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Beth Ranson
Accolades Public Relations
cell (305-587-0266)
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.

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.

Traditional public relations is represented by the human-half of the Centaur. Mental strategy is needed in standard PR campaigns to understand how the news supports industry trends and why it is important to the audience of specific publications.

Seeing an article on your company in the business journal, the local daily, or an industry trade journal will have a powerful impact on your customers. They will understand that your business has achieved newsworthy accomplishments and that your company‘s expert opinion is a valued contribution to industry news and trends. Unlike biased advertising, the third party validation received with traditional public relations translates into credibility and trust for your company.

Optimized public relations is aptly represented by the animal-half of the Centaur. In order for news to gain visibility on the Web, a release needs the horsepower of optimized keywords that are picked-up by search engines and RSS feeds. In this way, the release will appear in Google and Yahoo search results and often will be seen and shared by thousands online.

Unless you have a rare company that is totally promoted through business and personal referrals, your customers (and even the media) are going to evaluate your company, its news and business accomplishments via your web presence. Also, they will find it more difficult to locate your site online unless it appears in the first few pages of Google results.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch states that companies that understand the changes that have occurred in the media and communications industry, adapt their strategies accordingly, and embrace the new technologies will be the companies that succeed.

Today’s breed of public relations combines brain and brawn – the strategy of traditional PR with the power of optimized PR. These hybrid campaigns offer the capabilities required to promote your business to customers and reporters in the real world and on the Web.