News Articles

Is it Time to Embrace the Social Media Faker

Tue, May 21 2013

There’s this guy. He’s become very popular in the “social business” space. He annoys the crap out of me. He tweets nothing unique, mainly just quotes and platitudes of the type that are very retweetable. He writes nothing original, mainly just articles geared to appeal to the masses but without much actual substance.

He has a PR mission for the company he works for, to become known and by proxy make his company be perceived as a social business. He preaches authenticity and transparency but then has all of the employee Twitter accounts set to automatically tweet links to his posts and retweet him. The PR machine gets him onto the right lists, the right panels, the right interviews, the right blogs. They create progressive stunts to get attention.

Why does this bother me so much?

Am I jealous of that attention? I can honestly say “no” to that. What does bother me is that people buy it. Hook, line, and sinker.

It seems crazy to me that someone who has actually done very little for his company in regards to actual change, or even progressive thought for that matter, can become a leading voice for the movement of which I’m a part. It makes me feel like the things that actually matter to me, like the hard work of organizational transformation, are being belittled or devalued.

But here’s the thing. I tend to analyze the things that annoy me, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’m wrong about this “charlatan” view that I have.

First off, by all accounts he is a nice guy. People I know and trust seem to like him at least.

Second, there’s no question that this is an “inauthentic” approach, but maybe this is one of those situations where if you say something loud enough, and long enough, you begin to create change by the very fact that you then are forced to become the thing that you say you already are … or risk exposure? The whole “fake it till you make it” thing?

Is faking it OK?

Is there value in that? Am I being too harsh in my judgement of this guy and others like him? Sure, he seems more concerned about image than reality at the moment, but maybe that will help to create a better reality later on?

I’ll never be in love with this approach, and yes it will probably always annoy me when people value what I consider the “wrong” things in this profession. But that’s just life, and I can’t apply my own values to everyone else. It can’t be my mission to be the white knight out there trying to protect the masses from the snake oil. There are already plenty of those people out there and frankly I find them just as annoying. Let’s face it, even this post it can be taken as a form of condescension and elitism. “I’m smarter than you so let me warn you away from your own stupidity”.

The bottom line is that there are things that I wish didn’t work. There are things that make me question my own values and what I’m willing to sacrifice in the name of “success.”

Cognitive dissonance is a bitch, isn’t it? What are your thoughts on the subject?

Matt is a co-founder and CEO of Sidera Works, a marketing and organizational development consulting practice. His work over the last 10 years has focused primarily in developing innovation cultures, change management initiatives, and specialized market research. Follow Matt at @techguerilla.

This article was originally posted by Matt Ridings on the 13 of May 2013, at Grow.

10 Traits Every Leader Should Have

Mon, May 20 2013

Most of us are pretty good at recognising an extraordinary leader when we meet one. The millions of ordinary people who make great leaders have a high focus on practicalities, solutions and results.

Throughout my long career training and coaching leaders, I’ve been blessed to meet many great ones. One was the president of a nation, another a minister of religion working in the slums, a front-line supervisor in a large manufacturing facility in a Western country and another, a close relative.

Each time I’ve immediately known I’m in the presence of someone great. It’s for this reason I share with you my top learnings from extraordinary leaders I’ve worked with.

Here are 10 traits of extraordinary leaders; does the person who leads you demonstrate these skills and values or do you as a leader of people?

1. Unafraid of recognising feelings

They are not afraid to have feelings and let these feelings along with their logic inform their decisions. They also know when to and how to decide without being overly influenced by these same feelings – those occasions when detachment and clear thought must guide their actions.

2. Expect change and embrace it

Extraordinary leaders understand they operate within complex environments that are continually changing. Of this they are certain. They embrace change, know that random chance and opportunity are constant companions, and stay flexible and agile.

3. Relationships and trust are crucial

They recognise and accept the trust is critical to effective leadership and know this is achieved through forming relationships with colleagues and subordinates, superiors and stakeholders in a way that is truly authentic: as a whole person and as a role.

Relationship building is just as important as anything else they do and good leaders will spend time talking, cajoling, persuading, negotiating, reminding and supporting others,

4. Listen to their inner voice

They have a deep awareness of their inner guide and their own set of values, ethics and principles. Each decision is made based on these principles and they use these to guide their behaviour and the organisations they lead.

5. Stay on message

These leaders always give a consistent message, re-iterating on every occasion the same few consistent themes, values or perspectives.

6. Be present

They turn up, are fully aware and take detailed notice of what is happening around them. Blackberries, iPhones and SMS messages are confined to other times and places: when they are not with you!

7. Guides not control freaks

Extraordinary leaders accept that they’re not in control. They know they can’t control for outcomes but they are passionate and enthusiastic about guiding people to achieve them. The key to their effectiveness is the way they build an agreed set of principles and behaviours to guide the decision-making of those they lead.

8. No-one is extra special and everyone is developed

Extraordinary leaders place a high value on developing each employee as both a professional and a person. No one individual is more special, as the leader places the same value on each person that works for them.

9. See the trees and the forest

Extraordinary leaders can dive in to a single inconsistent cell in a spreadsheet and in the next breath notice a deep and inconsistent pattern or large-scale consequence. They process big patterns and small details simultaneously.

10. Get down and dirty

A client of mine is the GM of a large hotel – in the first week on the job he donned the uniforms and did a day as a bellhop, another a room cleaner and another as a waiter in one of its restaurants.

Extraordinary leaders are as comfortable around the boardroom table as they are on the mine site or the assembly line and employees can tell stories of the memorable occasions when their leader spent time with them and was familiar with their world, no matter what level of the organisation they work in.

There is no magic formula for extraordinary leadership, no recipe that will guide you in baking the perfect leadership cake for yourself, no set of rules that you can follow to be a perfect leader, but when we do see greatness in a leader most of can recognise it easily. What is not so easy is spelling out what it actually is.

These ten characteristics have been present in all the extraordinary leaders I have met.

This article was originally published by Tim Dalmau on the 15th of May 2013, at Dynamic Business.

10 Steps for Managing an Online Crisis

Fri, May 17 2013

In 2006, Wal-Mart was caught red-handed cheating its way through the Internet to receive attention.

Its PR firm hired actors to pretend they were traveling the country in an RV, visiting Wal-Mart locations as they drove, and blogging about their experience.

This was before anyone really realized how the social Web works, and many organizations were taking some risk to figure it out.

But in 2013? In 2013, there are many experts out there in the world who know what happens when you give a customer, an employee, or a journalist or a blogger a megaphone.

And yet…

Companies stepping in it

Wal-Mart was once again embroiled in a scandal—this time it involved bribing Mexican authorities to receive permits and to do business in the country. And then again when its PR firm (a different one from 2006) posed as journalists at a news conference to try to persuade union workers to allow them to open a store in Chinatown in Los Angeles.

Unfortunately, it's not just Wal-Mart that deals with online crisis and scandals that put them on the front page of The New York Times and every mainstream blog.

Other examples abound: Applebee's, Susan G. Komen, Penn State, Carnival Cruise Lines, and, most recently, Rutgers University.

If it seems that this is happening more and more, that's because it is. The Web provides a way for stories like this to spread like grassfire. And it's not good.

It used to be you'd hire a PR firm and have them write a crisis plan that was then put in the drawer and revisited once a year. An online crisis plan wasn't even considered.

Now? Now a crisis can erupt in mere seconds if someone has a bad experience with your organization.

Ten steps for managing an online crisis

1. Act swiftly. Perhaps you sell capital equipment or professional services or product packaging. Surely your organization doesn't have any issues. In today's digital world, an employee could say something racist online. A customer could have it out for you and spread lies through their Facebook page. A competitor might engage in whisper campaigns against you. The only way to win at that game is to be prepared, have a communications expert on your team (or have one on speed dial), and act swiftly. Not in a week, not in a month, not in three months. That same day.

2. Address the problem. It's no fun having to come out and say you screwed up or something bad has happened or you made a mistake. It kind of sucks, actually, but it's the only way to prevent a crisis. It's amazing how two little words work as well as they do: I'm sorry. Not, "I'm sorry, but…" Just, "I'm sorry."

3. Communicate the story. When a story gets out of control is when you haven't told your side and people begin to speculate. Like with Tiger Woods when the tabloids were speculating he was going in and out of a sex addiction clinic (he wasn't): He hadn't told his side so they began to make things up based on what little information they had.

4. Communicate where it happens. If an issue or crisis is exploding on YouTube, that is where you take to the waves to tell your story. When employees were caught sneezing and spitting in food on video, the Domino's CEO recorded a video and his team posted it to YouTube. He apologized in the same spot people were looking for the employee video.

5. Hire a communications expert. I'm not talking about someone who knows how to use social media. I'm not talking about someone who works for a company that has experienced an issue or crisis. I'm talking about someone who has deep and intense experience in managing an issue or crisis. Typically these people work in PR firms and specialize in crisis communication or reputation management. It's unlikely a company will go through enough issues or crises in its lifetime to give someone the expertise you'll need if something bad happens.

If you can't afford a communications expert, become friends with someone who can help you think through issues as they arise. Put them on your advisory board. If you have a paid board, add them to that. Have that person on speed dial.

6. Think before you act. Yes, things happen in real time. Yes, we live in a 24x7 world. Yes, it's fast-paced and you have to act quickly. But that does not excuse you from thinking. When we were kids, my dad used to tell us all the time, "Don't ever put anything in writing you don't want used against you later." That's very sage advice in today's digital world.

7. Empower your team. Let your team help. Set the expectations and boundaries, give them the tools and resources they need to be successful, and let them at it!

8. Say I'm sorry. I know we covered this already, but it's worth repeating. Of course, you have to mean it and it can't be accompanied with the word "but." When you practice saying "I'm sorry" in your everyday communications, it becomes easier to say it—and mean it—when an issue develops.

9. Back down when you're wrong. If you hold a position on something and someone points out there is a double standard or you're being hypocritical, reassess your policy.

10. Have a communications expert on speed dial. Oh, I already said this, didn't I? Whenever I repeat this to friends, colleagues, or peers, someone will text me with some smarty pants remark such as, "How quickly do you respond to communication crises?" Have someone on speed dial who has lots and lots and lots of experience with issues and crisis management. You might think you'll never need it—and maybe you won't—but Murphy's Law dictates the second you don't, something will happen. It's like having insurance: If you have it, you won't need it.

Now it's your turn. What do you advise a company do when the online fallout is so great it feels like the whole world is writing about it?

Gini Dietrich is founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, Inc., and blogs at Spin Sucks. A version of this first appeared on the FCPA Compliance and Ethics Blog.

This article was posted by Gini Dietrich on the 8th of May 2013, at Ragan's PR Daily.

3 Skills any PR Pro Needs

Thu, May 16 2013

Excellent writing and communication skills, a passion for your brand, and thick skin are all musts when working in PR. As the industry evolves and becomes increasingly competitive, there are a few less-obvious skills that you should develop.

Photography and Photoshop

Understanding what makes a good photo is crucial, whether you are pitching to journalists or you’ve been asked to create content for a client. Photoshop is a great tool for all PR professionals. Capturing and editing a photo of a press event or client speech or producing a short video will enable you to use it in your PR strategy to help tell the client’s story and communicate the message effectively.

Communication is becoming far more visual, and social media is completely changing the traditional landscape of PR. As PR professionals, we therefore have to take on new responsibilities. Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest and YouTube are all photo-centric and can easily be applied to PR.

Design skills

Understanding how the design process works—from brainstorming to the final product—will help in organizing events and creating invitations, brochures, presentations, and coverage reports.

You will often have to work with designers in order to create visual content for clients. Knowing how the process works will help you to fully explain your specifications to the designer. You don’t want to order 100 invitations for a press event and find out too late that they are not what the client wanted.

Additionally, being able to create infographics to showcase client research will help make a story newsworthy and, as a result, far more likely to get published online. Knowing some basic design terms and how to use InDesign will benefit you in the long run.

Finance

Handling money, designing budgets for campaigns, and managing client fees will all become part of the job as you ascend the PR ladder. You will be overseeing the budgets of multiple clients and having to meet targets continually.

Having an understanding of how the entire business is funded and how your team fits into the mix will be one of your daily tasks. Learning how to forecast the future, using industry trends and accounts, will be beneficial. It’s not the most glamorous aspect to the job, but it is essential for keeping the business going and your clients happy.

This article was originally posted by Jazz Chappell on the 8th of May, 2013 at Ragan's PR Daily.

How to Manage your Social Media with Hootsuite

Wed, May 15 2013

Managing your social media can be a difficult task. Using Hootsuite is one way of simplifying the process.

In most businesses there are many conversations happening across several different social media platforms which can be near impossible to track. Luckily, cloud-based application Hootsuite makes this process simple and effective; giving you the freedom to monitor and publish content across all your social networks in a number of seconds. At MailGuard we use Hootsuite to monitor and schedule posts and to ensure all our content is consistent across platforms.

Hootsuite gives your business a standardised format for managing your social media.

It makes checking for updates, mentions, follows and comments extremely time-efficient, which allows you to spend more time finding and creating content. You can add and remove streams in real-time, schedule posts to update across all your profiles and track potential contacts who send you direct messages.

However there is, of course, a need to interpret the information yourself to ensure you make the most of the app – it won’t just operate on its own.

Let’s take a look at how Hootsuite can help you manage your social media.

Streams

With over 200 million tweets sent out every day it can be hard to identify and construct parameters for the twitter feeds you’d like to see. Hootsuite allows you to create your own streams with various filters, which help to ease this process.

For example, you can easily create a stream which will only notify you when someone mentions your business in a tweet. Conveniently, if you have multiple streams you can arrange them onto a single page so as to see them simultaneously.

Scheduling

Hootsuite allows you to view your Twitter feed, Facebook wall and LinkedIn profile in either a single or multiple tabs.

One of the major benefits of using Hootsuite, however, is the ability to schedule posts concurrently across all your social media profiles. This enables you to organise your posts in advance, and ensures your content is consistent across platforms.

Plans & Pricing

A FREE version of Hootsuite is available but has limited social profiles, feeds and reports; it is well-suited for small business owners who may want to test the app before purchasing an upgraded version.

The PRO version comes with unlimited social profiles and feeds, integration with Facebook Insights and Google Analytics and up to an additional nine users. It comes at $5.99 per month but also has a 30 day free trial which you can use to compare the benefits against the free version.

Lastly, the ENTERPRISE solution contains all the features already mentioned as well as advanced security and support, unlimited users and a built-in ROI calculator. Prices for this plan can be negotiated at the Hootsuite Enterprise homepage.

This article was originally posted by Mitch Ogden on the 24th of April, 2013 at Dynamic Business.

Seven Deadly Sins of PR

Tue, May 14 2013

We have come up with the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ of public relations! While you won’t be eternally damned by breaking one of these rules, they are key PR rules to follow.

Pride
In our careers we all start from the bottom, doing call-backs to journalists, researching media lists, clipping coverage and occasionally, making coffees. But sometimes when the office gets overwhelmed, such as when a client goes into crisis mode due to a mistimed tweet, it needs to be all hands on deck.

Pride and seniority should not get in the way of ensuring the best outcomes for a client. No one is above any task in a PR office. Remember, pride comes before a fall and it should not come before you helping out your colleagues in times of crisis, no matter how small the task. Most offices couldn’t run without the efforts of the most junior team member.

Greed
Getting media coverage for the sake of it is not what PR is based on. While it’s fantastic to see your clients name in print, strategies need to be targeted to the businesses’ audience; otherwise your effort is wasted.

Don’t be greedy by chasing any media coverage possible. Look at the quality of coverage you are getting for your clients and ask yourself is it reaching your target audience?

Envy
Keeping up-to-date with what your competitors are doing, who their new clients are or any great campaigns they are involved in is a great way to stay on trend and industry focused. But don’t get so wrapped up in what your competitors are doing that you lose focus of your own campaigns.

Your job is to do the best you can for your client, even if they don’t have the most exciting products or services, it is your job to find the story within their business to share.

Wrath/Anger
If a journalist makes a mistake, don’t get angry, there is no point. You don’t want to damage that relationship. You can point it out to them and make suggestions to fix it (print a correction etc) but ensure to show respect for them as a person and for their role.

When contacting them to let them know about the error, take a moment to calm down, don’t press send for at least ten minutes. You don’t want to regret something you have said.

Lust
Every PR person dreams of getting their client that ultimate piece of coverage, whether it is a slot on primetime or a profile piece in a top-selling newspaper. But while it is great to have goals and something to work towards, don’t forget about other places to get your clients’ messages heard.

Forsaking smaller coverage in the chase for one big piece is not a smart way to do PR. Your clients want to be reaching as much of their target audience as possible and it is your job to find those opportunities for them.

Gluttony
As PRs we spend a lot of time and energy creating interesting pitches to send to journalists. But even if it is the best pitch you think you have ever written, don’t get too excited and start pitching it out left, right and centre. Especially not to several journalists at the same publication.

A newsroom is a small place and a journalist will eventually figure out that you have sent the pitch to one of their colleagues. If it happens they are likely to neither want your story or run it. You are better off targeting one journalist and then, depending on why they rejected the pitch, send it to someone else at a later date.

Sloth
Don’t be lazy with your strategy. Writing a media release and then sending it out to every publication vaguely within your target market is not a way to do PR. Spend time reading the publications you want to get coverage in, finding out the interests of different journalists, the different sections of a publication, watch TV news or morning shows, listen to a range of different radio shows.

While it is a lot of effort in the beginning, it will show up later in your PR results in a positive way, making you and your client very happy.

These are just seven sins of PR, there are many more. What are some that you can think of? Are you guilty of any of them?

This article was originally posted by Catriona Pollard on the 8th of November 2012 at CP Communications.

What Do the Best Corporate Blogs Do Well?

Mon, May 13 2013

Earlier this week, friend, colleague and fellow blogger Aaron Pearson asked me to speak to his class at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis. The topic? Corporate blogging. Something I know a thing or two about based on my personal experiences with this blog and the lessons I’ve put to good use for my clients.

I actually titled my presentation “Is corporate blogging dead?” I hope we all know the answer to that question. And yeah, I was having a little fun with the title. But, the fact remains that 28 percent of Fortune 500 companies have a public blog. Not a bad number. Especially considering we’re talking about the biggest of the big. What about the thousands of other blogs from midsized and small businesses out there? No doubt, those numbers are fairly large.

So, corporate blogging is NOT dead. Who’s doing it well?

By now, we’ve all heard about the Southwest Airlines and Starbucks blogs of the world. But, what about other larger companies? Those we might not hear about as often–but those who continue to blog month after month. And do so with what appears to be some success (I say “appears” because we can never know for sure how these companies are measuring success with their blogs).

Here are five companies that aren’t talked about quite as much when it comes to blogging–and how they’re pulling the right strings when it comes to corporate blogging.

Boeing–Randy’s blog

Personal voice

Instead of going uber-corporate, Boeing lets vice president of marketing, Randy Tinseth do the talking. It’s a shrewd move, as it gives Boeing more of a “face” online–but also gives Randy a chance to talk about his many travels, personal experiences, and his thoughts on the great things Boeing has in the queu.

Views/perspectives “from the road”

It seems like Mr. Tinseth travels a decent amount. Many of the posts on the blog are recaps of Randy’s travels and his trips abroad to visit partners and to see some of Boeing newest jets in action.

Great visuals readers won’t find anywhere else

I heard the Boeing folks speak at an event in Seattle last year. And one thing stuck with me from that chat; the fact that there were so many people out there that cared so much about Boeing jets. They’ve worked hard to cultivate this community–and they know what they want. One thing: Visuals these people can’t get anywhere else. Check out the pics below–just a sample of what Boeing shares regularly on this blog.

Spartan design

Despite the great visuals within this blog, the blog’s design isn’t all that impressive. In fact, I’d probably label it as fairly spartan. But here’s the thing: It doesn’t matter. The content is so good, no one really even notices the design. Brands often get overly hung up on the design of an online property. Many times, if a brand would channel that energy into the content and strategy behind the blog, they’d be much better off.

Whole Foods–The Whole Foods Blog

Using many different kinds of posts

One thing I love about what Whole Foods does on the blogging front: They use the full complement of blogging devices. List posts, profile posts, tip posts, personal experiences (see below). You name it, they’re using it. And, it provides a breadth of content few corporate blogs can match.

Connect with a wide variety of stakeholders

One of the benefits of those many different kinds of posts? It allows them to connect with the wide variety of stakeholders Whole Foods serves. Take their vendors for example. What better way to shine the light on this group–and build community–than to profile them in an ongoing series on the blog (see below)? Simple, but brilliant.

IBM–The IBMblr

Great use of GIFs

A Tubmlr fave, IBM is playing to the strengths of the blogging platform. You’ll see a number of GIFs regularly on their Tumblr blog–including those that highlight some of the newer innovations of the organization.

Creative ways to inspire and recognize

A recent series of posts on the blog highlights this point well: IBM’s effort to highlight it’s 50th anniversary Fellows Class. By profiling each Fellow with a separate post, they’re producing ample content, while giving each Fellow the stage, if just for a post.

Highlight innovation through video/”infographics”

Love what IBM is doing here with a combo platter of videos and infographics to tell the story of IBMers who are innovating. Remember: Inspiring visuals that are also shareable.

Google–The Google Blog

Breaking news for organization

This one might be more relevant in the tech world since more tech reporters and media outlets follow these tech blogs than in other industries (and seemingly EVERY tech company has a corporate blog), but Google seemingly breaks its news on this blog. They announced the Chromebook Pixel on the blog last month, a post that was shared 1,500 times on Google+.

Tool for CEO to use to communicate with key stakeholders

This is one of those points that people always make about reasons why companies should start blogs. But, you rarely see CEOs taking the opportunity. Google is not one of those companies. Larry Page doesn’t post all that often, but he does use it as a platform to share key insights and decisions (like the recent transition of Andy Rubin off Android at Google, which was a big move in that industry).

A tool to showcase new products

Obviously, this one is a no-brainer for tech companies like Google. But, what I like about Google’s approach is the way they incorporate multi-media into the new product posts. They ALWAYS have a video that either explains the new technology in relatively simple terms, or a video that seeks to entertain me AND educate me. Again, simple, but brilliant.

Target–A Bullseye View

Leveraging power of celebrity

Target really does this well here. And having worked with celebrities on a couple clients over the years, I can tell you without question that it is not easy. Target uses multi-media to really bring the power of their celebrities to life–usually through video, like this Q&A with Nate Berkus.

Good mix of tips, ideas and entertainment

Much like the Whole Foods blog, Target excels here. Instead of focusing on one kind of post, they do a nice job of mixing it up. Tip posts. Ideas for you to use in your daily lives (using products found at Target, of course). And, plain old entertainment, like this post featuring the oh-so-hot JT.

This article was originally posted by Arik Hanson on the 5th of April, 2013 at Communications Conversations.

10 Ways to use Social Media for Job Hunting

Fri, May 10 2013

In today’s competitive job market it’s important to use every method possible when it comes to finding, applying for and then securing a new job.

One such method is to use social media for job hunting, and this is because it is fundamentally reshaping the way that those people seeking employment engage with employers. Used correctly, social media can be just the thing to give an edge over other job applicants, but used incorrectly, it may do more harm than good.

Here are ten ways to use social media for job hunting, along with some of the mistakes that should be avoided along the way.

1 . The first thing to do, is to take a long, hard look at the various social media accounts that you may already own, and ask yourself the question “If an employer looked at this, what would they think?” If your latest tweet was about how drunk you got on Saturday night, or your latest Facebook update stated how much you hate work, then it’s time to either clean them up, or create newer, more professional social media accounts. In terms of job hunting, your social media accounts should be emphasising your positive aspects, and revealing how much of a valuable employee you would be.

2 . When the social media accounts are in order, the next step, is to announce to the world that you are looking for a job. Tweets such as “I have updated my resume and am looking for a job in the field of…” are a start, as is updating your LinkedIn profile to reflect this fact also. Letting your Facebook friends and contacts on other social media sites know that you are looking for new employment may also provide results, as this is what social networking is all about.

3 . Once the first two steps have been taken, it is time to start looking for jobs themselves on the various social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook. Many companies and employment agencies advertise available positions through them, and it is a simple matter of monitoring these feeds to keep up with the latest jobs on offer.

4 . If you find a job being advertised that seems appealing, it is then possible to use these same social media networks to do some research into the company advertising it. Most businesses nowadays have some form of social media presence, and doing some background homework on them may help later on in an interview.

5 . If by some chance the name of an actual person advertising a job has been made public, then the social media research can be taken a step further, by finding out more about them. They may also have a LinkedIn profile or Twitter account, and this will give you some indication as to what sort of person they are, and the sort of person they are likely to employ.

6 . It goes without saying that it is not possible to find every job online, and that also, most companies still require a resume to be sent to them. When sending in your resume, remember to add your Twitter handle or LinkedIn profile URL so that an employer might be tempted to take that extra step and find out a little bit more about you.

7 . Whilst all this is going on, it is also important to continually build your social media networks. By following and befriending people who have similar interests or who work in the same field, you will be kept better informed on any changes and news in your given sector. Keeping abreast of current events is important if you want to stay at the front of the pack, and monitoring relevant news stories on social media is a great way to do this.

8 . As you increase your network, you will begin to notice that there are specialist groups and communities, and this is especially so on Facebook and LinkedIn. By joining these groups, you will have access to a greater pool of knowledge, some of which may be useful in either applying for a job or attending an interview.

9 . When thinking of social media networks, people tend to forget that YouTube can also be used in this manner. Making video resumes may not be for everyone, but there are a surprising number to be found on YouTube, and many people have used this as a tool in getting a job. If making a video, it is best to keep it as simple as possible, whilst using the best equipment to hand.

10 . Finally, it is important to remember that there is a difference between promoting yourself on social media sites, and spamming. The aim is to become someone who is knowledgeable in their field, and have their name remembered for the right reasons. Being thought of as a spammer who contributes nothing is definitely not the way to go about it!

This article was originally posted by Lee Hopkins on the 11th of April, 2013 at Better Communications Results.

7 Tips to Finding "Your" Writing Voice

Thu, May 09 2013

Have you ever stumbled upon a blog and thought…”Was this written by an android, a robot or was it a Martian?“

Maybe it was produced by someone that had a personality bypass.

Whatever it was, it didn’t seem human.

That, I think touches on what a “voice” is.

It is about being human, displaying a personality and willing to be vulnerable.

Then the real fun starts.

Writing and creating from the “real” you is your voice. That can be daunting and exposing. Your internal conversations start the jabber….”What if I show a side of me that no one likes or thinks is stupid?”

Looking daft or dork is not cool.

In fact we were all raised on the human craft of hiding behind a facade when the school playground often rewarded the strong, the fake and the facile.

Many childhoods are lived in quiet desperation of hiding the real “you.”

Being grown up means accepting yourself for all its glorious imperfections.

A formula, an evolution or a revelation?

I don’t have a process or a magic potion to finding a writing voice or an expression formula but let’s have a look at what happens when you start to create, write and express yourself in an online world.

The journey commences.

I am curious and wanting to express my insights. I write. I record and express myself. The publish button is struck! The blog post is live and the YouTube video is online!

No clapping or cheering can happen until you step onto the stage.

There the music is revealed, the words are displayed and your design is exposed.

Whoa!…on the internet two billion web users can see your thoughts and concepts in black and white and high definition in all its wonderful glory and imperfection.

If you are honest the world will show up and say “fabulous” …work harder and maybe “well done”.

Your genius that is you is on display.

Don’t like what you hear? Then there is more work to do. The fun stuff is in growing….not shrinking!

That is sometimes a painful revelation but is part of your journey of personal evolution.

The unique you

There is only one “unique you”. Own it and embrace it with two arms and welcoming introspection.

It’s all you’ve got.

The strange thing is that creating a writing “voice” is more a journey of subtle growth that happens by stealth and mundane action.

Sitting down to write in the small hours. Staying up so late that the next morning you ask yourself…”Was that necessary?”

It is turning up and “doing the work”.

Influencers and stealing ideas and inspiration

I have had some strange influencers on my writing and expression including Jeremy Clarkson of “Top Gear” fame.

An introduction to a car review that is is 900 words of fun, humour and stories and 100 words of features and functions about a Porsche, Ferrari or Skoda with maybe a telling pithy insight.

That is it.

Who would have thought that. Inspiration from a car magazine writer.

Inspiration comes from content and creators who can be geeks, intellectuals or artists. These can be taken from any walk of life and whose ideas are so good that you want to steal them.

Just ask David Bowie.

“The only art I’ll ever study is stuff I can steal from”

What is your voice?

So what is you?

Your persona and humanity is multi-dimensional and many faceted. It is a jumble of experience, thoughts, expression and passions.

Here are some tips to find your voice.

1. Show your personality

Your voice is your personality on display… warts and all. Place a stake in the ground. Put your hand up and say “this is what I think, believe and feel”. I believe in this and I am sharing it.

When that happens people start trusting and listen. This is how I am and this is how I talk.

That is an insight into your voice.

2. Display your humor

Is you humour dark, dry or ironic? Don’t let your children, friends and family’s seemingly innocous non appreciation dissuade you. Press on.

Have fun.

Sometimes the crowd doesn’t get it. You are not creating for the masses…only those who are fans and believers.

Some of them live in a distant town on the other side of the world. They are your neighbours.

3. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes

The audience you want to communicate with will help you define your voice. How you write will be be also woven into who you are writing for. It must be kept in mind that most people read at a grade school level. Trying to be smart and clever by using big words and complicated sentences will just make them click away.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” – Albert Einstein

4. Expose your imperfections

Accepting that you are not perfect but a product of a life journey can empower you to realise, write and reveal the naked you. People will find a voice that is transparent and full of bumps, scrapes and scratches with a rich voice tapestry much more interesting than a mass produced sound of blandness.

People read books and watch movies to see life’s dramas in all its glory. That is much more interesting than a manufactured sound.

5. Reveal your passion

Allowing the passion that drives you to radiate and express your ideas and creativity will allow the genius that is you to shine. Passion is not a singular word but a synergy of interests, skills and focus that is wrangled and woven together.

Put passion on display.

A primary passion might lead the pack but all around it are the chorus of sounds that make the symphony rich and deep. Put them up to the light, place them on a pedestal and let them sing.

Talk and write how you “feel”.

6. Tell your stories

Your voice can be evolved as you tell your stories that make up the days and years that is your life. Those stories can be tales of woe, insightful experiences or even just plain side splitting fun.

Tell those tales and let them communicate a powerful message.

7. Develop brand “you”

Can you write down a few key words and phrases that could encapsulate you and could be turned into a caricature or a logo. This is more an art more than a science but is worth a try.

Sally Hogshead is an author that wrote the book “Fascinate”. Her byline is an insight into her brand voice.

“A hogshead is a barrel that holds 62 gallons, so what’s your name smartass”

Now, that is part of her voice and reveals her personality and sense of life. You can’t borrow or steal that line but you can learn from it.

What about you?

What is your voice? Are you putting your personality on display? Are you willing to be judged.

Now that is a scary thought.

Are you telling your story and revealing your passions. Don’t hide behind a faceless set of words. Are you willing to stand up.

We stand outside the arena and say “I am going to go in and kick some ass when I am bullet proof and perfect. That is seductive. The truth is that you will never be perfect” – Author Brene Brown “Daring Greatly”

Let the words you create speak for you.

This article was originally posted by Jeff Bullas at jeffbullas.com.

Public Relations: Donâ��t Sell Past the Close

Wed, May 08 2013

The first time I heard that phrase I was pitching my former boss on a creative PR idea. It was always a lively debate with him, and you had to prove the value convincingly; so I came to the meeting armed with data and proof points.

I was ready.

It was late on a Friday afternoon and the meeting had just started when he bought into my idea at the mere suggestion. That never happened. Except this once. Without needing all the arguments I had prepared to win him over — I was a little surprised.

Alright. That’s it. Meeting adjourned.

Not so fast. I continued, I mean after all, I had proof points to cement that agreement so it could never move. He put one hand up singling to me to stop.

“Don’t sell past the close.”

When we — you or me — secure an agreement, that’s it, we’re done. If we keep talking, we might just talk someone out of the deal or out of a story. Move out and get started.

PR as Salespeople

Twice today I was reminded of this anecdote. One was in a conversation with a sales person trying to sell our team and later when I was pitching a story to a reporter. After making a good case, that reporter responded by email to say he was interested and I instinctively went to respond with several more points.

Then I stopped and realized what I was doing and deleted the message. The reporter had asked the questions he had in mind and I had answered them to his satisfaction. Nothing else I could offer would add value, and worse, I might even change his mind.

PR people, whether they’ll admit it or not function in many ways like sales. Only we sell ideas. Some PR pros recoil at the idea of being likened to sales, and that’s okay, there’s a lot of sale people that think PR pros are dumb. It all evens out in the end.

6 things PR Pros Should Know About Sales

1. Sales is the key to internal credibility. If you want to earn your stripes in a business, try earning the respect of the sales team. Nothing will pop on senior management’s radar faster than a PR type that impacts a sales team.

2. Sales people have questions. Sales people have a lot of questions for you. Not for you…but for you. By this I mean the questions they get from prospects. These ought to be very interesting to PR because those are questions should be answered in content so they can be found in search. Search is an explicit expression of need. I’d posit another argument for the traditionalist: those questions express problems — those problems are the stories reporters strive to write about. That’s your news peg.

