To build lasting relationships with customers, businesses must make consistent introductions and maintain regular communication. I recommend sending a monthly newsletter to your constituents. Platforms like Constant Contact offer easy tools to create and distribute email newsletters, helping you keep your key constituents (customers to clients) informed and engaged. They are a direct line of communication and cost-effective strategy to maintain visibility, strengthen customer relationships, and grow your brand awareness. To get started, here is my referral link (https://go.constantcontact.com/signup.jsp?pn=mkpr) for 30% off the first 3 months. The promo code is THREE30P and it is good until 12/31/2025.

Let me know if you need assistance.

HAVERHILL, Mass. – (October 12, 2024) — Broco Energy, a veteran-owned and operated full-service fuel delivery company contracted by various Federal and state government agencies from North Carolina to Florida, is leading the large-scale disaster response by providing vital diesel and gasoline deliveries to areas affected by Hurricanes Helene and Milton. Broco Energy's Priority 1 Emergency Response division deployed 50 diesel tankers and service trucks to key disaster areas in Asheville, NC, and along the Florida west coast. Plus, it's coordinating the efforts of 10 other oil companies in the Boston area. With local fuel supply chains disrupted, the trucked-in fuel is used to power generators and ensure that hospitals, shelters, water pumps, and emergency services remain operational at total capacity.

"This is one of the most challenging operations we've faced, but our team is built for moments like this," said Broco Energy's CEO Robert Brown, a former U.S. Navy Seabee steelworker and Chelsea Fire Department captain. "As a veteran-owned company, we understand the importance of rapid, decisive action, and our priority is to keep essential services powered for those who need it most."

Since establishing Broco Energy's Priority 1 Emergency Response division, the team has provided immediate emergency fuel deliveries to power lifesaving equipment at past relief efforts in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia. When called to serve, Broco's workforce of 50 full-time employees, many of whom are veterans, expands significantly to ensure that vital services remain uninterrupted. Since September, Broco Energy has delivered thousands of gallons of fuel to crisis areas.

Broco Energy, founded in 2007 in Haverhill, MA, is a veteran-owned, full-service energy company specializing in fuel delivery services for regional residential, commercial, and industrial clients, plus emergency relief. In 2019, CEO Robert Brown was named Veteran-Owned Small Business Owner of the Year by the Small Business Administration.

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Publicity Angles and Pitch Strategies that Move Media and Blog Posts

As I wrap up 2023, I want to offer my list on what media angles you can do to boost your business awareness. PR and communications strategists are always trying to find a way to present a client and build news. News can be a pitched media story, a blog post or even a social media post. There are so many channels now to get your story and image out there. So get inspired, take notes and open your eyes to these story angles. I know that you have something to fit each one of these topics.

1. Hidden Secrets- Connect your audienced with an insider tips, secret or tip. What can you offer? What can you teach that is invaluable to others. Kind of like this blog post! For a sales client, I secured a USA Today article on a salesteam giving tips to a Girl Scout troop on how to close a cookie sale.

2. What to Do - Here's a story angle about informing readers what they must do before they embark on a journey or an event. Perhaps What You Need to Know Before Kayaking in Alaska (what gear you might need?) or Before You Shop for Holiday Presents and How to Cut your shopping Costs.

3. Meet the Face Behind - Everyone likes to know the human story behind a brand, trend, start-up or innovation. Create interest and tell your story unlike anyone else. Did you start a chocolate company or a haircare brand? Explain your method and how you did it.

4. Weather Story - Connect your story or product to climate change or the weather. How does your brand manage in difficult weather or enhance it? Maybe you have an umbrella that's wind resistant. Or share how your company ships products and plans around upcoming weather.

5. Making Mistakes - Be an expert, service or product that stops others from making expensive mistakes. What problem does your product or service solve? How do you save your ideal customer money?

This is a short list of ideas. Need more? Lets talk.

Proud of past client Lara Vu and her interview with Medium's Authority Magazine. See link

https://link.medium.com/q87HJDfotxb

(Article written for an insurance publication.)

Storm season is here, marking the entry of severe winter weather that rolls across the Plains states or enters from the Atlantic Ocean, often wreaking havoc on homes. Hurricanes and snowmelt are the most overlooked causes of floods. Mitigating disaster is a way of life for homeowners who live in low-lying areas and witness rising sea levels. Just a few inches of water from a high tide can flood basements and destroy lawns. In the past five years, all 50 states have experienced flooding of some kind. More and more insurers are monitoring annual Federal Emergency Management System (FEMA) maps for flood possibilities, even if their client lives on dry land, far from the coast or borders a peaceful, meandering river.

