Hello World! It’s me…again!

Am I really about to start blogging again?! Could it be?

I’m just writing my first entry in six years to get my feet wet. While I’m still interested in topics from a publicist perspective, I may chime in on other subjects that have grasped my attention over the last six years. A girl can do some growing in that time. Let me catch you up to speed with some cool updates:

• I’m a mom of TWO kiddos now! I’m bigger and better than ever and I have a love/hate relationship with my body but it’s more love than anything.

• I’ve relocated from and back to NC.

• While living in Los Angeles, I got to attend wonderful industry events in entertainment, network and actually work at several industry events, including an event at the Grammy museum for Ledisi’s book release back in 2018 (she is a very sweet lady).

• I worked at a PR agency in Malibu and it was there that I learned that I may not want the lifestyle of a publicist any longer. I was devastated because it took me years to get a physical job at an agency. While it was satisfying, I was constantly stressed after work, working after work instead of spending time with my daughter. I made the tough decision to leave. Maybe I’ll dive more into this subject in future posts 😉

• Job hunted while working, found a job, got the offer, sent it my two-week noticed and the new job rescinded their offer due to funding, after I left my job.
  
  Talk about a career climax for the movies.

• This pushed me to start something I had to finish. Through a long-time friend, I was made aware about an opportunity to become a licensed life insurance agent. Being licensed not only helped me and my family financially through unstable times, it showed me that I can really do the thing I thought I never said I wanted to do: sales.

• I’ve tutored elementary math from 3rd-5th grade.

• If you are interested in learning if you have sufficient life insurance, please contact me here and let’s assess what you currently have versus what you actually need. There are over 106 million adults without life insurance so there is a need that I can help feel. Getting a licensed was so satisfying!

• I now work full-time for a robotics company continuing my career goals in making sure clients are happy and satisfied. I couldn’t be more grateful.

• Oh I also started this blog around the first time I made my first “big chop” and cut my long hair down shoulder length. Just recently, I did another “big chop” to the exact still I donned back when this blog first debuted. Seemed like a good idea to start blogging again as well! Now I just got to get familiar with this platform again.

Lets see where we can take this thing the second time around!

Diversify Your Abilities to Multiply Your Income: The brief Kevin Hart review

Forbes has announced that after ten years, Jerry Seinfield is no longer the highest paid comedian. The newest comedian to claim the title in 2016: Kevin Hart. Kevin Hart’s fame has increased drastically just over the last five years alone. From comedy shows and tours to movies, this man knows no limits. He is the first comedian to sell out arenas such as Madison Square Garden.

HOLLYWOOD, CA – JANUARY 06: Actor Kevin Hart attends the premiere of “The Wedding Ringer” at TCL Chinese Theatre on January 6, 2015 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic)

Don’t get it twisted, Kevin has been grinding for years. Even with his television and film debut in 2002, his talents slowly progressed over the years into more prominent support AND leading roles. He isn’t afraid to take risks as long as he stayed working. His resume has credits from every year since 2002 with no gaps! Instead of taking a break in between projects, Hart works as if he is still struggling and taking mini-vacations along the way.
A great quote to keep in mind about Hart’s mentality: “Everybody wants to be famous but nobody wants to do the work.” This can be seen on his twitter profile and also is featured as a chant with his opening acts while on tour on many of his comedy specials now on DVD.

His latest venture: KEVMOJI by Kevin Hart. YES! This man is now following the steps of celebrities such as Kim Kardashian to release an app of Kevin Hart emojis, or image stickers, to use when texting. The app sells for $1.99. The KEVMOJI app rose to the number 1 app in iTunes, 5 hours after it was released. The rising mogul featured a pinned tweet with a link to download the app on his Twitter profile.  I wonder if David Beckham found Hart as funny as I did during this campaign shoot for H&M.

Kevin Hart is officially everywhere and he shows no signs of slowing down nor being limited. Applying this type of creativity and work ethic can be very beneficial to other brands. Kevin Hart’s new movie “What Now” is currently playing in theaters, which was released October 14, 2016. The comedian is currently filming the remake of “Jumanji” and is being consider of playing Santa Clause in “Dashing through the Snow” a Disney Christmas comedy.