3. Sales people have contacts. When you’re looking for a customer reference in a hurry, the sales team is your best bet, although those actively involved in social media will find they develop a roster of customer influencers directly. You’ll soon figure out which sales people have contacts, relationships, access and who is willing to help. Be sure to go out of your way to return the favor. It’ll pay off for both of you.

4. You can learn by listening to their pitches. How many seconds do you have to get a reporter’s interest in a phone call? Not long. That’s the same situation that happens when those vendors call you. I’ll usually take a call from a sales person that has clearly done some research on me and at least listen to their pitch. You can pick up good techniques by listening — and soon can tell the difference between who those who have game and those who rely on tricks. It’s all about personal frames — similar to the way PR frames issues.

5. There’s no social sharing button for email. Sales people that rank content marketing low on the helpful asset list aren’t saying your content marketing sucks, they are saying it isn’t helping them. PR needs to mix in content that sales finds valuable. When one corporate blog I once worked on started posting a bunch of case studies I pointed to the social shares and said — see? It doesn’t work! Nobodies sharing the content. However, a dive into Google Analytics told a different story: those posts easily had double the unique page views. Why? Because the sales people were emailing links to potential prospects — a chance to touch a prospect with helpful content without asking for something in return. That advanced the sales cycle. Business blogs need a mix of content. For the wiseguys out there, yes indeed, there is a button for the emails, but it doesn’t count copy and paste.

6. If you work at an agency, you are in sales. PR agencies are terrible at marketing themselves. They might do a good job for clients, but you’d never know it. So how do they close deals? That task falls on the senior leaders — a managing director in the typical large agency. They’ve got to lead accounts and win business. They are the rainmakers. For a young up and coming PR pro in an agency, the best thing you can do to advance your career, is to buck up, attend a couple networking events each month and start building relationships. An impressive AE will earn business cards and maybe a few leads. Most importantly, you’ll develop skills that will make you better in your day job and help you the rest of your career.

What about you, what tips have you picked up from sales? How about the sales people out there — what might you offer PR?

This article was originally posted by Frank Strong on the 25th of April, 2013 at Sword and the Script.

20 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Likes and Engagement

Tue, May 07 2013

Growing your Facebook “likes” are social media’s version of building the traditional email subscribers list.

Facebook specialist Allfacebook.com states that for them Facebook fans are twice as effective as an email list. Their reasoning?…that email is now full of “spam” and 50% of all Facebook users log in every day.

Steve Gaither from the agency JB Chicago reports that the conversion rates for Facebook and Twitter are consistent across a number of their social media marketing campigns.

Conversion Rates for Facebook and Twitter

These are what JB Chicago have found to be the conversion rates on their campaigns.

Paid Twitter: one to three percent
Organic Twitter: eight to nine percent
Facebook organic: 20 to 30 percent
Facebook ads: 18 to 20 percent

According to Venturebeat in an interview with Carolyn Penner ( a Twitter spokesperson) “We’re seeing incredible engagement numbers — between 3 percent and 5 percent on average for Promoted Tweets… We’ve seen some as high as 52 percent,”

(Twitter defines engagement as a clickthrough, but it also counts retweets, replies and favorites in its engagement numbers — meaning that part of the ROI includes one-on-one conversations with fans of the brand)

So despite some differences in conversion rates reported, it goes without saying that capturing those important Facebook likes is vital to your social media marketing campaigns.

So how can you grow your Facebook likes and increase engagement?

20 Ways to Increase Your Facebook Likes and Engagement

1. Advertise on Facebook to get more “likes”. This is the quickest way to grow your fan base. The Supre fashion brand did this to obtain 40,000 fans quickly.

2. Rotate your ads “DAILY” people get tired of hearing the same thing in conversation so change your ad! Conversion (CTR) rates can drop by 50% after the first 24 hours. Do not “set and forget”

3. Add Facebook Social Plugin Box to your Blog and Website (60% of my “likes” are achieved this way)

4. Free exclusive video that can only be viewed if you like the page.

5. Run a competition. Everyone likes a competition

6. Make it obvious on a custom landing page by providing a big bold “Like our Page”

7. Initially ask friends and family to like your page. A bit overdone but essential at the beginning

8. Offer a free ebook to obtain a “like” (just like you should be doing for email subscriber acquisition)

9. Post content from your blog to Facebook whenever you write a new post. Facebook users love receiving new content on Facebook without having to go looking for your blog. Treat Facebook as an extension of your blog.

10. Provide enticing high resolution photos. Compelling photos that are appropriate for your target audience will keep them coming back and make them share and so drive more likes from their friends

11. Ask questions regularly using Facebook’s native question app.

12. Include a link to your Facebook page in your email signature

13. Provide a compelling welcome video on your Facebook landing page

14. Simple but often missed: Add a “follow us” on Facebook button near the top of your website and blog pages

15. Create an incentivised “Like” page that gives people a reason to like your page.

16. Include the Facebook like button on your email HTML template so that people can like your facebook page from the regular email newsletter

17. Add a large custom banner to your blog and website asking to “Like

18. Add a link to your Facebook page as one of your three LinkedIn website links that are part of your LinkedIn settings in your profile

19. Add a newsworthy update that is relevant for your industry or market niche to your Facebook page every day

20. Offer “Special” including discounts to Facebook fans. The majority of Facebook users “like” a page to obtain a discount

Even though growing your Facebook likes is important don’t forget to continue to grow both your email subscriber list and Twitter followers. Different users have different social network channels of choice and you need to be everywhere. “Synergize” multiple channels don’t “Monopolise”

How have you increased your Facebook page “likes”?

This article was originally posted by Jeff Bullas at Jeffbullas.com.

A Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics

Mon, May 06 2013

Google Analytics is a vast and powerful tool that enables you to track the effectiveness of your website in invaluable ways.

You can see where users enter and exit, what paths they follow, and where they come from in the first place. Information garnered via Google Analytics allows you to break your site into specific components, establishing which are most effective and which need work.

If your business relies on the Internet—whether for making sales, providing clients with information, or as a marketing tool—then Google Analytics is for you.

Initially introduced to developers, Google Analytics is now an indispensable tool for anyone engaged with the Web as a marketing tool. You have specific goals for your site—whether it's sales, data entry, or subscription. Google Analytics can help you meet those goals.

Once you have a clear understanding of how users navigate your site, you can help to steer them in the right direction. Effective Internet marketing is about providing online service in the most intuitive way. Whether this means organizing your website to provide information quickly or simply providing clearer directions from product to checkout depends on your marketing goals.

Getting started

Anyone can set up a Google Analytics account. It's free and easy to use, and there is plenty of great information to help you take your first steps. Check out this analytics guide for small businesses for a thorough Analytics run-through, but in the meantime, read on to get started.

What to track

One intimidating aspect of setting up a GA account is the sheer amount of information that analytics can provide. It's a vast and sprawling application, and the key to putting it to good use is to know which statistics are most important to you and your site.

Here are a few great places to start, particularly for those with marketing strategies in mind:

Bounce rates. Each page of your site will have a "bounce rate"—the percentage of visitors who leave without clicking on any further links. There are a number of reasons for this.

First, they were misdirected, and yours was not the site they were looking for, in which case you might want to find out which search terms most frequently lead users to your site and adjust your content to include more relevant keywords—analytics can also provide helpful statistics on keywords.

Second, the site does not provide clear direction. Information is delivered too slowly or pathways to further pages/products are not effectively signposted. If this is your diagnosis, look for creative ways to make your pages more intuitive.

Conversions. A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a goal for a particular site or page. For example, a user signs up for your newsletter if that's the goal of your particular page. A conversion doesn't have to be a sale. With Google Analytics you can set the terms for your own goals and monitor the success of your site accordingly. See this beginners' guide to conversion rates for more information.
Social media links. GA also allows you to see where your traffic comes from, whether it's via search engines, from links on other sites, or through social media channels. Social media is a powerful resource for directing users to your site. Most marketing plans include a strategy targeting social media. Google Analytics allows you to see how effective your current strategies are and make amends, accordingly.

Moving forward with customizations

Once you have the basics down, you'll soon discover the vast potential of analytics for receiving customized data about your website, enabling you to develop a made-to-measure marketing strategy.

Rob Toledo is a Seattle stereotype, with a love of rain, coffee, and high-tech gadgets. He works at Distilled as a marketing coordinator. He can be reached on Twitter @stentontoledo or on Google+. A version of this article first appeared on the Straight North Blog.

This article was originally posted by Rob Toledo on the 23 April, 2013 at Ragan.com.

10 Content Ideas that Generate Comments and Shares

Fri, May 03 2013

As I was trolling the web for a topic for today’s blog post, it occurred to me I haven’t covered many tips or tools lately.

I hereby commit to change that.

Therefore, today I have created a list of 10 types of content you can use for your blog. When you have writer’s block (cough, Lindsay Bell and Jason Konopinski, cough), you now have something to jog your brain.

It’s not just a list, though. Obviously my examples are PR, marketing, or social media relations. But you can easily turn these ideas into something for your industry, blogging niche, or particular interests.

And now let’s see if I’m right about seventh tip. Will this blog post get commented on and shared more than some of our more popular blog post (Pinterest!) in January?

I’ll report back!

10 Shareable Content Ideas

1. The Manifesto. At the beginning of the year, there were lots of blog posts written about the three words people were using to drive their success in 2012. While I didn’t write a blog post about it, I have “focus, delegation, and vision” posted on the wall in front of me. You could easily get 500 words out of that.

2. The Pop Culture Tie-In. I am terrible at this, but Molli Megasko is fantastic at it. She can tell you what’s happening on The Bachelor or with the Kardashian sisters and tie in a PR lesson.

3. The Debate. We often commiserate there isn’t enough debate on the social web, so why not create it? That’s what Paul Sutton and I did last week when we debated Pinterest (I won). Giving people the opportunity to see two sides of something works incredibly well.

4. The Good. I have to admit I was a bit leery about showcasing good PR case studies, but if it’s researched and written well, with some valuable lessons professionals can use in their daily lives, it works well. I tested this theory with how FedEx handled a customer service crisis using video and it’s our third most popular blog post this month. That said, when I wrote about Ocean Marketing being fired and how the new PR pro is handling the N-Control business, it didn’t rank in the top 10. My theory is it was an overplayed story by then. So be timely.

5. The Bad. It’s no surprise the bad case studies are shared over and over and over again. The Papa John’s and Boners BBQ case study I wrote about employee communication and how to handle a PR crisis when they go rogue is our second most popular blog post. But when you write these types of case studies, do it in a way that is valuable to the reader and doesn’t attack the people involved. Attack the idea, not the person.

6. The Ugly. Let’s be real. People like train wrecks. They can’t stop watching. If you can figure out how to write about one without attacking a person, it’s going to be pretty popular. Ragan does a nice job of this quite often by using terms such as “most hated” in their headlines. It grabs attention, makes people want to read and share.

7. The Lists. Voila! Just like I’m doing today. Nate Riggs is the foremost expert on the blog lists. In fact, he did an entire webinar for Spin Sucks Pro on the topic. People like lists. They’re easy to read, bookmark, and return to later. Make sure you include the number of things in your list in the headline.

8. Freebies. Give stuff away! It might be a book a friend has written, a collection of free eBooks available from other bloggers, or your own eBook. John Falchetto does a nice job with this. Right on his home page, there is a big orange box where you can get several free things. People like free.

9. Ranked Lists. This isn’t something we do here because, well, we don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But this works really well for other bloggers. In fact, Forbes just released their 50 most influential social media professionals and it was shared all over the world.

10. The Something of the Year. Just like People does their sexiest man alive issue, you can do the same for your niche. Maybe it’s an app of the month or a productivity tool like Michael Schechter did with his Perfect Computer blog post. I do a book review on the first Friday of every month and a blogger to follow on every other Friday. There are lots of ideas for the something of the week, month, or year.

There is likely a part two and three to this blog post because there are so many tried and true ways to have your content commented on and shared. But I’ll stop here for now. After all, I sometimes need ideas for blogging and now I have two!

This article was originally posted by Gini Dietrich at Spin Sucks.

20 Words and Phrases that will Doom your Pitch

Thu, May 02 2013

Evil forces lurk among us, threatening to destroy our way of life.

Only communicators stand between civilization and a new Dark Age. But your quest starts with a taboo: Never write the 20 words that will bring down a curse on you, your communications and all mankind.

Or, well, at least you will doom your pitches, press releases and internal emails, according to two scribes who have spent years reading ancient scrolls and overhyped press releases.

Michael Smart, principal for MichaelSMARTPR, said he and New York Times technology columnist David Pogue once drew up a list of "cursed words" and hype phrases that undermine your credibility.

Here are the words:

Landmark
Revolutionary
Groundbreaking
Breakthrough
Turnkey
State of the art
Best in class
Cutting-edge
Leading-edge
Best-of-breed
Awe-inspiring
Decadent
Sumptuous
Breathtaking
Extraordinary
World-renowned
World-class
Stunning
Beautiful
Dramatic

"Lots of journalists tell me, 'I immediately delete releases as soon as I see one buzzword or any hype," said Smart, who has successfully landed stories in TIME.com, The New York Times, and many other venues. "The kinder ones say, 'I just don't read those words; I skim over them. It's like they're not even there. They don't impress me. They don't do anything."

Why not? Because reporters read these phrases 10, 20, even 100 times a day in press releases. These are the PR (and internal comms) equivalent of a guy sidling up to a woman at the bar and saying, "Hey, there, I'm the handsomest dude you'll ever meet."

Smart listed the banned words in a presentation last fall at Ragan's "Breakthrough Strategies for Corporate Communicators" conference at the North Carolina headquarters of SAS, a business software firm. The video was just released on Ragan Training.

Yes, I know; your product truly is revolutionary. But that won't impress anyone on the receiving end of the 1,000th email about some earth-shaking new product.

"The reporters not only ignore these, they hold them up as points of mockery," Smart said. "And if it's only going internally, I'd say, 'Well, if the media thinks that, what do you think our audience thinks? Do you think they really buy into the fact that this is a landmark turnkey solution?"

During Smart's presentation, Ragan Communications CEO Mark Ragan threw in another dark phrase to avoid: Solutions provider.

"I'm expecting McDonald's to say that they're the 'lunchtime solutions provider,'" he said.

Smart allows that it must have been awesome to be the first person to think of the phrase cutting-edge. But within a month it meant nothing, he says, so communicators adopted leading-edge, which likewise became a cliché in no time.

How to avoid the "cursed words"? Use specifics. If something's cutting-edge or revolutionary, specify what's new about it, Smart said. What does it do? How fast is it?

Let nouns and verbs do the work of adjectives and adverbs, Smart said. Concrete images enliven your writing. He offered this comparison:

Johnson was hungry.

Johnson ordered a triple cheeseburger and a barbecue chicken sandwich.

Don't send your poor press release to its doom. Avoid the curse.

Russell Working is a staff writer for Ragan.com.

This article was originally posted by Russell Working on the 19th of April, 2013 at Ragan’s PR Daily.

Who is the Universal PR Professional of Tomorrow?

Wed, May 01 2013

For PR pros who want to stay relevant in their organizations and for those new professionals who are starting their careers in communications, this is a serious question. On March 28, 2013, Sergei Samoilenko, Geno Church and I presented a PRSA Webinar on The Universal PR Professional of Tomorrow. The focus of our discussion was on PR roles and responsibilities, new ways to engage and share meaningful content, and the need to close the gap between what universities teach and what students should know when they enter into the field.

A question posed by a webinar participant really stuck in my mind. She asked if there was a place to find a PR checklist of important skills. I use my eight new PR practices as a checklist of both skills and new responsibilities. However, if I were hiring a “Universal PR professional” to guide strategic communications in 2013 and beyond, here are some of my best practice tips to shape that PR person’s role:

1. Be proactive and don’t wait to be asked. Today, we are looking for people who will raise their hands to get involved. For example, with the development of a social media policy, training initiatives and governance (new responsibilities that require PR to participate). You should never wait for someone to give you the assignment, especially if you identify an area in your department or company that needs support. Propose new ideas, do the research, and offer your assistance. The initiative you take will make you stand out among all the rest.

2. Start with good communication on the inside. Take the time to discover how to be more efficient and productive with your teams. Make suggestions beyond simply using email communication on how to finish your projects on time and under budget. Use social collaboration tools on the inside of your company for better internal communications and then take the time to educate your peers on new ways to work together to increase overall productivity.

3. Test technology … always. Don’t be behind the curve, instead stay ahead for advancement. Be ready to answer those leadership questions asking “why” and “how” your brand should participate in new social communities. Take the time to “Tech Test” in different areas including collaborative platforms, applications, monitoring software, influence tools, etc., which will make you a more valuable asset to your organization.

4. Listen to be heard and to be relevant. Gathering customer intelligence is the best way to internalize information and then use it to communicate with meaning, through offline and new media channels. Since I started in PR, I was always told to listen first to solve problems. This is much more apparent today, as a result of social media. By truly “listening,” we can help people and build stronger relationships with our constituents.

5. You are always on! Social media doesn’t sleep, so your organization’s readiness is key. Creating the social media crisis plan (integrated into an overall crisis plan) requires knowledge and skills. It’s imperative for you to build a system that catches negative sentiment early on before it escalates, and to put processes and people in place for different levels of escalation through new media channels.

6. Build relationships by giving. And, sometimes realize you have to give more. PR professionals have always been known for building relationship pre-Internet and social media. Today, the ability to cultivate a relationship with new influencers and customers where they congregate is both an art and science. Knowing how to strategically grow mutually beneficial relationships, whether they start online on Facebook or offline, is an essential part of the PR person’s role.

7. Live the brand to protect the brand. PR professionals who are more involved in the development of the brand experience, and who understand how the brand voice translates into the social media brand voice (with personality and transparency), are in a position to educate others. With this understanding you can help to build an army of champions, who can better protect and maintain the brand’s reputation at every touch point.

8. Be accountable with all of your communications, including social media. It’s important for you to understand the different metrics whether they reveal community growth, reputation issues, increased awareness, or engagement with high-level impact. We also have to use social media analytics, paired with other data, to show Return on Investment (ROI), knowing that our communications cannot work in a vacuum and must be integrated with marketing and other areas of the organization. Of course, we also have to ask, “Why?” and then make sure the outcomes we are trying to achieve track back to our program objectives, which we measure over time.

What helpful tips would you add to shape the role of the Universal PR professional of tomorrow? And, when you describe your own role, what do you think are the most important skills?

This article was originally posted by Deirdre Breakenridge on the 1st of April, 2013 at PR 2.0 Strategies.

What does it take to be a creative, female leader?

Tue, Apr 30 2013

I've been asked to write an article on the topic of creative women with a lean towards 'confidence' and 'what do women need to lead' for a major PR forum. Like that isn't nerve racking enough, just before I embark on said article I received an email saying they want to feature it in the program.

What does it take to be a creative female leader?

Creativity as defined in the Oxford US English dictionary is “the use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work.” I’m sure many would agree this to be true, but there are those in various fields including design, business, psychology, technology and sociology who have other ideas on what it means to be creative.

Such as the teaching methods at the Bauhaus, where though working to combine new ideas from the materials that they had available to them, students were taught to think creatively about the technology of the day. Through the learning of how things it worked it was thought that one would then have an extended catalogue of inspiration and in turn creative scope.

Whether you agree with the Oxford US English Dictionary version, the teachings of the Bauhaus or have your own ideas on what it means to be creative, everyone is some way shape or form is creative. It’s how you use, foster and develop that creativity that seems to in most cases define it.

Who is a creative female leader?
One such lady that comes to mind, though she worked in a creative field, is designer and weaver Gunta Stölzl (1897–1983). She directed the the textile workshop at the Bahus for many years. In which students studied color theory and design as well as the technical aspects of weaving. It was under her direction that students created abstract textiles suitable for use in Bauhaus environments. Gunta also encouraged the experimentation with unorthodox weaving materials, such as cellophane, fiberglass, and metal.

"We wanted to create living things with contemporary relevance, suitable for a new style of life. Huge potential for experimentation lay before us. It was essential to define our imaginary world, to shape our experiences through material, rhythm, proportion, colour and form." Gunta is quoted as saying.

It is worth noting that whilst a high percentage of those taking weaving were female, it was in part due to the fact that women were discouraged from participating in other areas of study within the Bauhaus. This however did not hinder the fact that the fabrics from the weaving workshop were commercially successful, providing funds to the Bauhaus. The studio's textiles, along with architectural wall painting, adorned the interiors of Bauhaus buildings, The workshop trained a number of prominent textile artists, including Anni Albers (1899–1994), who continued to create and write about modernist textiles throughout her life.

How to be a confident creative female leader?
There are a few key things that we can take away from Gunta Stölzl’s role as a director of the textile workshops at the Bauhaus that help answer this question.

1. Have a vision and the passion to follow it through
Believe that you have have something of value to contribute.

2. Be creative in problem solving
Continually seek out new and better ways of doing things. Before problems arise, anticipate an appropriate response or responses.

3. Communicate with impact
Get what you’re trying to say across as effectively as possible, ensure it is understood.

4. Give back
Once ‘making it’ lend a hand to help others become successful.

5. Ask
Set an example for the stance that everyone’s opinion counts, because in some way everyone is creative and has an idea, it takes a leader to foster those ideas.

Article by Nicole Tattersall. Editor of Curvy

This article was inspired by this coming Friday's ninth Women in PR Forum taking place Friday, 3 May at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 12-3pm.

If you want to taste some of the best local food and wine from Victoria as well as listen to conversations with the likes of Jackie Frank marie claire, Julia Zaetta Better Homes and Carolyn Hardy, UN in New York then it's an event not to be missed.

You might also walk away with some stellar prizes such as; a BMW for a weekend, semi final tickets to the Australian Open tennis, a week's stay at a Sri Lanka holiday home not to mention a business class trip to New York! There are still some places left, so don't miss out on the event of year here in Victoria.

30 PR Experts You Should Follow on Twitter

Tue, Apr 30 2013

If you’re like me, you like to follow people on Twitter who provide valuable information you can use and learn from. Because this is a PR blog, I thought I’d share what I believe to be the 30 PR experts you should follow on Twitter. Now, I’m sure there are many more who deserve to be on this list, so please leave a comment with your favorites.

1. Bill Stoller – 25-year PR Pro helping others get their share of publicity; Editor & Founder, Free Publicity Newsletter.

2. Joan Stewart – Publicity and PR expert, journalist, author, biker chick, gardener, foodie, Weight Watchers devotee, Sopranos junkie & proud Cheesehead.

3. Paul Hartunian – World renowned free publicity expert, 1st person to REALLY sell the Brooklyn Bridge, making worldwide news, has dog rescue sanctuary: www.AuntMarysDoghouse.com

4. Josh Sternberg – Communications firm owner. Guest writer @ Mashable. Yankees fan. Musician. TV aficionado.

5. Dbreakenridge – PR Professional, Author and marketing communications agency owner

6. Todd Defren – Principal at SHIFT Communications, and a PR blogger.

7. Perfect Pitch PR – Public relations tips, resources and services for small businesses and enterprising individuals.

8. Nikki Harmon – Acct Mgr at 360i. Passionate about PR. Mistress to Social Media.

9. Danny Brown – Social media strategist for Maritz Canada. Middle name is community. Emerging media purveyor. Social media for good game challenger. No friend of spammers. -

10. Dorothy Crenshaw – Founder of creative PR firm w/ expertise in digital brands. Mom. Lapsed fitness maven. Recovering TV addict. Candyholic. Love those Mad Men.

12. Mary Lower – Chief Storyteller using high tech tools to tell traditional tales – PR & Media Relations for Sterling Cross Comm.Mom to Wondertwins and Supergirl.

13. Christine Perkett – The CEO and founder of Perkett PR, Christine provides her followers with great PR tips and links to highly informative PR blog posts.

14. Pam Perry – A PR coach and social media marketing experts with a focus on ministry marketing.

15. Dan Janal – Publicity expert, author, speaker, avid reader, kayaker, blues/acoustic guitar

16. Julie Hall – Mommy of two boys, Wife of one, Marketer and Media Junkie, Founder of Mommies Clique and EVP/Partner at Schneider PR

17. Alan Weinkrantz – Social Media Guy / Clients in US and Israel / Contrib Columnist: San Antonio Express News, Catalyst for http://www.sanantoniostartups.com

18. Petri Darby – Creative brand marketing strategist, writer, public relations pro.

19. Dan Keeney – President of DPK Public Relations, baseball and cycling fan and beer enthusiast.

20. Kami Huyse – On the PR treadmill of life.

21. Julie Bonn Heath – PR Principal, Author, National Freelancer, Blogger, Christian, Gardener, Green Mom, Host of #idol & #journchat participant.

22. Heather Whaling – Communicating … Connecting. PR & SM small biz owner (@GebenComm). Love nonprofits, sports, politics, news, pop culture, vino & my iPhone. Blog: www.prtini.com

23. Sarah Evans – @SevansStrategy, non-profit, social good, fashion, #journchat and MediaOnTwitter, community mgr @Pitchengine, dog lover.

24. Valerie Simon – SVP BurrellesLuce Media Monitoring and Measurement; Public Relations Columnist/ Freelance writer, Suburban mom of 2/still a NYC girl @ heart, #PRStudChat host

25. Mike Schaffer – Director of Social Media for a Sports & Entertainment PR Agency, Founder of The Buzz!, Husband, Puppy Daddy

26. PR Expert – Award-winning & certified Public Relations Expert. Offering strategic media coaching with supplementary products helping you go from good to exceptional.

27. PR By the Book – Publicity firm offering public relations campaigns and media consulting services for: authors • publishers • businesses • products.

28. Conversation Age – I help businesses understand how customers and communities have changed marketing, PR, and communications – and how to bring value in this new environment.

29. Katja Presnal – PR/ social media marketing consultant

30. David Meerman Scott – Marketing speaker and bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and the new book World Wide Rave.

Which PR experts on Twitter would you add to this list?

This article previously appeared in PR Fuel, and was written by Mickie Kennedy, founder of eReleases, the home of affordable press release distribution. PR Fuel showcases advice and articles on social media, PR, publicity, and online marketing. Download the free 150-page ebook Beginner's Guide to Writing Powerful Press Releases here: http://www.ereleases.com/insider/beginnersguide.html

This article was originally posted by Mickie Kennedy on the 11th of January 2010 at E-Releases.

How to Create a Great Business Blog

Mon, Apr 29 2013

Blogs can be a great addition to your business’ PR strategy because they can help you to communicate with your target audience, share your stories and engage with others.

Here are some of our tips for creating a great blog for your business.

Pick your topic

Choose a topic for your blog and stick to it. Ideally this topic should be related to your business or its industry to raise your profile as an expert in your field.

Once you have chosen a topic you should avoid writing about anything else. If you stray from your chosen topic then your readers may become disinterested and stop reading.

Consider your target audience

Think about who you want to read your blog and why. For example you may want potential customers to read your blog in order to build their brand awareness.

Your blog should then aim to reach this target audience by posting content that is interesting and appealing to them.

Have great content

Having great content is extremely important to the success of your blog. With great content people are more likely to read your blog or recommend you to their friends.

Your content should be interesting and relevant to your readers or contain information they might be looking for.

You can help to keep your content interesting by posting in a variety of different ways. For, example you could post videos, infographics or run a giveaway.

Be consistent

Regularly posting fresh content on your blog is important to attract new readers. If your blog hasn’t been updated in a long time then readers may lose interest in it.

A great idea is to set a specific day that you will publish your blog post and make sure you adhere to this deadline. For example, you may choose to post content every Monday and Wednesday. It is a good idea to post at least once a week.

Make it easy to read

Make sure your content is easy to read by splitting up large chunks of text into short paragraphs and using subheadings and bullet points.

Catchy headlines

Interesting headlines can increase the chances of people reading your blog post. Your headline should also convey the main point of the blog post.

Use images

It’s a great idea to use images in all of your blog posts because it helps to attract readers’ attention and makes the content more interesting. When sharing the blog post on your social media sites a picture will be more eye-catching then a block of text. This may encourage more people to read the blog post.

Use internal links

You can use internal links in your blog post to direct readers back to a previous post for more information. For example, if you use the phrase ‘marketing tactics’ in your blog post you can link this to a previous blog post about marketing tactics.

This is a great way to provide your readers with more information without having too much text on one page. It also means readers are less likely to leave your blog to search for more information.

Social it

You should share every new blog post on your social media profiles by posting a link on your Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest profiles. This will help to drive traffic back to your blog and encourage other people to read it.

You should also include social media share buttons on your blog to enable readers to easily share your content.

Ask a question

Encourage your readers to interact with your content by including a question at the bottom of each blog post. This will help to create a conversation with your readers and allow you to gain valuable feedback or build a relationship with them.

Make sure your blog allows readers to comment by ensuring the comment section is available under your content.

Creating a blog for your business is a great way to communicate with your target audience in a different way. Include blogging in your PR strategy and discover the communication benefits today.

The Public Relations Sydney blog has been listed as the top two Business Blog in Australia.

What do you think makes a great blog?

This article was originally published on the 22nd of January, 2013 at CP Communications.

How to Rock Social Media in just 30 Minutes a Day

Fri, Apr 26 2013

Social media has become an invaluable marketing and communications asset for many organisations over the last few years but it also represents yet another task for marketers and business owners to cram into their already busy schedule. And there are now quite a few social networks that can’t be ignored, so it can been seen as quite a burden.

The most common question I receive when recommending a social media plan to clients is “but how much time must I dedicate to it?” The good news is that, with a bit of planning, organisation and automation, you don’t need to become a slave to social networks. In fact, you can manage 6 popular social networks in just half an hour a day.

The team at Pardot have assembled this great guide to demonstrate how you can rock social media in just 30 minutes a day. It covers, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and Instagram and also has some excellent automation tips.

Follow this plan, fine-tune it for your business and social networks and then be consistent and you will have gone a long way to really optimising the benefits of social media.

This article was originally published by Craig Wilson on the 5th of April, 2013 at Media Hunter.

Five PR Lessons from The Voice

Thu, Apr 25 2013

Why are so many of us addicted to “The Voice”? For me, it’s not because I am constantly reminded of what a poor singer I am. I have my kids to remind me of that. Why I like “The Voice” over other reality shows has more to do with the mix of great singers, charismatic judges and weekly lessons in finding something nice to say over and over to countless strangers.

At PR News, we find there’s a PR angle to every story, to every brand, to every situation. In the case of “The Voice,” I want to share a few take-aways for anyone who spends their day in communications and management.

Listen. Sometimes you need to remove your sense of vision and all the biases that come with it. You just might look at someone differently and hear something you never expected. While I don’t recommend turning your chair around in a meeting and closing your eyes, a keen focus on listening will help you hear a message loud and a clear.

Diversify. When putting together a team, mix it up. “The Voice” judges choose a wide array of talented contestants for their teams; Blake isn’t choosing all country singers and Usher isn’t picking all hip-hop singers. They are looking for that X factor, for people with potential and by choosing a diverse group of singers they are hedging their bets.

Encourage. Notice how the judges are so darn nice to every contestant. They find something encouraging to say to those who aren’t chosen this time – in normal parlance known as “losers”. The judges don’t criticize. They implore the contestants to work on one or two weaknesses and invite them to try again.

Laugh. When there’s chemistry among a small team – such as with Shakira, Adam, Usher and Blake – laughter ensues. Take time to find the humor in your day. Something has to be funny.

Be Real. There’s one aspect of “The Voice” and with many reality shows that irk me and possibly you too: the supposed live tweets as we’re watching the show. You’d have to be a fool to believe there isn’t a ghost tweeter for each of the judges. The second a contestant wins or loses, we see a tweet from the judges as if they are telepathically sending a message to their iphone to tweet a sentiment. C’mon, we’re smarter than that (right?). When you like a brand as much as I like “The Voice” and you feel the judges are otherwise authentic, the fake tweets can sour the experience. Just show the viewers’ tweets on the screen – after all, we need a voice too.

This article was originally posted by Diane Schwartz on the 15th of April, 2013 at PRNews blog.

New Grads: Five Tips for Success in PR and Marketing

Wed, Apr 24 2013

It’s April.

They say April showers bring May flowers.

April also brings waves of students about to graduate, filled with anticipation, pounding the pavement in search of that first job in PR and marketing.

But this year, finding that first job will require a combination of digital and practical skills.

The competition is fierce. The economy is just now beginning to turn. You have to stand heads and shoulders taller than your peers to even get an interview.

Here are five tips to help new grads land their dream job.

1. Create Content

Your ability to create compelling content is integral to your success. Be a storyteller. In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, companies are desperate for content and for the employees who can create it quickly and well. Content creation is not limited to writing, but your portfolio should include blog posts, case studies, news releases, and articles.

If you don’t have those examples yet, it’s not too late. As PR recruiter Lindsay Olsen explains, you can easily start your own blog and write about your industry, professional topics, and current events. Read the leading bloggers in PR and marketing and comment on their posts. Volunteer for smaller non-profits that need help with content creation. Help them tell their stories. Write a news release for an upcoming event. Develop a case study for them. Create a short video that illustrates what they do.

2. Display Digital Proficiency

Working in PR and marketing today requires a level of digital proficiency that goes beyond simply using Facebook or YouTube. You need to be able to conduct online research efficiently, understand search engine optimization, show proficiency with tools that monitor and measure online communications, create and manage an email campaign, build a spreadsheet in Google Docs or Excel, and perform simple video editing.