"Technically, everyone is in a flood zone," said Christine Cunning, CIC of Sullivan, Garrity & Donnelly Insurance Agencies in Cohasset, Massachusetts. "Some zones are just lower risks than others. Having flood insurance is a matter of serenity for many of our clients."

FEMA is the official public source for flood map hazard information, assigning different zones to understand flood risk. While FEMA and the Office of Coastal Management identify obvious flood hazard areas such as the low-lying communities of Scituate, Marshfield, Quincy, and Newburyport, a property situated far from a coastline can still be affected by a rising tidal creek or a marsh.

"A flood may happen every 500 years in a low-risk zone, so it may seem very remote. Yet 20% of claims come from these areas," says Cunning. An example of this occurred in 2011 when Hurricane Irene's flash floods sent Vermont's Ottauquechee River surging inland and through towns like Quechee, considered a low-risk flood zone. It caused $733 million in widespread damage.

Homes Purchased with a Mortgage

Congress created the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968 in response to the rising cost of taxpayer-funded disaster relief for flood victims. FEMA runs programs that mandate flood insurance for high-risk homes purchased with a mortgage or federally related financial assistance. If disaster strikes, the NFIP provides up to $250,000 for damages to a house and up to $100,00 for personal possessions. To qualify a homeowner must live in a community that adopts and enforces flood mitigation practices designed to reduce future flood risks. For example, the Town of Hull has a high rating for turbulence and flooding, and its Atlantic Avenue is marked as a "coastal dune velocity zone" due to the run-up of waves on its shores. To comply with FEMA and state building codes, some homes are raised above base elevations by a foot or more on driven piles or concrete footings to mitigate flood damage. Homeowners earn a 10% credit on National Flood Insurance and a $500 town credit off their special permit fees.

"A lot of deals have gone south because of the cost of NFIP," said Peter Lombardo, Hull's Building Inspector. A 2016 poll by the Insurance Information Institute found that 12 percent of American homeowners had a flood insurance policy, lower than the 14 percent who had the coverage in 2015. The highest percentage of homeowners with flood insurance is in the South, at 14 percent. "People inland don't think about flooding, but we deal with it daily," said Lombardo. He adds, "It's not just here. There are a lot of rivers out West and in Vermont that have reached flood zone levels, possibly because of climate change." Homeowners who buy a home without a mortgage or are self-funded are not required to get NFIP. Also, if the property is not in a high-risk area, but instead in a moderate-to-low risk area, federal law does not require flood insurance.

Preventive Measures

"We run into this a lot with people in affluent areas. Not everyone is required to buy flood insurance, but it's disruptive when you discover you don't have it," says Cunning. "When any client is making a large investment, it behooves you to advise them what is best for the property. An online company may spit out a quote for home insurance, but it does not know the area or advise you if the property is in a flood plain." Due to flood insurance not being covered by home insurance policies, some insurers like Sullivan, Garrity & Donnelly Insurance recommend coverage and are training their clients to manage their risks to keep premiums low.

Examples include:

1. Don't store valuables in the basement.

2. Fix your roof

3. Add sump pump coverage to cover costly repairs. Homeowners' insurance policies sometimes don't cover sump pump failures.

4. Add flood vents to enclosed spaces to allow water and debris to pass through automatically, preventing hydrostatic pressure buildup that can destroy walls and foundations.

5. Regrade the land

6. Fill in a basement in extreme cases.

7. Be informed about deductibles.

A five percent deductible on a $1M home is not going to cover $35K in roof damage. Further loss can be avoided for cars and vacation homes. MAPFRE offers optional comprehensive auto coverage for flood damage. Other carriers may request wind or fire alarm coverage for homes where owners don't live full-time and are not monitoring daily. Says Cunning, "Wind is part of a standard homeowners policy in Massachusetts. In most coastal communities like Nantucket, insurance policies include wind coverage, but carriers may have a higher deductible of 5%."

