C. Blohm & Associates

Each week we’ll feature a Q&A with one member of our dynamic team. CB&A is an agency that values its employees, and we hope you enjoy learning a bit more about the people behind the PR.

Lauren is an Account Coordinator at CB&A. She joined the team in May 2011.

Dogs or cats? Neither…I’m not really a pet person. I’m not heartless though, I swear!

Morning or night person? Definitely morning. I always had to get up early to beat my sister to the shower.

What’s the best PR advice that fits inside a tweet? Find a way to say it, without saying it.

If days suddenly lasted 25 hours, what you do with the extra hour? Hmm…I’d probably eat a big fancy breakfast before work everyday.

Which book have you read recently? I just started “The Social Animal” by David Brooks, but recently I finished “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. It’s an awesome read, but also kind of creepy–check out this article for a teaser.

What was your favorite subject in elementary school? In elementary school I loved computer class because we got to play Oregon Trail if we finished our typing assignments early.

What’s the most-played song on your iPod right now? “The Motto” by Drake and Lil Wayne. I’m a huge sucker for hip-hop.

If you weren’t in PR, what would you be doing? Probably in grad school studying English, hoping to eventually become a professor. Or, owning my own bar.

What was the first thing you learned to cook? The first “real” thing I learned to cook was tacos, probably when I was around 10. I still don’t really know how to cook much else.

Favorite condiment? BBQ sauce, on everything.

What’s your favorite sport and team? Even though I grew up in Illinois and went to college in Minnesota, I’ll always love the Packers.

If you could have dinner with your favorite literary character or author, who would you choose? Ernest Hemingway. He seems like a cool dude.

UW-Madison: great university or greatest university? I love my alma mater, Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota! But even I recognize that there’s no place like The Terrace.

Cards For Teachers Badge

“Columbus sailed the ocean blue, 6 x 7 is 42.” I remember reciting that and many other clever sayings when learning my times table in second grade. Even as an adult, I find myself repeating those sayings in my head, and think back to my second grade teacher who helped me when I was struggling with multiplication. Educators like her, who forever impact a student’s life, even in the smallest of ways through multiplication sayings, deserve to be recognized for what they do.

From May 7 through May 31, students, former students and parents have the opportunity to say “thanks a latte” to teachers and school staff with StudyBlue’s Cards For Teachers annual recognition program.

Cards For Teachers Program

StudyBlue, the mobile and digital study service, encourages students to visit the Cards For Teachers site and send digital thank-you messages to teachers and school staff who have made a difference in their lives. Students can simply visit the site to fill out and personalize the thank-you note. The recognized teacher then receives the thank-you message, along with a digital badge they can proudly display on their blog and several of the most popular social media sites.

“Thanks a Latte”

From those recognized, StudyBlue will randomly select 300 educators to receive a free $5 latte gift card at the end of the month. Let’s face it – with the long hours educators put in each day, they will appreciate the extra caffeine boost. Plus, they will also appreciate hearing the kind words of gratitude for their efforts.

So, take the time to visit www.cardsforteachers.studyblue.com and thank that second grade teacher for teaching you the catchy times table sayings.

CB&A was founded on the belief that all students deserve a quality education. Each day we strive to uphold our guiding principles and passion for education to achieve visibility for the clients we serve. When expanding the CB&A team, we look for dynamic, talented and passionate individuals who share these same values.

On that note, we would like to welcome Account Executive Betsy Francoeur and Account Coordinator Katie Steil to the team. Betsy and Katie’s passion for education is evident, and their diverse experiences will be instrumental in helping our clients succeed.

As Account Executive, Betsy will use her communication, writing and social media skills to accomplish client goals and oversee client initiatives. Betsy graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse with a Bachelor of Science degree in public relations. Upon graduating, she was named Wisconsin’s 57th Alice in Dairyland and visited hundreds of classrooms throughout the state to educate students about the nutritional value and variety of Wisconsin food products. Afterwards, Betsy held public relations positions at two Milwaukee-area agencies.

In her role as Account Coordinator, Katie will be responsible for assisting the President and Account Executives with tasks such as writing news releases, managing CB&A social media accounts and drafting media communications. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism (with an emphasis in public relations) from the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Previously, Katie served as a marketing specialist in the electronic security industry, where she promoted the importance of video surveillance and other security systems in schools.