Your level of digital proficiency must also include a solid understanding of what NOT to do online. Don’t have social network profiles that show you in unprofessional or compromising situations. Don’t use social tools to spam people or buy followers to pad a social network account. Don’t send texts or images that slander or defame anyone.

3. Showcase Leadership Skills

Employers are looking for recent graduates who can demonstrate a level of leadership and common sense. They want to know that you can be trusted with tasks that call for judgement or leadership. Are you someone who is willing to pitch in and help? Can you take a task and run with it without much supervision? Do you listen well? Are you organized? Are you honest and forthright?

Few of us have all of the traits of a leader, but most of us possess some leadership skills, even if we aren’t always aware of them. Take some time to do an analysis of who you are and list your strengths and weaknesses. Doing your own personal SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) will help you identify your own leadership skills and understand how to showcase those skills in action.

4. Highlight Creative Problem-Solving Abilities

A highly sought after “soft skill” in today’s economy is creative problem-solving. This is a process that involves identifying a goal or objective, gathering information, clarifying the problem that you are trying to solve, generating ideas, building a solution, identifying how results will be measured, and then creating the plan of action for its implementation.

Think outside the box. Connect the dots. How have you done this?

Go back through your experience to date. Where have you exhibited creative problem-solving? Is your resume lacking? It’s not too late to change that. Look around your school or community. Who needs help? What problems could you help solve? Follow the creative problem-solving process and document that experience as an example for prospective employers.

5. Demonstrate Ability to Translate Technical Information

You don’t have to be highly technical to be successful in today’s digital world. However, you become extremely valuable to an organization when you can demonstrate your ability to work with technology experts and translate information you get from them into language the client or manager can understand.

If you haven’t done this yet, do some research online. Learn about the basic language used in building technical solutions and work to understand what is involved in creating a website, or developing an app. What is the process and how can you provide a programmer or technical expert with the information he or she might need? Look around you. Go to your school’s technology department and start asking questions. Listen.

The fact you are even thinking along these lines and able to discuss this in an interview will make you stand out. If you are able to demonstrate instances where you have acted as a liaison or translator between technical experts and the less informed, so much the better–for you and for your prospective employer.

It’s April. It’s not too late to take these five tips and apply them to your situation. Building out examples of your abilities in each of these areas will make you stand out above other candidates and help land you that first job in PR or marketing

Allen Mireles is vice president at Arment Dietrich, providing integrated marketing and social media counsel to Arment Dietrich clients from a wide range of industries. An experienced communicator with an affinity for technology, Allen lives and works at the intersection of social media and traditional marketing and public relations.

This article was originally posted by Allen Mireles on the 3rd of April. 2013 at SpinSucks.

2013 Trends in Digital Communication

Tue, Apr 23 2013

Trends in digital communication change more often than London's weather (snowfall in April, in case you were wondering). My recent conversations with leading thinkers in communication and the social/digital workplace while producing Melcrum's Digital Communication Summit 2013 (taking place in the aforementioned city of fickle weather), have highlighted this very fact. So, here's my take on what's hotting up, and what's melting away in digital communication right now. I've also shared some anonymous quotes from those conversations. Do you think these ideas will stick? What would you add? As always, we're keen to hear your thoughts.

Out: Social platforms — In: Business platforms

“When we talk about this stuff now we talk about ‘business value’ not ‘social’ as our execs tend to associate social with things like Facebook rather than tools and platforms to get work done.” We’ve long subscribed to the value of “social” media, but while early versions of internal networking platforms have tended to be described as Facebook for work, the emphasis is now more firmly on the business value of such networks.

Out: Mobile — In: Mobility

“There’s a subtle but important difference between mobility and mobile and while we’re going mobile, we’re looking at solutions that allow access to materials from any working location.” While enabling employees to access digital channels via mobile devices – be it their own time or the company’s – is a huge area of focus for many internal digital strategies right now, it’s about more than just being able to use your smartphone for work. It’s about enabling the kind of flexibility that goes hand-in-hand with the digital workplace.

Out: Corporate Brand — In: Employees as Brand

“Our internal experts have a huge private following. We want to get these people ‘out there’. They are the brand.” The Edelman Trust Barometer research speaks for itself: The credibility of a “person like yourself” as a source of information grew 51 percent from 2011 to 2012, and the trustworthiness of a “regular employee” went up by 47 percent, surpassing that of CEOs. This presents a big opportunity for organizations to equip and empower their employees as highly influential brand ambassadors.

Out: Activity Measures — In: Data Analytics

“Justifying an internal networking platform now is like justifying email or using phones.” Some organizations are opting not to get too caught up in ROI measurement, but those that are exploring the numbers are keen to move beyond pure activity measures. “We’re taking social data from our collaboration platform and merging it with organizational data and the engagement survey. It’s revealing fascinating stuff about who is active, who is influential and how this correlates with engagement.”

Out: Big Bang — In: Long Wow!

While the arrival of new social tools, channels and platforms are often introduced to employees with much fanfare, there’s a realization that too much of this “Look! Another exciting new comms tool/channel/platform!” actually starts to put employees off. Many are taking on board this yet-another-channel fatigue and focusing both new developments and ongoing communication around them, on small but incremental changes that prolong the "wow factor".

Out: Optional Leader Involvement — In: Active Leader Involvement

That stereotype that frontline (and I dare I say it “younger”) employees would be all over new digital channels, while leaders would probably be more reluctant, is most definitely being challenged. More and more leaders – of any age – are spotting the potential for dialogue and engagement with employees that they may infrequently meet with face-to-face. And where leaders are still a tad reluctant, steps are being taken to highlight the opportunities and get leaders comfortable with diving in and leading by example.

Out: “What’s in it for the business?” — In: “What’s in it for all of us?”

Building the case for networking platforms has focused largely on the ideal outcomes for business – improved collaboration across teams and geographies, sharing of knowledge and ideas – all hopefully leading to increased innovation and productivity. But what’s in it for employees on a more personal level hasn’t always been clarified. Highlighting how “working out loud” effectively builds employees’ own digital footprint and shapes their professional reputation, is changing that. It directly speaks to the “what’s in it for me?” question.

Join us at the Digital Communication Summit across April 17-18 and learn more about these trends from the experts.

Follow Mandy Thatcher on Twitter: @MandyThatcher

This article was originally posted by Mandy Thatcher on the 5th of April. 2013 at Melcrum.

The Gap Between Social Media and Business Impact

Mon, Apr 22 2013

In business, social media is becoming a lot like email. Every company has it. In an Altimeter Group survey of 700 executives and social strategists fielded in late 2012, we found that 100 percent of participating enterprise organizations run to varying extents an active social media strategy. But unlike email, organizations haven’t mastered how to effectively communicate through the likes of Facebook or the tweets of Twitter.

Over the last several years, businesses have increased the pace of adopting social media strategies for use in marketing, service and other related capacities. What’s becoming very clear however is that adopting social media and understanding its impact on customer and employee relationships and also the bottom line are not always linked. This disconnect between social media strategies and business value is forcing many executives to rethink their overall approach and the infrastructure they built to support it. The result of this reflective process is motivating organizations to transform everyday social media initiatives into deeper social business strategies.

Charlene Li and I spent the better of the last year studying how organizations approach social media and how planning, processes, and outcomes mature over time. Our findings are significant and are included in our newly released report, “The Evolution of Social Business Six Stages of Social Media Transformation.”

The results of our work were surprising to say the least. We uncovered a notable gap between organizations that executive social media programs and campaigns and those that specifically invest in social business strategies. Altimeter defines the evolution to a Social Business as the deep integration of social media and social methodologies into the organization to drive business impact.

On one side the chasm, there are businesses (or departments) that are actively investing in social media without intentions or outcomes being tied to business goals. On the other side are organizations that are deeply integrating social media and social methodologies throughout the company to drive tangible business impact.

In fact, we found that only 34% of businesses felt that their social strategy was connected to business outcomes and just 28% felt that they had a holistic approach to social media, where lines of business and business functions work together under a common vision. A mere 12% were confident they had a plan that looked beyond the next year. And, perhaps most astonishing was that only one half of companies surveyed said that top executives were “informed, engaged and aligned with their companies’ social strategy.”

But there’s hope. Charlene and I learned that the two most important criteria for a successful social business strategy are that it is 1) clearly aligned with strategic business goals of an organization, and 2) has organizational alignment and support that enables execution of that strategy. What separates them are six distinct stages that we believe most organizations have or will traverse as they mature.

The Evolution of Social Business: Six Stages of Social Media Transformation

The six stages are as follows:

Stage 1: Planning – “Listen to Learn”

The goal of this first stage is to ensure that there is a strong foundation for strategy development, organizational alignment, resource development, and execution. Key tenets of this stage include listening to customers to learn about their social behavior; using pilot projects to prioritize social efforts; and using audits to assess internal readiness.

Stage 2: Presence – “Stake Our Claim”

Staking a claim represents a natural evolution from planning to action. As you move along the journey, your experience establishes a formal and informed presence in social media. Key tenets of this stage include leveraging social content to amplify existing marketing efforts, providing information to support post-transaction issues; and aligning metrics with departmental or functional business objectives.

Stage 3: Engagement – “Dialog Deepens Relationships”

When organizations move into this stage, they make a commitment where social media is no longer a “nice to “have” but instead, is seen as a critical element in relationship building. Key tenets of this stage include participating in conversations to build communities; using engagement and influence to speed path to purchase efficiently; providing support through direct engagement, as well as between people; establishing a risk management and training discipline to shift mindsets; and fostering employee engagement through enterprise social networks.

Stage 4: Formalized – “Organize for Scale”

The risk of uncoordinated social initiatives is the main driver moving organizations into Stage 4, where a formalized approach focuses on three key activities: establishing an executive sponsor; creating a hub, a.k.a. a Center of Excellence (CoE); and establishing organization-wide governance. Organizations should plan for a potential CoE pitfall, however, as creating one may lead to scaling problems in the long-term.

Stage 5: Strategic – “Becoming a Social Business”

As organizations migrate along the maturity model, the social media initiatives gain greater visibility as they begin to have real business impact. This captures the attention of C-level executives and department heads who see the potential of social. Key tenets of this stage include integrating social into all areas of the business; garnering executive engagement; forming a steering committee; and pushing social operations out to business units.

Stage 6: Converged – “Business is Social”

As a result of the cross-functional and executive support, social business strategies start to weave into the fabric of an evolving organization. To move into this stage, organizations need to make a commitment to a single business strategy process; merging social with digital; creating holistic customer experiences with converged media; and developing a holistic social culture.

The Evolution of Social Business: Six Stages of Social Media Transformation from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare .

This article was originally posted by Brian Solis on the 12th of March, 2013 at Brian Solis.

15 Top Tips for a Successful PR Career

Fri, Apr 19 2013

One of the things I enjoy most nowadays is having the opportunity to speak to the future leaders of the PR profession when they’re starting out. One of the questions I often get asked is “what tips would you offer to get ahead in this field?”

Now that spring has sprung (at least, it’s trying to) and students are turning their minds to life after school, I thought it might be timely to offer some of that advice up here.

Here are 15 top tips for success in a public relations career. Funnily enough, I’d give the same advice to someone 10 years into their career, like me, too:

1. Be a sponge

Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it made the PR pro. Whether you’re just starting out or if you’ve been in the business for years, it’s incumbent upon you to constantly learn in order to stay on top of our industry. Never stop being curious.

2. Stay on top of the news

Make time to stay on top of current events. Read a newspaper (online or offline). Set up news alerts for your company and/or your clients. Listen to the radio or to podcasts about industry news. Watch the news in the morning. Whatever approach you choose, it will make you more interesting and it will make you better at your job. Consider it an investment.

3. Focus on details

Nothing hurts the credibility of a pitch, a proposal or a program like sloppy mistakes. Meanwhile, people who become known for outrageous attention to detail become go-to people in a team. Be that person. Read and re-read your work. Be your own devil’s advocate in order to think things through and make sure you’ve covered all of the angles. Double-check your calculations. Question your assumptions.

4. Learn to juggle

This one applies especially to agency folks, but it goes across the board. Learn how to prioritize, how to focus when you need to and how to manage your time. Life in PR is a juggling act, and you need to know how to manage your workload and the expectations of your clients – however you define them

5. Learn to write

Take the time to learn how to write well. Practice. Learn from others. Take a course if you need to (I recommend the eight-step editing course by the Editors’ Association of Canada, but there are many others).

Critically for many new graduates, you may need to unlearn what your professors taught you in university. Short paragraphs, short sentences and clear language help you to convey your point much more easily than the reverse.

Oh, and if you could put “by zombies” at the end of a phrase, it’s passive. Make it active.

6. Embrace numbers

Measurement has been a weak point in the PR profession for a long time. Nowadays, companies demand more. This is especially the case for social and paid media programs. The days of output-focused measurement are numbered, and outcome-focused measurement is on the rise. You don’t need to be an expert in dissecting website traffic (especially if you have a measurement team supporting you), but you should know the basics and know how to coach clients and people within your organization on how to approach measurement effectively.

7. Measure through the lifecycle

Measurement is so much more than reporting, and companies are demanding more from PR measurement nowadays. Know how to take full advantage of the potential that measurement holds throughout a program:

Inform your objectives (setting realistic goals, fueled by insights from past programs)
Fuel your planning (again, with insights from past work)
Identify and help to address issues mid-flight
Measure results and generate new insights to fuel future work

(more on this in my recent presentation on Social Media at Scale that I gave at PodCamp Toronto)

8. Provide solutions

Tough challenges are a fact of life in the PR industry, where the role of communications is often to help to change behaviour or perception. That’s difficult. Few things will endear you to your boss more than this: become the person who comes forward with solutions alongside their problems. It doesn’t have to be the solution they choose (that helps, though), but the fact that you’re thinking it through and considering solutions demonstrates the kind of mindset that managers adore.

9. Learn to stay level-headed

PR pros have to deal with difficult situations come up all the time, many of which can’t be predicted. These are moments where you can distinguish yourself and improve your reputation, or the reverse. Be the person who doesn’t lose their head. Stay calm and focus on solutions (per the earlier point). Remember: frantic doesn’t mean effective.

10. Know what you don’t know

Self-awareness is a valuable trait, regardless of where you are in your career. Be humble enough to know when you’re out of your depth, and to learn from those who have experience in areas you don’t. Whatever you do, make sure that when when you find yourself in that situation you don’t sit, paralyzed, until it’s too late for anyone to help you.

Bonus points for thinking things through ahead of time and coming prepared with a suggestion: “I’m not sure of the best approach here… here’s what I’m thinking… what do you think?”

11. Learn the difference between objectives, strategy and tactics

Nothing makes me cringe more than seeing people confuse objectives, strategy and tactics with each other.

Simply put:

Objectives are what you need to accomplish. They should relate to business goals.
Strategies are how you plan to accomplish them. They should drive toward the objectives.
Tactics are the actions you take. They should funnel up to the strategy.

Learn it. Preach it.

(Read more on how to set better objectives or download my ebook on communications planning for more pointers)

12. Become a trusted advisor

Whether you’re dealing with executives in your company, or with clients at other firms, strive to become a trusted advisor to them. Go beyond what you “have” to do and become a partner. Flag opportunities and threats. Offer strategic opinions. Learn to empathize with them. Have difficult conversations when you need to. Push them to take the right approach (but know when to accept their decision).

Don’t just take orders.

13. Learn from your mistakes

Accept that you’ll make mistakes. We all make them, and they’re a key piece of how we learn and improve.If you don’t make mistakes then you’re not trying hard enough or not trying enough things. The key is to make them at the right time, in the right setting, and to learn from them. Conversely, people who constantly shirk responsibility for mistakes, or make excuses, will never learn.

Some of my most valuable lessons, and most beneficial experiences, have come from making mistakes. They weren’t pleasant at the time, but I learned from them and I’m better for it. What’s important is owning them and figuring out what to do differently next time.

14. Think outside your bubble

It’s easy to get caught-up in your day-to-day routine. Instead, look around and proactively identify ways to expand your expertise. That could be by finding new ways to get better at tasks, or by getting involved in a project that stretches you, or by learning more about a relevant field.

15. Understand converged media

This point began life as “understand social media” but nowadays it’s broader than that. Start with understanding social media – monitor and participate in relevant conversations; think about how your programs might play out in social channels and so on. Social is just the beginning now, though. The key nowadays is understanding how earned, owned and paid media play together. You don’t need to be an expert in all of them, but you do need to understand how to leverage them.

There you have it – 15 tips for success in PR. What would you add to the list?

This article was originally posted by Dave Fleet on the 13th of April, 2013 at Dave Fleet Conversations at the Intersection of Communications, PR and Social Media.

5 Tips to Follow when Writing Press Releases

Thu, Apr 18 2013

As social channels grow it may be easy for PR pros to lull themselves into thinking that that press release has lost its luster.

Yet despite the ongoing proliferation in digital-media channels, press releases have not gone out of style.

If anything, the “bite-size” nature of digital content has put a growing premium on well-written press releases.

With that in mind, we thought we would revisit a few tips for PR execs to follow when writing press releases:

1. Put on a journalist’s hat: The press releases that will get the most traction from journalists are written in classic, journalistic style. Start the release with a strong (non-sales-y) lead that answers some of the basic questions of your message such as who, what, when, where and how, and go from there.

2. Lose the superlatives: Using lofty terms—“leading” being one of the main culprits—is still a chronic problem in press releases. “Solution” is another term that’s used frequently and gives reporters and editors pause; better to use vernacular that doesn’t draw attention to itself and/or cause the ire of media reps, but, rather, demonstrates that you’re familiar with the intricacies of the market.

3. Include some salient quotes: Not just comments from your CEO or CFO on the benefits of the product and/or service that you are writing about but quotes from partners, suppliers and customers who can testify on how the product and/or service can help consumers or, if it’s a B2B company, how the information in the release can help someone do his or her job better.

4. Keep it short: Reporters and editors are notoriously time-poor, so when writing press releases choose your words very carefully. Be somewhat surgical with quotes. Ditto for any statistics and/or metrics that you may want to put into the release to help substantiate your message.

5. Put your contact information in a prominent place: It’s a no-brainer to put your name and contact information in a prominent place on the news release, such as the upper left hand-corner, but we’re often amazed at how many press releases lack this basic information. Without it, you’re not only telling the reporter to lose the release but it also suggests you may be hiding from something.

What do you think of our tips? What are we missing?

This article was originally posted by Matthew Schwartz on the 15th of April, 2013 at PRNews.

Three secrets behind using thought leadership op-eds in the media

Wed, Apr 17 2013

The benefits of thought leadership manifested as opinion pieces published in the media include that it is opinion and not news reporting (so the necessity for factual accuracy is not a focus); it gives the writer greater control over how their thoughts are represented; it provides an increasingly resource-challenged media with valuable content; and its generally exclusive offering helps foster an enhanced relationship with a strategically valuable media outlet.

The most frequently quoted benefits of thought leadership are its positioning, differentiation and sales lead generation benefits. These benefits are emphasised the more synergistic they are with the qualities of the individual and/or the organisation producing the thought leadership.

Those organisations with an innovation dimension, which clearly have a business based on the necessity of intelligence and the need to foster their own intellectual property, have a distinct advantage in pursuing thought leadership content production as a fundamental organisation-stakeholder communication strategy:

The business is in lockstep with its strategic communication
Momentum is enhanced
Benefits are magnified.

Regardless of this ‘marriage made in heaven’, however, the following points remain salient for all organisations.

Factual reporting dying the death

It has been purported that the media has become increasingly reliant on ‘comment’ and analysis, rather than straight factual reporting. This, it has been speculated, has been driven by the reduction of journalists being employed by media outlets, which has become a tragically rampant phenomenon in Australia in the past two years.

An outcome of the ruthless journalist cull has been the decline of the rigour and fact checking media applies to its news stories, as well as the willingness of the media to invest its resources into generating copy which requires such processes. As a result, by natural evolution there is more ‘thought leadership’ or opinion pieces appearing than there once were, written both by journalists themselves and non-journalist media ‘outsiders’.

Because these pieces have a strong personal opinion slant and are not predicated on reporting straight facts, there is less of a need to ensure the content of these pieces is accurate by the letter of the law. One wonders if this is accelerating the media’s tendency towards sensationalising stories, with the underlying old school attitude of ‘don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story’ becoming, as it once was, the predominant paradigm.

Perhaps, in Australia, we should ask journalists like Andrew Bolt and Mark Latham this question?

An embedded irony in the media lacking the resources (and possessing what sometimes seem a credo to shoot first and fire [i.e. fact check] later) is this makes it more like the media-criticised blogotariat who, we are intermittently told, can’t be trusted because they don’t have the due diligence of traditional media.

For those of us who have worked in media relations for any time, this criticism is profoundly disingenuous. I’ve lost track of the times when issues have been comprehensively misrepresented and/or stories have featured incorrect information. This is especially the case with right-leaning media outlets in Australia.

Winning greater control over reputation and brand

Thought leadership, as expressed in a published opinion piece in the media, allows the author to express their thoughts with greater clarity and accuracy than being interviewed for the article. The interview is edited at the journalist’s and editor’s (very selective) discretion. It is highly unlikely the interviewee will be shown the article to see if their opinions are fairly represented or, certainly, if the article represents the issues/facts accurately.

The media does not have the time to do this and nor does it have the interest.

In an ideal world, nor is there anything wrong with this approach. This ‘ideal world’ involves a media which has a genuine passion for representing facts accurately and in a manner which the broader community (or its targeted group of readers) will gain value from. Sadly, the media is often not interested in this mindset. Its preference for conflict, confrontation and a ‘good story’ often overrides any motivation to get it right.

It would be preferable for the media to not seek recourse from an interviewee’s perspective because the media should offer an objective, fearless perspective, one not swayed by political agendas or influence. But humans are vulnerable to any sort of influence, so perhaps this is being naively optimistic.

The primary point I am making in this control diatribe, however, is a submitted opinion piece gives the writer more control over their words and how their thoughts are represented. In general, the pieces are published precisely as they have been articulated by the author. This provides the individual and their organisation with the greatest possible potential for optimised positioning and differentiation.

Sadly, there are exceptions to this too. It does happen that opinion pieces are accepted by the media then edited without the author being offered an opportunity to comment on the edits. Not particularly ethical, but it does happen.

Another frustrating dimension in submitting opinion pieces to the media is they can be accepted, then not used.

A variation of this is the media can laud the submitted piece, say they are waiting for the right opportunity, then never use the piece. This ‘teasing’ of the piece being used can go on for months. And as, in many cases, the opinion pieces are topical at a particular time, the increasing delay in using them means they cannot be offered to an alternative media outlet at a later stage.

And when you have one desirable media outlet saying they are just about to use the piece, or strongly implying this, it makes the life of a public relations professional extraordinarily difficult and the organisation/individual seeking the media coverage very irascible. Knowing when to pull the piece and offer it to an alternative outlet when a preferred media outlet has expressed its interest or commitment, is a devil and deep blue sea decision.

Building better media relationships with PR thought leadership

The provision of thought leadership opinion pieces creates a positive relationship with the media it has been given to. As a result, the media is more likely to call the submitter or submitter’s organisation, over its competitors, when an opportunity to provide comment on an issue emerges.

This is likely to occur because of the mutually beneficial relationship the two parties have and because the ‘provider’ has proven its intellect and worth through having its thoughts accepted for publication. Credibility exists, it doesn’t need to be pitched in. It’s another version of inbound marketing, in fact, before inbound marketing was even invented!

Have you considered the factors regarding thought leadership publication such as control over brand this post flags? What are your thoughts on this? What experiences can you share in pursuing a thought leadership content generation strategy for an organisation?

The truth about public relations, says Craig Pearce, is it takes short-term pain to achieve long-term gain. Craig Pearce is a strategic communication leader at PPR Perth, where he applies academic rigour and creativity – not spin! – to generate mutual change for mutual benefit.. He is also a leading PR blogger and can be read at Public relations and managing reputation.

This article was originally posted by Craig Pearce on the 27th of March, 2013 at Public relations and managing reputation.

6 Tips for using Images on Social Media

Tue, Apr 16 2013

On social media pages, your profile pictures and cover photos are the first things most users will notice, so making a good impression is essential if you want to increase your customer base.

Nothing grabs attention like an eye-catching, engaging image. They are a great way to tell a story and get exposure for your brand. Images attract casual browsers, encouraging them to find out more about your business.

You don’t have to hire an expensive studio or photographer – with a few ideas, good choice of colours and a bit of photo editing, creating the perfect visual shouldn’t be too difficult. Here are six tips for using images on social media:

1. Don’t settle for boring product shots

Although increasing sales might be the main goal for your social media page, a simple product shot won’t always make the best profile picture.

An attractive image can gain much more attention. Put a face behind your brand, to help people relate to you.

You can create a scene, use bold colours, be humorous and tell the story of your brand or product. Be creative – even quirky – and create inspiring pictures. Tell the story of who you are through images and engage people in a positive way.

2. Make an impact

There are slight differences across social media platforms, but generally speaking you need a background or cover photo and profile picture. If you think carefully about your options, you can create a lasting impression. Be consistent across social media channels and make the most of the image space. For example, a cover photo on Facebook is a great opportunity to make an impact with a big visual.

For an effective background or cover photo, use something bold, eye-catching and harmonious with your overall branding. This doesn’t necessarily involve a person. It can be like a hero banner – an artistic, attention-grabbing image that conveys what you do. Your cover photo can have the most impact because it takes up a large space. Facebook and Twitter’s header is 520px wide by 260px tall so it would be a waste not to take full advantage of the space provided.

3. Know where to find stock photos

Although a profile picture should definitely be produced in-house, you could use stock photography for a background image. If you search through Flickr for creative commons licensed images, you can find some cool images allowing free usage. Check out the requirements and make sure you have permission to use the images- you may have to credit the image’s creator. Stock.xchng is also a great website to find free images.

4. Technological limitations

Can your image be viewed effectively on a mobile? How much of your Twitter background is visible to your audience? You want to make sure as many people as possible can take in the full visual impact of your page. There’s a handy guide to image sizes and visibility on LunaMetrics. In short, your image choices have to tell your audience who you are with minimal text.

5. Consider the file formats - JPEG, GIF and PNG are the most common

JPEGs are commonly used because they can be compressed easily but can reduce the quality and can blur sharp edges.

GIF images are okay for creating low resolution images and mainly used for solid colours like logos, graphics or animated pictures.

PNG is a great format for transparencies. The non-glossy nature of 24-bit PNG is ideal for screenshot software as they do not lose their quality whilst being edited, allowing a pixel for pixel reproduction of your desktop environment.

6. Be inspired

Research success stories and take a look at good examples of how other businesses are using content on social media. Take your time, generate ideas and create a new image. Take advantage of great free photo editing software such as GIMP, Photoshop, and Picasa and get creative!

This article was originally posted by Greg Butler on the 25th March, 2013 at Dynamic Business.

Three PR Lessons from Social Customer Care

Mon, Apr 15 2013

Social media is putting customer care teams on the frontline of public relations. How can PR teams prepare for incidents in this new environment? Matt Travers over at ServiceRage.com has some ideas.

At ServiceRage, we witnessed a dramatic spike in negative Twitter feedback to two big banks during recent customer-facing outages. We examined the responses to consumers’ tweets by customer care teams, to identify three scenarios where the challenges inherent to the new communications media are evident.

Widespread outages at NAB on February 8 resulted in 125 negative tweets. On February 25, Westpac received 93 complaints. On a regular day both of these banks would receive a mere three or four negative comments.

1. Comparing Notes

Traditional channels allow customer care staff to address complaints individually. It is not necessary to acknowledge the overall scope of the outage. Consumers do not know whether they are among an unlucky few or whether there is a widespread problem.

With social media, the brand no longer controls the flow of information and this changes the balance of power. A quick Twitter search will reveal a great deal of information about the scope of the problem, allowing consumers to come to their own conclusions independent of the brand’s explanation.

For example, this Westpac consumer compares his experience with another Tweeter:

https://twitter.com/HugeVeryCat/status/305897135646314499

While another criticises the brand’s response to another consumer.

https://twitter.com/AKAWinny/status/305944197058400256

This increase in information means it is essential for customer care teams to be completely transparent and resist the temptation to gloss over problems.

2. Weakest Link

With the brand responding in public, it is essential that statements are consistent. Consumers can easily compare, so one inaccurate response can be shared and spread at the expense of accurate statements from the customer care team.

In a traditional customer care scenario, an inaccurate statement can be damaging, but the impact is likely to be limited to a single consumer.

For example, these consumers question the brand’s claim that the problem is just slowness:

https://twitter.com/MeikoElektra/status/305887066787573760

While another consumer suggests that the brand has avoided mentioning problems with the ATM network:

https://twitter.com/wrhollingsworth/status/305974420244164608

3. Pass It On

Social media makes it easy to share the story with the mainstream media. Twitter is very popular with journalists. The informality of the medium means that many customers feel comfortable contacting journalists directly.

Combine this with the easy access to Twitter data, which allows a journalist to assess the scope of the incident, and a headline is to hand.

For example, an unhappy NAB consumer lets the Sydney Morning Herald know:

https://twitter.com/LukeParkitny/status/299762961092845568

while a Westpac consumer takes his frustrations to The Age newspaper:

https://twitter.com/dpbaileys/status/305913632225636352

It is clear from these insights that the public nature of social media is changing how customers expect to interact with brands. Customer care via traditional channels, like phone and face-to-face, is a private conversation between the brand and the customer. But on Twitter, anyone can observe and comment as a consumer makes a complaint and the brand addresses it. Social media interaction is becoming more popular as consumers realise that complaining in public raises the stakes for the brand and makes their voice more powerful.

Whilst the major banks have been early adopters of social media customer care, these recent crises demonstrate the challenges of this new communications channel and require some new behaviours from the PR and customer care teams who seek to manage them.

So what can business do to prepare for an incident in this challenging new environment?

1. Share skills

PR teams tend to be specialist and close-knit. But the new social media environment means many more people across the organisation can find themselves on the front line of communication. It is not just the official social media presence that needs to be considered, what about all the employees? How will they respond when their friends tweet or Facebook them asking about the incident? Social media makes the whole organisation more porous so plugging the leaks is impractical. The best response is to help the whole organisation become PR savvy by sharing skills from the specialist team.

2. Wargame

Social media demand faster responses to a bigger and more diverse audience. The key to responding to this fire hose of feedback is a cross-functional team with expertise in PR, marketing, customer care and technology. But for this team to work efficiently they need to be in the same physical space with access to the tools to gather information and disseminate it to the social audience.

Take the time now to plan the physical, technology and people requirements to create this team at short notice and practise with a mock incident to iron out the glitches and unforeseen problems.

3. Reset Expectations

Now is the right time to talk about how social media have changed the ground rules for managing incidents. There’s no time for reflection during an event and afterwards it just sounds like excuses; so take the initiative now and talk to internal stakeholders from the CEO down about how the environment has changed.

Stakeholders need to accept that the organisation has less control during an incident but also to understand that this is is a small price to pay in order to access the marketing opportunities presented by social media when the business is running smoothly.

Author Bio

Matt Travers is the founder of service comparison website ServiceRage, which uses social media feedback to rank Australian banks, health insurers, energy companies, and general insurers. He has more than 15 years experience on the client and agency sides of digital marketing in Australia and Europe.

This article was originally posted by Lee Hopkins on the 3rd of April, 2013 at Better Communications.

10 Practical and Creative Tips to Help you Find your Next Job

Fri, Apr 12 2013

Finding an employment is a bit like money — it takes employment to find employment.

There’s a theory in PR employment that I’ve observed on both sides of the table as both a job seeker, and a hiring manger: the good PR people already have jobs. To find talent, employers have to poach from existing employers.

With unemployment hovering at just below 8 percent, overcoming this preconceived notion is yet another challenge. But wait, there’s more: the deluge of resumes. Hiring managers are simply overwhelmed with the sheer volume of applicants. If an application gets a look, it’s only cursory with the reviewer specifically looking for an excuse to toss a resume into the recycle bin.

As PR pros, we have skill set we can put to work on our own behalf: to break through the clutter, we have to run a marketing campaign on ourselves. Recently, I was looking for work, and while I have found gainful employment in a relatively short period of time, I’ve learned quite a bit along the way.

I wish I could say this was a well-thought out plan, but it wasn’t, it was an evolution — trial and error — and so this list is sequential:

1. Contact everyone you know. The first thing I did was contact everyone I knew — by email and social media. This led to numerous phone conversations — perhaps 50 — and I was truly surprised at just how many people were more than willing to help. I was also surprised by those who wouldn’t — and Jason Falls nails the reasons why. To those that helped me — hit me up — anytime! What did I ask for? An introduction to anyone in the Raleigh-Durham area that might be able to describe the employment environment, recommend networking organizations, or make an additional introduction. Complete strangers agreed to take a call from me merely as a result of an introduction, and with each call, I picked up a tip about the area, potential employers and was able to refine my pitch.

2. Edit your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is incredibly important for a job seeker. eMarketer reported recruiters are increasingly using LinkedIn to find talent. It’s obvious why — in a few clicks, prospective employers can see your work history, recommendations, network, and work samples — it’s a solid snapshot of a candidate. However, it only works if hiring managers can find you:

Edit the title and location. The title and locations are important parameters for searching LinkedIn. Originally, I had my last professional job (Director of PR) listed as the title, and my location was set Washington, DC where I was living. The chances of a hiring manager in Raleigh searching for by that specific job title are slim, so on the advice of a career consultant, I edited these. For the title, I chose key words that described what I wanted to do: PR, content marketing and social media. In editing my location, I also explained in the first paragraph of the profile to explain that I lived in DC, but was seeking to move and work in Raleigh.

