6 PR Takeaways from a 100th Birthday Party in the Philippines

Recently, I made a long international journey from Washington State to Manila, Philippines. The purpose of the trip was to celebrate my grandfather’s 100th birthday and spend time with my relatives for a family reunion, which made it all worth the combined 64 hours of traveling it took to get there and back home. These 64 hours gave me lots of time to think, read, binge-watch television and come up with the following six PR takeaways. Read on to find out what I learned from the trip.

6 PR Takeaways from a 100th Birthday Party in the Philippines

1. Celebrate Milestones

There was excitement in the air when I arrived in Manila and reunited with my family members; we were all overjoyed that the reason we were there was to celebrate my grandfather’s 100^th birthday! It is an amazingly impressive milestone to have lived that much life, and I’m so glad I could be there to celebrate, hear the stories and see all of the photos from throughout his impressive journey.

Celebrating milestones brings people together, and you should incorporate this into your public relations strategy to pique peoples’ human interest. When your business celebrates an anniversary, share about it! Better yet, turn it into an event that your clients and customers can be a part of.

At Three Girls Media, we celebrated our 10^th business anniversary last year by holding a staff retreat. Since we are all located in different locations, it was a great way to bring all of the team members together and get to know each other even better. We also took pictures, created a hashtag and shared about it on social media so our clients and fans could share in the excitement. Learn more about how we leveraged our recent milestone here in this article.

2. Honor Your Past

Part of our family reunion and birthday party included a photo slideshow of old pictures from when my grandparents, parents and even I were growing up. It was so touching to see my grandparents’ faces light up when they were reminded about past vacations or their children’s early birthday parties.

Honoring and remembering the past is an important part of human life, and people are naturally drawn to their history. Keep this in mind as you craft a blogging or social media strategy; you may want to include updates showing your company’s past and how far you’ve come to get where you are today. Your customers will appreciate that you respect the past and are proud of your accomplishments over the years. Capitalize on hashtags like #ThrowbackThursday for maximum exposure.

3. Create a Tagline or Hashtag

While you can use a variety of hashtags to capitalize on daily or weekly trends, you should also create a tagline or hashtag that’s specific to your business or event. For our Filipino reunion, we used “Adan@100” and put the tagline on t-shirts to separate the event from others. Not only did it create a sense of camaraderie throughout our big, blended family who visited from all over the world, it also clearly stated the reason we were all together: to celebrate my grandpa’s 100^th birthday!

Each time you have an event, a new promotion or an exciting new product, you should create a custom hashtag about it! Here are three good reasons to do so:

1. You’ll See Increased Engagement:

   Encourage your event attendees to use a custom hashtag during and after the event; it helps them to get involved and helps promote interactive fan engagement. You can also live-tweet or post during the event to add to your live feed; this will help you showcase attendees’ social media posts that contain your custom hashtag.

2. It’s Hassle-Free Publicity:

   Capturing each moment of an event is nearly impossible, especially for large-scale functions or if you don’t have a designed social media manager who is responsible for live-posting. You can use social media more effectively by providing your attendees with a hashtag that will allow them photograph moments from the event and share them with their own followers on social media. This will expand your event’s reach to many more users on social platforms, and can provide you with access to a new audience you were previously unable to reach.

3. You’ll Be Able to See Instant Feedback:

   Getting event attendees to respond to a post-event survey or respond to your recap emails can be a daunting task, especially with larger events. However, a custom hashtag will allow you to stay on top of everything happening at an event as it occurs via social media. As attendees post messages and photos from the event, you will also be able to engage with them long after the party is over. Consider following attendees who used social media throughout the event to strengthen the relationship with your audience. Social media interactions via likes, shares, shout-outs and posts are a two-way street!

4. Brand Your Content

Not only were our family reunion t-shirts branded with the Adan@100 tagline, but I also encountered another genius version of branded content via the airplane’s onboard entertainment system. I was thankful for the mini TV screens in the back of the seats in front of us, especially since the flights were so long!

One thing I noticed was that while much of the content provided were relatively newly released TV shows and movies, a lot of the content was specifically branded for American Airlines. It provided behind-the-scenes looks into popular TV shows with actor commentary and this struck me as an excellent way to infuse your content with your brand’s personality.

5. Know Your Time Zone

To get to Asia from North America, the best way to fly is across the Pacific Ocean. When we had passed the tail-end of Alaska, the flight attendants announced that we had just crossed the International Date Line. This meant we had now “traveled through time” (if you will) and were now living a day ahead of when we had left. It reminded me of how important it is to communicate times and dates within the correct time zone.

This PR takeaway may sound silly, but it’s actually one of the most common mistakes when doing business with people across multiple time zones. Always double check times; you wouldn’t want your client or yourself to call in to an interview at the wrong time, or send off a press release before the embargo had been lifted due to a miscommunication in timing.

6. Learn from Airports

It was a long journey; all the time I spent in airports and airplanes taught me the following 6 lessons:

1. Be Prepared:

   The rules of air travel are clearly laid out; there’s a three-ounce restriction for liquids, having to take your shoes off at security and always remembering to bring the right identification. Just like you should be ready for takeoff as soon as you reach the airport, you should be ready with your public relations plan before the campaign officially kicks off. Be sure to prepare your tactics and events well in advance so you’re ready for your publicity to soar.

2. Once You Post, You Can’t Go Back:

   Once you’ve boarded the plane, you can’t return to the airport for any reason; you should also remember that you can’t take back content once you’ve published it. Be sure to proofread everything and remove mistakes before posting, so you’re always putting your best foot forward. If you find that you’ve made a mistake, make sure you have a crisis communications planin place to help mitigate the damage.

3. Be Nice to Competitors:

   Since they are all vying to fill their seats with the same travelers, airlines work hard to create loyal customers. They share common space at the airport, as competitors, and manage to work together peacefully side by side. You don’t see an “American-Airlines-Only” airport, so use this as a PR lesson to cooperate and learn from your competitors, respectfully. Don’t badmouth your competition on social media platforms; that’s bad form and will give your brand a negative reputation.

4. Stay Current:

   Recently, many major airports have been renovating their buildings to prepare for larger crowds of travelers. These new renovations often feature hip restaurants and specialty shopping areas. By listening to what your audience is interested in and accommodating their needs, you will create a loyal group of followers and even happier customers. In your social media campaigns, it’s important to keep up-to-date on current trends in order to create content your audience is currently searching for, and has shown an interest in.

5. Expect the Unexpected:

   Since airports are such crowded and hectic locations, remember to expect the unexpected when you begin your trip. By preparing yourself for anything that could go wrong, and knowing how you will react, you’ll save yourself a headache once you reach the terminal. Likewise, in your public relations campaign, be sure to strengthen your crisis communications planjust in case your message isn’t received as planned.

6. Be Early:

   Showing up early for your scheduled flight is the best way to make sure your travel plans go off without a hitch. Arriving early means you’ll be less rushed when going through ticketing, checking your luggage and security checkpoints. If you’re early with your public relations efforts, you’ll also be more likely to succeed. Be aware of lead times for various media outlets and send pitches to reporters well in advance of their deadline to really stand out amongst the crowd.

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to travel to the Philippines and celebrate my grandpa’s 100^th birthday! The long time I spent traveling also helped me strengthen my public relations approach. If you’d like to help your business’ publicity soar, we would love to help! Contact us today for more information. In the meantime, be sure to check out these other helpful articles:

3 Public Relations Lessons from Vacation

Building a Crisis Management Plan

Social Media Strategy Tips from A Vacation Planner

 

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