Hi Chip,

We are more than happy to comment on the spead in which Clean Pix can be set up and the efficiency and level of excellent customer service of the Clean Pix team.

From the time we sent back our signed contract our account access was imediately available.

The following day we arranged a telephone conference training session with Nathanial which took place an hour later on the same day!! In the training session, 3 members of our staff participated and we went over all the processes for setting up, inputting, and managing our initial images and the ongoing process of sending in our full set of assets.

Prior to the training session we sent over 3 images to Nathanial to load for us to work from during the training and those were loaded within only an hour – right before the training session- in all the different formats.

The entire process of getting set up on Cleanpix has only been delayed at any point by our own limited resources in being slow on returning the paperwork to Chip. Imediately after our initial training session we were ready to set up our first Press Brief, create suitecases and set up a link on our website media page!

Currently we are in the process of selecting a number of images to get loaded into Cleanpix later this week and will be setting up another phone training session with Chip to complete our first Press Brief as well as linking Cleanpix to our media page and personalizing our Cleanpix account with our look and feel.

My only wish is that we had more than 2 members of staff so that we could have got all of these things done within 2 days which would have been completely possible given 100% of our attention!

thanks
Katherine

Katherine Folinsbee
Sales & Membership Supervisor – Tourism Squamish
Squamish Sustainability Corporation
Squamish Adventure Centre
Squamish

Rohit Bhargava provides smart insight in these 2 recent postings: What PR People Should Know About Journalists and
What Journalists Should Know About PR People.

“I’ve started to realize many things about the world of public relations that most journalists know and many PR professionals are blissfully unaware of.” – What PR should know…

Here are some ideas for your consideration:

A) The news release or monthly announcement listing, intended as a tool to sell your product/destination to your users or clients, is not a press release to the media. The media do not buy, but they sure can smell a smart angle on how your gismo fits a culture and this at Internet distances (It is naive to think that all journalists live in a newsroom). This is saying: pitch the sizzle not the steak. The qualifiers could be:  the fun, the unusual, the overtly blatant, the emotional, the surprising, the humorous, the untouchable, the stuff you cannot easily describe but that hits a vibe.

B) Never run out of story angles. BE CREATIVE or fire your agency, if they are not! Remember, it is not your product or destination that fails, it is often how you talk about it that needs re-polishing, Easy to say, but how? Try this: brainstorm using the “stickies” method.

“One idea per sticky note (the bonus of using a sharpie is that one idea is about all you can fit on it). Just unleash as many ideas as possible and get them up on the wall.”  – Kris Jordan.

C) The smart pitch: one story, one great angle, one paragraph.
(The journalist writes, RIGHT!) Rethink your role, you have to brief the journalist, not entertain. This is the very reason why the CleanPix pitching tool is named PressBrief. OK, you have more than one story and another angle, big deal… write more briefs. Each story has to stand on its own, they should not all smell like sardines coming from the same can. Think of them more as fancy desserts, served one per plate! Remember, your story may only be used partially, and the journalist may even forget to mention you. I think that is like the proverb: “you may have to slay a few dragons before you meet prince charming” — so never lose your cool over a few bursts of flames. Keep at it relentlessly, free media coverage pays off plenty for your efforts.

WAY TO GO!

“We’re excited to be using this for press releases and all of the PR capabilities!”
says Mandi.

Columbia SC brief: www.pressuite.com

What makes a caption:

- One sentence: (25-50 words)
- 4 words : Location, Object (or person), Date taken, Picture provider
- Optional: Instruction on copyright. (ie. if you want it to appear with publication)

What makes a GREAT caption?

- Adding some zest and pizzaz to your caption (20-40 words).

Here is an example on adding “LIFE” to a caption.

The ordinary caption:
“Hockey goal and skating ring on Lake-Louise, winter scene.”

The Zesty caption:
“Located in the winter wonderland of Lake Louise in the Rockies, despite its frosty appearance, it has become the hottest site in town as staff and clients from surrounding hotels join for a casual evening of hockey. By far, the best evening fun in town.”
(Lake-Louise, Canadian Rockies. Hockey ring. Photo: N.Vigneault)

If you have a better idea for a zesty comment, let us know!

The point to remember is that if you have a great shot with no caption, journalists likely will not use it. If the picture is THAT awesome, someone may use it but without the proper information (linked to you) and this will simply negate your promotional effort. If your picture has no caption, the smart thing right now is to make one and then polish it later when you feel creative.

Embedded Metadata

While this is technical in nature, it is good to be aware that modern systems and applications are able to read a myriad of information (text) that gets embedded into many different kinds of files.

When a photo is downloaded from a proper digital asset management system like the CleanPix service all of the metadata you entered in for that image will be embedded straight into the file. This includes caption and copyright. This same information is viewable from the “View Caption” button on our website. Top media outlets such as L.A. Times, Condé Nast Publications, Stern Germany, Paris Match (to name a few) source this embedded metadata regularly. Editors and journalists have contacted us to verify information if it is missing. With the proper metadata included with your photo, it can be sent all over the world and journalists will not hesitate to use your photos with their stories and link them to you.

If a request is made on a “Rights Managed” Weblink that is attached to your story, the identity of that person will of course be made available to you. This information is not available if you attached a “rights free” Weblink.

E-list Campaign:
Comprehensive details of all individual views and clicks are provided for each list campaign directed to the media from the moment the campaign is launched. To access, click on [E-LISTS] and select the name of the campaign for which you need info.

The measure of success:
Our statistics demonstrate unequivocally that CleanPix clients that post short and original stories (one or two paragraph newsbriefs) at least once a week (and some do 2 or 3 per week) regularly get media calls. It appears that consistency in participation is key, this means publishing NEW newsbriefs week after week.

What has changed?
Over the past year we have noticed a significant gain in the amount of repurposing of stories (made by our clients) on pressuite.com by the general media. It is our belief that this increase is due to a combination of 3 factors:

1) The resurgence of better web outlet journals
2) The wish for the audience to deal interactively with the news and
3) Perhaps more critically, the departure of paid advertising in the conventional print media due to economical stress

That said, journalism is absolutely thriving on the internet. The latter makes pressuite.com a perfect bridge for our clients to enhance media relations in an active way, and for the media to get a rich pool of story ideas as they are being made.

Tourism Case Study: COURTING the MEDIA
CleanPix is currently processing a case study where, in tandem with the advertising company, we are promoting a specific news event for a client. This promotion is taking place in both classic media advertising and through the web. From the online perspective we are also addressing communications to media professionals and buying specific sets of keywords & phrases targeting web-based news outlets. We are doing this all in a concerted effort to trigger social media interest. This venture is tricky due partly to the fact that most current methods of evaluation are rather conjectural in nature. The study can measure to some degree audience interaction with a specific news item but not how this interaction generates actual sales. Nevertheless, in this case study, we will be able to get a fairly accurate buyer count resulting from the campaign and differentiate the results of classic media from web media.