Reforming the National Flood Insurance Program

The NFIP is not a perfect system, and many are calling for its overhaul. It was initially intended to be self-sustaining, funded through policyholder premiums, with 80 private insurance companies participating in the program. Both Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy caused so much damage that FEMA is in debt to the US Treasury for $23 billion. In recent years, FEMA has been accused of inadequately supervising the private insurers who manage the policies and process the claims. Criticisms include: 1. Homeowners living in high-risk areas have been hit with rising premiums. 2. Insurers have profited from premiums and fees. 3. More NFIP claims come from people who live outside of high-risk areas and receive one-third of disaster assistance for flooding. 4. When disasters are too expensive, taxpayers make up the difference. Climate change is bound to change the way insurers think. Extreme weather and rising sea levels will most certainly increase floods in coastal communities, as well as portions of urban and suburban communities not prepared for protection. FEMA and the NFIP face a rising tide of claims and limited budgets to handle major disasters. Insurers should make sure their client properties are covered for all potential flood risks in the future. ###

On November 4, 2014 the Publicity Club of New England and PRSA Boston co-sponsored “Social Media Gone Rogue” at Boston University. Social media has become a mainstay of corporate communications programs with recommended outputs and turnkey responses. Despite trying to regulate this new and evolving form of communication with dedicated social media managers, content planning programs, listening dashboards, and airtight policies, “rogue” social media still happens.

The answer to managing unauthorized Twitter accounts, employees going off-message and corporate account blunders, may surprise you. It starts simply with slowing down and common sense. There is no complicated algorithm or secret sauce to fixing a problem as one panelist referenced. In fact, the roots of dealing with digital problems stem back to basic public relations 101: preparation, control the story and be honest.

Professor James Katz, Ph.D., of Boston University moderated. The panel consisted of Brian Heffron, EVP and Partner at Conover Tuttle Pace (CTP), Eric Korsh, SVP Social Content at Digitas and Crystal Duncan, Director, Client Strategy & Operations for IZEA. IZEA was a 2014 sponsor of the Publicity Club of New England Bell Ringers Awards.

It was a packed room with much audience and social media engagement. Here are some important takeaways from the evening:

• There are basic rules to social media. 1) Be truthful. 2) Never complain about your employer on social media. 3) Always check, check your post 4) Be aware of what channel you are publishing to – It’s not a good idea to have your client’s social media account on your personal phone because you may post a personal grievances or inappropriate photos. (Remember Hubspot’s pregnancy photos?)
• When developing a social media plan, define who or what department is to post for the company and alert more than the communications team. Also tell other departments and in general, teach responsibility.
• Know the channels that your company post to, who reads those sites and what they are posting.
• There are a lot of problems with automatic posts. A company cannot be organic or have a natural discussion. Also, current events can affect a post making a company appear callous or uninformed.
• Said Korsch, social media is going to be around for a while. Human resource departments should adapt their rules to recognize social media behavior. For example, most people have a social media account so provide some guidelines on what is acceptable to post. Corporate governance should follow common sense.
• Heffron recommends creating a social media crisis plan and “Treat it like an insurance policy you hope you never have to cash in.” Plan ahead with your client and imagine more than one worst-case scenario. Address how each situation would be handled and the types of responses. It’s important to role-play and plan ahead. Who in the company is alerted first? Do you create a phone tree?
• Erroneous postings to social media usually happen when people are rushed. As someone said, “Slow down, no one is sitting around waiting for you to tweet.”
• If an error happens the important action is to be honest and acknowledge it. A company does not have to respond in five minutes. Is the world going to implode instantly? No, so think carefully through before you act and gather the facts. The principles to managing a crisis do not change because it’s social media.
• Every scenario is different, but if you can, avoid taking an alienating stance when acknowledging an error. Is this an honest teaching moment for your followers? Can you agree with “Good tip. We will fix that in the future.”
• Customer service is very big on social media. Everyone can post a review about a dry shampoo or share their poor experiences on JetBlue. This is an opportunity for companies to engage with their customers on various channels and respond instead of backing away and letting posts spin out of control. Companies can acknowledge a post and provide product coupons, a future discount, or more. Crystal Dunacan spoke about a dry shampoo that was receiving bad reviews online. The company learned that users were not applying the products correctly. To address the negative comments, the company created a YouTube campaign to change sentiment and educate users. This sparked many positive conversations.
• Lastly, measuring “likes” on Facebook and Twitter is not the only way to quantify results. Create an attribution model that is a set of rules that determines how a campaign credits ecommerce transactions and conversions through sales, downloads and more referred by the user when he or she converted.