Link to multimedia. LinkedIn has changed the profile formatting which means video from YouTube, and presentations from SlideShare, are now added under the “Background” section. I culled through YouTube to find video interviews, often conversations I had forgotten about, and created new SlideShare presentations to include here as demonstrations of work.

Add publications. LinkedIn offers the chance to add published works to your profile. For this section I chose a set of links from contributed blog posts I had published, but a job seeker could also include virtually anything published on the web, a press release or media placement you pitched, for example.

Ask for recommendations. There’s a lot of endorsements on LinkedIn, but one of the most powerful features is the recommendations section. Don’t shy from asking people to recommend you — this is a great point of validation of your talent and skills that will aid in a job search. After all, PR is about third-party validation.
Subscribe to LinkedIn. Rather than wait for jobs to be posted, I’d actively research companies I was interested in on LinkedIn and find decision makers. Wherever possible, I’d ask someone in my network to make an introduction, but in the cases where I had no “link” to the targeted company, I’d use the InMail feature to send a note. Subscribing is expensive, but I do plan to deduct the cost on my taxes this year. The response rate was about 20 percent.

3. Edit all your social media profiles. I edited every social media profile to describe myself as an experienced professional seeking work in PR, content marketing or social media in the Raleigh-Durham area. Twitter proved to be the most important among these, and I received a number of inquiries from friends on social networks asking how they could help.

4. Create a landing page. For the last couple years, I’ve diligently kept a running list of links to demonstrate the work I’ve done and I edited this page, including the title, to provide a brief introduction about goals and background (I’ve since re-edited it to remove this). Later, I got smarter about it and added a completely separate page, to use solely for content marketing purposes and ensured that no other page on my blog linked to this particular page. It’s a “dark site” basically. This is because I planned some social and PPC ads and linked to this page, so I wanted to be able to clearly distinguish in Google Analytics where the traffic was coming from — and if those ads were effective. If I were still on the job market, I might consider writing still another page — a top 10 reasons to hire me style post — and then run A/B testing in social advertising to see which performed better.

5. Run social ads. Social advertising is inexpensive and some sites offer the ability to precisely target the audience. Since I’ve successfully used this form of paid media to earn media, I decided to run a campaign on myself that linked to the landing page mentioned in #4. I started with LinkedIn, and targeted people with HR, recruiting and C-Suite titles that were based in the Raleigh-Durham area. Initially I experimented paying per click, but later determined paying per 1,000 impressions provided better click results. In addition, I constantly analyzed and tweaked the ad copy to improve performance. Next I created Facebook ads, again targeting the same demographics. In all cases I set limits to my spend keeping it to about $100 per month.

6. Run Google AdWords. Though I’ve worked closely with a lot of really talented PPC professionals, I’m not a PPC expert by any means but this was a chance to experiment with a the medium, learn something new, and strive to drive targeted traffic to the landing page I had created. Unlike social ads, AdWords do not allow you to target by title, but rather by keyword and geography. The geographic was obviously the Raleigh-Durham area, and key words centered on related topics such as “Raleigh public relations” or terms I thought hiring managers might search for such as “human resource management.” I also ran ads against searches for the names of 14 public relations firms in the area. My thinking was the opportunity was two-fold: a) executives at those firms might search for their own company to view results and see my ad, or b) someone thinking about hiring a PR firm, might search for them, find my ad and consider me as a hire or freelance work. What amazed me the most was I discovered very few PR firms run PPC ads on their own companies, so it was cheap traffic and my ad had a really good chance of showing up in related searches given the dearth of competition. In running these ads for a very short period of time, I could see in Google Analytics, that my landing page earned 63 page views from traffic in North Carolina and spent on average 43 seconds reviewing content. That’s 43 seconds with 60 potential employers I might not otherwise earned. In combination with social advertising and personal networking, I was working to ensure employers heard from me on multiple channels. I also learned that if I ever opened my own shop in Raleigh, I’d crush larger and more established firms in PPC — and have another service to sell in integrated communications.

7. Create Twitter lists. Twitter lists are an effective way to study a target audience. After developing a list of tweeters in Raleigh-Durham, I turned it into a Paper.li, that I could read every day to learn about new programs, initiatives and stay on top of topics in which the people I was trying to reach were interested. It was through this content curation tactic, I learned that Ketchum had acquired Raleigh-based Capstrat, and since I’ve got considerable experience with acquisitions, went to lengths to write a post reacting to the Raleigh-Durham PR acquisition news. There are several combinations in Google search that will put this post at the top of page one in Google. Through my network, I later learned this post had been published on a Facebook group for PRSA’s counselor academy members — exactly the type of audience I wanted to reach.

8. Subscribe to blogs. I culled through lists of “Best places to work in Raleigh” to identify prospective employers — the Triangle Business Journal’s “Book of Lists” also proved useful (thanks Glenn). Next I found these companies — and their blogs on the web and subscribed to them via RSS using NetVibes. Every day, I’d read and schedule tweets from posts I liked. This wasn’t just about sucking up to a potential employer — there were a lot of poorly written blog posts (and blogs) I didn’t tweet — but it was also a chance to study the market: which of these companies really understood the web and how it has changed PR. Should I wind up in an in-house gig again, I’d want to have a sense for which firms really “get it” and which do not.

9. Read and respond to HARO queries. Anyone that is in PR that has not heard of Help a Reporter Out needs to get caught up. Yes, it’s owned by my former employer, but HARO is still free, and it’s still incredibly useful. If you have a solid answer to a reporter or bloggers inquiry, why wouldn’t you pitch it? The biggest challenge I had is reporters weren’t sure how to cite my role. I settled on “freelance PR consultant” since I was in fact, doing freelance work.

10. Ramp up your content. Initially, I started posting here three times per week, writing in depth posts and spending hours on them. It was incredibly liberating and this blog has grown tremendously as a result — more than double the total traffic, the bounce rate plummeted, page views grew 2.5x, and time on page increased dramatically. However, I also wanted to be sure to do guests posts — an earned media effort to compliment my paid media efforts — and so reduced the volume to just two posts per week. In the process, I discovered I’d actually earn more visitors with just two posts rather than three, was more than enough to maintain audience interest. In fact, I’ve deduced that three posts per week was overwhelming for my readers and they would just stop visiting. It’s likely when I return to working full time, I’ll drop the frequency down to just one post per week, but I’ll do so knowing I can ramp it back up anytime.

11. Additional Tips. There are a few other more general tips I’d offer to job seekers that were reinforced during this search:

Keep regular hours. It’s imperative to keep a set schedule. Despite my military background, I’m not a morning person. In fact, I’m pretty grumpy since it takes about an hour and a good strong cup of Starbucks to warm me up. However, I kept a set schedule, working at least 8 hours per day on this marketing program to find a job. There is always something more I could do.
Don’t spend too much time on the job sites. Yes, it’s important to be on the job sites — here’s 20 places to look for a PR job — but don’t spend too much time on them. Often jobs are never posted, and I discovered, there’s a whole lot more opportunities in DC than in Raleigh. I’d go two or three days before running through my list of bookmarked jobs sites, searching for open positions and applying. And I’d be done in about two hours. Searching through job sites can be depressing, when there aren’t that many posted or you can see that 100 other people applied. Instead, I consciously focused my efforts on helping an employer find me.
Blog. If there’s one thing a PR pro can do to help their career, it is to blog. If you are still in college, start now. If you’re an industry professional, get going. Blogging will help you to grow in so many ways — refine your thinking, sharpen your writing skills, force you to learn basic web marketing, HTML code and technical details. It also gives you an appreciation for what works in content and what doesn’t. I’m amazed at the lousy pitches this blog gets — and from people that really ought to know better. Blogging will grow your portfolio, build relationships with other bloggers and demonstrate dedication, work ethic and competency to potential employers for your chosen profession.
Volunteer. One company in particular, a small business, needed some help. They didn’t ask, I volunteered. We chatted about ideas one day and I offered to put them in writing. In fact, that 30 minute conversation turned into a nine page content marketing plan that they can execute on. Currently, I’m contemplating making the plan generic and posting it here because its good advice for a small business content marketing program. The process kept my skills sharp.
Read. Read. Read. One of the best things a job-seeker can do is learn something new. I’ve long been a voracious reader, but much of my reading has migrated online and the stack of books on the night table has grown. I’ve plowed through a dozen books in the three months I’ve been looking for a job. Titles have included books on child development like “What’s on your Toddler’s Mind” since I have a two-year-old daughter, to PR books like Rethinking Reputation, to relationships, like re-reading John Gray’s Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus. Certainly there’s personal gain by reading these titles, but there’s also an element of psychology to PR, so these titles also have professional merit. One other book I’d strongly recommend for anyone considering opening their own gig, is Quitter: Closing the Gap between your Day Job and your Dream Job by Jon Acuff. I couldn’t set the book down; it’s a must read.
Experiment with other social sites. With so many social sites, we often have limited time with which to experiment. Social networks have so many nuances, we might miss them until we really dive into testing. With the demise of Posterous, I spent a considerable amount of time on Google+, Tumblr and Pinterest as part of a content marketing program to help myself find gainful employment.
Know what you are worth. Understanding what the market is willing to pay for your skills and experience is incredibly valuable once you get your foot in the door for an interview. Benchmark salary data for corporate communicators and PR agencies types can be found on these links.
Have fun. Quite simply, I had fun running this little marketing program. I learned a lot on my own, made productive use of my time and well, achieved my goal. Oh, and I did enjoy myself in other ways. For example, I completed the accelerated free fall program to earn an skydiving license.

Final Thoughts: Relationships Still Matter

I’ve landed a new gig. I’ve resettled in Durham, NC and am excited to turn a new chapter in my life. Though I’ve learned a lot during this search — which was in fact a huge risk — there’s one point that was really driven home: relationships, above all else, still matter. I landed where I am because of a personal introduction to a person who I was connected to like Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Our paths have crossed over the course of my career several times. This person knew of me, but more importantly knew an employer I had worked for 10 years ago, and knew a colleague I have worked with at three different jobs. I came with recommendations. Certainly the work on this blog helped, but it was the total package — the combined effort that secured the position. It’s worth bearing in mind that each and every day, we are writing our resumes.

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PR isn’t a profession, it’s a lifestyle

This article was originally posted by Frank Strong on the 2nd of April, 2013 at Sword and the Script.

2 More Reasons Your Brand Should Be on Vine

Thu, Apr 11 2013

Still not sold on Vine, the six-second video montage service that's owned by Twitter? Even the U.S. Government is climbing aboard. Friendly terms of service were signed by the General Services Administration and Twitter last week cleared the way for U.S. agencies to post six-second Vine videos without fear of violating any rules, according to Mashable.

While government agencies are not known as the early adopters in the social media space, their jumping onto Vine signifies the growing importance for organizations to offer their audiences with a behind-the-scenes look into how their companies operate via video content.

The Interior Department's first Vine video (below), which give viewers a tour of five new national monuments, is a prime example of exactly how much can be packed into a six second video clip.

Jason Woodward, a research and social/digital media associate at Hunter Public Relations, provided a couple of key tips that PR pros need to know about Vine:

1) Brands can tell stories on Vine that they know their viewers will watch all the way to the end.

Research abounds on the optimal video length for the Web’s modern viewer, with recommendations varying from 30 seconds to four minutes. But by capping its videos at six seconds, Vine asks for a virtually insignificant time investment from the viewer.

This all but guarantees that if someone starts watching your Vine, he or she will watch the whole thing. Since Vines loop endlessly, most consumers will probably watch them through multiple times. Instead of worrying about the video’s parameters, the lightweight nature of Vine enables brands to focus on what they should do best: tell a compellling story.

2) Content is still king, but creativity has become the prince.

More important than any medium, budget or featured celebrity is the actual quality of the marketing messages you create and produce. In other words: content is king. However, the quality of your content is fueled by the distinctiveness of your creativity. And the less you have to work with, the more creative you’re forced to be.

In other words: constraints drive creativity. Such is the case with Vine. It now offers videographers a very limited toolkit. To wit, all video must be shot on an iPhone (for now); it must be shot within the Vine app; it can’t be cropped, edited or touched up after the fact; you can’t add any text or special effects and external videos that were taken somewhere else cannot be imported into the app.

Although these might seem like barriers, smart marketers will see them as opportunities for their creativity to flourish, creating content that tells a story that wouldn’t really make sense on another medium. Google these lighthearted examples: “Dying for a coffee” from one of Twitter’s illustrators and “Good things come together” from Malibu Rum.

PR News subscribers can read the full version of Woodwar'ds "How To: 5 Things That Communicators Should Know About Twitter's Vine."

Looking to become the "Vine" leader in your organization? Register now for PR News' April 30 Webinar: How to Use Vine to Boost Engagement With Your Brand.

This article was originally posted by Bill Miltenberg on the 9th of April. 2013 at PRNews.

The Importance of Creativity in your Blog Content

Wed, Apr 10 2013

The only thing boring about content may well be the creator.

That was the message in a post on Copyblogger with a subtitle that read, “There are no boring topics, only boring content creators.” Author Pratik Dholakiya next tackles the challenge of making coffee cups interesting.

It’s an idea reflective of Malcom Gladwell’s work, who is a prolific writer with the hairstyle of a genius. In his book, What the Dog Saw, Gladwell says the role of a gifted writer, or more specifically, a journalist, is to breath life into a topic and in essence make the uninteresting…interesting.

There’s a lot of Tipping Going on

Ten tips, seven tips and five tips — “tips posts” are a popular format. The concept is to take a complex topic and break it down into comprehensible parts. At the end, the reader can piece these together to gain a larger understanding.

Though I’ve used them myself — I’m doing it here – I’ve grown weary of so many “tips posts” because too often they are used as a shell to bang out quick copy for copy’s sake. There’s a lot of tipping going on. Often, these posts tend to rely on the glaringly obvious or the repeated cliche to present the appearance of intellectualism but leaves the information consumer no more intelligent. Perhaps these are geared for a different audience.

1. Say what you think.
2. Dare to be different.
3. Do research.
4. Engage. Listen. Transparency.
5. Pray. Stretch. Floss.
6. Breathe.

Sometimes Blog Posts are like Metaphors

Sometimes bloggers go for metaphors — How Facebook is Like Hunger Games — because likening something abstract to something we tangible places it into a context we can grasp. Psyblog expresses this notion beautifully in a post on how we understand the abstract nature of time.

"Because time is abstract we try to understand it psychologically using metaphors. We say that ‘time flows like a river’, ‘time marches on’ or ‘time flies’. These are all spatial ways of thinking about an abstract idea."

Other times, posts combined metaphors with lists and these can be incredibly creative. Of the posts I have listed below, many of them draw from childhood themes — in the same way we learned everything we needed to know about life in Kindergarten.

Six Compelling Blog Posts

1. What Mr. Rogers Can Teach Social Media Gurus by Jennifer Kane: Jen applies Fred Roger’s neighborly principles for life to consulting. Gentle and empathetic as the man was, you might never have guessed Fred Rogers was a former Marine.

2. What 4-year Olds Can Teach Us About Tech PR by Margaret Hoerster: This is sheer brilliance. Kids aren’t weighted down by the baggage of preconceived notions we all acquire with time. They look at things differently and it’s refreshing if we listen.

3. 25 Things You’ll Have to Explain to Your Kids About Marketing One Day by Pamela Vaughan: Few companies do content like HubSpot and this is a very visual post mimics an earlier idea. It’s a list post for sure but it’s also certainly a metaphor for inbound marketing. It made me think: My two-year old has only seen iPads and iPhones which means she’ll completely different frame of reference growing up. Here’s another great kid-driven anecdote about the Yellow Pages.

4. Google: A poet that didn’t know it by Alan Pearcy: They used to say the media is a reflection of society — and certainly Google’s search queries are a representation of our collective questions. For example, here’s what Google thought about PR in 2009. This post here by a Ragan’s writer is a great way to capture interesting ideas for posts.

5. Green Eggs & Facebook: 15 Social Media Tips from Dr. Seuss by Pam Moore. Like the Mr. Roger’s post above, Pam captures an icon of pop culture. Yet she was also brilliant in her timing — she published on Dr. Seuss birthday.

6. Phantom Interview with Groupon CEO Andrew Mason on His Resignation Letter by Lou Hoffman: Of the lot here, this is my personal favorite. When Andrew Mason resigned there was intense competition for commentary — newsjacking — and Lou took a really interesting approach. It’s an idea I’m hoping to copy sometime soon. Moreover, amid the clutter of opinions, Lou’s post ranked well in search and he was able to write about that as well.

What do you think — which post do you like the best? What other creative posts have you seen?

This article was originally published by Frank Strong on the 21st of March 2013, at Sword and the Script.

6 Things to Consider Before Starting a PR Agency

Fri, Apr 05 2013

Sole traders in the PR Industry are popping up all over the place, practically every day. While I 100% whole-heartedly support entrepreneurial endeavour, there are many things to consider before taking the leap into PR biz world...

1. Get A LOT of experience first

It seems most newbies are gaining an average of just 3 years PR agency experience before delving into their own enterprise. I don't believe this is enough, but it could simply be down to the chutzpah of Gen Y (as a Gen X'er, I had 7 years experience before freelancing which I thought was quite radical at the time).

The most extreme I've seen of the many calling for my advice on starting their own biz, was a girl who stated her breadth of experience was running an event and a PR campaign. Yup - just ONE of each. When I kindly suggested she perhaps gain some more on-the-job knowledge - she became indignant and more gung-ho than ever. While I respect ballsiness, I just couldn't in this case.

Perhaps if I'd gone straight for her ego she may have listened? Here goes: Make all your mistakes on somebody else's time. Because trust me, you want to be making as few mistakes as possible when it's your name plastered all over the work, your investment on the line and your reputation on the chopping block. In the immortal words of Mr Miyagi: First learn stand, then learn fly, grasshopper.

2. Clients before business cards

Or business before business plan - or dining table before office. Whatever way you look at it, see if you can get any clients first, and if you can do a good job - BEFORE you outlay any money on business cards, a website, office rent or kill yourself writing a 10,000 word business plan manifesto. This is why freelancing is a great middle ground between employment and your own actual business. (kinda the way Carrie describes bisexuality being a layover on the way to Gaytown...)

Stop and smell the roses in freelancing world for a while. Dip your feet in. Paddle around. It's the most inexpensive way to work out if starting your own business is actually going to work. FYI I freelanced for 6 months before my business organically grew from there once I was quite literally working full-time for myself. I never forced anything.

3. Get a mentor

Now that you won't have a boss or superiors who've been around longer than you and know their stuff, getting a mentor is ESSENTIAL. I was lucky enough to have two. Your mentor should be someone who has excelled in the field, someone you admire, and someone who is happy to take your 'this client just asked me xyz what the hell should I do??!' calls. Preferably not every day.

4. Get an accountant

Oh, those dreamy pay days where you worked a fortnight and money magically appeared in your account and you didn't have to do anything else. And I bet the only stress was feeling it wasn't enough, right? Those days are in the past. You now have to stay on top of all of your tax compliance - consistently and zealously. An accountant will help to keep you in line.

5. Create a tax account

Stop looking at that lovely lump sum for that freelance gig you did as if it's all yours with a pair of shoes on top. It's not. Have a set amount automatically transferred from your business account to a tax account on the 1st of each month. This way you won't collapse in a heap of despair when your aforementioned accountant above tells you what BAS you owe each quarter, or your super, or the worst...what you owe annually in personal and company tax in one whopping lump sum.

If you don't keep on top of your tax obligations, yes, the ATO WILL GET YOU one day - it's the one thing you can be absolutely sure of. Welcome to the super-fun side of being your own boss. Woo-hoo! PS: say goodbye to getting any 'tax back' at the end of the financial year...I have very fond memories of those days.

6. Keep up the standards of the industry

Annnnd drum roll for another Karate Kid quote: "Just remember; license never replace eye, ear, and brain." Just because you have a personal ABN doesn't mean you are an island. You are now a part of the Australian PR Industry and you should always respect and appreciate your position within it. We are a highly unregulated industry but it doesn't mean you can get away with unethical behaviour, aggressive competitiveness and general sloppiness.

Concentrate on quality, not quantity. Respect your peers. Keep your finger on the pulse. Get involved in organisations like The Public Relations Council, and be dedicated to lifting the reputation of us all, even if you feel like a tiny player...for now ;)

This article was originally posted by Tiffany Farrington on the 21st of March, 2013 at Social Diary

10 Ways to Become a Better PR Writer

Wed, Apr 03 2013

If you’re a PR pro then you probably pride yourself on being a good writer. But being a good writer is not the same thing as being a great PR writer who knows how to edge out the competition and connect with journalists, bloggers and consumers across all channels, including social media.

At PR News’ One-Day Boot Camp for Emerging PR Stars on March 18, Lynne Farber, assistant professor at Florida International University, and John Forrest Ales, director of global brand public relations at Hilton Worldwide, discussed ten ways to train your eyes and ears to “think like a journalist” within your organization or client.

1. Discover stories: “Sometimes things that are usual to you are extremely unusual to others on the outside world,” said Ales. “A simple new piece of equipment can be a big new item and provide some story angles.”

Ales said the holidays are a slow time every year for the hotel industry. That’s why Hilton decided to come up with the "12 Drinks of Christmas" campaign. The company issued a press release and started talking about it on social media and how Hilton would release a drink per day. Videos showcased internal training with bartenders and mixologists. Suddenly, Hilton had a social campaign with zero cost. “That's a result of being in touch cross-departmentally and putting writing and media behind an internal news story to make it compelling,” Ales said.

2. Make business data compelling: There are times when the mundane for some folks is interesting to others.

3. Look for milestones: What are the days that are special to your organization that PR can get behind? When Hilton became the first hotel brand to earn a million fans on Facebook, Ales’ team launched an internal campaign to share social media best practices across Hilton. Externally, the team created press releases about its successes in a competitive space; the releases were then picked up by several media outlets..

4. Listen to customers and employees at all levels. “A big function of PR is to be in the boundaries,” Farber said. “You need to be in touch with the CEO, but also the one in the trenches getting the info up to the CEO.”

5. Have confidence that you know when something is not a story: You’re also the gatekeeper and you need to have the best nose for what’s newsworthy.

6. Capture attention: Load up your copy with stats, emotion, urgency and testimonials (leaders, employees, customers); supporting materials should include photos, video, graphics, FAQs and guides.

7. Write for SEO: “Improve writing quality by removing content that is duplicate or not relevant, and watch your Google ranking and reposition/modify words as needed,” Farber said. “Use strong and relevant keywords words in headlines and leads and consider visually what accompanies your words—a wall of text is a death march for a reader.”

8. Writing for social media: Speak the #language of your @channel. “Consider the informal nature of social channels,” Ales said. ”Grab their attention and keep it—remember brevity, be relevant, consistent and use first person.”

9. Know the place for jargon: “With industry jargon you have to know it for your internal audience, but you have to know when to shut it down for your internal audience” Farber said.

10. Revise, review and edit: Keep your style rules close—whether they’re from AP or your own internal guidelines.

This article was originally posted by Bill Miltenberg on the 21st of March, 2013 at PRNews.

6 Creative PR Ideas Used Across Paid, Shared & Earned Media

Tue, Apr 02 2013

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” -Darwin

In marketing and public relations, creativity is often more art than science. One way to get ideas is to keep an eye out for them. They say it takes money to make money, and in many ways, ideas work the same way: good ideas lead to more good ideas.

Below are six creative PR ideas, and the one aspect I’d like to highlight, is that almost all of these incorporate a blend of media. Even as the distinction between marketing and PR has grown blurry, so too has the distinction between paid and earned media.

These ideas incorporate paid media (advertising), with shared media (social), to produce earned media (traditionally, PR). One or two of these also included owned media (blog or website). These six ideas are outputs — the evidence that silos are breaking and that integrated marketing is more than an (old school) buzzword. However it’s also changing the environment in ways we might not have anticipated, or even like, but there’s no doubt success will require responsiveness to change.

1. Tapping Into Trends. The fiscal cliff debate might be a dry topic for many, but if you’re in the tax business, it’s also a chance to earn some share of voice. Tax season is nearly upon us, so it’s a great (annual) event that presents an opportunity for spokespeople in the tax or accounting business.

Liberty Tax however saw a chance to get an early lead by getting into the the conversation on the fiscal cliff. After hearing this story on Marketplace, Fiscal cliff rewrites the calendar for the IRS, I was thinking some savvy PR person was on their toes, and in doing a little searching, realized they’ve made a solid push. Liberty Tax is a source in a slew of media mentions from trades like Accounting Today, to the locals Business Journals, to Fox News.

The firm is also earning some buzz for the growth of it’s franchise — 127 locations in New York City — to work ethic of their signature wavers we all see dressed as the Statue of Liberty. There are hundreds of photos of wavers on Instagram.

2. Ben and Jerry’s Bended Media. America’s favorite ice cream brand has implemented a campaign that perfectly mixes paid, shared and earned media. The company ran an pseudo-Instagram photo contest with it’s 120,000+ Instagram fans, picked a winner and then used that photo for local advertising.

Guess what happened next? The company earned media.

Mashable’s Todd Wasserman wrote in a post, “To enter, fans have to tag #captureeuphoria to their Instagram photos. The subject of the photos is vaguely defined and has to somehow hew to the theme. About 20 photos will be chosen between now and January. The winning pics will be featured in local print, bus station and billboard ads near the fan’s home.”

People joke all the time about taking pictures of food and posting these to social media sites. It’s a smart move to harness that impulse for an integrated marketing program.

3. Change the game. Sometimes a product becomes akin to an American icon. Such is the case with Hasbro’s Monopoly in a capitalist country.

It’s a family-oriented pastime, paired with McDonald’s for a contest every year, the game’s currency is continuously used as a punch line in politics, but even so, smart brands reinvent themselves.

It launched a Facebook contest to replace one of the tokens, which Marketplace’s Daryl Paranada noted means , “One of the iconic Monopoly game tokens is heading straight to jail — for life.”

So which piece goes? You’ll have to participate in the contest to make your vote count. Marketplace appears to be lobbying to catch the dog to which Dave Racine quipped back, “Leave it to the Internet, and you’ll get cats.”

4. Native Advertising? Sharing Disabled. Taco Bell, the consumer brand with quick thinking community managers that took a punch and doled one right back at Old Spice on Twitter – and also entertains, in the true sense, requests for food delivery by a special class of people commemorating police code for marijuana busts, has gone native.

Native advertising, that is, and it’s using this approach to earn media. The fast food company started sponsoring stories on BuzzFeed, often linked to social media engagements, but kept the sharing features disabled.

In a post on Digiday — Taco Bell’s Content-First Ad Approach — Saya Weissman writes, “If you look at what we did with BuzzFeed, it’s relevant and it’s entertaining. We’re doing something that unexpected. It’s about celebrating not having to share. Today with social media, the default has become sharing — and oversharing. We are sharing so much, but often we forget to just enjoy the moment.”

It’s a prime example of paid media being used to earn earned media — and that’s thinking outside the bun.

"Today with social media, the default has become sharing — and oversharing. We are sharing so much, but often we forget to just enjoy the moment."

5. Who said print was dead? “An experiment printing news and advertising as restaurant receipts has been launched in DC’s Old Ebbitt Grill,” read the press release. “The ‘news receipts’ will deliver the top of the current news, particularly events that broke during the diner’s meal.”

The release even presents a quote from Frank Mankiewicz, the former vice-chairman at PR firm H&K, NPR president and press secretary to Robert Kennedy; he is credited with contributing to the idea.

In DC, Old Ebbitt is something of a landmark and sits just a stone’s throw from the White House. It “was a favorite of Presidents Grant, Cleveland, Harding and Theodore Roosevelt and is still a popular meeting spot for political insiders, journalists, celebrities and theater-goers,” according to the restaurant’s website.

With a Victorian setting, accented by Beaux-Arts design, the restaurant which is run by the popular Clyde’s Restaurant Group, not only started printing Associated Press stories on it’s receipts — it’s also selling ads against the content.

The Washington Post’s Jonathan O’Connell wrote in a story, “It’s an old-school idea — news from paper rather than pixels — coming from two old-school operations (AP was founded in 1846 and the Ebbitt in 1856). Perhaps its not surprising that the concept’s first advertiser is a paper company, Montreal-based Domtar.”

It might be better than those grocery store coupons, printed on receipts, for products we aren’t likely to buy. Check, please!

6. Free Tickets to Space. Pay to advertise free tickets to space as part of a product promotion, and it’s likely you’ll earn media coverage. That’s exactly what Unilever, the maker of Axe has done.

Axe, which makes a range of smell-good products for men, tapped Buzz Aldrin, the 2nd man to walk on the moon, to announce the Axe Apollo Space Academy in a video of a mock press conference posted to YouTube. It had 40,000 views at the time of writing.

The promotion is tied to the company’s forthcoming Superbowl commercial, and proposes to send 22 winners to a space training boot camp, medical screening and eventually on a 62-mile high space flight.

Unilever teamed with Space Expedition Corporation (SXC), which is developing plans for commercial space flight. Certainly a promotion with a big consumer brand like Unilever, and tied to the Superbowl, is one way to create demand, or at least awareness of, commercial space travel.

Advertising Age pins the value of sending the winners to space at about $2 million; then we can add in the cost of the Superbowl commercial. Both Unilever and SXC are getting their share of buzz — SXC’s website pitches it just like that, “Be the Next Buzz.”

A quick search of Twitter shows plenty of shared media mentions as well, however when I signed up for the contest (heck, yeah, I’d go into space) I was surprised I didn’t see “tweet this” sharing feature on the registration page or get an email confirming registration. It’s a missed opportunity. Should I be selected, I’d like to also put an request in to land parachute-style like Felix Baumgartner.

What creative ideas have you spotted lately?

This article was originally posted by Frank Strong on January 14th, 2013 at Sword and the Script.

How to Write a Convincing Email

Mon, Apr 01 2013

Follow this simple, six-step system to ensure your e-mails get the job done.

E-mails are the most common document in the business world. Unfortunately, many e-mails are so poorly written that recipients must struggle to figure out why they're reading the e-mail and what they're supposed to do about it.

Here's a foolproof method to write e-mails that get the job done.

1. Have a specific decision in mind.

The goal of an e-mail is always to get the recipient(s) to make a decision of some kind. Otherwise, why bother writing the it?

Therefore, before you write anything, ask yourself: exactly what decision do I want the recipient to make?

As with all business writing, vagueness is the opposite of useful. The clearer the goal, the more convincing your e-mail will be.

2. Start by writing your conclusion.

Your conclusion is a statement of the decision that you want the recipient to make, based upon the contents of your e-mail.

In school, they probably taught you to start with an introduction and end with an conclusion. Wrong.

Nobody in the business world has time to wander through the development of an idea. If you don't tell them the reason for the e-mail immediately, chances are they'll just move on.

So you start with your conclusion. For example, suppose your goal is get your boss to approve an in-house gym.

WRONG:

Jim,
As you know, employee absenteeism is generally recognized as an ongoing problem with a steep financial impact, both in our company and in other companies in our industries. [yada, yada, yada] Therefore, we should consider allocating money for the installation of a gym at our headquarter facility.

RIGHT:

Jim,
I want you to approve the installation of an in-house gym.

3. Structure your supporting argument into "digestible chunks."

Once you've stated your conclusion, marshall the arguments that support your conclusion (i.e. the decision you want made). To make your arguments "digestible," break them into small "chunks," and present each point with a similar format and sentence structure.

WRONG:

According to a recently published government report, group physical fitness is extremely important even though very few companies actually demonstrate a commitment to it! Many firms identify physical fitness as an undervalued competitive asset, but don't have a plan for improvement in this area, even though physical fitness is strongly linked to corporate and individual economic and personal success. I feel that if we do not address the issue of physical fitness as it enhances workplace productivity, we will be left behind.

RIGHT:

An in-house gym will:
- Reduce absenteeism.
- Increase overall productivity.

4. Bolster each argument with evidence.

It's been said that everyone has two things: a sphincter and an opinion. Unless you provide facts that back up your arguments, your e-mail becomes one giant, opinion and therefore, in the eyes of the recipient, you'll probably seem like one, giant... well..., you get the idea.

WRONG:

An in-house gym will reduce absenteeism because then people will want to come to work rather than stay at home and they won't get sick so much.

RIGHT:

- Reduce absenteeism. According to a National Health Institute survey of 1,000 firms, companies with in-house gyms experience 20% less absenteeism than those who lack such facilities.

5. Repeat your conclusion as a "call to action."

At the end of the e-mail, restate the conclusion in a way that provides the recipient with the next step that the recipient must take, assuming the recipient now agrees with your conclusion, based upon the force of your arguments and evidence. Keep it simple and specific.

WRONG:

Your support for this project would be greatly appreciated.

RIGHT:

If you respond to this e-mail with your approval, I'll get the process started.

6. Stick a benefit in the subject line.

Your subject line (aka "title") is the most important part of an e-mail, which is why you write it last, after you've written down both your conclusion and the arguments and evidence that supports that conclusion.

