10+ Years of #SocialMediaDay: The Good, The Bad & The Law

In this episode of MsInterPReted, we’re talking about tourism in Tennessee. Tennessee tourism generated $29 billion in direct visitor spending and saw 141 million visitors to the state in 2022, Tennessee ranks 11th in the nation for travel spending, the highest rank ever for our state.

Tennessee has approximately 13, 372 restaurants in the state, which is roughly one restaurant per every 500 people if you look at our population numbers and over 1600 hotels.

Sarah Beth is the CEO and president of the Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Association. Her experience includes being Executive Director of the Tennessee Whiskey Trail and before that was also a part of the Tennessee Department of Tourist Development as the Middle Tennessee Division Manager. HospitalityTN represents the interests of Tennessee’s lodging, dining, and tourism establishments and the related businesses involved in the hospitality & tourism industry.

Kim Mitchell joined the Blount Partnership in July 2014 after serving the past 2 ½ years as the special events coordinator for the Helen Ross McNabb Center where she contributed to the successful planning, management and execution of many Blount County special events with specific responsibility for achieving all fundraising goals and community awareness objectives. 

Her position with the Blount Partnership consists of recruiting events in the areas of leisure, business and group travel to the county for overnight stays. 
 
 A graduate of the University of Tennessee, Mitchell has worn many hats in a variety of industries during her career ranging from being director of catering for a national hotel chain to serving as a marketing and public relations specialist for a local marketing group.

Topics Discussed:

·        What brought these two professionals to the tourism industry

·        They describe the tourism boom they see in their respective geographic locations

·        How the Tennessee Hospitality & Tourism Association partners with tourism businesses

·        The tactics most effective in getting the word out to travelers about all that Tennessee has to offer

·        The rise of outdoor adventure and leisure travel 

·        The influence of the Tennessee Whiskey Trail on tourism

·        What’s on the horizon for Tennessee tourism

On this episode of MsInterPReted, Fletcher’s director of media relations, Allison Lester, talks about travel writing, pitching and hosting media tours. We welcome two travel writers to talk about their experiences in travel writing. They provide advice and talk about the trends in the travel journalism industry.

Susan Barnes has more than 20 years of journalism experience and writes for multiple outlets including USA Today, Food and Wine, Garden and Gun, Travel + Leisure - just to name a few. She writes about travel, lifestyle, food and beverage. 

Ashlee Fechino is the founder of the Happiness Function, which is a travel outlet she started to inspire happiness through travel and outdoor recreation in the U. S. She's also a nationally syndicated travel writer.

On this episode, we discuss multiple topics:

·       How our guests got into travel writing and what it’s like as a career.

·       The dos and don’ts of pitching travel journalists.

·       What qualities make for a great press trip.

·       How to get coverage in some of the travel industry’s biggest outlets.

·       Trends in the rise of wellness travel.

Sara Davenport is an award-winning journalist who followed her dreams and became an anchor in a top-10 market. But after winning all the awards, and covering all the stories, she need a plan B - something that gave her not just a fantastic lifestyle, but also a life.

She has created a life as a media mentor working with others looking to break the breaking news cycle.

• She wanted to work from home or just work from phone/wifi
• She wanted to travel and vacation for more than 8 weeks/year
• She wanted to make 6-figures, from one or multiple businesses
• She wanted to be a storyteller, content creator, and still remain 
   on-camera
• She wanted to coach others to success

On this episode of MsInterPReted she discusses how she made a plan and went after it.

Davenport provides valuable insight into writing a resume to highlight transferrable skills, using LinkedIn as a true marketing platform to market and creating multiple revenue streams for profitability and stability.

Through her former and current career, Davenport has collected a plethora of stories about the good, the bad and the ugly of working in broadcast news. She shares the moment that she knew she had to make a change and what she sees as driving the mass exodus from TV News today.

As we head into 2024, Fletcher Marketing PR Vice President, Sarah Merrell and Director of Media Relations, Allison Lester discuss the PR obstacles we foresee clients and firms facing in the year ahead and tactics to overcome these hurdles.

