Ruby Media Group CEO Kristen Ruby was named Women Of Power Next Door’s April Woman of the Month. In her column, Kris shares her thoughts on failure, success, and how she lives life to the fullest.
Read Kris Ruby’s “Power Woman of the Month” column here.
Social Media Expert Kris Ruby speaks with Fox and Friends about the popularity of optical illusions on social media. The latest “cat on stairs” photo leaves us asking: is the cat going up or down the stairs? Also, is social media making us dumber? Watch Kris discuss what’s so interesting about these images on social media.
Tech trends Expert Kris Ruby on Cavuto “What The Tech?!” discussing the new Apple watch. Are you going to buy one?
Ruby Media Group President, Kristen Ruby, was so happy to lend her tech expertise to Neil Cavuto’s hit new segment, “What The Tech?!” Watch Kristen discuss Samsung’s $30K doghouse, Google’s over-the-top headquarters and Aston Martin debuting its first electric concept car below!
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Article by Jason Fell
For the full article link click here: http://entm.ag/1CJaFVj
For on-the-go entrepreneurs, finding love isn’t easy. When every waking hour is spent growing a business and chasing your dream, how the heck are you supposed to squeeze in time for anyone else? Even the most successful people in business discover that dating and romance can be a tricky task.
Just ask 28-year-old Kris Ruby, founder of New York City-based public relations firm Ruby Media Group. She and longtime friend Alex Goldman — an entrepreneur himself, having started Five Senses Catering in New York City — starred on Bravo’s Friends to Lovers TV show. The idea, unless the title gave it away, was to find out if friends could indeed develop a successful romantic relationship.
“I encouraged him to start his own business and was intrigued when he followed my direction and started his company,” Ruby tells Entrepreneur. “That piqued my interest.”
Over the course of about a year, Bravo’s TV crew followed Ruby and Goldman around Manhattan and Ruby’s hometown in Westchester County, N.Y., chronicling their path to love. Unfortunately, they weren’t destined to be more than just friends. Goldman eventually got back together with an ex-girlfriend, and Ruby is back to work and also working on herself — personally and as an entrepreneur.
“[The show] was a tremendous growing opportunity,” Ruby says. “I saw a lot of things I didn’t like about myself after the show and definitely want to focus on fixing those character defects.”
Here are five lessons Ruby learned from the show about being better personally and professionally:
Whether it’s a love interest or business client, people invest time and money with you and deserve your attention. You can’t fake it or put people off.
“This reality show took a year for me to film while I was simultaneously running an agency and doing TV news segments,” Ruby explains. “I thought I could juggle everything and keep clients happy while filming, but I learned that it was nearly impossible to do it all.”
Just like with personal relationships, if you let things build up in business relationships for too long without any attention, the relationship will sour. “I now realize that it’s the relationship that keeps the client happy in addition to all of the work. If you don’t keep up the personal relationship with your client, the business relationship will eventually fall apart,” Ruby says. “As my business coach Drew McLellan said, ‘Clients are a lot like boyfriends or girlfriends. They need a lot of tending to and love. No one wants to feel like they are not the most important thing in the world to you.'”
If you have trouble making or keeping commitments in your personal or dating life, you will most likely have the same issues in business. “I used to think there was such a separation between my personal life and business life,” Ruby says. “My business life was completely put together — my personal life needed a lot more work, as evidenced on the show.”
While finding true work-life balance can be difficult, Ruby believes entrepreneurs should have stability and happiness in their personal lives, otherwise that imbalance “will pour over and your clients will eventually feel it.”
As a PR and social-media strategist, Ruby is often on her smartphone texting, tweeting and sending emails. But even in this always-on, hyper-connected world, in-person communication trumps digital messages when it comes to keeping clients (and love interests) engaged and happy.
“I was totally wrong on this one and thought texting and emailing would suffice. … I learned my lesson,” Ruby says. “Clients need real in-person love and just texting will get you canned. You actually make it harder on yourself and the relationship by turning it into a long distance relationship when it doesn’t have to be.”
Just because you may be successful in one area of your life — such as your business — it doesn’t mean success in your personal life will come easy.
“People automatically assume that if you are a woman in business who has reached a certain level of success, you have everything together,” Ruby says. “As leaders, we need to come out and admit that we don’t always have it together.
“Even if every episode did not show my most glowing moments,” she continues, “I at least showed other women that you can be successful in one area of your life and totally unsuccessful in other areas — in my case, love.”
In many ways, romantic relationships mirror professional ones. When a client wants to talk about the future or go in a different direction, you are about to be fired, Ruby says.
“Break ups with clients can hurt just as much as personal relationship break ups,” she says. “If a client wants to move on, you can’t force them to tell you why. You have to accept that you don’t control the situation and move on.”
Ruby Media Group Founder Kris Ruby was thrilled to do a LIVE segment on CNBC from The New York Stock Exchange. During the segment, Ruby discussed her top tech predictions in the market. As a 28 year old growth oriented investor, her focus was on buying for future gains. To watch the full segment, click here
With Tinder becoming one of the most popular forms of online dating, will tiered payment costs defer users from continuing to use the dating app?
Today Tinder launched a premium service called Tinder Plus. Users in the U.S. between 18-20 will have to pay $9.99 per month, and users 30+ will have to pay $19.99 per month. Tinder plus offers users the ability to have unlimited likes, rewind when swiping and even change your location to anywhere in the world with the passport feature.