Ideally, a subject line should accomplish two important tasks: 1) interest the recipient enough so that the e-mail gets opened and read, and 2) imply the conclusion that you want to the recipient to accept.

In most cases, the best way to accomplish both tasks is to encapsulate a benefit (or benefits) that will result from the decision that you'd like the recipient to make.

WRONG:

Subject: The Health Impact of In-House Employee Fitness Programs

RIGHT:

Subject: How we can reduce absenteeism

To wrap it up, here are the two e-mails:

WRONG:

To: Jim@Acme.com
Subject: The Health Impact of In-House Employee Fitness Programs
Jim,
As you know, employee absenteeism is generally recognized as an ongoing problem with a steep financial impact, both in our company and in other companies in our industries. An in-house gym will reduce absenteeism because then people will want to come to work rather than stay at home and they won't get sick so much. Therefore, we should consider allocating money for the installation of a gym at our headquarters facility. Your support for this project would be greatly appreciated.
Jill

RIGHT:

To: Jim@Acme.com
Subject: How we can reduce absenteeism
Jim,
I want you to approve the installation of an in-house gym. This will:
- Reduce absenteeism. According to a National Health Institute survey of 1,000 firms, companies with in-house gyms experience 20% less absenteeism than those who lack such facilities.
- Increase productivity. We have 50% more absenteeism than other firms in our industry, so reducing that number by 20% will automatically increase our productivity by 10%.
If you respond to this e-mail with your approval, I'll get the process started.
Jill

Seriously, which of the two e-mails do YOU think is more likely to move your agenda forward?

This article was originally posted by Geoffrey James on March 15th 2013 at INC.

Guest Post: You Snooze You Lose

Fri, Mar 29 2013

It often surprises the team at Recognition PR how frequently we line up a media interview, or the opportunity to write a by-lined article, only to have the spokespeople query the deadline and ask for extensions. Why, they wonder, does it need to be so soon?

The media environment at the moment is more competitive than ever. There are fewer publications, less space and journalists are generally expected to cover more areas. When opportunities present themselves businesses need to be prepared to respond.

In the past, many media opportunities may have required a response time of a week, or even a month, many deadlines are now shorter. Businesses may, in some instances, only have hours to respond to opportunities.

Media deadlines are not negotiable. What’s more, if you promise you’ll deliver, you must do so in order not to damage your personal brand (and your agencies).

In order to respond quickly there are some basic things businesses can do.

Firstly, where possible have multiple spokespeople available. There’s nothing worse than having a brilliant opportunity and not being able to track down an authorised spokesperson.

Secondly, communicate your availability. Taking leave? Let the PR and communications teams know. Everyone heading off for an overseas conference make sure you leave contact details and understand that your local operations must go on.

Hold off distributing media releases when you know spokespeople have back-to-back meetings or will be hard to reach. Nothing annoys a journalist more than when you issue news and there’s no-one available to talk about it.

Waiting to get back to journalists, for even 24 hours, in the current environment can mean missed opportunities to talk about your business. Worse still, it may mean that the journalist has found someone else that fits the bill, likely a competitor.

Make sure your business has a media strategy in place now to leverage every opportunity that comes your way.

Liz is a director of Recognition PR, Outsource and Writeaway Communications + Events. She is responsible for daily business operations for all companies, as well as managing the consulting and production teams to achieve the best possible results for clients.

Written by Liz Marchant, director of Recognition PR.

Work Fresher Rather Than Longer

Thu, Mar 28 2013

The culture of working to excess has fallen out of favour with many employers. The new theory is that people increase productivity by working fresher rather than longer.

Gordon Gekko, the fictional, fast-talking corporate raider in the 1987 film Wall Street, famously said that “lunch is for wimps”. Gordon, like many of the real corporate characters of his era, ran on the principle that hard work equalled good work and the longer the hours the better.

He would have baulked at the idea of not working on weekends and, given his views on a quick sandwich break, probably would have fired anyone requesting a holiday.

But, views and standards change.

Google, for example, allows its employees to dedicate 20 percent of their time to their own projects. They also have “sleep pods” in their offices, allowing staff to take naps during the day so that they can refresh themselves.

Netflix, the movie streaming site, gives its staff unlimited holidays, allowing them to take as much paid time off as they want.

For smaller businesses, these ideas are unlikely to be practical. But, the principle of keeping staff refreshed can still be applied, even by those that have not quite let go of their inner Gekko.

At its most basic, requirements under modern awards and the National Employment Standards for maximum working hours, rest breaks and leave should be complied with.

Beyond that, all staff should be encouraged to switch off from work whenever they can, literally and metaphorically.

Checking Blackberries, iPhones and other devices can start to dominate lives seven days a week, even on holidays. If staff use these devices, they should be encouraged to put them down when not working and, at minimum, for a day a week.

Keeping the mind free from thoughts of work for a day a week will help keep staff invigorated and reduce the chance of burn out.

Staff should also be encouraged to take their leave (having it accrue on the balance sheet is not helping anyone). Additional leave might also be an option. This should not be providing time off in lieu of working additional hours, which simply maintains a culture of working longer rather than smarter.

Instead, leave can be used to reward good work, such as achieving KPIs. This could be as simple as putting some formal structure to existing policies such as letting staff leave early when they have completed their tasks for the day.

Be careful though, using leave as an incentive could end up being discriminatory.

It could be shown, for example, that younger staff are more capable of completing work quickly and that allowing them to leave early therefore discriminates against older staff for a reason relating to their age.

But, assuming this minefield can be navigated, a well-rested team will soon help increase productivity and reduce the chance of burnout.

This article was originally published by Edward Mallett on March 26th 2013, at Dynamic Business.

Five Essential Technical SEO Tips For PR Pros

Wed, Mar 27 2013

Note: The following is a guest post by Scott Benson who is an online marketing consultant specializing in SEO and web analytics. I can best describe Scott in one word: brilliant. There’s a lot PR can learn from a good SEO and I asked Scott for a post that goes beyond the standard five tips for SEO we see so often in blogs. Over the weekend, he wrote this post published below.

...

PR professionals are well aware of the importance of links earned in their coverage, right? In an SEO’s world, a link from one site to the next is seen as a vote of confidence by search engines, and it’s the basis for Google’s Page Rank Algorithm. As PR Pro’s, you value a link as a pipeline for referral traffic and possibly additional coverage and even sales. What I’d like to do, is present a few ways that PR pros can help the SEO’s on your team, and in turn, help yourselves.

PR pros are content marketers and you just happen to be so much better at traditional SEO than the average content marketer. The content I’m speaking of can come in the form of a traditional press release, an article, online resource or blog post. Whether you’re writing the content or not, you’re responsible for spreading that content. So, a large part of a public relations professional’s job really is link building. And I love this!!! Modern link building is so hard, and I truly appreciate a well-connected, clever PR person.

1. How You Link Matters

A link is a precious commodity that needs to be treated with care. Technically speaking, search engines consider even the slightest difference in URLs as different pages altogether.

Here’s what I mean: a link to ‘http://clientsite.com’ could be a completely different page than its “www” counterpart ‘http://www.clientsite.com’. Mixing up the two isn’t the end of the world, but it does cause confusion for search engines. Ask your SEO what the “preferred” domain is and stick to it.

Canonical links are important because if you can access your website at both http://www.mysite.com/ and http://mysite.com/, then you have a “canonical” issue. Search engines don’t know which site is your preferred version. Really, it comes down to avoiding “duplicate content” issues, and you can use the canonical link element help clean up the confusion.

Note: There are other – more technical – ways to clean up these issues, but the Canonical element is a great work-around. If you really want to get technical, read more on the rel=”canonical” link element.

2. Page speed – Hi Res Images are a Drag

As PR and marketing have merged I’m sure you’re finding yourself publishing more of your own content on company sites and blogs. I tend to think PR folks are slightly more image-focused than their marketing counterparts, and by image, I literally mean images.

One of the major trends in ranking factors recently is page load speed. Large images (file sizes) are the main culprit in slow loading websites. A few years back in an ecommerce life, all I heard was “high res image” this and “high res image” that. To be honest, there’s almost no need for a high resolution image – sorry graphic designers.

I have a sneaking suspicion that PR folks are also interested in high-quality images; however I’m here to tell you low-res, compressed images are the way to go for search engines, and more importantly, human website visitors.

3. What can you do to reduce image file sizes?

Re-size all images prior to publishing to your site (this includes any content management systems that re-size images automatically – I don’t trust them to do it right, because often they don’t).

In Photoshop, choose to “save for web” and choose the file type with the smallest size that maintains a decent resolution.

Make sure your html mark-up assigns a width and height value. For example, every image should include something like: width=”293″ height=”225″.

Next, talk to your SEO or IT people. If you’re responsible for any content on a corporate site or blog, ask them about moving images to a “sub-domain”. If you can split your content (html) and images onto separate locations, you can really improve page load speeds.

How can you test your page load? Try Pingdom Tools or the Y Slow browser plugin. These free tools will show you how fast or slow your site loads. If a page loads slowly, people will leave your site. If users Google your content, then click and only find a slow loading site, they’ll “bounce” back (often via the back button) to the search engine and I can assure you the engines just took notice of that poor user experience.

So again, work with your in-house or consultant SEO and IT team to decrease image sizes, optimize their location and keep clean code. We’ll all benefit in the end.

4. Dead Links = SEO Gains and PR Measurement Opportunity

By now it’s obvious my favorite links come from the hard work of PR’s. Now I’d like to share how one of my favorite link building techniques impacts public relations measurement.

Over time a website organically earns links from other sites. Sometimes those sites either link incorrectly (see tip #1) by using a non-preferred version of your homepage, or the page on your own site has expired and moved to new URL.

For whatever the reason, the link now sends referral traffic to an error page. That experience doesn’t benefit anyone. So, by registering your site with Google Webmaster Tools you can access a report that will show you your error pages. Also, using Google Analytics, you can see the error page URL’s if you sort your Content report to show:

Go to: All Pages > Page Title and then search for the page title of your error page. Those often include the phrase “page not found”. Then if you drill into the report, you’ll find the URL’s.

Now that you’re equipped with all the problems page URL’s, let’s work on the solution and tie it back to measurement. The biggest thing to keep in mind is these are likely links that you helped EARN.

You worked hard and deserve these links (that’s my SEO pep talk for the day). If a site is not linking to yours correctly, contact the webmaster and politely ask that they edit the link. A link to an expired page on your site is a bad experience for visitors. To fix this, you need to take all the dead URL’s and ask your SEO or IT team to create 301 redirects to new pages on your site. If you have an SEO they already know this, but your IT team might not; these must be ‘301 Permanent Redirects’.

How does this help in measuring PR? Like I mentioned, these are links (coverage) you earned for your company. If the link isn’t helping your SEO as well as it should or if you aren’t receiving as much referral traffic as you should, that’s detracting from your return on PR efforts. Reporting public relation’s impact on leads or revenue for a company is easy enough in Google Analytics and you can usually show a measurable difference after a link clean-up project.

The SEO benefits alone are fantastic. The PR wins you had months and years ago are still the SEO wins of today. A company link profile is hugely important for all of us in marketing.

"Alerts in Google Analytics which will send you an email after those identified publications have been on your site and researching your pitch."

5. The Google Analytics Network Report

Many of the readers here might already know this, but I’ve run into this issue lately a client as well as in some blog post comments. Many site owners, marketers and PR professionals want to learn in Google Analytics EXACTLY who is reading their content.

Recently I saw this in the PR space as someone wasn’t sure which journalists were reading their client’s news. While you can’t get that exact detail in Google Analytics, you can see when someone from a MAJOR publication (or target customer for sales professionals) visits your site. A visitor from any large magazine, newspaper and even some large blog sites will come through with a “network” value that matches (exact or partial) their company name. Smaller companies and individuals will show with their Internet Service Provider name like Verizon, Comcast, or At&t. Check it out; it’s been a really powerful report for a client of mine lately.

If you don’t immediately see the publication you’re looking for, don’t worry there’s likely someone in your network who has seen how the Washington Post, or New York Times shows up while researching a story. You can compile these network names and create Custom Alerts in Google Analytics which will send you an email after those identified publications have been on your site and researching your pitch. Have your analytics person create custom reports that show you these networks and their activity on your site.

What about you? What SEO tips might you offer to PR pros?

You can find Scott on Google+, Twitter and read more from him on his consulting blog.

This article was originally posted by Frank Strong at the Sword and Script on the 5th of March, 2013.

ANZ Joins the 2013 Women in PR Forum!

Tue, Mar 26 2013

PRIA is delighted to announce ANZ as the major partner for the 2013 Women in PR Forum.

ANZ is one of the top 4 banks in Australia and operates in 32 markets globally. Throughout its 177-year history, ANZ has remained committed to building lasting partnerships with customers, shareholders and communities around the world.

The Women in PR Forum will take place over lunch on Friday, 3 May 2013 in the Melbourne Room at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The line up features conversations with some of the most influential women in the industry; and a silent auction to raise money for UN Women Australia.

No one will go home empty handed with an enviable prize up for grabs in the raffle and exciting gift bags for all.

Your ticket for the Women in PR Forum will cost $110 for members; $165 for non-members. Tables of 10 can be purchased for $1,300 or for $2,000 purchase a corporate table which includes company name and logo advertising space in the program and table materials.

Secure your place now!

Event Details:

When: Friday, 3 May 2013.

Time: 12-3pm.

Where: Melbourne Room at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Cost: Members $110 l Non-members $165 l Table of 10 $1,300 l Corporate table of 10 $2,000.

Gentlemen welcome!

Corporate table details: Premium seating (10 seats), half page advertisement in event program, table signage with company name and logo.

Catering: Includes canapés and drinks upon arrival and a two course meal accompanied by the finest Victorian wines.

Charity: Funds raised on the day will support UN Women Australia.

Speakers: We're locking in a stellar panel of influential speakers. Stay tuned for announcements before the end of March.

RSVP: Please register before May to avoid disappointment!

Dress: Business with a splash of cocktail!

Enquiries:

Neil O’Sullivan | Events & Operations Executive – Victoria, South Australia & Tasmania.

d: 9635 5704 m: 0452 460 933| neil.osullivan@pria.com.au twitter: @PRIAVIC

Thank you to our event partners for their continued support.

Challenge for Marketing and PR: Restore Trust in Aus' Institutions

Mon, Mar 25 2013

The Australian public's trust in the country's institutions - NGOs, business and government - continues to fall, according to the 2013 Edelman Trust Barometer research study.

The Australian Trust Barometer results were launched at events in Melbourne and Sydney last week.

After a year-high of distrust globally in 2012, according to Edelman there has been a "shift back to neutral" in 2013 - except in Australia.

Even the US, which is coming to grips with the after-effects of the Global Financial Crisis, rose 10 points last year on Edelman's trust index - Australia, however, dipped three points (the US sits on 59, Australia on 50).

Trust is highest in China and Singapore (80 and 76 respectively), and lowest in Russia (36).

Learn more about the Edelman Trust Barometer Australia study.

What does this mean for companies and organisations?

To be frank it's a pretty sad indictment on Australia's leaders, and if anything the advent of social media has only amplified organisations' lack of connection with the community because they are conspicuous by their absence and an obvious lack of 'socialisation' in the marketplace.

Growing trust - let's simply call it relationship building, or what I like to say deepening the intensity of connection with the people who matter the most to the success of your business, cause or issue - should be a standing item on the agenda of all organisations, large or small.

Yes, it's critical an entity's leadership is 100 per cent behind engendering increased connection with the community and without their support an organisation will never truly become a 'connected brand'.

But if anyone outside of senior management can make it happen, it's probably the PR and communications department. Marketing maybe, but as a rule they tend to be more focused on campaign activity and conjuring up short-term sales spikes, versus PR's role which is generally (or should be) concerned with building relationships and reinforcing reputation, the bedrock of which is formed as a result of increased trust and connection with the marketplace.

Absolutely, in large organisations representatives from marketing, HR, R&D, customer service etc need to be involved, but from what I'm hearing about Australian companies, the concept of 'social business' needs a champion internally, and if that person does not exist in the C-suite, then someone senior from the comms department needs to stand up and put the case to senior management.

At a presentation Dionne 'The Social Executive' Lew and I gave last night to the Victorian chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), I emphasised the need for organisations to not go straight to 'call to action' all the time but instead focus on building respect and trust by:

CONNECTING with the people who matter the most to the success of your business, cause or issue.
CONTRIBUTING to their lives in ways that are meaningful and respectful.
CULTIVATING the relationships you already have with people who already like and support your brand.
COLLABORATE with bloggers/content creators and other like-minded brands to stay fresh and vital, as well as reach new audiences.

Investing in your community, building mutual respect with customers, partners and other stakeholders over time, being human, showing up, admitting your mistakes, keeping your promises - these are the actions that build trust with the public.

Anything else is just window dressing.

This article was originally posted by Trevor Young at PR Warrior on the 22nd February 2013.

9 Ways That PR Pros Can Capitalize on Infographics

Fri, Mar 22 2013

Karl Gude, editor-in-residence, Michigan State University School of Journalism, is a fan of showing, not telling. Gude, who was the director of information graphics at Newsweek for 10 years, says that at their best, infographics can provide a structure for organizing, planning and studying information and revealing hidden relationships. At their worst, they are link bait.

And while making complex infographics can take time and money to produce—and may require input from researchers sales personnel, database managers and designers—, sometimes you can draw the idea on the back of a Starbucks napkin and get by with the help of a single designer.

At PR News' Feb. 27 Digital PR Summit, Gude provided nine recommendations for public relations pros to capitalize on visual opportunities and create infographics—whether it's for a press release or any other communications vehicle.

1) Show where it is: Make a map. "There's a story in a map," Gude said. He stressed that a band's cross-country tour, which is usually shown in a list of cities and dates on the back of a poster or T-shirt, is a great example of visual mapping and storytelling.

2) Compare it to something else: Side-by-side analysis can provide an audience with a engaging contrast and compare-style graphic that the eyes can scan.

3) Highlight for emphasis: Infographics can help emphasize stats or numbers, and "it doesn't mean just making a big purple number," Gude said. "There are elegant solutions used for emphasis." As anm example, Gude cherry-picked important sections of an email chain for a criminal case and highlighted certain sections.

4) Explain it with a drawing: "You may sometimes need really good designers, but sometimes you can draw the idea on a Starbucks napkin," Gude said. After the September 11 attacks Gude quickly scrawled on a napkin the sequence of events and the destruction of the towers and the surrounding area, and the idea was developed from there.

5) Organize items into groups: Gude said that organizing a company's products into groups can make them more easy to understand. He provided an example with the wide world of Microsoft product offerings that included products for the home; for multimedia content; for the workplace and for communications.

6) Break things down: Gude used an example of a soldier and all of his equipment breaking down in order to demonstrate that the most well put-together images are interesting when looked at in their individual parts.

7) Show structure of a hierarchy: Gude said that tree diagrams and other types of directional relationships can provide a visual narrative for readers to follow along.

8) Use a flow chart: Gude discussed a simple example with an organization's business strategy going from one stage to the next.

9) Look away/cut inside: During president Bill Clinton's scandal with Monica Lewinksy, Gude created a cutaway of the White House that showed the geographic locations of rooms in relation to one another.

Free tools are available at freevisiualtools.wikispaces.com for graphics.

Follow Bill Miltenberg: @bmiltenberg; Follow Karl Gude: @karlgude

This article was originally posted by Bill Miltenberg at PR News on the 4th of March, 2013.

How Mobile is Changing Business (and how you should be responding)

Thu, Mar 21 2013

Mobile phones will surpass PCs as the most common device people use to access the Internet in 2013, the analyst firm Gartner estimates.

Think about the immensity of this prediction. Just five years ago, very few people had phones that accessed the Web, and virtually no one had a tablet PC. Due to the speed with which technological progress is being made, today people access vast amounts of data and make online purchases using devices like the iPhone 5, Samsung Galaxy SIII and LG Optimus L9. Business owners now face two challenging questions: How are these advances changing the business-consumer relationship? And, how should my business react to these shifts?

Current Changes in the Mobile Marketplace

Let’s take a look at some of the most prominent changes in the world of mobile devices:

Mobile data traffic grew by 70 percent in 2012.
Cisco recently released a study stating mobile data traffic grew to 885 petabytes per month in 2012, up from 520 petabytes per month in 2011. Marketplace competition among mobile service providers will probably drive down the cost of downloading data in coming years. This will likely make Web browsing and downloading much more affordable and frequent for the average mobile device consumer.

Businesses will increase IT spending.
Look for businesses to increase IT spending by more than 5 percent for each of the next two years. According to a Gartner report, IT spending will rise from $881 billion in 2012 to $974 billion in 2014.

Consumers increase their mobile use.
The mobile advertising company InMobi conducted a survey and found:

75 percent of respondents felt they had been introduced to something new on their mobile device
67 percent felt their mobile device presented them with better purchasing options
46 percent made purchases with their mobile device
45 percent felt their mobile device influenced their in-store purchases.

Succeeding in a Mobile World

Change happens quickly, no doubt. Still, there are steps you can take so your business adapts alongside the trends. Here’s how to ensure you’re prepared for the mobile revolution:

Have a mobile-friendly design.
Customers demand connectivity, and business websites must be optimized for mobile. Period. And, make it clean and usable. According to a recent survey by Google, 67 percent of respondents agreed that “a mobile-friendly site makes me more likely to buy a product or use a service.” And 61 percent noted, “If I don’t see what I’m looking for right away on a mobile site, I’ll quickly move on to another site.” By investing in a website friendly to all major device types – laptops, desktops, smartphones and tablets – you satisfy the current marketplace’s design demands. Mashable calls it "responsive design,” tailoring content and design to fit the device upon which it is being viewed.

Mention your location in your mobile advertisement.
The KISSmetrics blog notes that mobile ad click-through rates increased by 200 percent at the mention of a physical location or city name. If your business is preparing to launch a mobile advertising campaign, keep this in mind.

Personalization sells.
We use our mobile devices in a multitude of ways throughout the day. Think about how you use yours – you might use your phone to set an alarm at night and wake up to the device the next morning. You use its calendar to keep track of appointments and rely on reminders so you stay on top of things. You receive news, sports and weather updates on it and, of course, you still use your phone to actually talk to people. It’s just a very personal device. The same concept should spill over into your mobile advertising campaigns. Personally engage potential customers.

It’s All about Analytics

Every business is unique, and you’ve certainly seen many innovative ideas for mobile website design while browsing the internet. So, the logical conclusion becomes: unique mobile websites must also have creative strategies for capturing the attention of visitors and converting them into paying customers. Examine these tips to get a better understanding of analytics in action:

Learn from the little guy.
Websites with little annual revenue ($1,000-$50,000 in annual revenue) don’t convert as well as larger sites, according to a report by SEOMOZ. The theory goes that with less financial resources available, companies running these sites cannot adapt their designs as well for mobile devices. The lesson for you? If you’re going to make your website mobile-friendly, prepare to budget enough to make the site a scintillating experience for mobile visitors.

Mobile users don’t spend as much as their desktop counterparts.
In the same report, SEOMOZ found a 20 percent difference between spending by mobile and desktop Web visitors. If your analytics reveal spending by desktop users is more abundant, don’t be surprised.

Avoid long contact forms.
If your mobile site’s call-to-action requires visitors to provide their contact information, make sure the form they fill out is as brief as possible. An article at Search Engine Watch notes that your form should have less than seven fields, and that each additional field reduces your conversion rate by up to 50 percent.

How has your company responded to the mobile revolution? I’d love to hear from you—leave a comment below, or drop me an email: Lee at LeeHopkins dot com

This article was originally posted by Lee Hopkins at Better Communication Results on the 15th March, 2013.

The Biggest PR Trends from the 2013 SXSW

Wed, Mar 20 2013

Although SXSW runs through this weekend in Austin, Texas, scores of PR professionals have started to bolt after checking out the latest news and trends in technology, media and music—and, of course, have some fun while doing it—during the SXSW interactive sessions that took place this week.

In the last few years the festival has helped to put some now-household names on the map. For example, SXSW was the site of Foursquare’s launch in 2009 and it was also where Twitter achieved a tremendous boost of popularity back in 2007.

Melissa Todisco, VP at Hunter PR, provided us with some boots-on-the-ground coverage from this year’s gathering in the Lone Star State:

PR News: What digital communications trends did you spot this year at SXSW?

Melissa Todisco: One trend I saw this year was around apps that help to synthesize data to provide a benefit to the end-user. For example, Higi calculates a health and wellness score by pulling in data from other social networks as well as user-inputted information. Yappem is another [app] that rewards users for sharing brand experiences to help consumers make informed purchasing decisions, while helping brands better understand their consumers.

Another theme revolved around “smarter” apps, with Desti and Tempo being two most buzzed about. Desti is a smart travel guide helping travelers find the best places to stay and eat based on their preferences. Created by SRI Research (the same company that created Siri), Tempo is a smart calendar that pulls appointment details from your other social media and messaging services.

PR News: What has generated the biggest buzz at this year's event?

Todisco: The biggest buzz was around 3D printing and 3D motion-controlled sensors from Leap Motion. There has been a shift at SXSW this year away from digital apps to more hardware solutions that use digital technology to foster physical interactions. For example, 3M debuted an interactive virtual presenter in the common areas of the convention center, where SXSW attendees could get panel recommendations by interacting with a digitally projected avatar through a touch screen.

Beam allowed trade show attendees to learn about their product by talking “face-to-face” with a company representative based in California who was being live-streamed onto a monitor on wheels that could wheel right up to anyone walking by.

PR News: Which group seems to be driving the digital evolution among brands at SXSW—PR or marketing pros?

Todisco: One of the great things about SXSW is that there is a place for both marketing and PR professionals—it just depends on the brand’s objectives. There is a definite marketing opportunity to generate leads, meet new customers and make connections to collaborate on new innovations. However, every year more media come to SXSW to cover the latest in technology. This provides a strong rationale for PR professionals to have a role in developing the strategy for a brand’s presence at SXSW to help a company or brand generate awareness and visibility in addition to sales leads.

Competition for coverage is intense because there are so many facets to cover at SXSW such as work sessions, startups and parties. However, PR professionals can break through the clutter by developing attention-grabbing engagement opportunities that can generate buzz and publicity. For example, Mashable received the majority of its buzz for its Mashable SXSWi House, where attendees could take a photo with “Grumpy Cat.” This is a perfect example of how PR can identify a creative way to connect with an audience to generate buzz beyond a hard news product launch.

PR News: What do you think PR pros on site will go home and tell the rest of their agency/organization about?

Todisco: Personally, I think my biggest lesson learned was that the media don’t necessarily need to be pitched about your news, but rather they prefer to discover it themselves through mentions in sessions and social-media buzz. PR professionals typically goes through the media to reach their target audience, yet at SXSW appealing to conference attendees and influencers helps to reach the media and generate even more buzz.

PR News: Any prediction for digital communications this year, stemming from SXSW?

Todisco: I think we are going to see the emergence of more start up companies that are using data in interesting ways to generate insights to help both consumers and companies make better-informed decisions. For example, I noticed several data measurement companies—such as Peer Index and Topsy—at SXSW offering tools to help identify influencers and track social media conversation in new ways. These kinds of solutions will be very beneficial to PR professionals looking for new measurement solutions to justify ROI on PR initiatives.

Melissa Todisco, VP at Hunter Public Relations in New York City, specializes in developing integrated communications programs for companies and brands.

This article was originally posted by Bill Miltenberg on PR News on the 15th March, 2013.

6 Tips to Writing a Killer Synopsis

Tue, Mar 19 2013

As a PR professional, you’re probably called upon to write or edit synopses from time to time. Whether it’s for a book, a movie, a play, a TV show or even a magazine article, boiling down a lengthy work into a paragraph or two can be a daunting task. The goal, of course, is to tell readers enough about the work to make them want to experience it for themselves—without giving away so much that they feel like they don’t need to.

The key to summarizing a 400-page book or a two-hour movie into a few sentences is identifying the most salient story points and describing them in the fewest words possible. Beyond that, though, the synopsis itself should be a good read. A boring description of an interesting play or TV show will not have the desired effect on journalists—or their readers, viewers or listeners.

As with most things, writing synopses becomes easier the more you do it. I should know—I have written or edited close to a thousand in the past decade. But here are a few tricks of the trade to get you started:

1. Set the scene. The first line of a synopsis should help the reader visualize when and where the action takes place. It’s also a good chance to position the work in terms of genre, which helps put what comes after in context. And whenever possible, throw in a bit of mystery to pique the reader’s interest. For example: “Set in contemporary Brooklyn, Storybook Ending is a romantic comedy about love, espresso and the Dewey Decimal System.”

2. Find the central conflict. Every story, fiction or nonfiction, has a central conflict. Whether it’s Captain Ahab seeking revenge against an elusive white whale—or little Nemo’s father searching for his lost son in the vast ocean, the conflict is what propels the action. Identifying the essential conflict and then describing it economically is fundamental to writing a good synopsis. “John, a shy librarian, falls deeply in love with Carolyn, a regular patron, but can’t find the courage to talk to her. When he deduces from a change in the types of books she borrows that she’s getting serious about someone else, he knows he needs to make a move—or lose his chance forever.”

3. Sprinkle in key details. Boiling down a long work into a paragraph obviously requires leaving out about 99.99% of the details. However, including a few telling details can make a synopsis more evocative and conveys information more efficiently than using vague or general language. For instance, you could say, “Just before he receives a large sum of money, John learns that Carolyn plans to run off with a local store employee.” But it would be stronger to say: “Minutes before he wins Lotto, John learns Carolyn is about to catch a plane to Puerto Vallarta with Ken, a Starbucks barista and aspiring DJ."

4. Use the present tense. Synopses feel stronger and livelier when written in the present tense, rather than the past tense. For instance, “When he realized he had exactly 72 hours to win Carolyn over, Josh devised a plot to buy the local Starbucks and fire Ken” is not as compelling as “Realizing he has exactly 72 hours to win Carolyn over, Josh devises a plot to buy the local Starbucks and fire Ken.”

5. Go easy on the modifiers. It’s often said of writing that it’s better to “show” than to “tell.” That means using well-chosen nouns and verbs to provide color rather than piling on adjectives and adverbs. Instead of this: “John is sad and discouraged when he discovers that, unfortunately, Starbucks does not sell franchises.” Try this: “John begins to lose hope when an email arrives informing him he can’t buy the store.”

6. Set up the third act—and stop there. Most works of fiction—and even most nonfiction books and movies—can be thought of as having three acts. These have been loosely described as: Act I—put the hero up a tree, Act II—throw rocks at him, Act III—get him down. When writing a synopsis, we don’t want to give away the ending, but it makes it more intriguing if we give the reader a sense of what the stakes are. “Realizing it’s his last chance to declare his love, John races to the airport on his Segue, hoping to catch Carolyn before her plane takes off and she vanishes from his life for good.”
The quality of a synopsis can make the difference between a happy ending and a sad ending for a PR campaign. Following these tips will help you go develop this extremely valuable skill.

This article was published on PR News by Andrew Hindes on 2nd March, 2013

Andrew Hindes is president of L.A.-based copywriting and training firm The In-House Writer. He can be reached at andrew@theinhousewriter.com. You can follow him on Twitter @inhousewriter.

What Does A Large Number Of Facebook Page Fans Mean For Your Business?

Mon, Mar 18 2013

The Social Rabbit Facebook Page has just cracked the 5,000 fan milestone! What a great achievement and a big shout out to Lara Solomon for creating and sharing valuable and engaging content to develop this on-line community over time.

When your Facebook Page reaches a major milestone, whether it be 500, 5,000 or 5 million Likes or some other metric, it is a good time to reflect and ask yourself “what does that mean for my business?” Obviously that answer will vary based on each business, but here are some things to consider:

Does it mean your Page is any good?
The higher the number of people that Like your Page, the greater the “social proof” that you are providing something of value (regardless of whether or not you are). It is like when a queue forms outside a shop. Passers by then assume that the shop is offering something really good and may even join the queue when they realise what this is.

I witnessed this firsthand a couple of weeks ago when I queued up out the front of the Telstra store in Melbourne for my iPhone 5 on release day (desperate I know – please don’t judge me). What was interesting was that there were only a couple of people out the front of the Optus store across the road. At Testra, countless people stopped by to see what all the fuss was about, but on the other side of the road everyone just walked on by, probably not even noticing there was an Optus store there.
As number of Likes is the most prominent public facing metric on a Facebook Page, it is one that (rightly or wrongly) the quality of our Page is often judged by. However, having a large number of people that Like your Page does not necessarily mean you are doing a good job. Maybe you have just been around longer and therefore generated a larger audience over that time.

Does it mean increased reach?
Every new “Like” is an increase in potential reach (and not actual reach) of the stories you share on your Page. Facebook estimates that a Page with approximately 5,000 fans will have the potential to reach an additional 3 million of their friends. But can it really?

Recent studies have demonstrated that updates on Facebook Pages reach only about 16% of fans. That means that a Page with 5,000 Likes is on average only going to have a reach of 800 people. So, whist increasing the number of people that Like your Page will continue to increase your reach, it means that you are going to have to experience a large growth in Likes in order to gain a significant increase in organic reach.

Does it mean increased brand awareness?
Most likely. As your posts are being displayed in the news feeds of some of your fans, and to a lesser extent the friends of your fans through viral reach, there is the potential for greater brand awareness as a result of more people seeing your posts on a more regular basis than if you only had a small fan base.