Obstacles include:
AI - The rise of artificial intelligence raises ethical concerns and requires us helping our clients to understand the benefits and limitations of new technologies.
GA4 - With Google Analytics launching its new analytics platform in 2023, many businesses still don't have their GA4 and/or aren't yet using it to its fullest potential.
Other new technologies - as new platforms and software emerge, it requires education for our teams and clients to institute these new tools
Over-reliance on digital marketing - many businesses see digital marketing as a fast-fix for marketing goals, when it should really be viewed as one tool to pair with myriad of other strategies. It requires educating our clients on the benefits, but also limitations of digital marketing to keep them from making the mistake of relying too heavily on this strategy alone.
Media fragmentation - There are more media outlets today than ever before. This provides both an opportunity for media relations efforts, but also an obstacle. Media relations pros have to take the extra time to weed through the options to find the best fit and help clients understand the quality matters more than ever. 
Content overload - With so much content being pumped out into the world today, it's more important than ever to make your content standout. This requires creativity, strategy and research.
The prevalence of paid media - As there are more pieces of the pie, each individual outlet has fewer readers/viewers. This has led to a rise in paid media as media outlets are forced to find new revenue streams. This means clients will need to consider options such as advertorials, affiliate marketing and paid placements in addition to earned media efforts.
Integrated marketing - we know integrated marketing is 300% more effective than silo-ing your marketing efforts, but helping our clients understand the benefits of having one party handle all of the tactics still proves to be an obstacle.
Reputation management - In the day and age of 'cancel culture' it is imperative to give careful extra thought to all messaging - this includes, not only the content you produce, but also responses on social media. It's important to have diverse voices at the table to ensure you are using sensitivity and not overlooking biases. 
Rising labor costs and inflation - both firms and our clients are facing the biggest obstacle of 2024 that all Americans are facing with inflation and rising prices. It costs more to do business, which means many companies will be looking for ways to save. We encourage business owners and CEOs to consider the ROI you get from marketing, and to never save money but cutting good people.

In this episode of MsInterPReted, Fletcher Marketing PR Vice President, Sarah Merrell, and Director of Media Relations, Allison Lester discuss PR trends that we want to leave in the dust.
As 2023 winds down, we are looking ahead to the new year and new strategies. These are some of the common strategies and trends that are outdated or unnecessary.

We discuss:

• Overuse of buzzwords/industry jargon
• An overemphasis on media placement quotas without attention to the quality of placements
• Overly complicated metrics
• Vanity metrics
• Vanity awards/paid awards
• Hiding/Burying negative news
• Reactive crisis management vs. proactive strategies
• Mass/impersonalized pitching
• Overly complicated press releases

We address these outdated trends as well as the better way to approach metrics, media relations and crisis management. 

On this episode of MsinterPReted, we discuss hyperlocal journalism. This form of journalism focuses on reporting news and information at a very local level, typically targeting specific neighborhoods and communities. It emphasizes coverage of local events, issues, and stories that directly impact the immediate vicinity, including topics like local government, community events, business updates, neighborhood developments, and other hyper-specific news that may not receive attention from larger media outlets

Jesse Mayshark and Scott Barker are both former journalists who also worked on the public relations side and started a hyper-local news media outlet for the city of Knoxville, called Compass. 

Jesse worked as a reporter and editor at the local and national level for 20 years before going into communication for Knoxville Mayor Madeline Rogero in 2011.

Scott was hired as a reporter at the Knoxville News Sentinel in 1999 and has won numerous national, state and regional journalism awards as a reporter and editorial page editor.

On this episode, Jesse and Scott discuss:

• The need for local journalism
• Why they started Compass
• The business model for making this type of journalism successful
• PR blunders
• How PR pros and journalists can better work together
• The changing face of journalism

Follow Fletcher Marketing PR on:

Website:  https://www.fletchermarketingpr.com/

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fletchermarketingpr

On Twitter:  @fletcherpr

On Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/fletcher.pr/
On LinkedIn: Fletcher Marketing PR

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @KDFletcher

Fletcher Marketing PR Senior Strategist, Mary Beth West commissioned new worldwide ethics code research through her work on the PRCA Global Ethics Council.

The new London-based Institute of Business Ethics (IBE) research was released in the white paper entitled “The State of Ethics Codes in the Public Relations Industry: A Global Analysis” (available for free download). It documents that among 24 PR industry ethics codes in nearly as many nations worldwide, there is little unified consensus about how ethics codes should be employed as “living documents” in the everyday work of industry leaders and practitioners.

Some PR associations heavily promote simply having an ethics code as a crowning achievement.

But precisely how much dust a long-ago published code has gathered while sitting on a virtual shelf, unrevised for years – perhaps decades – may underscore how seriously its parent PR association authentically engages on the topic of ethics.
In this episode of MsInterPReted, Mary Beth discusses her findings with CEO Kelly Fletcher.

Discussion covers:

• AI
• Disclosing Paid Media
• Disinformation
• Giving/Receiving Gifts
• Whistleblower protection
• Privacy
• And other industry related ethics codes

This #PRethics Month, PR organizations are urged to take a fresh look at their ethics codes, compare them with best-practices documented in this white paper, and undertake a deep-dive effort to make codes more current, relevant, useful, and prominent.