Whether it’s collaborating with other brands or influencers to generate brand awareness, having a “no-limit” mentality proves to generate desired results, and revenue as seen by Hart, if used effectively.

The ONE Thing Every Brand Needs to be Successful

If you don’t know by now from some of my posts, I’m a huge Beyoncé fan.  Beyoncé made headlines soon after her 35^th birthday for postponing one of her shows from her Formation world tour per doctor’s orders. Unfortunately, thousands of fans were affected in the process. The songstress just came off the first leg of her Formation world tour with little rest. In addition to her multi-city stops in her second leg, she schedule two award show performances: one at the 2016 BET Awards and her most recent at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards.

As Beyoncé accepted her award for Video of the Year for her music video “Formation” which dropped back in February, she struggled to keep a steady tone as she spoke. She just gave the performance of her life and it is obvious during her acceptance speech that her vocal chords were exhausted. It sounded like she was beginning losing her voice. It shouldn’t have come as no surprise her singing abilities for the MetLife Stadium concert in New Jersey would have been deeply impacted as well as the remaining shows to soon follow after, had she now decided to postpone her show.

Touring for months on end can take its toll on a performer. Not being able to do your job really sucks and the songstress made sure she thanked her fans for their patience via her Instagram profile.

Janet Jackson is another artist who was ordered to postpone her recent tour per doctor’s orders. The singer is now pregnant with her first child, at the age of 49. Getting pregnant itself is a miracle, especially after a certain age. It was important for her and her husband to start a family and her body doesn’t need the added stress.

Sir Richard Branson takes a holiday every August to ensure health and happiness. The billionaire offers unlimited vacation to his employees and believes if you take care of your employees, they will take care of your business.

From a 2014 survey of over 1,000 employed people, 41% do not plan on using all of their vacation time. The top 5 reasons people leave vacation days unused:

1. Fear of returning to a mountain of work (40%)
2. The belief that nobody else can do the job (35%)
3. Inability to afford taking time off (33%)
4. Fear of being seen as replaceable (22%)
5. To show greater dedication to the company and the job (28%)

America has fostered a workaholic culture; some to show their dedication while others feel that no one can adequately aid in their duties if an issue arise that they’re not there to solve themselves. Whether you feel pressured to “show commitment” or you can’t afford to take off, you must step away for your own sake. Stress can cause burnout and resentment towards your daily duties. Returning from even a brief leave of absence can make you feel refreshed with a new view of how to execute the things you need to do.

Digital Disclosure: Factoring the Law into your Branding Strategy

On the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) website, it says “Protecting American Consumers.” This agency was created over a century ago to fostering competitive prices for high-quality goods or services. It may be fair to say that many marketing professional are mainly focused on company/client-centered goals, sometimes without clearing certain tactics with their company’s legal department. Thus in the digital age, sponsored mobile posts have become a lucrative business up until recently with little involvement from the FTC.

Unintentionally, the following examples references the Kardashian-Jennifer clan for sponsored posts. You can’t knock the amazing hustle and bustle from this family!

On one particular episode of her reality show, “Keeping up with the Kardashians”, Kris Jenner asked her daughters Kim and Khloe to not only do another post on Hairfinity, but fly out to London for a premiere. This made me pause because the middle Kardashian sister spoke to Adweek in 2015 stating her Instagram account was “promo-free” telling the magazine, “I know a lot of my brands might get frustrated that I don’t promote maybe as much as they would like, but I only do it if it’s authentic.”

What does this mean? If celebrities are already the “face” of a brand, should they have to disclose each post with a #spon or #ad tag?

Recently Kim’s sister, Kourtney, has promoted her Instagram with Fit Tea posts.  Many celebrities and influencers have done posts for the Fit Tea brand.  This brand may not feature Kourtney as their “face” but Kourtney made sure this post was clearly stated it was a paid post.  Many other influencers probably are now probably becoming  more familiar with guidelines to sponsored posts. Kylie Jennifer, sister of Kourtney and Kim, also posted about Fit Tea back in April, without tagging it as an ad while Kourtney’s recent July post about the brand included the ad tag.