Does it mean greater engagement?
Not necessarily. Yes, it is true to some extent that if you have more fans then there are more people to engage in the conversation. Similar to as in a face-to-face environment, often people will be reluctant to be the first to speak up. As it only takes one to be the first to respond, you are more likely to get that response sooner on a Page that has more fans and therefore break down the barriers, giving others the green light to chime in.

From my experience with the Pages I manage, I find that quite often as you acquire more fans, the percentage of fans that are “Talking About This” starts to lower. For example, it is not uncommon for a Page with 500 Likes to get 50% Talking About This on the back of a couple of really unique and engaging posts, but this is much less likely on a Page with 5,000 fans – not without exceptional content and the aid of Promoted Posts that is!
The biggest influencer on engagement is not the number of fans on a Page, but the quality of the content that you share on your Page and the environment that you create to encourage interaction, with paid advertising obviously further assisting this process.

Does it mean increased sales?
Well that depends. It depends on what you are doing on your Page to convert fans to customers. If the answer is no, then you need to ask yourself: Do you have any lead generation opportunities, such as a free offer in exchange for an email address. Are you running a competition with a prize that is enticing to your ideal customer? Are you using Facebook offers that both drive sales and encourage your fans to share those offers with their friends? If not, then get cracking – you have some work to do to use Facebook to increase sales.

It also depends on how you got those Likes. Whilst it is not usual, it is possible to gain a large number of Likes without effectively targeting your audience, engaging that audience with valuable and relevant content and in turn developing a community of raving fans. I have seen this before when Pages advertise a competition where people must “Like” their Page to win a totally unrelated high value prize, such as an iPad for a home gardening business or they blow a large budget on adds that are not targeted at their niche. Then when it comes time to promote to their audience they wonder why nobody wants to buy.

What can I do to further improve my Page and achieve business success?
Again, this will be specific to the strengths and weaknesses of your Page. However, one thing all Pages will need to do as they attract more and more fans is to continue to work hard to ensure that your fans know, like and trust you, your brand and the products and/or services that you offer.
They have liked your Page, so to some extent they already know of you, but do they REALLY know you? Do they know who are you, what you stand for and why they should Like you? If not, you need to share this with them over time. It’s called being “social” and that will in turn make you more likeable!

To gain the trust of your fans you need to continually and consistently show up, give your community what they want, pay attention and of course, be honest! If you are able to gain and retain the trust of your Facebook fans, then you are on track toward developing a community around your business and ultimately achieving business success through the use of social media.

Loren Bartley is the Director of Impactiv8 and Chief Rabbit at Social Rabbit social media, an educator, coach, public speaker and blogger.

This article was originally posted by Loren Bartley on the 22nd February, 2013 at Social Rabbit social media

The Secret to Business Success: No Back-Up Plan

Fri, Mar 15 2013

Happy 21st birthday, Eclipse Communications! Today, 13 March, Eclipse finally became legal. I admit all the years of borrowing IDs and sneaking into pubs has been tough, but we’re over that now.

I founded Eclipse six months after my own birthday, so we’re astrologically challenged. I’m a down-to-earth Virgo, Eclipse is a dreamy Pisces, named after the total solar eclipse I saw in Kona in 1991. But maybe that’s why the business works.

I’d like to say that when I launched Eclipse, I had a solid plan and steadily climbed the ladder of success. But most of you know me better than that. We broke a lot of the rules that the local SBA would have shared if we’d spent more time there.

I’m not advocating rule-breaking—anyone who mucks with proper grammar or punctuation knows that—but sometimes the rules get in your way. So here’s Eclipse’s spin on some rules for starting a business.

1. You must develop short- and long-term plans, evolve.

I can’t imagine what tool short of a crystal ball would have let me predict how I earn my living today. Remember, Eclipse launched in 1992. Even if I’d heard of the Internet, I’m sure I couldn’t have grasped what a commanding role it would play in my life. If you told me I worked with clients around the globe writing digital content—and now social content—including blogs and autoresponders and Tweets, I would have needed a translator.

At the rate technology evolves and business as usual changes, any plan for Eclipse would have required contingencies for a long list of who-knows-what. Being a company of one, I’ve always been nimble and quick (although candlestick jumping isn’t really in my repertoire).

Survival of the fittest today may mean the ability to adapt the fastest as the world turns. Sure it helps to have a general idea what you’re going to provide and to whom when you start your company, but flexibility may be even better. I think Darwin would be proud of how Eclipse evolves in response to whatever’s next.

2. You must have six months of living expenses in the bank sound financial sense.

Not having a plan when we started meant Eclipse didn’t have clients either. Nor did I have the recommended six months of living expenses tucked safely away in case stormy weather hit.

What I did have was a frugal lifestyle. My rent was $200 a month, including utilities. My car was 10 years old. My first computer was purchased by reselling a diamond ring from a failed engagement. (Don’t ask.)

My office was an extra room in the home I lived in, painted a dusty blue with white trim. I look up and see those same colors in a much different office today. More significantly, I’m sitting at the same computer desk I sat at two decades ago.

I don’t know if I can still call myself frugal, but I do believe in getting great value for my hard-earned money. I realized years ago that solid credit is as good as money in the bank, especially if you can buy what you need over time at 0% interest. I still look for the best deals on Internet and phone service. And I generally wait until the early adopters have added new technology; I ride the second wave.

Sure, if you have to support a family, you may not want to launch a new business on a wing and a prayer. But if you’re willing to sacrifice initially to make the dream of business ownership come true, you can keep expenses low until revenues exceed them. And living on Ramen makes for a better story when you do succeed.

3. You must choose a location lifestyle.

I spent a lot of time waterskiing during my first year at Eclipse. That didn’t bring in a lot of $$$$. So my second year I worked part-time.

And in 1994, at the start of my third year, I found two solid clients. First came CIESIN, the non-profit that introduced me to the Internet. That was like being introduced to my own brain, not so much in quantity of information but in the randomness of linkages. I also signed a contract with General Motors Research that would last 11 years. Bye-bye part-time job …

Both companies had offices about 1 ½ hours drive from mine. And though I liked seeing my colleagues there, I showed up less frequently once it was clear that we could get business done using the Internet. So in the spring of 1995, I woke up one morning in Okemos, Michigan, and had a revelation: I didn’t need to be there.

Two months later, I turned on the CD player, started Frank Sinatra singing “The Best Is Yet to Come” and headed out the door with the world’s finest yellow dog. We drove west. From that point on, Eclipse has been wherever I am.

The office moved first to Hood River, Oregon, and then an hour away to Portland. Four years ago we looped back east to Missoula, Montana. But those are just the headquarters: Eclipse has operated from a cottage in Scotland, a sailboat in the BVIs and a beach in Miami—all while serving clients in the Americas, Europe and Asia.

So imagine my surprise last month when I ran across Natalie Sisson, the charming Suitcase Entrepreneur, who has built an empire by telling people this: I want to help you find creative ways to start and run your business from anywhere, using online tools, social media and outsourcing.

I applaud Natalie for capitalizing on the choice I made 18 years ago. And all I can say is Yes! If you want a lifestyle that lets you spend time with your family, play even on a workday, volunteer for causes that matter to you and work from anywhere, you can make it so.

4. You must keep it professional personal.

Excerpt from the life of a writer …
Me: I often work in my pajamas.
New acquaintance: Are you a sleepwear model?

Why mention I work in PJs? Because I want my clients to know who they’re working with—just like I want to know them. It’s no surprise to any of my clients that I usually get up after daylight, sneak out to ski or hike, and have a glass of wine if I’m writing late in the evening.

My nearest client is 550 miles away, but that doesn’t mean we don’t connect regularly. That starts with small courtesies, like asking How was your weekend? Are you still digging out from the snowstorm? You aren’t a 49ers fan, are you?

And it extends to chatting on the phone, connecting on LinkedIn when the professional relationship is established and on Facebook when the personal one is. Eclipse does not have printed stationery, but I do have notecards that I write with an honest-to-gawd pen. I send holiday cards, remember birthdays and occasionally hop in a car or on a plane to visit.

I don’t see my clients often, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a beautiful long-distance relationship.

5. You must have discipline love.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard the words, I’d love to do what you do. But I don’t have the discipline.

I’ve never needed discipline for the same reason I’ve never had writer’s block. A comment from a fellow writer explains why: I think I had [writer’s block] for about four hours one afternoon 35 years ago, but I also realized that this is the way I feed my family and writer’s block is a nice construct for a “writer with an independent income.”

I don’t have an independent income, a trust fund, a supportive spouse or an inheritance. $#%@.

That means I must write to pay the mortgage, buy peanut butter, attend the Symphony and wear groovy Eclipse shirts.

But I start every day in my office just happy I get a chance to earn a living doing what I love, in a place and way I love to do it.

Am I grateful? How many ways can I say Yes? I love my work. I love the clients who keep coming back year after year. I love the friends and family who have provided undying support for a crazy journey since day one.

And I finally think the whole thing might just work out. Once upon a time, I would mention to my Mom that I had an interview. She would ask me hopefully if I was getting a job. And I’d say No, it’s for a story. She hasn’t asked in about five years. Maybe I can finally call myself a success.

6. You must have a back-up plan vision.

Let’s talk about Sylvester Stallone. In 1975, Stallone watched the Muhammad Ali-Check Wepner fight for the world heavyweight title. Wepner was paid $100,000 for the fight; Ali $1.5 million. But Wepner knocked Ali down in the 9th round. In the end, Ali won on a TKO in the 15th.

With that as inspiration, Sly wrote the first draft of the screenplay for “Rocky.” He shopped it around and finally found two guys who wanted to buy it for $125,000.

Stallone said, OK, but I’ve got to be the star. The guys said, No, we want Ryan O’Neal. Take it or leave it.

Stallone had no money. But he left it. Two weeks later, the guys upped the offer to $250,000 if Stallone wouldn’t star. Again he said No. They offered $325,000. He said No.

Finally they agreed Stallone could star—if he would take some of the risk. They offered $35,000 and a percentage of the profits. Stallone said Yes. The film cost $1.1 million to make and grossed more than $200 million.

I like Stallone. He had a vision. He stuck with it. And he scored big.

But it’s not about the money; it’s about the happiness. And maybe that’s the only vision you need.

So I’ll tell you this: I’ve been in business 21 years today and guess what?

I’ve never had a bad day at the office. Thank you all so much for supporting Eclipse for 21 years!

Diana Kightlinger is a professional copywriter, content writer and blogger. Diana invites PRIA members to , sign up for the EclipseWriter Blog and get her FREE REPORT on “50 Things You Must Check Before You Send Your Email Offer.”

This article was orginally posted by Diana Kightlinger on the 13th March, 2013 at Eclipse Communications.

8 Questions Every Brand Should Be Able To Answer

Thu, Mar 14 2013

How does your message differ from your competitors? What motivates your customers? If you can't answer these questions, your brand is in danger.

Most small and medium-sized businesses start trying to understand their market positions and brand messaging when it's too late.

They only think about what are perhaps the most critical questions when it's time to write copy for their websites, an ad or a brochure.

What's worse is they only take the exercise so far. They tend to ask and answer the easy questions: What do we do? How do we do it? What makes us special?

But the easy questions will only get you so far in influencing an audience to truly care about your company and be motivated to pursue a purchasing decision of some kind. Purchasing decisions are more complex than what you do or how you do it, and every competitor in the landscape too often answers "What makes us special?" the same way.

Here are the questions you forgot to ask about your brand:

1. "Who is our ideal customer?" Is your ideal customer the one that makes you the biggest profit, is your most frequent purchaser, or a joy to work with?

2. "What does that customer look like?" Consider geography, demographics and, perhaps most important, psychographics.

3. "What motivates the customer?" Does he or she make purchases and seek solutions based on fear, opportunity, cost, convenience or something else?

4. "Why are we uniquely positioned to appeal to the customer's motivators?" Once you answer this, check your answer against your competitors' messages. Is your answer truly distinct from your peers?

5. "How can we creatively deliver a message that will instantly resonate with such an audience?" Do you remember your ideal customer? Write according to that person in terms of style, length, tone, delivery—everything!

6. "Does our visual brand match that message and the sensibilities of the ideal customer profile?" Disconnects between messaging and image can be disruptive, and potentially destructive. Make certain you connect with that ideal customer on every aesthetic and intellectual level.

7. "Are we trying to push what we have to sell, or do we appeal to what the market wants to buy?" Too often we tell and sell when we should listen and learn.

8. "How clear have we been?" You can't penetrate limited attention spans with an abundance of confusing and competing messages. Keep it singular. Keep it simple. Make it nearly impossible for the audience to misunderstand how you can change their lives.

Ask all of these questions—not just the easy ones.

Ask them long before you start to tactically execute a website or brochure. Your ideal customer will reward you for your patience.

Tom Nixon is the president of LV8 Communications, a brand strategy consulting firm and integrated marketing agency. A version of this article originally appeared on the LV8 Communications blog.

This article was originally posted by Tom Nixon on the 6th of March, 2013 at ragen.com.

Is Multitasking Damaging Your Productivity?

Wed, Mar 13 2013

If a survey of marketing and advertising executives by The Creative Group is to be believed, multitasking is great. More than half of the 500 executives surveyed said the practice somewhat or greatly improves productivity. Only about 16 percent said it hindered it.

When Ragan Communications CEO Mark Ragan asked a panel of women in PR why that field is dominated by women, they answered that they're better multitaskers.

But what if multitasking isn't all that useful? Productivity experts point to research that says it may actually be detrimental to effectively getting work done. It depends on how you define the term and what types of tasks you're performing.

The problems

Studies (such as this one) show that multitasking "hampers creativity and increases error," says Diane Gayeski, dean and professor of strategic communications at the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca University.

"Through my 30-plus years of consulting, I've found that most performance problems are caused by too much information, not a lack of information or training," she says.

Author and productivity coach Walter G. Meyer cites a study in which people were asked to pay attention to three things on a TV screen at once: two news tickers and an anchorperson.

"When quizzed about the news show they had just seen, they had much less retention and comprehension than other volunteers who watched the same stories, but reported one at a time with no ticker or sidebar," he says.

Meyer adds that multitasking is really performing "three things, one at a time, interrupted by the other two."

Management consultant Kathleen Brush says she's seen it firsthand in meetings when clients are tapping away on their phones, yet insist they're multitasking.

"When they say this, I ask them a question about the last point I made," she says. "In 100 percent of the cases, they either got it wrong or, incredibly, asked me to repeat it. The human brain isn't a computer with multi-processors. It only has one processor."

The nuances

The brain actually has something akin to two processors, according to change management consultant Marianne Carlson.

"Different parts of the brain are, as you may know, responsible for different kinds of tasks," she says. "The part of the brain responsible for concentrating on new tasks and creativity, for example, differs from the part that handles routine, memorized activities."

Multitasking is fine if you're using the part of the brain that deals with the activities you can do on autopilot, Carlson says, but creative work, which is done using the prefrontal cortex, requires focus.

"If you're listening to a presentation in a meeting, it might be OK, therefore, to multitask by doing something routine, like knitting or stuffing envelopes, because those secondary tasks don't require work in the prefrontal cortex," she says. "But you probably shouldn't multitask during the presentation by responding to emails or drafting proposals, as those activities are prefrontal cortex activities, as is listening to the presentation."

Productivity consultant Clare Kumar says it's a matter of defining what multitasking is. If you're managing a lot of projects at once, but focusing on one thing at a time, that's very productive, she says.

Practical advice

Laurie Gray, an attorney and founder of Socratic Parenting, offers some examples of productive multitasking, and what isn't so productive:

"Looking through your junk email folder while you're on hold on the telephone, deleting those that are truly junk and moving those that may not be junk into your inbox for more careful review later, is productive multitasking," she says. "But the moment you have a client on the phone, you need to give him or her your full attention and avoid all distractions."

Meyer suggests grouping similar tasks together. Part of the reason multitasking may not be all that effective is that it takes time to switch gears between different jobs, he says.

"If you do spend 48 minutes of an hour efficiently finishing tasks A, B, and C then it is OK to take a break, walk around the block, check Facebook, and clear your head before diving into the next task," he says.

Kumar suggests setting aside 30- to 90-minute blocks of "focus time."

"We are living in a constant state of always-on, high-cortisol accessibility. This, too, damages focus and productivity."

BOX

The downside of multitasking

Diane Gayeski of Ithaca College lists some problems that can arise from trying to do too many things at once:

An increase in mistakes

Difficulty in distinguishing crucial information from "spam"

Confusion and apathy stemming from conflicting information

No time for essential activities such as long-term creative thinking or building customer relationships

This article was originally posted by Matt Wilson on on 6th March, 2013 at ragan.com

Common Sense Principles of PR

Mon, Mar 11 2013

Excellent public relations is nothing more than the application of common sense, creativity and kindness, with the latter characteristic relevant both to those an organisation is seeking to have a positive relationship with, as well as those people a PR professional interacts with and/or utlislies to help achieve the best possible result.

This may seem simplistic, but consider the following:

Common sense includes:
• understanding the operating environment and the opportunities and threats it presents (market research being sensible route to your destination)
• knowing what your resources are and customising, as appropriate, communication business activity
• being able to articulate how your PR strategy delivers results relevant to your organisation’s business objectives and mission.

Creativity in PR includes:
• generating concepts to help your organisation and/or its products or services stand out from the crowd in a communication campaign
• finding new ways to engage the attention of 3rd party stakeholders (e.g. media, strategic alliances) to help them promote the subject of your campaign (i.e. so the method of engagement, such as a Tweet or product package to a journo, rather than the creative itself)
• relying on both intuition and logic to work in tandem and in left brain-right brain cooperative fashion.

Kindness is imperative because it:
• is core to empathy, which is needed understand the needs and wants of stakeholders
• will enable you to generate enthusiasm and support from organisational stakeholders and your colleagues and partners in pushing your campaign in a direction that will lead to success
• will reflect well on you and your own aspirations (including career-specific ones) as people want to work with those who they feel respect, understand and are sympathetic to their needs. This doesn’t mean being spineless and bending to the will of others. In fact, one of the great challenges of kindness is being true to yourself and your beliefs, whilst respecting those of others and, even more importantly, being strong enough to allow others to influence and change you.

Not so simplistic now, is it? Are you confident in applying all the elements noted above in the bullet points? Share your thoughts in the comments section of this post.

Use common sense in public relations

Ever since I first got a grasp (or what I think was a grasp – others might say I was and am still living in delusion) on public relations, its practice made complete and utter sense to me.

Straightforward sense.

Common sense.

And as per everything I write on this blog, this is fundamentally based on my advocacy of the two-way symmetrical communication model and its mixed-motive variation. Just as humans need to adapt the way we go about our lives to take into consideration the feelings, beliefs and behaviours of others, so do organisations.

This is necessary to achieve personal and business objectives. It is necessary as no person or no business exists in isolation from others (this is society, after all). And it is necessary to help us, ultimately, be happy about our behaviour and ourselves, which very much includes within a business or work context.

We spend most of our waking adult lives at work, so who wants to feel despised or unfulfilled in this environment?

Making sense of being sceptical when proactive and positive when being defensive

Sounds counter-intuitive? Well, you’re right, it is.

But too often the sparkly product and service promotion side of PR fails to look sufficiently at potentially negative outcomes of well-meaning activity. This can come back to bite an organisation.

Conversely, there are many doors that defensive crisis communication activity can open for organisations to engage more meaningfully with their stakeholders.

A caveat of this being the PR 101 mantra, of course, that to have excellent relationships with stakeholders organisations need not only listen to, understand and have a dialogue with stakeholders, but organisations must be willing to adapt/change, to some degree, according to the needs and wants of these stakeholders.

But if you aren’t willing to push an organisation to do this, what are you doing in PR anyway?

You’re not in it just to, um, sell stuff are you?

What examples can you share of common sense, creativity and kindness in the practice of public relations, either ones you have been involved in or have observed? What about the converse – illogical approaches, dull campaigns and lack of kindness? Do you think these are useful precepts to apply to the practice of public relations – why or why not?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

The truth about public relations, says Craig Pearce, is it takes short-term pain to achieve long-term gain. Craig Pearce is a strategic communication leader at PPR Perth, where he applies academic rigour and creativity – not spin! – to generate mutual change for mutual benefit. He is also a leading PR blogger and can be read at Public relations and managing reputation.

This article was originally posted by Craig Pearce on 17th January, 2013 at Public relaions and managing reputation.

Are You Passionate about PR with 1 -5 Years of Experience?

Fri, Mar 08 2013

The Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) is a national industry body representing and supporting more than 3,000 individual communication practitioners and many consultancies. Lots of these 3,000 people are young and relatively new to the communication profession and PRIA pays special attention to anyone who fits this criteria.

The New and Emerging Practitioners Group (NEPG) is a specialist PRIA group and we’re focused on supporting PR professionals in the early stages of their career by providing opportunities to connect with our industry, learn from others and get the most out of our chosen profession.

Representatives on the NEPG come from all corners from the industry. Some of us work in agencies, some in house, some of us are consumer specialists, corporate affairs experts and internal communication and change practitioners, in fact, we’re a real mixed bag and that’s the way we like it!

There’s plenty we have in common too. We’re all young professionals and we’re passionate about what we do, we are keen to improve our industry and we want to make the most of our careers. You’ve probably read about, or hopefully even attended, one of the events we hold each year which are all designed to help you learn more about our industry, develop your skills and generally get a good kick-start or career boost.

We catch up regularly to plan these events and make sure we get the best in the business in front of you. We look at creating networking opportunities with other emerging practitioners as well as with our industry idols! There are lots of laughs involved and often a glass of wine or two!

On April 19 the NEPG will host what we like to think of as our signature event – ‘Pitch. Predict. Succeed – Lessons from the ultimate communicators’. This very affordable half day conference is broken down into three working sessions. The first session is ‘The Perfect Pitch’ and gives attendees the opportunity to engage directly with journalists in an open forum about their needs, deadline pressures, the news cycle and how we can work proactively to best support them.

The second session is called ‘Managing Up’ and we’ll hear from some of the most accomplished in our industry including their career advice and tops tips for navigating the communication industry.

The third session is focused on innovation and social media and our expert panellists will talk us through the trends, tools and tactics we’ll need to sail smoothly through the digital and new media landscape.

We’d love to see you at this event and the others we will be holding throughout the year. We would also love to hear from you if you want to get involved with the NEPG. We love meeting and collaborating with passionate and committed people!

If you’d like any further information check out the events page on the PRIA website:http://www.pria.com.au

If you’d like to find out more about the NPG you can get in touch with us on this address: npg@pria.com.au

Alison Dillon
NSW New and Emerging Practitioners Group member

Guest Post: How Social Media is Merging Customer Care and PR

Thu, Mar 07 2013

Public relations teams are entering a dramatically different environment, as customer care migrates from traditional channels to social media.

The public nature of social media means that routine customer care can rapidly and seamlessly spiral into crisis management. Major outages at NAB on February 8 and Westpac on February 25 illustrated the challenges faced by customer care and PR teams as their roles increasingly overlap. Our analysis found three key customer behaviours that are changing the game.

Consumers migrating from tradition channels such as the phone and face-to-face and onto social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook are changing the business of customer care. While the traditional channels were private conversations between the brand and the customer, much of the equivalent social media interaction is public. On Twitter, anyone can follow along as a customer makes a complaint and the brand addresses it.

This public dialogue generally suits the customer. It raises the stakes for the brand so complaints are often resolved much faster than those expressed through traditional channels. This in turn incentivises customers to use social media, which will continue to grow as a result.

So when a crisis hits, the brand is dealing with customers who expect their questions to be addressed quickly and in a public forum. PR teams charged with crisis communications must address these new expectations and manage the flow of information to the public.

ServiceRage tracks customer feedback on Twitter to help consumers choose banks, energy companies and insurers. We saw dramatic spikes in negative feedback to NAB and Westpac as they experienced major outages to their customer-facing systems. Westpac received 93 negative comments on February 25, when their average negatives-per-day is 3.14. NAB customers sent 125 negatives tweets on February 8, a huge increase on their daily average of 3.94.

Reading these customer Tweets, we identified three key customer behaviours on social media, which PR teams should consider when planning their crisis communications.

1. Feeding Frenzy

Traditional channels allow customer care staff to isolate and address complaints individually. There is no reason to acknowledge the overall scope of the outage. “Some customers are experiencing problems” is a common refrain. The person affected is in the dark as to whether they are among an unlucky few or whether there is a widespread problem.

Social media changes the balance of power when it comes to information. With a quick Twitter search consumers come to their own conclusions about the scope of the problem. Depending how much time and effort they put in, they may even have better information than the customer care team early in the life of the incident.

This Westpac consumer cross-checks her experience with two others:

“@HugeVeryCat @RedTFox @Westpac Same here - driving me nuts!” - Meiko Georgouras (@MeikoElektra)
https://twitter.com/MeikoElektra/status/305901770335473664

While another chips in to criticise a response to another user.

“@Westpac @JCaldwellAu So your answer to his question is no? Or have you stopped reading questions and just tweeting platitudes?” - Shane Curran (@AKAWinny)
https://twitter.com/AKAWinny/status/305944197058400256

This increased information means it is essential for customer care teams to be completely transparent and resist the temptation to gloss over problems.

2. One Bad Apple

On social media, most responses from the brand are public and consumers can easily compare their individual response with other feedback from the brand. This makes consistency of message imperative. One inaccurate or poorly-communicated response can be picked out to share and become the most powerful voice – drowning out all the other accurate and well-expressed responses.

In a traditional customer care scenario, a response can be damaging, but it impact is likely to be limited to the single individual to whom it was directed.

For example, on Twitter, two customers question the brand’s claim that the problem is just slowness:

“@twentiethletter @westpac that's right. It's down... All the way! Not a good start to the week!” - A.O. (@Abdullah_Osman)
https://twitter.com/Abdullah_Osman/status/305901154477420547

And another implies that the brand has avoided mentioning ATM problems:
“@Westpac I like how you're coyly avoiding that the ATMs aren't working properly either and as such I've overdrawn my account. Fantastic.” - w r hollingsworth (@wrhollingsworth)
https://twitter.com/wrhollingsworth/status/305974420244164608

3. Tell the World

Finally, social media remove many of the barriers to taking the story to the mainstream media. Most journalists are avid users of Twitter and its egalitarian culture means some consumers do not hesitate to loop journalists and news organisations into their dialogue with the brand.

What would have taken some effort and commitment, no longer requires a second thought.

Combined with the ease with which a journalist can assess the scope of the incident, it makes for a very easy story.

For example, an unhappy NAB customer lets the Sydney Morning Herald know:

“@Nab @smh 515pm definitely not up. Wasted 30 min shopping and had to walk out without food for tonight!!! When can I buy dinner????” - Luke Parkitny (@LukeParkitny)
https://twitter.com/LukeParkitny/status/299762961092845568

while a Westpac customer takes his frustrations to The Age newspaper.

“how is @westpac down on every front: web, phone and mobile app, without a single news source noticing @theage” - Dillon Bailey (@dpbaileys)
https://twitter.com/dpbaileys/status/305913632225636352

So the good news is that your PR team in now a lot bigger. The bad news is that half of them sit in Customer Care. The challenge for PR practitioners is to prepare for this challenging new environment by opening their tight-knit teams and sharing their specialised skills across their organisations.

Matt Travers is the founder of bank comparison website ServiceRage, which uses social media feedback to rank Australian companies. A former journalist, he has more than 15 years experience on the client and agency sides of digital marketing in Australia and Europe.

5 PR Tips to Help Your Small Business Thrive

Wed, Mar 06 2013

Few things can be labeled “easy” when it comes to growing a small business. Managing the day-to-day business operation, training employees, overseeing finances and keeping customers or clients happy doesn’t leave small business owners with much time to think about promoting their company’s own good works. But why then, do I continue to make the case that small businesses must consider public relations as an indispensable element of their business strategy?

After working with dozens of small businesses during my career, I know that targeted, thoughtful and focused communications campaigns can have an enormous impact on a business’s bottom line.

When done right, public relations is about much more than just getting “ink.” Smart public relations is about sharing impactful stories that lead to meaningful connections and opportunities. It’s about clearly understanding what you want your business outcomes to be, and using communications to help you get there.

So how do you get started? Here are five tips:

1) Make Yourself Relevant: Many small businesses owners are so focused on their own company that they forget about the competition for media coverage. Breaking news happens every day, long-planned feature stories will get bumped and reporters will be pulled to cover different areas—even if they’ve given you a verbal commitment to write about your business.

To inoculate yourself, you must clearly make a connection for a reporter on why your story matters—and why now is the time to write it. Focusing your pitch to align with other breaking news events will help you increase your odds of getting covered.

2) Find a Buddy: I’ve seen many small businesses, including my own, find success during trying economic times by teaming up with another organization in the community, such as a nonprofit, to extend their brand and get in front of new prospective customers or clients. I also believe that businesses thrive when they can show a commitment to community.

At C.Fox, we helped an art gallery team up with a highly respected arts high school, and created a promotion in which 5% of each purchase benefitted the school. Not only did we pull in a new wave of clients, pleased to support the gallery because it supported their alma mater, but we also helped the gallery realize one of its highest revenue months in history.

3) Control and Coordinate your Message: The stickiest stories—the ones that have impact, drive sales and increase engagement— rarely appear in just one media outlet. They pop up in several places, and their collective effect can lead to tangible benefits for your business. Keep in mind that the media is one way to put forth your message, and it’s one that you can’t completely control (see Tip 1).

However, all of your internal channels (from Twitter and Facebook to your company blog and newsletter) provide ripe opportunities for you to control, and reinforce the same positive messages about your expertise. Beginning tomorrow, make a point to proactively comment on blogs, retweet messages that align with yourcompany's core principles and draft insightful blog and e-newsletter content to share with friends, followers and those you may have not met yet.

4) Offer Special Access: A longtime reporter at The Washington Post rarely accepts an invite to cover an event unless it includes some sort of special access. The same holds true for many industry-specific reporters across the country. If you’re a restaurant, offer to give a member of the media an hour with your chef roaming through the local farmer’s market, and if you’re a manufacturer, invite in a key reporter to see your process firsthand. The “insider view” is quite valuable, and if you haven’t offered it up yet, find a time to bring someone along for the ride.

5) Don’t be Afraid to Experiment: Experimentation can be scary because your desired outcome is never guaranteed. But trying something outside of your company's comfort zone can pay off in dividend. A few years ago, we helped a Washington, D.C.-area hair salon achieve the highest monthly revenue the business had ever seen by setting up a smart incentive program that drove people to stock up on products.

The tactic wasn’t something the salon had done before, and we weren’t certain of the results, but taking the chance paid off in a big way. Now, the promotion has become an annual tradition, and clients actually anticipate it.

PR rarely changes a business overnight. But, if you are willing to devote the time and attention to setting tangible communications goals, coordinating your efforts, experimenting along the way, and collaborating with others, your business will surely reap the rewards.

Carrie Fox is the founder and president of C.Fox Communications. She can be reached at carrie@cfoxcommunications.com. Follow her and the agency at @carriefox and @cfoxcomm, respectively.

This article was originally posted by Carrie Fox on 31st January, 2013 at PRnewsonline.com

How to Write Faster and Freer: Misspell More

Tue, Mar 05 2013

Why can’t you hear pterodactyls use the bathroom?
(wait for it…)
Because the P is silent.

No, I’m not testing your tolerance for corny jokes; I’m pointing out just how difficult English spelling truly is. Consider silent letters like the p, different sounds represented by the same letters (through, trough and though), a host of German, French and Latin words introduced by invaders from mainland Europa and a sad truth emerges: You need to memorize almost every word in English if you want to spell correctly.

I’ve got an easier solution: Spell words incorrectly. Why? So you don’t cause the wheels of your thought train to come to a screeching halt every time you’re facing a dilema, dilemna or dilemma. If you stop to figure it out, you’ll slow down and stifle your writing at the same time.

Need further encouragement? Remember that English spelling was first codified in Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary in 1755—and look what Shakespeare accomplished without knowing the right way to spell any of the 17,677 words he used.

If you’re still so OCD about proper spelling that you need support, I’m offering three suggestions (from least to most difficult) to escape the Spelling Bee raging in your brain:

1) Dictate what you have to say. Technically that’s not writing but don’t quibble if it works. As I wrote in a James Chartrand guest blog, National Book Award winner and New York Times essayist Richard Powers claims he hasn’t touched a keyboard in years, not even to write an email. If your iPhone can take dictation reasonably well, imagine what today’s voice-recognition software can do for you. What’s more, it can probably even spell reasonably well.

And face it: Unless you’re a professional writer, you probably speak better than you write anyway. Your ideas will flow much more quickly and creatively—in a torrent of spoken words rather than a trickle of typed ones.

2) Turn off spell check. I dropped by a convenience store last week to pick up something to satisfy my crunchy-salty addiction. The cashier must have made an error while ringing up my fun size bag of Lay’s, because the cash register distinctly said “Uh-Oh.” I wish I were kidding; the cashier wishes it even more. Nothing is quite so demoralizing as knowing that an inanimate object will deliver an annoying reminder every time you make a mistake.

Likewise those squiggly little red lines under words that Word thinks you have misspelled are a constant reminder that you didn’t get it right. If you can ignore them, great. If you feel compelled to make the squiggle go away every time you see one, you’ll be busier than Samuel L. Jackson in “Snakes on a Plane.” So say goodbye to the red spelling squiggles and their green grammar cohorts—you’re better off without them.