DOWNLOAD THE ETHICS CODE WHITE PAPER: https://www.marybethwest.com/white-paper/

Mary Beth West, APR, FPRCA, is a long-time advocate of stronger ethical practices in PR, in balanced service to employers, clients, stakeholders, and also the public good. She can be followed on LinkedIn, at @marybethwest, and at marybethwest.com.

Casey Mank is co-founder of Bold Type and is a Center for Plain Language Board member. She also teaches English at Georgetown University and Virginia Commonwealth University. Casey and her company conduct workshops on writing skills, workplace communication and email etiquette.

In our digital world of communications, it is imperative that we think more strategically and holistically about how we communicate internally and externally with our business partners. Casey shares that, “no matter how good you are at your actual job, even if your actual job has nothing to do with writing, the way that you communicate with people about the work you've done impacts how they perceive your actual work.”

Writing effectively, including emailing, is such an essential skill. Casey highlights the need for more formalized training on how to do that well and what the expectations are within a company. Bold Type’s focus is very specific and they provide formalized training on workplace writing skills.

In this episode of MsInterPReted, CEO Kelly Fletcher talks with Casey about a variety of topics pertaining to effective professional writing including:  

·       Email etiquette

·       Using plain language effectively

·       Overexplaining

·       The importance of a professional pause

Follow Casey Mank:

Casey's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/casey-mank/

Bold Type Website: https://www.boldtype.us

Bold Type LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/boldtype/

Bold Type Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bold__type/

Plain Language Info: https://www.plainlanguage.gov

Follow Fletcher Marketing PR:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fletcherpr/
 On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fletchermarketingpr

On Twitter:  @fletcherpr

On Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/fletcher.pr/

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @KDFletcher

Today, all of us feel the impact of stress and burnout in one way or another. It could be we feel a little extra jittery at the start of the week, or maybe it even prevents us from doing what we need to in our professional and personal lives. Regardless, we need to always try and actively combat and healthfully balance our stressors. 

In Booth Andrew's career, she experienced her own burnout for years but it reached its peak when she went from a successful CEO of a $5 million non-profit, mom of 3, community leader and triathlete to unemployed, broke, divorced, severely ill and separated from her community. 

Over time, Booth found the keys to balancing her stressors so that her burnout and its impact would never impact her the same way again. Booth also found sharing her story and her journey back was helpful to others in understanding they are not alone. She now runs the Knoxville, Tennessee based company, the Booth Andrews company.

On this episode of MsInterPReted, Fletcher CEO Kelly Fletcher talks with Booth about a variety of topics pertaining to balancing stress levels and burnout, including: 

• Knowing your limits and respecting those boundaries 
• Giving yourself permission to heal 
• The physiological impacts of stress
• Dealing with trauma 
• De-stigmatizing mental health 

Follow Booth on:
On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/booth-andrews-69ba1a13/
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theboothandrews/?hl=en
On Twitter: https://twitter.com/theboothandrews

Follow Fletcher Marketing PR:

On LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/fletcherpr/
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fletchermarketingpr

On Twitter:  @fletcherpr

On Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/fletcher.pr/

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @KDFletcher

Eric Olsen has been Senior Advisor and Communication Director for Congressman John Garamendi of California's eighth district in northern California since 2017.

Previously, he managed congressional campaigns and consulted on several presidential campaigns. His work as a senior PR communication staffer on Capitol Hill and for political campaigns has given him unique insight into the relationship between government and public relations. 

He has deployed a broad array of communication tactics throughout his career to communicate the complicated and multifaceted work that takes place in our federal government. He has also worked with major broadcast outlets and media outlets, like 60 Minutes and Meet the Press, and he has managed highly-targeted PR campaigns..

Eric is a graduate of the University of California Davis with the highest honors. In his free time, he works to bring a greater level of awareness and insight into politics and how our government functions.

On this episode of MsInterPReted, CEO Kelly Fletcher and Director of Media Relations Allison Lester talk with Eric about an array of topics pertaining to the world of political communication, including: 

• The relationship between politics and media 
• Crafting political messages 
• How to navigate the mistrust of the media as a PR professional in the world of politics 
• The value of reputable and trustworthy sources 
• The relationship between communication professionals of opposing parties 
• The possible future of AI use in the political communication arena 
• Crisis management 
• The myths about the political communications field 

Follow Eric  on:

On LinkedIn: Eric Olsen

On Instagram: @eric_olsen4

On TikTok: @ericolsen44

Follow Fletcher Marketing PR:

On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Fletchermarketingpr

On Twitter:  @fletcherpr

On Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/fletcher.pr/

Follow Kelly on Twitter: @KDFletcher