But is the price for Tinder Plus really worth it?
The passport feature that allows you to change your location while traveling is helpful for those looking to create real world connections wherever they go before they get there. This is great for avid travelers or those looking to make new friends, but isn’t a feature worth paying for. The rewind feature that allows you to go back on a match is helpful but also not worth paying for. When have you ever thought, that was the love of my life I swiped past, I wish I paid money to be able to swipe them again?
But the biggest issue with Tinder’s new rollout isn’t the features- it is the age-based pricing tier model they adopted. This is Tinder’s first attempt at monetization, and the PR component of this launch was handled very poorly.
In an email to Bloomberg Business, Tinder spokeswoman Rosette Pambakian justified the price points by saying “lots of products offer differentiated price tiers by age, like Spotify does for students, for example. Tinder is no different; during our testing we’ve learned, not surprisingly, that younger users are just as excited about Tinder Plus, but are more budget constrained, and need a lower price to pull the trigger.”
Tinder is trying to get an older subset of the population to subsidize the cost of operations of their core users. As Jessica Goldstein pointed out, Tinder is still not solving the basic problem of getting core users to pay for themselves. But that is only one of many problems for Tinder. Their CEO has already made headlines (and not in a good way). As a woman, this is one more check against wanting to use Tinder knowing you have to pay more after you reach the ripe old age of 30.
When I went to Santa Monica recently, I stopped on the pier and wanted to take a touristy photo. The salesman asked me, “Where are you from?” When I said New York, he said it would be $10 for the photo. The Malibu native I was with said, “Wait a second, I was just here last week and the photo was only $5.”
Sizing up your customer base and charging them based on what you think they are willing to pay vs. a standardized rate is wrong. If Tinder wants to charge users for a premium experience, I have no issue with it. But at least charge everyone the same price. The price for finding love in this country should not have to literally double the second you turn 30.
This Valentine’s Day, The National Retail Federation expects the average per person spending to top $142.31 this year, up 6.3% from expenditures in 2014.
So, how can you use social media to get a portion of the increased sales? Here are some last minute tips for retailers to leverage social media this Valentine’s Day:
Tips
It’s a new year, which means there is a whole new set of PR and marketing trends to look out for when planning your campaigns! Instead of sifting through all of the trends, we have done the work for you! Here are some of the top marketing & PR trends to consider as you lay out your 2015 PR plan:
1) Mobile is continuing to grow
As of 2014, 58% of Americans own a smartphone, which means 58% of the population has immediate access to the Internet right in the palm of their hands. To keep up with this trend, marketers must optimize their brands for mobile. Having your own and mobile friendly content is necessary to keep up with consumers needs.
2) Real Time Marketing is the optimal time to market effectively
Real time marketing is no longer just a good idea, but necessary for any successful communications plan. Due to the increased use and adoption of social media, responding in real time to customers will be a necessary function of B2C marketing.
3) Visual Content is the New King
Today’s social media-dominated society is seeing a steady increase in the popularity of visual content marketing. Studies have shown that 90% of the information the brain receives is visual, and our brains process visual content up to 60,000x faster than text. Posts containing, photos, videos, infographics and memes are easy to digest and make it even more enticing to “like” or “share” a post, which increases exposure.
4) Standard, text heavy press releases are going to become obsolete
Visual content in press releases is becoming more popular rather than text-dense press releases. Use visuals to cut through the expected press release mold and stand out.
5) Mom’s are a hot demographic to target
There are 82.5 million Moms in the U.S. who spend roughly $2.5 trillion annually. Do not underestimate the buying power of Mom’s! More women are becoming the financial managers of their household and using this information to make smart purchasing decisions. Think about how your brand can help a busy mother save time to appeal to this target demo.
6) Quality brand content beats out quantity
As always, quality supersedes quantity. You are better off having a handful of high quality content, than then releasing daily posts that will seem like white noise to your followers. spam to your followers.
7) The paid, earned and owned strategy is still relevant
With a well thought out strategy, paid media is still critical. Just because social media makes content more accessible, does not mean that the public has forgotten about traditional forms of media. Your overall PR plan should include an integrated communications plan for maximum exposure.
To read the full article by Amy Partridge in 914INC. Magazine, click here
“If you’re more likely to tune into CNBC during your off hours, there’s a local element to Friends to Lovers? that might pique your interest: Westchester native and previous 914INC Wunderkind Kris Ruby is one of the show’s stars. Plus, one of the upcoming episodes (the show airs Monday nights at 10 pm) features some familiar Westchester sights. Ruby says she was so focused on building her PR firm (with good results; the 27-year-old is a leading on-air social media commentator) that she didn’t think much about a potential love match. Shooting a show about her private life has been challenging for the “all-business” Ruby. “It has definitely been good exposure for my business so more people on a national scale can see our social media and PR service offering. But doing the show was a tough decision for me to make… this was definitely outside of my comfort zone,” she explains. “Sharing anything about my personal life and exposing that side of my life felt like a huge risk.”
While at Westchester Magazine’s Burger and Beer Blast (Ruby Media Group was hired to increase social media buzz and engagement at the event), Ruby discovers some “digital compatibility” issues (yes, apparently, that is a thing) with Goldman.
She leaves us with this cliffhanger: “Will Alex support me at Burger Bash by posting selfies and using the hashtag we came up with? Or will he be anti-social-media at my event?”
