business investment remain at critical levels.

By buying Treasuries and pumping money into the economy, the Fed hopes to push interest rates down, stimulate lending and investment, and modestly increase inflation.

(more…)

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and former state house speaker Marco Rubio “tore into each other on national television in their first debate Sunday with Crist accusing Rubio of misspending political contributions and Rubio positioning himself as the true conservative in the race,” reported the Miami Herald on March 28, 2010.

The Republican candidates for a U.S. Senate seat are going after each other even harder in their political ads and campaign statements. Enter the Florida Truth-O-Meter, a joint venture of the Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times, two of Florida’s leading newspapers. The newsrooms share resources, such as coverage of the state capital, and collaborate at a shared Web site, PolitiFact Florida.

The Truth-O-Meter rates what candidates and other politicos are saying on scale from true to half-true to “Pants on fire!” The results are posted on a modified voltage meter and explained in a short article. The meter labeled as false Crist’s statement on FOX News that Marco Rubio’s 2007 tax swap proposal was a “massive tax increase.” In the same debate, the Herald said Rubio made a false statement when he said he had not voted for tax increases as a member of the West Miami commission.

The meter spreads it around, evaluating statements from other Florida officials and state political parties. The visuals are fun and the explanations are easy to follow. A potential voter can read something other than what someone has to say about the opposition.

Catching politicians bending the facts is an international sport. The Florida meter is part of a larger National Truth-O-Meter that tracks everyone from President Obama on down. And in Great Britain, there is a “Minister of Truth,” according to a February 22, 2010, article in Wired magazine. The government employee heads his own truth squad that investigates whether British politicians are accurate when they cite government statistics. In England, it seems, people are willing to pay taxes for the truth.

NAIOP South Florida, on which chief operating officer Don Silver serves as vice president of public relations, received news coverage in the Miami Herald.

Members and news media gathered in late January for the trade organization’s all-important 2010 economic outlook.  Mark Dotzour, chief economist and director of research for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University, presented a frank talk on market conditions and whether they might improve this year.

As reported in the Miami Herald, commercial real estate prices have fallen 35 percent to 50 percent from 2007 levels.  “Those prices should never have been paid and those loans should never have been made,” Dotzour was quoted as saying. “The prices are getting back to the reality level where tenants can make a profit and survive.”

Dotzour predicted that market conditions would improve this year, but that some owners would be forced to sell at discounted prices.