Written by PeaceHealth Rides account team members, Cole Garry, Kimberly Duyck, Karel Calcote, Camille Furby and Camila Contreras Merlo Flores.
At the end of last month, Allen Hall Public Relations client PeaceHealth Rides, formerly known as Eugene Bike Shares, announced their rebrand and partnership with PeaceHealth. The bike share company, which is set to launch in April, will make Eugene the smallest bike share community in the county. Our team worked with PeaceHealth and an outside event planning company to develop the rebranding event, and led the PeaceHealth Rides social media effort. Here are five tips we discovered useful for a successful rebranding event:
Assign Roles
The day of a rebranding event calls for a great deal of running around, so grab your Nike’s or Adidas! To save your brain and your feet, assign roles to each team member to avoid overlap. Efficiency is crucial, especially when social media gets mixed into the equation. If keeping up with social is a main concern, parcel out the various platforms to each teammate. One thing we’ve found to be very useful is to have someone with advanced writing skills proofread and approve all written content. No one wants to start a rebrand with typos.
Photo and video
You can never have too many visuals to work with. Through creating a strategy, assigning different picture and video opportunities to team members is a great way to make sure you have all the content you need to engage your followers, both during the event and in the following days. In addition, assigning team members to certain platforms helps keep everyone on track when it comes time to posting content. For example, those assigned to Instagram would focus on using the story feature to post live content, while those on Twitter would have roles centered around live tweeting. Know the big moments and what you are looking for going in, so that when the opportunity arises, your team is ready.
Preparation
Considering that your organization has probably been using social media handles under its former name (or perhaps not at all), it is important you have your new names and content ready when you are preparing to rebrand. Prior to your event, create an event-specific social media plan, so that your team knows what to post and how often to post it. Plan out what content you anticipate getting – the types of stories for Instagram, the kinds of posts you’ll have on Facebook, and the number of tweets you want. By having the platforms pre-logged in on everyone’s devices and anticipating digital content, your rebranding should go off without a hitch.
Media coverage
It’s crucial that the community knows about your rebrand event. Having media at the event is the most surefire way to do this. In the weeks leading up to the rebrand event, you and your team should create media lists for various outlets that would be interested in your client’s work. After creating media lists, reach out to them individually and pitch your client to them. Create a media alert for your event and send it to media members with enough time for them to plan (this will change depending on the size of your target demographic). Lastly, draft a news release and be prepared to send it immediately following your event.
Day-of professionalism
Think of your rebranding event like a job interview for your company. This is your new brand’s first opportunity to make a new impression, and you cannot let it go to waste. Be prepared with plenty of press kits, and make sure everyone on your team knows their way around your venue. Know when and where your client will be available for interviews. Take charge of your event – direct press and audience where they need to go and keep things moving, but don’t become the overbearing communications guru who has their fingers on everything – ultimately, this is the time for your brand to shine.