Please join us in welcoming Betsy and Katie to the CB&A team!

The ninth annual Ed Tech Industry Summit (ETIS), hosted by Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), will be held on May 6-8 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. ETIS is the nation’s leading education technology conference, and the Summit will be featuring sessions on topics specific to “bridging K-12 and postsecondary,” including a special emphasis on gaming.

Conference attendees will have the opportunity to participate in sessions, and learn more about industry trends such as social media, and technology in the education marketplace. The Ed Tech Industry Summit offers education industry professionals the chance to network with thought leaders throughout the industry, and share tools for success.

Charlene Blohm and two of CB&A’s clients will be speaking on panels at the 2012 Ed Tech Industry Summit, and we’ll be sharing updates from the conference on our blog. You also can follow @CharleneBlohm for live coverage. Recommended keynotes and panel discussions include:

Using Social Media Marketing to Connect with Customers and Increase Sales – Monday, May 7 at 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

You’ve been told Social Media is a must, but where should you start? A panel of social media experts will help you determine what social networks are best for your company, and how to incorporate them into your overall marketing strategy. To understand the power of social media, it’s helpful to see examples of best practices for K-12 and higher education. Whether you tweet, blog or just want to attract more customers to your website, learn why social media needs to be an integral part of your sales and marketing strategy.

Moderator:
Glen McCandless, President, Focus Marketing

Panelists:
Charlene Blohm, President, C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Mrs. Brandi Heinz Brown, Social Media and E-commerce Manager, ETA Hand2Mind
Ileana Rowe, Principal, Corporate Growth
Mitchell Weisburgh, Managing Partner, Academic Business Advisors, LLC

Workshop: Media & Message Training Bootcamp – Tuesday, May 8 at 7:00 a.m. – 8:15 a.m. (Limited space.) Register: http://www.siia.net/etis/2012/invite.asp

During this Media & Message Training Bootcamp, participants will work together to craft core key messages for their own organizations and programs. Attendees will have the chance to practice delivering those messages in an interview setting using techniques that help company spokespersons (or VIPs) address any interviewers most difficult questions. Through this session, experienced media professionals will share messaging best practices and delivery recommendations.

Co-presenters:
Charlene Blohm, President, C. Blohm & Associates, Inc.
Linda Winter, President/Owner, Winter Group

Breakout Session: Adapting to the Seismic Change in Education Culture – Tuesday, May 8 at 9:30 a.m. – 10:30 a.m.

As all subject areas across both K-12 and Higher Ed education are experiencing transformational changes in the culture of education, the need for businesses to adapt with this vast digital shift is critical. In this session, a panel of industry gurus will be discussing the ways in which successful businesses recreate themselves in times of great change.

Moderator:
Randy Wilhelm, Chief Executive Officer, Knovation (formerly netTrekker)

Panelists:
Farb Nivi, Founder, Grockit
Justin Serrano, President, Kaplan K12 and College Prep, Kaplan K12 Learning Services
David Straus, Vice President Product, Kno, Inc.

Hot Topic Breakout Session: It’s All About the Data -Tuesday, May 8 at 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Seasoned industry professionals will be providing their perspectives and analyses of the size of the education technology market segments. They will discuss trends in K12 and higher education, and answers the questions, “What are U.S. school districts and college campuses buying and why?”

Panelists:
John Reese, Executive Chairman, Parchment
Robert Resnick, President, Education Market Research
John Richards, President, Consulting Services for Education

We hope to see you at there! If you can’t attend the event, feel free to stay connected by following us on Twitter @cblohmassoc, or join the conversation by using #ETIS12.

To register for the conference, visit: http://www.siia.net/etis/2012/register.asp. For the full conference schedule, visit: http://siia.net/etis/2012/schedule.asp.

CB&A is passionate about the value of education and giving all children a chance to succeed. We achieve visibility for our clients by sharing the positive stories that occur in classrooms around the country each day. These quality principles are part of CB&A’s DNA, and our team endeavors to uphold them at every turn.