To see pictures of this event visit

https://twitter.com/PRSABoston/status/529818915799834624

See you at the next event! It’s the Holiday party on December 10 with PRSA Boston. Register to attend: https://www.pubclub.org/525/holiday-party/

This post was contributed by Maryanne Keeney, Principal at Maryanne Keeney Public Relations (MKPR, LLC.)

Twitter: @Mayne

By Maryanne Keeney, Principal of MKPR, LLC, (www.mkpr.com, @Mayne) and Loring Barnes, APR, Founder of Clarity Group(www.claritygroup.com, @loringbarnes). No robots were involved in creating this content.

Will robots be the future of journalism? Before you discount that proposition consider this: the LA Times and AP have already incorporated robots into their news reporting operations. Just last August, NBC News included journalism among a list of nine professions to become vastly altered by machine replacing man, even to the point of being obsolete.

It is no secret that two trends point this as being plausible:

• Media organizations are economizing and diversifying in order to maintain audiences and profits. Today’s business model leans towards stringers and freelance contributors over full-time staff. Mobile news platforms are the growth corridor, and every news outlet is looking to harness the newest technology to win and hold its audience.
• We consume news differently than we did even five years ago. Between back-end algorithms to track user behaviors and the push toward data, technology is the essential competitive tool that newsrooms use to power speed, number crunching and fact analysis.

Reporting is Sky Rocketing

Enter journalism robots, which are generating automated news stories at an incredible rate. For the AP, it uses Automated Insights, a sophisticated back-end financial publishing technology that writes corporate earning recaps and does everything journalists used to do: retrieve data from earning reports, extract key insights and put them into context against an aggregate population, and intuitively formats news briefs in natural language. Robots distribute these stories in real-time to multiple media channels, including Yahoo, Comcast and Samsung. The impact for volume and cost is significant. The AP used to manually produce 300 earnings reports per quarter, leaving thousands of company stories unreported. Today it reports 4,400 financial news stories, a skyrocketing ten-fold increase.

Thus far, robot journalism has achieved traction in the quantitative-laden data environment of business news by extracting data from reports and plugging them into prewritten templates. Stories instantly have stock prices, ticker symbols, stock exchange and company names. Forbes.com uses artificial intelligence to generate and automate its distribution of news from live data sets and content from previous articles. Robots at the LA Times write on crime reports to earthquake activity. Robot journalism generates millions of articles per week and the technology can produce 2,000 articles per second.

Crazy for Robotics

We can theorize about how robots could infiltrate news reporting for other industries for which data collection is central to news content: science, medicine, astronomy, education, transportation, government, sports and energy are a few. Behind this list are entire news organizations, departments, writers and producers tasked with some key aspect of fact finding, analysis, content generation and deployment. Take Boston’s weather and the newsrooms that were on overdrive this winter reporting on record-breaking snowfall. They gave giddy daily updates of weekly fall comparing with data from the past 130 years.

Robotics and automated technologies have advanced mightily and replaced human hands in manufacturing and product distribution operations. More automation is on the way. In August 2014, NBC News reported that journalism is one of nine jobs to become obsolete, along with rescuers, babysitters, soldiers, astronauts, store clerks, drivers, paralegals, and pharmacists. To manage human behavior, the use of holograms and interactive avatars are becoming more commonplace as seen at Logan Airport’s TSA agents and with casino dealers at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas. In Japan, androids are newsreaders, greatly reducing the unforeseen impact of a major personality change, or the foibles of an established news anchor like Brian Williams.

Is there Room to Welcome the Technology?

One could argue that robots are being deployed to operate a part of journalism that most do not want to do, and at greater speed and accuracy. Few journalists want to scan mundane wired stories looking for a glimmer of a story. In truth, summarizing the day’s business earnings and writing business briefs can be a very dull job.

Where will the trend toward robotics in journalism end? Will having humans in the boardroom but less in the newsroom neutralize political polarization of TV networks and daily newspapers? Will the proliferation of robot journalism eliminate the distinctive styles and personalities of news reporting as it becomes more homogenous? Will drones be doing field reporting, particularly in global areas of unrest where reporting puts a journalist’s life at risk? Who is accountable for data errors? Does the news organization own the story or is the automated technology liable?