Kourtney’s Kardashian famous ex-boyfriend/father to her three children, Scott Disick was in the news earlier this year for reportedly copying and pasting an entire email from a sponsor, Boo Tea UK, on exactly what to say in his Instagram post, without deleting the directions on what to post from the sponsor:

Image courtesy of Instagram via Buzzfeed

In the digital world, this is a BIG deal as it shows the secret exchanges behind this promotional posts.  It would appear that celebrities don’t have to do anything but simply post to social media.  It would appear there is no requirement of some influencers to even be a user of the brand.  Would this change the view of the people they are trying to “influence”?

Going back Kim’s Adweek interview, it seems now as if Kim is more actively involved with her posts to be more organic to her audience compared to Disicks’s disregarded fluke of a post on how to type a genuine Instagram promotion to his following.  Disicks’s mishap is also not a good look on Boo Tea UK’s part either.  It shows little regard from the brand about having the influencer being true advocates for their product, they are only a means of advertisement.   There is also little regard from the influencer on if they make a mistake as they’re rich they can make mistakes and “hope” no one remembers them.  Not anymore as only one simple internet search can reveal a life’s timeline.

Influencers receive so many views a day that they can leverage their profiles, or ad space with “product placements” a.k.a sponsored ads. Them doing so requires the influencer to notify their following visibility in doing so unlike actual product placements where there is a process to get a product featured on a television show or movie. This also leverages competition and informs the viewers that while influencers may post about certain brands, they are paid to do so that the public can use their judgment whether or not to purchase the product. Seems pretty fair in case an audit is done on both the brand and the influencer.

As always with changing times comes changing/new laws however we follow people based on how we like them/their content they publish for the world to see. Do you think sponsored ads would change how you’re influenced by your favorite celebrities? What could sponsored ads say about an influencer’s brand?

Here is a little digital disclosure for all of my readers: Today marks 6 months since I’ve given birth! It has truly been an amazing experience thus far, watching my baby girl grow every single day. Mommy loves you Courtney!

The Beyoncé Brand serves “Lemonade” as we’re about to DIE of Thirst!

Yes, another post about Beyoncé but who can blame me?! She is a marketing genius!

Photo courtesy of Genius.com

 

Everyone was tuned into HBO for the world premiere of Beyoncé’s expected album “Lemonade.” After she dropped her single and video for “Formation” right before her Super Bowl 50 performance with Cold Play and Bruno Mars, the “Beyhive” knew she had something special in the works. Who knew she would have a Formation tour but everyone knew then that she has an album ready to share with the world. What artist can sell out a world tour prior to even dropping the album?!

Due to her controversial performance paying homage to the Black Panther Party to emphasize freedom from oppression of any form, she instantly gained so much publicity that you had no choice but to try to go to her concert to see if you can get answers (or an apology depending on if you want to #boycottbeyonce)…but to go to a concert and not know any lyrics? That’s why when Beyoncé hinted at her next project, “Lemonade” she knew we’d drink it all up!

Beyoncé famously doesn’t give interviews any longer, with the exception much to my surprise with her recent Elle magazine cover feature. Her music conveys relationship infidelities and trust issues and many are speculating if they are based on fact or fiction.

What I love about Beyoncé’s music is that you’ll never get the true answer because her lyrics have depth, and can mean more than one thing. Not only does her lyrics have controversy, we all know so does her life. Everyone remembers the infamous elevator footage of her sister, Solange, attacking her husband, Jay-Z. The family has issued a bland statement asking the public to respect their privacy, without offering any answers. She has also had previous issues with her father and her father has had infidelity issues of his own….maybe some of the lyrics are written in a different perspective.

Either way, good or bad, you can’t go a week without seeing Beyoncé in the news. She keeps a publicist to work with creative ways to distribute her message rather than the traditional way we’re all use to. From surprise albums to surprise movies and world tours, the Beyoncé brand is never predictable. Maybe her next album will be a full-on Tony award-winning production on Broadway!

FYI as an active member of the Beyhive, I will be attending her Raleigh, NC show tonight!  What do you love about Beyoncé’s marketing tactics?

