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Beth Ranson
Accolades Public Relations
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Beth@AccoladesPR.com

Accolades PR Delivers Successful Campaign to Interactive Austin 2009

Austin, Texas, April 29, 2009 — Accolades PR, a results-oriented communications firm committed to progressive strategies in public relations and marketing, announced today the completion of a very successful public relations and social media campaign for Interactive Austin 2009.

Interactive Austin 2009 took place on Monday, April 27th and delivered to attendees much needed insight during these economic times on how social media can enhance their business and marketing strategies and add to their bottom line. The Keynotes consisted of well-known Web 2.0 gurus Dion Hinchcliffe of Hinchcliffe and Company, Sam Lawrence formerly of Jive Software, and William Hurley (Whurley) of BMC Software.

In addition, the conference’s distinguished roster of area presenters from a wide spectrum of regional companies offered their industry expertise, updates and practical solutions to address the evolution and impact of social commerce on business productivity.

Supporting Austin organizations including the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Austin Technology Council, the Austin Interactive Marketing Association, Booststrap Austin, Leadership Austin and door64 encourage local businesses to attend the event to better understand how to grow their business online.

“There was such a great energy at the conference as the Who’s Who of Social Media shared their knowledge and their strategies for building a successful business through Enterprise, blogging and other prominent social media tools,” states Accolades PR president and founder Cynthia Baker. “It is always exciting when amazing talent from companies and organizations such as Southwest Airlines, Cohn and Wolf, and BMC Software come together in one place to educate, share and network.”

Accolades PR put together a social media and public relations campaign that involved an online newsroom, Twittering, and open blog, as well as optimized press releases. The successful campaign brought not only extensive coverage to the event but assisted in attendance of around 250, nearly doubling last year’s conference attendance.

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About Accolades Public Relations

Austin-based Accolades PR is a results-oriented communications firm committed to progressive strategies for public relations and marketing communications. The agency focuses on building and protecting its clients’ most valuable asset – their brand. With expertise in media relations, corporate communications, product launches and special events, the firm’s capabilities encompass a variety of practice areas. As a team, Accolades PR delivers more than 45 years of experience in building media relationships and developing effective marketing campaigns. Accolades PR’s mission is to set the standard in what carefully executed public relations and communications strategies can do for sales, lead generation and the bottom line of ROI.

More information on the firm and its unique service offerings is available at www.AccoladesPR.com.

Interactive Austin 2009 is just around the corner and promises to deliver useful and much-needed social media information during these not-so-bright economic times.  Last year, Austin’s social media experts came together to teach you what social commerce could do for your business.  This year, they have come together to assist participants on how to integrate social media, Web 2.0 tools, and digital media into their corporate marketing plans to improve profitability.

IA 2009 will open up on April 27th with Dion Hinchcliffe, founder of Hinchcliffe and Co. and Web 2.0 University.  Hinchcliffe will share his expertise in business strategy and social media with participants with his discussion on “Reinventing Business with Web 2.0.”  As the Editor-in-Chief of Social Computing Magazine, an industry commentator for ZDNet, and as a global Web 2.0 consultant, Hinchcliffe is sure to provide some technological strategies that every company in today’s market should incorporate into its business plan.

A bonus keynote this year is Jive Software’s Chief Marketing Officer, Sam Lawrence.  Lawrence, who has over 15 years of technology marketing experience, has worked with and for such major players in the technology world as Microsoft, 3Com, Dell and CNET.  Lawrence will bring that experience to IA 2009 attendees with his collaborative presentation titled “No More Whip Cream on Dogsh*t – 20 practical ways to use social software to drive profitability.”

The afternoon will kick off with a keynote presentation by William Hurley, chief architect for BMC Software and chairman of the Open Management Consortium.  William Hurley, who is also known as Whurley, is undoubtedly and expert on his topic of “Future Technology Trends and their Impact on Business and Culture.”  As BMC’s expert in open source and cloud computing and a holder of 11 technology patents, Whurley will not disappoint.

You can probably understand why we are excited about this year’s Interactive Austin.  Aside from the amazing technology that will be discussed, the keynote presentations and the many other panels will help arm all participants with the new tools they need to explore and transition their business into the new frontiers of social media.

We look forward to joining you in the conversation on the Web.

Social Media is currently playing a vital role in these slow economic times.  It is the most cost effective manner in which to market your company – get talked about – but only if it is done right.   Having everyone look into your life, be invited behind the scenes of your company, read your take on the world in your blog are only good things if it presents you in a positive light.  Social media gives your potential clients the opportunity to learn everything there is about you before they even meet you – if you aren’t careful you could give the wrong impression.

This is where PR actually provides an edge. PR takes the time to develop strategy for a social media plan, as well as the content that drives it.  When working with traditional media, a public relations plan analyzes what a company’s awareness and branding goals are, which avenues are the best to take to achieve the goals, how to measure the achievement of the goals, and then where to go next.  The social media plan really shouldn’t be any different.

After all the planning is done, the action steps and the content creation come next.  When a person is speaking on behalf of a company via chats on a social network site or blogs about certain market relevant topics – they need to speak carefully.  It seems that missteps, poorly chosen words, and bad reviews travel faster via social networks than one could ever imagine.