For PR professionals how will we adapt? Could this be a positive trend relieving journalists of mundane data crunching for a chance to write more creative, probing and judgment-sourced-based articles? Will we see more investigative or feature stories in the future? And frankly, how do we pitch a robot? Are there ways to sway an aggregate technology? No doubt, personal relationships will be lost in various news departments. How about phone or email a robot? It is hard enough to get a response from a journalist these days. Email has already replaced coveted phone and one-on-one relationships from long ago. The downside is reaching a journalist and a robot will become more difficult. The plus side is that robot journalism could improve PR client measurement reports with more business-statistical generated media coverage.

Data is a growth industry, as is CRM. How robots factor in how we source, consume and enjoy diverse news content is an unfolding story. What is the tipping point where the value of human journalistic qualities such as emotion, curiosity, passion, ingenuity, insight, relationships, trust, and experience, balance the scales against the goals of audience reach, efficiency and ROI? How will the pricing model adapt for the changes in content?

As we ponder these perspectives, perhaps it bodes well for the value and respect that journalists and bloggers hold for our profession. In the meantime, the next time you flip a page of an E-Reader magazine or find an infographic, look at the byline and ask: was this story created by a journalist, or by a robot? And how is the PR profession educating itself for the eventuality of needing to factor both possibilities?

Maryanne Keeney is a former past President of the Publicity Club of New England.

This was also printed by the Publicity Club of New England.

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My family recently purchased a new car. The car needed to fit a toddler, several surfboards and a lot of gear. We passed on minivans and SUVs. We dismissed Toyota vehicles after learning of its 1.3 million car recall (sudden acceleration issues) and we did not look at General Motors. The automaker cut costs that led to many accidents and fatalities. As a result, it was recently fined $35M and has a growing recall of 2.6 million vehicles. We bought a Ford and to our surprise, it was a black F-150 pickup. It holds everything and has a bit of rebel spirit. The automaker’s “Ford Tough” tagline and superior quality control were branding linchpins for us.

Reputation is everything. Brands spend years carving out perfect images, but in a minute, they can implode and set back a company for years. Gone are the days when Tim Allen’s voiceover swagger enticed drivers to purchase Chevys. General Motors ignored its own burgeoning crisis of defective ignition switches for a decade while accidents and deaths stacked up.

General Motor’s crisis stems from another era when issues were swept under the carpet. The automaker was made first aware in 2001 that its Saturn Ion’s ignitions were switching independently of drivers from ON to OFF or ACC. General Motors told dealers to replace them with more robust parts, but it did not conduct a recall. Even after many crashes, it failed to enact safety measures to protect its customers or reputation.

What will happen to this iconic American brand? Can it survive the federal investigations, media coverage, several class action lawsuits, and new victim compensation funds? Will consumers ever trust General Motors? New CEO Mary Barra is trying to do damage control.

• She has apologized and promised to take steps to improve General Motors’ future safety problems (we hope there are not more).
• She dismissed the mistakes and separated her leadership from the old “GM.” According to its annual report, the “New GM” values simplicity, agility and accountability. “There’s never been a greater need to change, and there’s never been a better time.” That is an understatement.
• The company appointed a new global head of vehicle safety and named a new VP in charge of global product integrity.
• It hired a team of product investigators to examine consumer complaints and warranty claims for potential product safety issues in vehicles.
• It is quickly replacing ignition switches in affected automobiles. As a result, General Motor’s dealers do not have enough loner cars for customers and are turning to rental car agencies to supplement.
• Customers who have not made the repairs yet have been told to not hang dangling keys from the ignition. That’s unrealistic.
• General Motors is to meet with regulators monthly and are mandated to report on every safety-related issue under consideration by the company and any communications with dealers.
• The automaker has kicked off an increased social media presence.

General Motors’ road to reputation recovery is long, complex and dependent on winning back the trust of its customers. It’s only in its infancy. More truths still need to come out. Did Barra know about the ignition switches when she was a high-ranking engineer? How involved was its suppliers? Social media is only one tactic of a needed proactive comprehensive communications strategy that addresses the safety concerns of customers and the public. General Motors has an opportunity to change history by being honest and transparent in all of its operations to alter public perception. Separating itself as the “New GM” that is customer and safety centric, is a first step toward re-emerging and staying on the road for years.

What steps would you suggest to repair General Motors reputation?

-Maryanne Keeney, MKPR, Principal

President, Publicity Club of New England