Motherhood and PR Part 2: Collaboration is give and take

Before February 24, 2016 I was on my own time. I did things when I wanted to do them. Now that I have a baby girl, my personal time is limited after working 8 hours, after the house is clean and once my husband isn’t working on one of his multiple companies (having multiple streams of income definitely helps with a newborn). Some things are unavoidable such as when the baby has to eat and needs a diaper change. This can be at three in the afternoon AND three in the morning with several diaper changes and feedings in between.

Knowing newborns schedules are different than their parents, the parents can better prepare for these anticipated needs of the child, especially at night. One example: breastfeeding moms could, if they prefer, pump during the day and have a safety stock of milk ready to heat up in the middle of the night so that either mom or dad could bottle-feed baby.

Publicist can also anticipate and prepare for their clients such as capitalizing off of certain events. A good example of this can be if a publicist has a musician as a client attending an awards show. The publicist could work their magic and try to get their clients featured on radio before the show and line up interviews during the red carpet walk.

Photo courtesy of careersinmusic.com

Unfortunately everything cannot be anticipated such as a client losing their cool. Publicists should always prepare for a crisis to be ready to respond accordingly. Take Chris Brown for example; the R&B singer has been in and out of trouble since he was convicted to assault against his former girlfriend Rihanna. Chris Brown likes to vent/share his opinions on his social media accounts about things that he feels he “knows” a lot about … just because he has been in a sticky situation or two before. His publicist, if he has one, will have to deal with the fallout.

Babies are just as unpredictable as their little immune systems make them vulnerable to getting sick very easily. It is important for parents to not only prepare to prevent this from happening, but stop it from getting worse. Keeping the child from having sick visitors or giving the child prescribed medicine from their pediatricians are examples of unplanned things parents must do for their child.

All-nighters are not limited to students of higher education. You can give babies and clients all the prep you may anticipate but they will take up a lot of your time with their unpredictability as well. Knowing about this give and take will help you get through the hard times…as it is not a matter of if they will happen, but when.

Red Lobster Fumbles their Publicity Opportunity

Once again I’m talking about Beyoncé (I promise this post will be shorter!) As you may have heard, Beyoncé released a new song and video titled “Formation.” The artist doesn’t hold back in her lyrics or her visual effects in her video.

One very surprising line that Beyoncé featured in the song had people’s mouths wide-open. The very shocking lyrics are “When he F^@K me good, I take his a$$ to Red Lobster.” Talk about keeping private life confidential!

Many were waiting to see how Red Lobster would respond. It took hours for their social media team to come up with this response:

Even though their sales have increased 33% since the song was released 3 days ago, many truly believe that Red Lobster missed the opportunity to do more with this free publicity. If you recall back in 2013, when Beyoncé headlined the Pepsi half-time show, the stadium’s lights were blown after her performance. It took a few minutes for the game to resume but nowhere near long enough for Oreo’s social media team to use that moment with what I believe is the cleverest tweet they could have done in that moment:

 

They won Twitter and the Super Bowl that night!

Key Takeaway: Make sure your social media and graphics team are quick on their feet, especially during major televised events. You never know when you will have the opportunity to capitalize off free publicity. Peyton Manning sure was ready to drink a lot of Budweiser after the Broncos won Super Bowl 50. Keep in mind a 30 second commercial during the Super Bowl ran advertisers $5 million dollars and Budweiser scored big by having Manning mention it is TWO separate post-game interviews. According to Market Watch, “just one mention by Manning was worth about $1.6 million for Budweiser.”

Oh the joys of public relations!  Do you think Red Lobster fumbled their opportunity?

Personal Crisis Communication

Many use social media for different purposes: to share information, to find out the latest news, to upload pictures of their cats.  A while back I decided to use my Twitter account for both business and personal use.  I knew what to post and how to word it so that I can still be viewed as professional while sharing stories and ideas that are more personal.

For a while it has gone fine.  For the past year however, since the death of Mike Brown, I’ve been sharing more stories and more personal points of views on my Twitter account.  Last night I realized that using a particular hashtag can catch the eye of unwanted attention from people with opposing views.  After going back and forth briefly with these people, I come to the conclusion that one should be prepared for the power of social media.  My unwanted attention led to people liking my opponent’s tweets and retweeting our conversation, calling me names that do not fit the type of person I am.