With that in mind, we’re pleased to announce the promotions of Emily Embury and Martha Jacobs. Emily and Martha exemplify CB&A’s core values on a daily basis, and their skills and contributions are invaluable to our clients’ success.

Congratulations to Emily and Martha on their recent promotions!

Emily has been appointed Senior Account Executive, and Martha has been named Administrative and Project Coordinator.

As Senior Account Executive, Emily will take on a greater role in supporting client visibility goals, managing team members and training staff. Emily joined CB&A in 2004 and earned a promotion to Account Executive in 2007. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism and women’s studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

In her new role, Martha will gain additional responsibilities related to coverage tracking and analysis, event planning, client support, and business development. Martha began her career with CB&A as PR Specialist in 2007. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in marketing from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.

Please join us in congratulating Emily and Martha on their accomplishments and continued success at CB&A!

It’s hard to believe I’ve been out of college for almost a year. Well, sort of halfway out of college. I moved to Madison last May and chose an apartment complex on UW-Madison’s frat row—partly because rent was reasonable, and partly because of its proximity to downtown Madison and all its spoils. This past year, while I’ve been adjusting to “adult life”, my neighbors have been reveling in college immaturity with loud nights, game day fun and lots of hip-hop dance parties. Sometimes, when I arrive home to students playing bags in the street, or have to elbow some freshman frat boy out of the way for a parking spot, I feel more like I’m still in college than a professional working woman.

This is part of the reason why I chose to take a class last semester. With all those students running around, it made me remember what I missed most about school—the excitement of learning something new. So, I researched some classes and stumbled across one that specialized in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies.

I learned A TON during the eight week class, including some super useful (and simple) ways to boost your SEO. Here’s some of the best tips and tricks I learned, along with links to free resources so you can check out your own SEO prowess.

Spiders are your friend

Search engines use spiders to provide up-to-date data to their search results. Spiders crawl your webpages looking for information, identifying your keywords, hyperlinks, and much more. Without spiders, search engine results would not exist!

You can see how spiders see you website by visiting: www.feedthebot.com/tools/spider/index.php

Keywords are your good friend

In order for spiders to recognize keywords on your site, the content must be in HTML format; search engines do not automatically recognize images, flash files, Java applets and other non-text items. It’s also important to find the right sequence of keywords that makes the most sense for your site. For example, there are more people searching the web every month for ”education PR” than “public relations for education.”

You can use Google Adwords to gauge the popularity of certain keywords:

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS

And then see where your site ranks when using certain those keywords:

http://sitereportcard.com/checkranking/

Anchor text is your best friend

Anchor text is any text on your website that is linked, whether to outside sources or other pages of your own website. Spiders identify anchor text as more important than non-linked text, so it is vital that your desired keywords are hyperlinked to pages that emphasize that keyword. For example, “Services” is a poor example of anchor text, as it doesn’t give any detail as to what the services might actually be. “Public Relations and Marketing Services” would be much better, as it contains specific keywords relevant to the content of your site.

Be sure to check back soon for Part 2 of From Frat Row to SEO—Title Tags, Headers and more!

On April 22, more than one billion people around the globe will participate in Earth Day 2012 and help Mobilize the Earth™. For over 40 years, Earth Day has served as a launching platform for community action, environmental advocacy, and green lifestyle changes.

To support A Billion Acts of Green®, a campaign initiated by the Earth Day Network encouraging people to undertake acts of environmental service, the C. Blohm & Associates team pledges to volunteer to plant food for the Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens. We hope that this opportunity will offer support to our local community while making a positive impact on our planet Earth through sustainable practices.

Volunteers in Dane County, Wisconsin work to provide fresh produce
to the St. Vincent de Paul food pantry.

The mission of Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens is to feed the hungry in the Madison (WI) area by providing food pantries with fresh, nutritious vegetables. The organization supplies about 100,000 lbs. of produce through maintenance of six gardens annually, and each hour of volunteer work results in 50 lbs. of fresh produce. About 18 percent of people in the Madison community live in poverty and often can’t afford to include enough vegetables in their diet. (Source: www.porchlightinc.org)

To learn more about Earth Day and how you can contribute, check out this video.

How are you celebrating Earth Day 2012? We would love to hear about your pledge!

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