3) Learn to type faster. Most people speak at about 150 words per minute and think at 600-700 words per minute—meaning that even if you’re talking fast, you’re still capturing only 25% of your thoughts. Now comes the really bad news: When composing, studies show that average typists turn out about 19 words a minute—about 3 percent of their thoughts. So don’t be an average typist; be an amazing one.

Unfortunately fast typing has gone the way of the typewriter—since the dawn of the personal computer, entire generations have embraced hunt and peck. I think some h&p-ers think that if they train two fingers, the rest will eventually catch on and join in. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen.

Others find that they don’t have to hunt as much after a while: They know where the keys are, but they still need to look at the keyboard to hit them. Not only does that take time, but they miss out on the on-screen action.

Touch typing is generally faster, so it’s worth learning to do well to free up your focus. And if you’ve already learned the technique but your typing sounds more like a clip-clop than a gallop, try an occasional tune-up—you should hit 60 words per minute easily.

As long as you capture your ideas well enough to recognize them when you see them again, you’ve achieved success. So stop caring what you see on the screen—and write faster and freer than ever.

PS—Still have doubts? Then ponder this quote from the inimitable Mark Twain:

I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.

Guest author Diana Kightlinger is a professional print and digital copywriter and content writer. For all her blog posts, quotes and quips, please Like Eclipse Communications on Facebook. If you like this post, please share.

This article was originally published on February 22, 2013 by Diana Kightlinger on Eclipse Communications.

Video: Why and How You'll Be Using It in 2013

Mon, Mar 04 2013

Online retailers to major news outlets have seen the light: online video. In its recently announced reshuffling of top editors, the New York Times appointed a managing editor just for the development of video—that's how important video is to its online presence.

Shoppers, online users, news consumers, and nearly all others on the Web have a hearty appetite for video. In turn, e-commerce professionals are recognizing that video is more versatile than they had imagined.

When videos first turned up on e-commerce sites, they were seen simply as a replacement for photos. Today, however, videos are recognized as valuable marketing tools for SEO and social media programs, as well as mobile commerce.

Here's how we think video will continue to make inroads in e-commerce during 2013.

1. 'Curated commerce' hearts video

Websites such as the wildly popular Pinterest have quickly attracted huge audiences by allowing users to "curate" collections of images based on their passions—everything from home décor to crafting to celebrities. The logical next step is that those sites will increase their functionality for video "pinning."

At its launch, Pinterest limited its membership to individual users, but the site announced in November 2012 that it would offer business accounts. This year is a perfect time for marketers to create Pinterest pinboards for their brands and businesses, and to take advantage of the video capabilities of other curated commerce sites.

2. Video shakes up SEO

Smart online marketers have been adding product videos to their websites to help raise their SEO profile, since Google likely shows a preference for videos in its search rankings. However, simply adding videos to your website is only the first step toward using video in an SEO campaign.

Google and YouTube are always changing their search algorithms for video (and for everything else), seeking the best ways to present information that searchers will find relevant. In October, YouTube announced that it would rank videos based on "watch time," giving prominence to videos that are watched for a longer stretch of time than those viewed for a few seconds.

Google, YouTube, and others will continue to tinker with their search algorithms to refine how users see video-related results. Check in regularly with those sites' blogs so that you're on top of the search changes as soon as they happen.

3. Digital marketers embrace video

Videos take some time and money to create; so, naturally, you want to get as much use out of them as you can. Expect to see more online marketers extend videos beyond website product pages: They'll embed videos in email newsletters, post them more frequently to social networks, and build out YouTube or Vimeo channels.

4. Videos take off in hot e-commerce markets

Brazil's e-commerce market is on fire: It grew 26% in 2011, and it's expected to double by 2016. China's e-commerce sector is expected to triple in size over the next three years. Marketers in these regions are likely to adopt strategies in use by established markets, such as the United States.

5. Videos supplant product images

Static product images don't do much for your online marketing efforts; they don't encourage engagement with online visitors, nor do they tell much of a brand story. Photos take up space that could be used for a more engaging form of content: videos.

Even simple slideshows composed of still images and supplemented with voiceover and background music are far more engaging than a plain old image; they can deliver more information to close the sale.

6. Mobile sites embrace videos

More and more consumers are using their mobile devices to browse for products, especially when they're inside of a store. However, given the limitations of mobile screens, they don't want to do much scrolling to find the product or service information they need. Videos can bridge the gap: A properly executed marketing video can include all the details that a mobile shopper needs to make a buying decision, such as options, price, and availability.

Online marketers will find that videos are more appealing to their mobile customers.

7. User-generated videos are put to use

Videos created by customers can be more powerful than videos created by a business, since consumers place a lot of faith in what their fellow shoppers have to say. In 2013, we can expect marketers to brainstorm new ways to gather and make use of user-generated videos into their e-commerce storefronts, since those videos can help increase conversions.

In December, YouTube introduced its Capture app, which lets users share videos directly from their iPhone screens; that should drive a big uptick in user-generated video production.

This article was originally published on February 14, 2013 by Melody King on MarketingProfs.

The Unique Benefits of Each Social Platform

Fri, Mar 01 2013

Businesses today are starting to understand the value of social media for marketing and are turning their attention to integrating these various platforms into their strategy. Marketing plans that continue to solely focus on traditional methods and do not include social strategies are archaic and ineffective in today's social world. However, with multiple social platforms to choose from, it can be difficult to understand how to manage each account.

When managing multiple social media accounts, it's important to understand that not all platforms were created equal. Each platform (though there are some similarities) functions independently with its own unique qualities. As a result, social media managers must treat each platform as such. Let's take a closer look at the best ways to integrate the most popular social networks that businesses use today.

Facebook

With more than 1 billion active users, it's a no-brainer that businesses should have a Facebook presence, but keep in mind that Facebook is about more than just the number of "likes" a company has. Facebook is a great way to build brand persona and awareness through updates, contests, and sharing videos or pictures. It's a place to showcase a company's culture and vision, so be cognizant of the content posted on a business page. Businesses should also take advantage of the location information users provide in their profiles, allowing for targeted advertising based on city and the option to offer deals through Facebook Places when a users "checks in" to a particular business or location.

Twitter

Twitter began as a way to quickly share "what's happening." Now with more than 170 million active users, the microsite has evolved into a successful marketing tool when used strategically. Twitter is a free way to monitor conversations happening about your brand as they are happening. This allows businesses to extend their customer service efforts, as they can detect problems early and act timely, rectifying brewing situations before they can spill over. Twitter is also a great place to find hot leads, as people constantly tweet about things they need or want. Reach out to those who are at the point of decision making and introduce them to your product or service. And because many users follow their favorite brands and businesses, Twitter is a great platform to share deals and discounts or announce sales and new products.

LinkedIn

Last year, 10 million to 15 million users per quarter joined LinkedIn. Known as the social network for professionals, LinkedIn has plenty of benefits for business. At the basis of a successful business, there are employees that keep the wheels turning and business moving forward. LinkedIn is the preferred platform to recruit top-level employees. Employers can search for candidates based on job requirements, as users publicly offer their resumes and skill sets. LinkedIn Groups is also a great place for a business to grow its network while building rapport through offering advice or helpful content.

Google+

With more than 100 million active users, Google+ is a huge success compared to its predecessor, Google Buzz. One of the biggest benefits of Google+ for businesses is improved results in Google Search, increasing your visibility and helping customers find your business faster. The +1 button also increases the chance of this visibility, as the more +1s a link has, the more attention it gets in search results. Additionally, Google+ Circles create more personal relationships with consumers, even allowing businesses to have live video chat sessions with their audience through Hangouts.

Pinterest

Hailed as the "the fastest growing social site" ever, Pinterest is a great place for businesses to focus some of their social media efforts. Consumers love pictures, especially when they are looking to purchase a product or service. But beyond posting pictures of products to drive sales, Pinterest is also the platform to build your brand and showcase your mission. Dedicate a board to the company culture or lifestyle, and pin content that shows the company's unique personality. Pinterest also drives traffic to your site, so make sure you are detailed in the description and include a link back to your site.

Because social media is an essential part of successful marketing today, marketing, community, and social media managers must be well versed in the social media platforms most used. Effectively using social media begins with proper education of the platform, as each of the ones above has the potential to be a valuable asset, not only in the success of a social media plan, but also in the success of the business overall.

Eileen Bernardo is the public relations and communication manager at Viralheat.

This article was originally published on February 19, 2013 by Eileen Bernardo on iMedia Connection Connecting the Marketing Community.

Guest Post: There's no Truth without Trust

Thu, Feb 28 2013

Richard Edelman said at the 2012 WPRF, “Public Relations is the truth well told.” We all have our own moral compasses and, perhaps you don’t like to admit it, your job as a communications professional is to deliver the truth according to who is paying you. In order to deliver that truth you must develop a level of trust with the people you are communicating with so they’ll deliver your truth.

Truth can be portrayed in a number of ways. We all know horrendous the national road toll is and the state with the highest number of deaths is NSW. At the end of 2010, the number of deaths on NSW roads was 405 and there was one fatal crash for every day of the year. As a percentage of crashes, less than 1% end up as a fatality. In fact this number is 10.6% lower than it was in 2009... Considering there were just shy of 4.8 million licensed drivers in NSW in 2010, statistically, your chances of having a fatal accident on NSW roads are about 0.000076% or you have a 99.999924% chance of survival. These are all ‘truths’.

It’s up to you to ensure the truth that’s reported on is the one you’ve crafted; and the most effective way of doing that is by building trust.

Fact checking has become almost non-existent within many news organisations. Journalists are no longer the filter of information, they have become another distributor. The new media landscape has produced a shrinking number of journalists and constant deadlines – as a result, fact checking is becoming a very low priority.

In this era of instant news via social media and other online sources, the paradigm has shifted from ‘check the facts, produce the story’ to ‘produce the story, check the facts’. If you are trusted, fact checking is as simply as verifying a tweet about your company with you before regurgitating it.

Hurricane Sandy was a great example of how media organisations are sacrificing probity to be first with the news. There are numerous examples of respected media outlets publishing images that were of other storms previously used in other publications or simply outright fakes. While these errors resulted in no more than embarrassment for those involved, getting the story out before checking the facts can lead to more significant events.

While Sandy was raging, a Twitter troll called @ComfortablySmug struck a match and lit a fuse with this tweet – “Confirmed flooding on NYSE. The trading floor is flooded under 3 feet of water.”

It went largely ignored for about an hour and a half until a trusted source - The Weather Channel - tweeted this: “3ft of water on the floor of the NY Stock Exchange”. The bomb then exploded.

CNN then started broadcasting the news about 2 minutes later and the significance of repeating words from a trusted source, rather than fact-checking, played out. There were even some cases of TV news reporting on the flooding while showing live images from the dry NYSE floor. Ironically, or perhaps sadly, it was Twitter users that discovered the error, not the organisations that were once the filters of information.

Fortunately, it took less than 10 mins from the when The Weather Channel tweeted about the flooding to the retraction – but long enough to send shivers down the spine of investment houses globally.

The originator, @ComfortablySmug, spent his time during Sandy spreading many more rumours via Twitter that were all complete fabrications.

Admittedly, this example is a natural disaster so it’s easy to dismiss the importance of a lack of fact checking to corporate PR however disasters can and do occur in the corporate world. BP’s Deep water Horizon oil spill is an excellent example of that.

BP’s problems with credibility didn’t start when they deliberately tried to downplay or outright cover up the magnitude of this disaster. Both the media and the general public were already skeptical of BP’s trustworthiness.

The whole ‘beyond petroleum’ campaign, rather than it’s intended purpose of making people feel warm and fuzzy about an oil company, actually raised the level of mistrust in BP. They seemed to be trying to infer that BP was actually good for the environment.

Given that background, and the fact that, BP appeared to be less than willing to communicate openly, was it really such a surprise that there was a healthy level of skepticism surrounding BP’s official responses?

At its height, there were 50 people at BP working around the clock purely on countering “inaccurate” information being posted on Twitter, Facebook and other social networking platforms.

Tony Hayworth, former CEO of BP said, “We were at war with the media every day. There’s no other word for it.”

The thing that BP apparently failed to realise is how important trust is when dealing with the media. Their inability to comprehend how mistrusted BP was as a brand was underlined by the distribution of a photo of their response centre that had been (poorly) retouched.

Americablog reporter John Aravosis noticed the photoshop work and published an article about it. News about the disingenuous image started turning up in traditional media outlets, ultimately forcing BP to issue the original version.

As Aravosis wrote, "I guess if you're doing fake crisis response, you might as well fake a photo of the crisis response center."

Just to rub a little more salt into the wound, one of the readers of AmericaBlog discovered in the metadata that the photo was taken in 2001, not 2010. BP simply overlayed updated screens onto the old image.

Believe it or not, BP is guilty of repeating the same error of judgement on at least 3 other examples.

Again, sadly, none were picked up by journalists working for established media organisations.

In an article for NBC, Wilson Rothwell pointed out “Though the command center alteration doesn't seem to be an attempt to hide facts or confuse the public, it heightens skepticism for the company at a time when it should be trying to build trust.”

Regardless of the innocuous nature of the image manipulation, the truth quickly became “BP fakes photos”; all because of the lack of trust by the media, and the wider community, in BP’s official responses.

Trust is not granted, it must be earned.

Regardless of whether it’s a relationship between husband and wife, friends, spouses, colleagues or stakeholders, media representatives, Facebook friends or Twitter followers, trust does not come from who you represent, it comes from your ability to demonstrate that you, and your company, are trustworthy.

Even in this world of instant gratification, people still require a level of trust and this can only be acquired over time.

Now try to imagine this scenario; your company is facing a crisis and the media start reporting on it. It doesn’t even have to be a crisis, it could simply be profit results or sales figures.

Step 1 is likely to be that it appears on Twitter, followed closely by Facebook and other social media. Journalists with even a modicum of credibility will turn to your corporate site and look for the official response on your online newsroom. Others who have a moderate level of interest, perhaps the general public, staff, maybe investors, will do the same. Statistically, more people turn to a company’s website for news and information about that company as their secondary source. In other words, once someone has heard something about your business and they want to know more, the next stop is your public website.

When they get there, what will they find? First of all, do you have an online newsroom or media page? If you do, does it demonstrate a sustained and consistent level of communication? Do you have a detailed overview of your corporation complete with high res photos of the key players and what your business does? How about some broadcast quality overlay video of what you do?

Perhaps you’ve built a nice level of trust and following via social media. And just to round it out, wouldn’t it be good all of those lines of communication are accessible in one place.

Unfortunately too many communications departments are still thinking in terms of text based media relations, not the multi-channel multimedia world in which we now live.

Even if you have an online newsroom capable of delivering downloadable multimedia assets, that on it’s own is not enough. How you use it is critical. Just like social media platforms, if you have a history of regularly updating your stakeholders (including media, staff and the public) with accurate and timely information the damage caused by unfounded rumours or by trolls like @ComfortablySmug will be significantly reduced.

If you want your truth to be reported, if you want to minimize the publication of unfounded rumours via social media and you want the non-fact-checking information distributors, formally known as journalists, to come to you before forwarding on whatever they’ve heard about you, first of all get the tools, second use them.

If you want people to trust your truth, you must first prove that you deserve it rather than demand it.

This article was written by Warren Kirby. Warren began his career as a photographer with The Australian before working in Parliament House, Canberra, for all News Limited publications.

In 1995 he moved into Public Relations and immediately identified the need to change from traditional press release mail-outs (complete with B&W prints) to electronic delivery of client material.

Warren has continually been at the forefront of technological change. Throughout his career he has identified shifts in the media landscape and the evolving technologies behind them. This insight has earned him the respect of both clients and their audiences.

As a founding member and CEO of Wieck Australasia, Warren is uniquely qualified to help clients identify their greatest needs for online communication and implement solutions that consistently exceed expectations.

Five Tips for Better Speeches

Wed, Feb 27 2013

The first speech I ever wrote was for a chairman of a bank. I’d written the letter to shareholders in his annual report and he asked me to prepare his speech for the annual general meeting. I accepted with alacrity. When the day of the AGM arrived, I snuck into the back of the hotel function room where it was being held and settled down to listen to him deliver my pearls of wisdom.

It was dreadful.

Why?

Being new to the game, I had broken one of the cardinal rules in speechwriting. I had written for the eye not the ear. The way the chairman wrote. Not the way he spoke. To add to my other sins, the speech was too complex, it had too many numbers and tongue twisters like particularly, peculiarly and familiarly.

Many years have passed since then and I’ve written more speeches than I can remember. I’ve trawled countless books, attended courses and conferences and have gleaned a host of tips and techniques. Here are some of them:

Tip #1. Show don’t tell
Anyone ever see the eulogy Brian Mulroney, the former Canadian Prime Minister delivered at Ronald Reagan’s funeral? Here’s how he began:

In the spring of 1987 President Reagan and I were driven into a large hangar at the Ottawa Airport, to await the arrival of Mrs Reagan and my wife Mila, prior to departure ceremonies for their return to Washington. We were alone except for the security details. President Reagan’s visit had been important, demanding and successful. Our discussions reflected the international agenda of the times: The nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union and the missile deployment by NATO, pressures in the Warsaw Pact, challenges resulting from the Berlin Wall and the ongoing separation of Germany and bilateral and hemispheric free trade. President Reagan had spoken to Parliament, handled complex files with skill and humour – strongly impressing his Canadian hosts – and here we were, waiting for our wives. When their car drove in a moment later, out stepped Nancy and Mila – looking like a million bucks. As they headed towards us, President Reagan threw his arm around my shoulder and said with a grin, “You know, Brian, for two Irishmen, we sure married up.”

Mulroney is employing one of the oldest tricks in the books – and he’s doing it brilliantly.

The British poet T. S. Eliot once said that the key to successful communication is “show, don’t tell.”

This is especially true in speech-making and this is exactly what Mulroney is doing. Instead of telling us about Reagan’s character, he’s using this anecdote to show the aspects of the man he wants the world to remember: his humour, his warmth, his love for his wife Nancy and – despite the many criticisms to the contrary – his grasp of world affairs.

Great speakers always illustrate their key messages with examples or anecdotes. They don’t tell the audience about a character or an idea and expect them to take their word for it. They show what they mean and in this way supply the evidence to back up what they’re saying.

Tip No#2: Timing is critical
Great speakers also know that timing is critical to success. That anything over 20 minutes runs the risk of diminishing returns. This is the most overlooked advice in speech-making.

Ever since Romans stood in the sun to hear Caesar and his senators drone on through the day, ordinary people have had to suffer speech bores.

The 9th US President was William Henry Harrison. He’s remembered for two things. The longest inaugural speech in US history. And the shortest time in office. The two are related. He delivered his staggering one hour and 45 minute speech in a snowstorm with his jacket off. The cold he caught turned into pneumonia and he died one month later.

Death is perhaps too severe a punishment for long-windedness, but it’s worth noting that some of the greatest speeches in history have lasted a few minutes. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was four minutes long and Reverend Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech was five. There are reasons that these great orations have stood the test of time, and brevity is one of them.

So once you’ve written or prepared your speech, go over it again and again – at least three times – to see what you can cut out of it without losing the sense or meaning of what you want to say.

Tip No#3: Do your research
Financial presentations are among the hardest to keep interesting. Here’s a great example of a speechwriter rising to the challenge:

By coincidence I’m speaking to you today on the anniversary of perhaps the most famous report to investors of all time. It was on this day in 1493 that Columbus had to report back to the King and Queen of Spain and explain how he’d spent their money. The text of Columbus’ report still does exist and a translation of a portion of that text reads: The reports of monsters are greatly exaggerated. And the basic message I have to bring you regarding our performance last year is that reports of monsters are greatly exaggerated.

The writer had consulted a book called Chase’s Annual Events to see what historical events occurred on the day of the speech. As well as historical incidents, Chase’s also lists famous people born each day of the year. It’s a great technique to use – for speeches on any topic.

But you don’t need always need to go to international publications. I once wrote a speech for a black-tie dinner to celebrate Arnott’s 130 years in business (an iconic biscuit maker, no longer Australian owned). To research the speech, I went through the company’s publications and found this little gem:

One day Harold Arnott was mowing the grass around his imposing house at Homebush. The weather was warm and Harold wore old pants and a singlet. One of his arms was paralysed – the result of a sporting injury – and he held the arm across his body as he manhandled the mower around with his good hand. As he worked, a passerby stopped to watch him. Eventually the chap called him over to the fence. “So who owns this big flash place?” “One of the Arnotts, the biscuit people,” said Harold, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I thought as much,” said the chap. “It’s no wonder they’ve got so much money, having a poor, crippled old bastard like you mowing their lawn.”

Tip No#4: Become a master of verbal variety
Of the current crop of world politicians, Barack Obama would have to be among the most accomplished of speakers. Like all great speakers, he is the master of verbal variety. His language is clear and concise. He uses short words and sentences. He paints word pictures and poses questions. Instead of saying there are three reasons, he’ll say: “Why do we do this? There are three reasons.” He adds texture to his speeches by varying his pace, volume and vocal tone.

And he truly understands the power of the pause.

Tip No #5 Work on your ending
Like a good novel, a great story or moving piece of music, if you finish on a rousing and uplifting note, you will reinforce your speech’s messages and you’ll leave your audience with a strong impression they’ve heard something worthwhile. Your conclusion or a call to arms doesn’t need to be complex. It can be short and very simple.

A useful rule of thumb is to have three points, three being a number that many orators and educators recognise as having most impact.

This article was originally posted on Businesswriters & Design.

Using LinkedIn for Strategic Communication

Mon, Feb 25 2013

The capability of LinkedIn to be an effective platform for strategic communication is both constrained and advanced by its unique properties. Make no mistake, however. When operating in a B2B and/or services-oriented environment, organisations can leverage LinkedIn via a number of potent means – e.g. market research, differentiation, positioning, viral marketing – to deliver business results.

We should all by now be well versed in the personal brand building capabilities of LinkedIn. Not only is it an online resume and often first port of call on Google when anyone – not just recruiters or potential employers and clients – go looking for you, but it is an interactive, ongoing reflection of your professional interests, achievements and proactivity. Manifestations of this proactivity and your engagement with your profession include:

how up to date your LinkedIn profile is and how frequently you update it
the number, nature and frequency of updates you publish on your profile
the sort of LinkedIn groups you are a member of and how often, and how meaningfully, you contribute to discussions in these groups.

When it comes to using LinkedIn for professional, strategic organisational communication, there are also ways of using the platform to help build reputation and increase sales.

By the way, if you find this post of value, please go to the PR blog homepage and share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

It is my view that organisations using LinkedIn for professional communication/marketing/public relations/stakeholder relations et al do, however, need to be operating in a B2B environment and primarily be providing services, as opposed to products, to their customers or stakeholders.

The B2B characteristic is imperative because of the nature of those who populate and utilise LinkedIn. It is a social network designed for, and populated by, those with an interest in business-related matters. It is a social network, in fact, that is ‘social’ only to achieve business-related outcomes. You don’t get on LinkedIn to have a chat with your buddies.

My bias towards believing LinkedIn is better for service-leaning organisations is because of LinkedIn’s proclivity for better suiting the approaches of thought leadership and inbound marketing (noted below).

Thought leadership and inbound marketing at the heart of LinkedIn

There is no getting around it. At the core of any effective LinkedIn communication strategy, is an absolute, no-compromise necessity to apply the approaches thought leadership and inbound marketing. This is consistent with most approaches to social media marketing.

Value will only be perceived in the communicating organisation, and its credibility will only be enhanced, by the creation and sharing of content which enriches the professional lives of organisational target audiences. Furthermore, the sharing of content and expertise without pushing out too many calls for sales (outbound marketing) must be the default.

The opposite of taking a thought leadership and inbound marketing approach is manifested in the following:

Only sharing content not original to the organisation and/or it being of a low-level and not very useful nature
Communication from the organisation frequently, if not entirely, being of a sales call nature (in other words, all about me/the organisation and not frequently enough about the customer/target audience and what their needs are).

To gain true, full value out of the thought leadership approach most content needs to be created by the organisation. A significant amount of content not created by the organisation can also be shared through LinkedIn, too. This is ‘curated’ information. A few points to bear mind with curated content include:

It is an invaluable means of maintaining a consistent (saying constant makes it sound like an organisation will drown its target audiences in information, which is not a desired outcome) stream of content
By using valuable content from a non-organisational employee offers 3rd party credibility and it also sends a message of humility to target audiences
When sharing content from others, it is important to try to add value to it with an additional comment or two as often as possible. This provides some stamp of originality from the organisation and aids in its branding.

Integrated communication for effective outcomes

Communication via LinkedIn as a stand-alone strategy is unlikely to yield results. It needs to be part of a broader, more holistic strategy containing a diversity of communication channels.

When using the approaches of thought leadership and inbound marketing this should be self-evident. One reason for this is that when generating thought leadership content an organisation will want to leverage it across multiple platforms. This is not just to share the content, but to facilitate the viral impetus which will help propel it through the internet to as many target audiences as possible – influence and resonance.

The eternal argument: branding or tactical?

There is no rigid rule for when LinkedIn can be used as a branding tool or a tactical sales too, but any organisation which chooses to put most of its communication efforts into the tactical sales basket will not succeed. In a future post I’ll discuss objectives and KPIs for LinkedIn communication, but it is mainly in the reputation growing and enhancing area where positive outcomes will be gained.

Once again, this goes back to the thought leadership and inbound marketing themes. Yes, there may well be a sales outcome that is ultimately sought, but it is not being sought by outbound marketing (sales calls, deliberate interruption of prospects’ time etc). It is being sought by providing excellent content of value to target audiences, about being involved in the right sort of conversations with the right sorts of people and about, often, those people finding you rather than vice versa:

Yes, this goes to the approaches of utilising LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Company pages
Yes, this goes towards strategies to join LinkedIn networks with both target audiences and influencers on target audiences.

Shared voices through LinkedIn, public relations and social media

A sub-set of the branding vs. tactical discussion is the notion of whether LinkedIn strategic business communication needs to be founded on the notion of ‘creating a community’ or being centred on the organisation which is driving the communication. This goes back to the fundamental rationales which are at the heart of both public relations and social media:

Public relations and social media are both, theoretically at least, about sharing power, about equalising opportunities to have perspectives heard, about at least some form of consensual decision making.

In the context of LinkedIn, involvement in the platform will only succeed if it is focused on the needs of target audiences and the organisation is willing to put in the long-term effort (as this is not about short-term wins). The upside of this considerable investment is it will lead to ‘sticky’ target audiences, those who are committed to the organisation providing resources and facilitating the flow of resources to them.

When you get this balance right; when the sums add up; when LinkedIn is one part of an integrated strategic thought leadership and inbound marketing approach to organisational communication – then, and only then, can LinkedIn prove a successful means of generating leads, enhancing reputation and building up solid financial return of investment.

A future post on the tactical dimensions of LinkedIn business communication will follow in the not too distant future.

Have you used LinkedIn for strategic business communication? What have been the strategic underpinnings of your LinkedIn communication? Have you seen it used successfully for B2C communication, as well as B2B? Do you feel as if you have been effectively marketed to through LinkedIn – what have been the hallmarks of effective and non-effective business communication in your experience?

By the way, if you found this post of value, please share it through Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. Thanks in advance!

This article was originally published on February 13, 2013 by Craig Pearce on Public relations and managing reputation.

5 Ways To Get Your New Client To â��Fall in Loveâ�� With You

Fri, Feb 22 2013

There’s nothing quite like a new romance.

That’s true when you start dating special someone, and—if you work at a PR agency—it’s the case when you land a new client. The first month in a new work engagement is a once-in-a-lifetime period when you have the chance to cement your firm as that amazing, irreplaceable partner your client can’t live without.

So how do you do it? How can you make your client fall desperately, madly “in love” with your agency?

When you’re dating someone new, you might plan a romantic night out, send sweet text messages, or surprise the person with flowers (or all of the above). Clearly, that’s not going to cut it at work. But here are five simple ways to show your new client that you really care. You’ll notice they’re not too different from what works in your love life, too.

1. Plan for the future

Remember that fuzzy feeling when your new love interest casually discussed making plans with you a month, or six, into the future? That shows he or she thinks (or hopes) you’ll still be an item down the road. Same goes with your new client. Develop short-, mid- and long-term priorities for its business, and create a roadmap to get the company there.

Thinking in the future, and not just for the next few months, shows the client that you’re committed to being its trusted partner for the long haul. Chances are, the client will start thinking about your agency in the same way.

2. Always over deliver

Expecting your new catch to cook you a simple pasta dinner, but he or she impresses with a three-course meal that would give Mario Batali a run for his money? Take that concept and apply it to your client work.

For example, if your client asks you to identify notable bloggers in its space, don’t stop once you’re stumbled upon the top writers. Find out their reach. Read previous posts from the last several months to spot anything that might be helpful—or harmful—to your client. Note who is on their blog roll, and where else their posts are published. Dig a little deeper to figure out the blogger’s background. In other words, go above and beyond what your client is expecting.

No matter the assignment, make sure your agency is thorough and accurate. But even more important, take that extra step to deliver a project your new client will adore.

3. Surprise them with one big idea

Surprise your new client with one great, unexpected idea “just because.” It shows that even while you’re killing it with the tasks to get the account up and running, you’re still thinking big about its business. To clients, getting creative, strategic ideas from senior agency leadership without asking for it is like receiving flowers just because it’s Tuesday.

4. Show you have dollars and “sense”

You wouldn’t ask someone out to dinner and let him or her pay the check (if you want a second date, that is). You don’t want any surprises over money with your new client, either.

It may sound petty, but accounts are lost over billing issues. Make sure your client knows how much its first invoice will be (and why) before sending it. And be sure your agency’s invoices are easy to understand and accurate, and that they’re sent on time. Seems simple, but lots of agencies fall surprisingly short on this one.

5. Spend quality time together

There’s something special about spending time with your client in person. In a business culture dominated by teleconferences, getting out of your office and into your client’s for the day is the only sure-fire way to build that collegial “we’re in this together” feeling. Relationships are about connecting with people on a personal level. It’s true in dating, and it’s true in business.

So take the time out of your schedule, and make it a point to see your client face-to-face in the first few weeks of a new assignment—even if you need to do it on your agency’s dime. It’ll be worth the investment.

The Bottom Line

If you put in the effort in the beginning of your new client relationship, you’ll set your agency up for that “storybook ending” we all hope for—a happy, long-term client partner that adores your firm.

Share your best tips to get clients to fall in love with your agency.

This article was originally published on February 14, 2013 by Michele Baer on PR Daily.

Michele Baer is senior vice president and head of the New Jersey practice at Feinstein Kean Healthcare. She is also an adjunct professor of communication at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J. Contact her at michele.baer@fkhealth.com or follow her on Twitter @michelebaer.

Melbourne Mediaâ��s Night of Nights

Thu, Feb 21 2013

The Melbourne Press Club says PRIA members are welcome at the Victorian media’s night of nights, the annual Quill Awards for Excellence in Victorian Journalism at Crown Palladium on March 15.

More than 500 journalists, editors, news executives, media lawyers and public relations people will attend the awards, the premier journalism awards in the State. It’s a rare opportunity for rival journalists and others in the media business to set aside their professional rivalries and differences to celebrate and network in a party atmosphere.

Melbourne Press Club president Mark Baker said it is not well known in the public relations industry that the Melbourne Press Club is open to all media professionals and anyone with an interest in the news media. “Public relations people have been involved in the Press Club since its inception more than 40 years ago and this has probably helped to increase understanding of the different roles played by journalism and public relations,” he said.

At the dinner, winners of more than 20 categories will be announced, along with the $5000 Monash University Gold Quill. The dinner also features Australia’s most coveted national journalism prize, the $20,000 Graham Perkin Australian Journalist of the Year Award, the Melbourne Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award and the Young Journalist of the Year Award.

Headline guests will be announced soon.

Tickets are $169 for non-members and $110 for members. A membership costs only $66 and provides solid discounts on all club functions, including the Quills.

Contact general manager Carolyn Jones on 96142779 for more information, table bookings, seating enquiries or sponsorship opportunities.

Click here to view the invitation.

More information on www.melbournepressclub.com or email bookings to bookings@melbournepressclub.com

Mike Smith
Board Member
Melbourne Press Club

Be a Copycat on Social Media

Thu, Feb 21 2013

When it comes to plagiarism, there’s no excuse. But taking a leaf out of the books of social media experts and organisations doing social well is the best way to inspire your own content.

There are plenty of companies who are showing incredible leadership when it comes to social media. If you want to have a look at who’s doing it best, try these organisations and brands for some inspiration for your own social media campaigns.

Starbucks

Starbucks got in quick during the blizzard in the north east United States recently by promoting hot coffee. Snow themed posts featured on Twitter and Facebook, and showed that the company was not only up to speed with current events, but could easily tie their brand in without it seeming forced. This type of interaction shows that the company can empathise with their customers and offer them more than just a product, they could offer camaraderie over a shared experience- with a subtle promotion thrown in. Generally speaking, the company also does a fantastic job on their Facebook page of encouraging comments and posting interesting images.

Oreo

Another fast cab off the ranks, Oreo blew social media commentators away during the Super Bowl when they quickly reacted to the blackout by posting a Twitter ad with the message ‘You can still dunk in the dark’. The ad cost the company nothing in terms of buying ad space but was spread virally and offered them instant kudos for being quick witted.