The more I responded, the more traction it received.  If you put more fuel into a fire, it will take a while to go down.  I see that now as it is the following morning and I’ve still received more feedback.  Many of you have heard the old saying for bullies, ignore them.  While this approach can be debatable, I think it’s the best option on social media.  If you ignore people’s responses to your statements, then eventually they will go away only to nick pick with other people they disagree with on their views.

Celebrities can best benefit from this advice as I’m sure they receive the most criticism because they are in the public eye.  Unfortunately for them the criticism can come non-stop to the boiling point where they feel as if they NEED to respond…but they don’t.  These people will not stop them from making their millions, just like these internet “trolls” cannot judge me by the little bit of personal information I DO decide to share to the world.  While I cannot be silenced, this event has led me to realize that my focus SHOULD be more towards professional content more so for me as a professional transitioning her career.

Final Tip:  Just be aware you can have your own opinions, not your own facts.  This is why I support the people I do on social media and share their stories and struggle as they are called liars and their families are threatened every single day.

When to Halt the Hashtags

Hashtags have become a way of life on social media.  They’re a way to share content, status updates, and pictures on a social media platform.

Whether you use them personally or professionally and whether you choose to accept this advice, the number of hashtags (the # of #’s lol) are based on the social media platform you use.  This number limit has been studied and will gain maximum exposure and share-ability.  For instance, Twitter’s acceptable limit is 2 hashtags (however you can only post but so much at one time).

Check out the below infographic to help guide you in your digital efforts!
Do you have any exceptions?

Courtesy of Quick Sprout

3 Things we learned from the #kyliejennerchallenge

In celebrity news, no family is more high-profile than the Kardashian-Jenner clan.  There have been so much speculation over which sister has had the most plastic surgery.

Kylie Jenner is exhausted defending herself from the media’s constantly mention about her lips and how they’ve changed.  Her lips literally went from skinny to plump and full over-night.

Now several teenagers (and non-teenagers) have completed this #kyliejennerchallenge to show how, they too, can make their lips fuller as the youngest Jenner sister has supposedly done.  This is done so by stuffing your lips into a small glass and sucking.  Many are not liking the outcome.

Photo credit: Buzzfeed.com

Here are three things that we’ve learned from this particular challenge:

• The media does put too much emphasis on personal celebrity choices– So what if Kylie’s lips aren’t real?  This is not a life-changing decision that Angela made in getting a double mastectomy, which many other women began to follow. Granted this topic may have sold plenty of magazines however we tend to share more scandalous things happening among celebrities than real life issues that would require people to actually think about their priorities and have an actual opinion and a good foundation backing up that opinion.    If we focused and shared as much on racism and wage inequality as we do trying to figure out if the Kardashian clan has real booties, we could solve a lot more issues.
• People are wasting precious time doing menial things just to get likes and retweets– Some people have made money off of social media however not ALL people will be this lucky.  So many people can be subjected to ridicule by the same media outlets reporting on these celebrities (see Daily Mail UK for instance).  We can’t live up to our fullest potential if we constantly view and share nonsense.  We need more business leaders not sharers of celebrity news
• Guerilla marketing consequences– As we’ve seen with the #icebucketchallenge, we can get people to do anything to make others laugh, even when we do know why we’re doing it.  Many people who completed the #icebucketchallenge could not even explain or properly announce ALS correctly in their videos, as they didn’t care.  Those people wanted to challenge others just to get a laugh.  The #kyliejennerchallenge offers no benefit to anyone, as we’ve seen the bruised lips and chins from this particular challenge, which others have shared to get laughs.

Key takeaway:  People, especially teenagers, associate celebrities and their choices with status: money, fame, fortune.  Who wouldn’t want that?!  When they find out that their favorite singer buys clothes from Topshop, then they too began purchasing the same things.  Whenever it is discovered from where First Lady Michelle Obama buys her coats or the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s buys Prince George’s clothes, it doesn’t take 10 minutes before it is already sold out online.

Everyone wants to live like a celebrity.  I just hope that more people would strive to achieve their own image instead of wanting to look like their favorite celebrity.  Be yourself because no one else can!