Tourism Australia

Promoting Australia as a tourist destination might not be too hard to do, but Tourism Australia have taken a novel approach to doing so across their social media channels- and it’s paying off. They encourage everyone to post their own images of Australia on their Facebook page, which means they get endless amounts of images, not to mention priceless interactivity with their fans, and everyone feels involved in the process. Jesse Desjardins, the organisation’s head of social media will be speaking at the CommsCon event in March, but has also published a Slideshare presentation about their social media success.

Ikea

With a range of beautiful product options for fantastic photos for Instagram and Facebook, it’s not surprising that Ikea is a social media leader as well, but it’s their creative use of themes and questions that make them stand out. Their interaction with fans, to the extent that the company recently hosted a wedding, is commendable. They’re quick to respond to comments and make sure that every post has a brightly coloured image attached. There’s a lot to learn from this famous furniture company!

This article was originally published on February 20, 2013 by Rhiannon Sawyer on Dynamic Business.

5 Types of Killer Social Media Content

Wed, Feb 20 2013

Instead of trying to find out what type of content your fans want; put yourself in their shoes, would you share the piece of content you created? Would it make you go crazy and spread the word about it? If yes, then you are on the right track.

Here are 5 types of content that have proved to help businesses increase engagement on social networks:

1. Photos – Internet is all about visuals, therefore having a lot of photos at your social media profiles on a daily basis is essential. It does not mean that any photos will work, make sure they are relevant to your content and most importantly are worth taking a look at them. Invest in a good camera and build your photography skills, look around for ideas and be willing to learn. You will be surprised the difference to the level of engagement a great photo makes compared to an average one. Avoid copying photos, you can either buy royalty free ones or simply go out and create content yourself. For example, if you run a hotel, go around your city, take a lot of photos from your city’s traveler’s hot spots, watermark them and publish them. Do not forget, the more photos your show the more time your visitors will stay at your pages.

2. Videos – Similarly to the photos are videos, they work great because it is human nature to just sit and watch a great video. Again, content must be great and worth taking the time to watch. On the contrary to photos, it is harder to produce high quality videos because it requires more time and resources. You do not need quantity but quality. Invest in a good video camera, write the script yourself and start shooting. Make sure you add your logo and play around with the animations.

3. Voting Polls – Voting polls are viral by nature; it is just human nature to answer a question and most importantly wanting to see what others think about it as well. They can be as simple as “how did you spend your weekend “and does not require a lot of critical thinking. Do not forget, the hardest your content is to be understood the easiest to be ignored. Furthermore, people feel good when someone is asking them about their daily activities; they feel that someone cares about them, so this someone better be you and not your competitors. There are many voting polls apps for all social media networks, just stick to the simplest ones.

4. Contests – Social media contents are also another great tool to increase engagement with your fans and followers. However, it requires planning and most importantly a prize hard to resist. There are plenty of apps out there to create contents. It can be linked to a local event e.g F1 race or just a standalone competition. Create great visuals and build as much publicity as you can around it. Photo contests are great examples of successful social media contests as they viral by nature e.g vote for your favorite place in your city, or favorite Halloween costume.

5. Exclusive content – If you want to increase engagement for a special social media network advocates, create content available only for them. Exclusive videos, photos, special discounts, or celebrity interviews are great means to achieve that. Make sure the content is appealing to your audience, it is not distributed anywhere else and it is difficult for the mass to get access to it.

Example: Exclusive photos of the F1 Race in Monaco; Planning & Executing (There is a high chance that only few will be able to attend such an event as opposed to a Halloween party, so here comes exclusivity and difficulty for the mass to get access to it)
1. Assign your team to take hundreds (the more the better) of photos before, during and after the event.
2. Send out a newsletter and let everyone know about this exclusive content.
3. Create a new tab at your Facebook page and require for visitors to like your page before viewing the content.
4. Promote the posts at the social network (Facebook promoted posts have 10x higher click through and engagement rate).

Finding out what content works the best for your audience requires a lot of trial and error events, collect data and based on it decide where to focus.

Which of these 5 types of content do you use?

This article was originally published on February 8, 2013 by Ilias Chelidonis on The Web Citizen.

The 5 biggest social media mistakes brands make

Tue, Feb 19 2013

Social media has evolved a lot in the last couple of years, yet there are still a lot of misconceptions out there. Here are some of the biggest mistakes many of us may be making:

1. You think you are your audience.

The way a marketer, PR pro, community manager, or anyone else who works in technology views and uses social media is likely 100 billion times different from how your customers use social media. The most harmful thing you can do is assume your audience consumes and uses the tools the same way you do.

2. You assume there's a direct correlation between the number of "likes" and sales.

I've lost count of the number of times I've heard, "How we can get a million likes on Facebook?" Every time I try not to roll my eyes and laugh out loud. It's easy to "like" something. Heck, you can even buy likes. (Please don't). But it doesn't necessarily translate to more customers, sales, etc.

3. You think just being present is enough.

Thankfully many more companies have realized the vast potential of social media for their businesses. It's awesome that brands now acknowledge and reply to their customers through Twitter and Facebook. However, replying is only the first step. The rest is much harder, and involves making your business a truly social business. This requires change and a lot of hard work.

4. You buy in to data overload.

Do you know the saying, "You can never have too much data"? Whoever said that was very wrong. Have you seen some of the social media reports that "social media consultants" use? Statistics are only as useful as the context you put them in. A 50-page report with pretty charts and graphs may look great on your boss's desk, but chances are it's just Excel bloat.

Instead, focus on two or three metrics that really matter for your business, and measure those. That's a lot more meaningful than a 50-page monthly report.

5. You keep social media in a silo.

It's important to have a dedicated team that handles social media. However, this team must close the gap between all departments. Nothing good ever comes from working in silos. Social media touches every aspect of your business, from sales to marketing, legal, PR and HR.

Jessica Malnik is a PR/marketing coordinator, social media specialist, videographer and an avid Gen Y blogger. A version of this article originally appeared on her blog.

This article was originally published on February 13, 2013 by Jessica Malnik on Ragan.com

5 easy ways to get more Twitter followers

Fri, Feb 15 2013

There’s no winning formula for growing your number of Twitter followers – there are multiple, equally valid approaches - but if you follow these five simple steps, you’ll be on the right track for social media success.

Many small businesses struggle with Twitter. There is a misconception that customers will magically find your account and frantically retweet your updates. It doesn’t work like that. You need to let customers know you’ve gone social and give them a good reason to follow you before you start thinking about complicated growth strategies.

1. Tweet like you’re really, really popular

This might sound ridiculous to Twitter newcomers but there’s nothing sadder than an inactive account. Would you follow somebody who never tweeted? The answer is no unless you want a very quiet timeline. As such, update your Twitter regularly (aim for at least once a day). It doesn’t matter if you have no followers. When someone finally tracks you down, they’re going to look at your brilliant tweets and click the follow button.

2. Add the Twitter button to your website

Once you’ve got the hang of Twitter and feel confident that your updates are interesting, informative and professional, it’s time to let your customers know where to find you. A good starting point is embedding the Twitter button on your website, which takes customers straight to your account. This is a safe first-step for businesses taking a soft approach to social media and, most likely, probably won’t result in a flood of new followers.

3. Update your signature

It might sound like a no-brainer but one of the easiest ways of letting people know you’re on Twitter is adding your handle to your email signature. This ensures all stakeholders in your business know how to find you.

4. Send an email or newsletter

By now you’ve covered the basics. You’re regularly updating your Twitter account, have attracted a few followers from your website button and email signature – now it’s time to get more proactive. Most small businesses indulge in email marketing or send out an electronic newsletter. Make sure you let customers know you’re on Twitter – with a working link directly to your account – the next time you send one. If someone has taken the time to open your eDM, chances are they’re interested enough in your business to see what you have to say on Twitter.

5. Run a competition

Everyone likes free stuff. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of this universal truth by running a competition. Simply stipulate that a customer needs to follow you on Twitter to enter and watch your number of followers rise. And you don’t need to give away a car or a trip to Bali. Many small businesses do well by simply offering free movie tickets or a book. Just remember there are regulations surrounding competitions – make sure yours is a game of skill (make entrants answer a basic question), so you don’t have to apply for a licence.

This article was originally published on February 13, 2013 by Mike Mrkic in Dynamic Business.

How to Be the Real You in Your Blog Writing

Thu, Feb 14 2013

In September, I spent a week in Germany. I look German and even lived in the country as a child, but I speak the language only well enough to be dangerous. I can order a glass of wine, but then the charade ends.

My elderly aunt isn’t fooled. She has trouble understanding my ungrammatical babble.

“Was sprichst du?” (What do you speak?) she asks. “Hoch Deutsch (high German) oder Platt Deutsch (Low German)?” “Schlecht Deutsch (Bad German),” I reply. I speak well enough to get by, but not well enough to really say anything.

And that was the problem. After three days in Germany, I had no beliefs, no opinions, no personality. As a blog writer, I missed being able to express myself.

Having a platform that lets you communicate your personal brand is a rare gift. So go for it when you write your blog: Tell us what you think.

Say it in plain English. And celebrate who you are.

Get your personality across
Do this even if it’s abrasive. Especially if it’s abrasive.

If you’re writing authentically, your audience should know immediately that you authored a piece. My own style has been described as warm, witty, quirky. Whether you agree with that or not, you should be able to tell a piece is by me by the way I use words, by the positions I take, by the refusal to be serious for more than a few lines.

If your blog doesn’t sound like you, it’s time to rewrite until it’s genuine.

Take an outlandish position
Your blog gives you a chance to make a stand—so don’t wallow in the middle ground. Choose a position and defend it. I read a marketing blog post recently about Features and Benefits. For once, it did not say that every feature should also have a benefit. Quite the contrary. After hearing same old same old for years of copywriting, it was compelling to see a post that tore it all up.

Be that person—the one who opens eyes wide.

Don’t mince words
At dinner recently, a friend mentioned that his former wife had been in a car accident. Was it bad? our hostess asked. Not bad enough, he replied. OK, that’s cold, but we’re pretty clear how he feels about his ex-wife. So if you need to mince something, make it onions. Say it like you mean it. Forget the qualifiers and euphemisms.

If every word is a cloak for some more dastardly term, then you’re writing in another language.

Provoke disagreement
If you have a flock that follows you and it isn’t completely comprised of sheep, then engage them enough to disagree with you. Loudly, if necessary. I wrote a post once suggesting people use Readability Indices to make their posts more accessible to their audiences. One commenter said he’s tired of dumbing down his writing—and if his audience doesn’t understand it, he doesn’t want to talk to them anyway.

Bully for him.

Get rid of people
Go all the way—provoke disagreement to the point that readers unsubscribe from your blog. No one’s unsubscribing? You’re not trying hard enough. Sure, they’ll be there as long as you’re so bland they hardly notice you. Or don’t bother to read your blog. But when you unmask, they may recoil. Good.

Distance yourself from the people who simply tolerate you.

Keep the people who love you
In some ways, business relationships work the same way as personal ones. You want to keep the people close who love you no matter what. I have three friends who would stick with me even if I become an axe murderer—although one admits she’d be disappointed.

Ultimately you want blog followers so avid that they love you even when you quarrel and want to work things out. Those people will advocate for you like the blasé folks never will.

And that, my friend, is the start of a beautiful relationship.

Guest author: Diana Kightlinger is a professional print and digital copywriter and content writer for high-achieving businesses, from solo entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. For more helpful info, follow the Eclipsewriter Blog, like Eclipse Communications on Facebook and follow#Eclipsewriter on Twitter.

This article was originally published on jeffbullas.com by Diana Kightlinger.

1 Thing Every Business Executive Must Understand About Social Media

Wed, Feb 13 2013

The 1 Thing Every Business Executive Must Understand About Social Media

Social media is still in its infancy, and many business executives still don't understand how to Ieverage it for their organizations, large or small. They're too focused on the talking, and not focused enough on the listening.

When I speak, I often begin by asking my audience, "How many of you know at least one executive who doesn't fully understand the business value of Twitter?"

Sure enough, the entire audience raises their hands. Then I tell them about my experience in Las Vegas three years ago.

I had been standing in line to check in at Las Vegas’s then-trendiest hotel in town, the Aria, for nearly an hour. I was exhausted and frustrated after a 6 hour flight from New York, and just wanted to get to my room and rest. The last thing I wanted to do was waste an hour of my life waiting in line.

Frustrated, I did what any social media nerd would do - I pulled out my phone, and tweeted the following:

“No Vegas hotel could be worth this long wait. Over an hour to checkin at the Aria. #fail"

Unfortunately, the Aria wasn't listening, and didn’t tweet back to me. But a competitor was listening. Just two minutes later, I received a tweet from the Rio Hotel down the street.

Now at this point, if you’re anything like most executives I’ve shared this story with, you’re thinking, “What did the Rio tweet - “Come on over, we have no line here" or "Call us, we have a room for you!"?

Had the Rio tweeted something like that to me, I would have thought two things: First, "Why are you stalking me?" and second, "Why is it wide open at the Rio when it's jam-packed and happening at the Aria?"

On the contrary, the Rio Las Vegas tweeted the following to me:
“Sorry about your bad experience, Dave. Hope the rest of your stay in Vegas goes well.”

Guess where I ended up staying the next time I went to Las Vegas?

The Rio hotel earned a $600 sale on the basis of that one tweet. But the story gets even better, because I gave the Rio a "Like" on Facebook, and a few months later, I got a message from a friend on Facebook. My friend Erin asked, "Hey, I'm having a family reunion in Vegas this New Year's, and I saw you liked the Rio's page. Do you recomend them?"

I wrote back to her, "Well, the Rio isn't the newest hotel in Vegas, or the nicest - but I'll tell you one thing - they know how to listen to customers." She booked the Rio for 20 guests that day.

One tweet from the Rio, and one "like" from me led to over $10,000 in revenue for the company.

No executive that's heard or read this story could argue that the Rio's message was a marketing or sales message, either. All they did was use social media to listen, and then show a little empathy to the right person at the right time. An ad, or a push-marketing-like message from the Rio, simply wouldn’t have worked. But their ability to listen, respond and be empathic did work.

The Rio was listening on Twitter by tracking keywords of their competitors, and of the word "Vegas". If you work at a hotel, you can do the same. If you work at a law firm, try listening by doing a Twitter search for the words "need a lawyer". Or if you work for a recruitment firm, try a search for the words "We're hiring."

Whatever your organization does, you can find your customers and prospects on Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and everywhere on the social web, by listening for the right words.

The one thing every business executive must understand about social media:

The secret to social media success isn't in talking - it's in listening.

I'd love YOUR feedback: Is your organization currently using social media to listen as effectively as they can to to customers and prospects? Have you as a consumer had an experience where a brand demonstrated that they were listening to you? I'll be listening.

Dave Kerpen is the New York Times bestselling author of two books, Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business. Read more on the Likeable blog or Dave's blog.

This article was originally published on 7 February 2013 by Dave Kerpen on LinkedIn. Visit Dave's post and share your thoughts!

Social Media Matters: Why Your Brand Should Join the Conversation

Mon, Feb 11 2013

Why Social Media Matters

Today I’d like to write about why social media matters — not why it matters to your competitor, or anyone else — but why it matters to you specifically.

I’m not an advocate for jumping on board just because everybody else is doing it, but by the same token, I think social media conversations are becoming increasingly important in how small businesses connect with their target market, their existing market, and the world in general.

One of the reasons that social media is so important is because people in the world at large are using social media platforms to talk about the things that they do every day, the brands that they interact with, and the businesses they encounter with on a daily basis. And if you are not there, if you are not part of the conversation, then you can’t contribute to the conversation, and you certainly can’t control the conversation.

So, if your customers are using it, and if your competitors are using it, one of the questions that we need to be asking is, “Well, how do we use it as well to be part of the conversation?”

If you’re not on social media, if you’re not part of the conversation, then you literately start to become invisible to the people who are having the conversations on that platform.

Some businesses avoid social media because they’re concerned that people might say nasty things about thing. My response is that if people are feeling so aggrieved by your brand or by the interaction that they’ve had with your staff or your website, then they are talking about you anyway, and whether you are there or not doesn’t stop them from having their little rant. But if you are there, then you can at least influence the discussion.

Social media also matters for search engine optimisation (SEO).

Social media validation often increases your ranking in search engine results. Google Plus, for instance, can have a significant impact on your business’ ranking.

Another reason to utilise social media: This is how people now look for things. In the old days, we would flip through the yellow pages. That doesn’t happen anymore. Then people started using Google. Now people are doing their research via social media channels. They are asking for recommendations in their social networks.

In Australia, 97 percent of social media users are using Facebook, and there are at least 10 million Facebook users in Australia, of whom 68 percent check their Facebook feeds more than once a day.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I reckon there’s a fair chance that of that 10 million Facebook user base, some of them are going to be your target market.

And if they are checking in multiple times a day, that means you have an extraordinarily engaged audience. Further, 16 percent of social media users are using LinkedIn; 14 percent are using Twitter; and 8 percent are using Google Plus.

If you’re not playing the social media game, you’re missing out on the nuances of the social conversation. If a customer has a fantastic experience, social media gives you the opportunity to amplify that experience. If they have a poor experience, you can respond to it and make things right. But if you’re not there, if you’re not part of the conversation, then you miss out on these opportunities. Join the conversation, and make the most of it.

This article, by Cat Matson, originally appeared on the Australian Businesswomen's Network's herBusiness blog.

Cat Matson is co-host of the Social Media for Small Business podcast on iTunes. She is also presents the Social Media Crash Course, a two-part online training for small-business owners. Contact the Australian Businesswomen's Network for details of the next course.

Public Relations and Public Diplomacy: Two Sides of the Same Coin?

Fri, Feb 08 2013

Guest Post by Kristian Bonnici. Kristian is currently the Deputy High Commissioner of Malta in Australia. In 2003 Kristian sat for a competitive exam to join the Maltese diplomatic corps. A year later he started his diplomatic career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs where upon successfully completing his duties, he served as Deputy Head of Mission and Consul in Egypt. Kristian has an undergraduate degree in International Relations, where he obtained first class honours, a Master of Arts in Diplomatic Studies, and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Diploma. Kris speaks Maltese, English and Italian fluently, and has a good command of French, Russian and Arabic. He has a passion for Public Relations, and wrote a paper establishing who the founder of this discipline is.

Not only are there a lot of similarities between Public Relations (PR) and Public Diplomacy (PD) but were it not for one major element, they might be identical. Scholars have argued that issues of power have been neglected in PR. This is true. However, that might not illustrate the complete picture as the main difference is perhaps the cohesion of PD, and the power it can achieve thanks to this. No wonder the Ancient Romans divided their legions into cohorts, for through cohesion, the Roman legionary ‘was adaptable at any place, at any time, for any purpose.’ – Polybius, Ancient Greek Historian.

Similarities
There are many similarities in PR and PD. Both Practitioners strive for reputation building, relationship management, dialogue, transparency, trust, engagement, and conflict resolution. They also work to establish themselves as the Alpha and Omega for their publics and stakeholders, and to outmanoeuvre all other communication sources. They do this through a systematic strategic information campaign, where war sounds better when framed as defence, where sensitive corporate/state social responsibility is employed, as is lobbying and negotiation.

A coin to buy the way to hell?
PR is sometimes perceived or associated with propaganda which always resuscitates the spectres of regimes like Nazism and Communism. The term PD was coined in 1856 in ‘The Times’ newspaper as a synonym for civility. Edmund Gullion re-introduced the word in 1965 as an alternative to propaganda and PR, which carried negative connotations. However, PD like PR, became associated to spin. It seems that the phrase written by Henry Wotton when on a diplomatic mission for his Monarch back in 1604, "An ambassador is an honest gentleman sent to lie abroad for the good of his country," as a joke in his journal cannot be deleted completely from public perception. This is because PR and PD are distorted in dictatorial regimes. But no one can deny that they are a pillar of democracy.

What is the main difference between the two?
PD is the domain of the diplomat, who represents a state and is a jack of all trades proficient in: international relations, economics, law, history, culture, writing, languages, hi-tech, etiquette, and PD. A diplomat’s duties are to communicate, negotiate, cajole, protect, and analyse. PD is employed to reach the many strategic objectives of the state: from a treaty to a memorandum of understanding, war reparations to development aid; and also, cultural exchanges, music festivals and sport tournaments. The most tangible examples in sport are the World Cup or the Olympic Games, which countries have used to build or enhance their reputation ever since their inception. This privileged status of PD attracts the media like honey is irresistible for a bear.

PR is fast accruing prominence, especially as the PR Practitioner is increasingly dealing with international issues that have a great impact on our lives. Distinctions between PR, marketing and advertisement are at the end of the day perfunctory. When I participated in the World PR Forum, in Melbourne, last November, Richard Edelman seemed to be clear about this. He also added that PR does not have a monopoly on its creations, citing the example of employee engagement, which has been successfully ‘borrowed’ by the advertising industry. PR has to go all the way to achieve the same elite status of PD. Cohesion of all the elements that make up the discipline, and more if necessary, must be achieved.

PR fits in International Relations (IR) Theory

Realist PR
The dominant IR theories are Realism and Liberalism. Realism is a paradigm based on the struggle of all against all, obtaining power in an anarchic system, where everyone pursues her/his interests in a selfish way. Realist PR and PD Practitioners give the EPISTEL analysis priority. The organisation has no permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests. The pursuit of power to survive in a hostile environment is what matters. Extreme PR and PD proponents of Realism are Machiavellians who apply The Art of War of Sun Tsu on every occasion to achieve their goals.

Liberalist PR
The Liberalist paradigm is the hope that reason, ethics, and co-operation can lead to an organised system where misconduct and war can be policed by laws and international enforcement. PR and PD Liberalists value reputation, relationship building, corporate social responsibility, transparency, ethics and trust. Extreme Liberalists in PR and PD are idealists who believe in World Government and Peace.

NGO PR
Though not a theory as such I think that it is essential to mention NGO PR, which voices the voice of those not heard and issues yet unknown or ignored. This is usually what PR and PD Practitioners on the other side have to deal with.

Conclusion
A Coin has two sides. Sometimes a coin is flipped to determine which party has the final decision or victory. Heads, being heavier than tails, has the traditional advantage. Yet, PR has what it takes to become the heavier side. Once cohesion is achieved, PR can move into the realm of power and become the side of the coin to place one’s faith in.

7 Ways to Bounce Back from Career Mistakes & Misunderstandings

Thu, Feb 07 2013

7 Ways to Bounce Back from Career Mistakes, Missteps and Misunderstandings

In the public relations industry, dealing with crises is par for the course. In fact, in a recent study, PR executive was ranked the 5th most stressful career behind commercial airline pilot, firefighter, military general and enlisted military personnel. Hard to believe that my profession ranked amongst jobs that literally have the lives of others in their hands but, as the saying goes, in the PR world, we’re “paid to be paranoid.” Learning how to manage career crises is so important that my co-author and fellow Forbes blogger Meryl Weinsaft Cooper and I dedicate an entire chapter in our book, Be Your Own Best Publicist: How to Use PR Techniques to Get Noticed, Hired and Rewarded at Work, to the topic.

The truth is, we all face difficult situations at work but not everyone knows how to handle them. Often people let mistakes and crises cripple — even paralyze — them, but bouncing back from roadblocks in your career is not as daunting as you might think. I really believe that every crisis is an opportunity; most errors are reversible, so it’s important to remember that how you respond in tough times shows who you are as a person as much, if not more, than how you are in good times.

Need some guidelines? Here are a few tips for how to handle your next crisis:

#1: Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst.

Go with your gut. When you see a red flag, pay attention. How many times in life have you kicked yourself for not listening to that little voice in your head that says, “Something is wrong here”?
Have a plan and a back-up plan. In PR, we try to lay out a strategy and do our best to identify potential pitfalls and problems on the horizon. While we may not always be able to predict what’s coming our way, by doing the exercise and putting a solid plan on paper, you’ll be prepared to deal with it if the issue ever sees the light of the day.

#2: Be a Problem Solver.

Stay calm. In a crisis, people tend to get anxious. Maintaining a sense of Zen will not only allow you to think more clearly but will also set the tone for those around you.
Get focused. You want to quickly assess the damage and determine how to move forward.
Find a solution. Next, you need to figure out how to address and remedy the situation. Start by considering your end game — what’s the ultimate outcome you’d like to see? — and work backwards from there.

#3: Own up.

Take responsibility. If you screwed up, don’t make excuses — just apologize for any misstep, miscommunication or oversight on your part.
Be authentic. People can tell whether you mean what you say. For instance, when Netflix changed its business model in 2011 and consumers and shareholders balked, CEO Reed Hastings made an awkward video where he basically apologized for not explaining the company’s change well enough to customers, not actually for the bad judgment in doing it in the first place. His misdirected apology backfired and he lost credibility and respect as a result. On the other hand, when JetBlue cancelled 1,000 flights in 2007 when an ice storm crippled its operations. Instead of blaming the weather, then CEO David Neeleman made a public apology detailing what they would do to make it right with their customers.

#4: Control the Damage, Clean Up the Mess.

Act quickly. Don’t let a small mistake linger and turn into a bigger one. That’s not to say you should simply be reactive, but i f you know you did something wrong, deal with it right away. Say, for example, you stuck your foot in your mouth during an important business meeting and inadvertently offended your boss or a client. Acknowledge the gaffe, apologize and try to move on without beating yourself up. Remember what Theodore Roosevelt once said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.”

#5: Keep Things in Perspective.

Learn and let it go. Often when we mess up, we tend to be hard on ourselves or overanalyze an error, reliving the mistake over and over. But rarely will the crises we deal with be life or death so it’s important to be able to step back and take a 10,000 foot view of the situation and its long-term effects.
Everybody loves a comeback. In most cases, if you fix a problem quickly and show that you can move past it, others will be able to as well. Our society likes nothing more than a survivor story (see Martha Stewart, Charlie Sheen, Robert Downey, Jr., etc.), so respond smartly and swiftly so you can recover.

#6: Turn Trouble into Triumph.

Make that lemonade: When you’re going through (or almost on the other side of) a crisis, look for the silver lining. Get into an argument with someone? Perhaps it opened up a new dialogue that wasn’t previously possible. Did you stumble and fall (either literally or figuratively)? Learn to laugh at yourself, find the humor or lesson in whatever the situation.

#7: Fail Forward.

Find the lesson. My favorite interview question is “Tell me about a time when you failed, how you dealt with it and what you learned.” The answer will broadcast how someone handles a crisis and whether the experience made him or her more effective at work or in life.
Join the club. Nearly every successful person – from Steve Jobs to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Oprah Winfrey – has been fired from a job. Nearly every inventor has failed at something before they made it big. For example, a scientist at 3M was attempting to develop a super-strong adhesive but instead created a weak glue that didn’t leave residue. Because his experiment failed, his error led to one of the most successful inventions ever (who doesn’t love a Post-it?).
Lead by example. What you learn from failure helps you identify new ways of doing things and allows you to grow and become a better manager and leader.

So, next time there’s that misstep, mistake or misunderstanding, remember to take a deep breath and be your own best publicist by remaining calm, seeking the solution and seeing the challenge as an opportunity to lead and learn.

This post is an edited version of an article originally published on January 28, 2013 by Jessica Kleiman on Forbes.com.

Jessica Kleiman is co-author of Be Your Own Best Publicist: How to Use PR Techniques to Get Noticed, Hired and Rewarded at Work and EVP, Communications at SANDOW, a leader in building multiplatform brands that meet at the intersection of luxury and design. Previously, she ran PR at Hearst Magazines for over a decade. You can follow her at beyourownbestpublicist.com, on Facebook or Twitter (@bestpublicist).

PRIA National President's Thoughts on the Future of PR

Wed, Feb 06 2013

Terri-Helen Gaynor, National President, gave the opening address to the recent PRIA Summer School and spoke about the future of Public Relations. Amongst other reflections and anecdotes, Terri-Helen recounted a conversation with Dan Edelman:

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And one of the things I said to Dan was, “What do you think the is the future of PR in China, what is that going to be?” Because you are coming from the outside and I already knew what Serge thought. Dan said to me “My dear, the future of PR in China is exactly what the future of PR is in the rest of the world, it has been for the last 20 years and will be for the next 20 years and next 50 years.

And I said “Ok, do you want to define that for me?” and he said “First thing, first and foremost, is professional standards. Doesn’t matter what country you're in or what you're doing, professional standards always drive what we do. When we lose our credibility then our profession is going under.”

Then he talked about ethics, governments, client services, he talked about absolutely everything you would associate with PR. Then he said "the funny thing is, 20 years ago I would’ve given you the same answer and in 20 years time ill give you the same answer."

The one thing that does change in our world is the technology, and that is the one thing we have to keep up with and in those days there weren’t any mobile phones, we are talking about faxes. And then the mobile phone came in and then obviously we’ve got social media now coming in.

As a former journalist, Dan Edelman founded what was to be the world’s largest independently owned PR firm in 1952. Daniel J. Edelman, Inc. was established in Chicago and has developed to over 4,500 employees in over 66 offices.

Dan Edelman is credited with having developed many of the standards and procedures that are now pivotal to the public relations industry in what was over a 40 year career.

Richard Edelman, Dan’s son, stated that “his father was a marketing and public relations genius, because he really understood that PR could sell brands”. (The Australian, 2013)

Dan Edelman passed away on the 15th January 2013.

7 Habits of Highly Successful (PR) People

Mon, Feb 04 2013

Stephen Covey’s seminal work The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People has been in my library for over a decade. If you haven’t read it, it’s a must read. And it’s timeless.

The seven habits are applicable to anyone, and for public relations professionals, they are particularly helpful in our work with journalists, clients and the public. Here are ways you can apply Covey’s proven 7 Habits to your PR work.

First, an overview of the habits:

Habit 1: Be Proactive
Take initiative in life by realizing that your decisions (and how they align with life’s principles) are the primary determining factor for effectiveness in your life. Take responsibility for your choices and the consequences that follow.

Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
Self-discover and clarify your deeply important character values and life goals. Envision the ideal characteristics for each of your various roles and relationships in life. Create a mission statement.

Habit 3: Put First Things First
Prioritize, plan, and execute your week’s tasks based on importance rather than urgency. Evaluate whether your efforts exemplify your desired character values, propel you toward goals, and enrich the roles and relationships that were elaborated in Habit 2.

Habit 4: Think Win-Win
Genuinely strive for mutually beneficial solutions or agreements in your relationships. Value and respect people by understanding a “win” for all is ultimately a better long-term resolution than if only one person in the situation had gotten his way.

Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood
Use empathic listening to be genuinely influenced by a person, which compels them to reciprocate the listening and take an open mind to being influenced by you. This creates an atmosphere of caring, and positive problem solving.

Habit 6: Synergize
Combine the strengths of people through positive teamwork, so as to achieve goals no one person could have done alone.

Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
Balance and renew your resources, energy, and health to create a sustainable, long-term, effective lifestyle.

The Seven Habits Applied to PR

Habit 1 – Be Proactive
Applicable especially to client relationships and business development. As Angelique Rewers of the Corporate Agent says “Sell to the Spark.”

Spark events are changes, decisions and activities within an organization, or in the market or industry in general, that can create an immediate need or desire for your service offerings. Contacting a potential client when it coincides with an appropriate spark event can create just the window of opportunity you need in order to grab the prospect’s attention and also dramatically shorten the sales cycle. – The Corporate Agent 2012

Selling to the spark is the ultimate embodiment of the “Be Proactive” habit applied to business development. Instead of waiting for an opportunity to emerge, smart PR pros create opportunities.

Habit 2 – Begin with the End in Mind
Applied to strategy, this habit is particularly important one planning a campaign or PR program. Before you develop media target or desired outcomes, it is important to understand the overall goals of the client. What do they hope this program achieves for the overall business or organization? Is this program helping to drive fundraising, increase sales, or increase overall brand awareness? Understanding be in goal helps with the planning process.

Habit 3 – Put First Things First
Every day a public relations professional’s calendar is full with competing priorities. It is important early in one’s career to learn how to prioritize what tasks are truly important and must be tackled first.

Habit 4 – Think Win/Win
When ever you are trying to establish partnerships of any kind in PR you must think win-win. The road to successful community and corporate partnerships, sponsorships, media placements, fundraising success, and general success of any kind within PR is paved with mutually beneficial relationships. Before you ask a potential partner to do something on either your or your client’s behalf think how can this partnership be beneficial to both them and to us.

Habit 5 – Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood
This habit is a great one to put into practice when you’re working with journalists. When I was working in the newsroom at the Washington City Paper, I would often get pitches from well-meaning PR specialists who didn’t understand my beat or interests. I was hungry for great stories – I always had to feed the news beast. But despite my desire to take my editor 5-6 viable story ideas each week, I often found myself with an inbox full of pitches that weren’t a good fit for our paper.

If you are pitching a journalist, before picking up the phone or sending that email, it is important to know what types of stories they are looking for. With the internet, this is easier than ever. It takes but a moment to do a Google search on your reporter’s past coverage.

So try to understand the reporter’s interests then try to get a sense of their schedule so you know their needs. Most reporters are on deadline from mid-morning to late afternoon, so if you want to get them on the phone, early in the morning or later in the evening could work.

Habit 6 – Synergize
When it comes to PR it truly takes a village. Think of the last major successful event, campaign, or initiated that you witnessed. Think of the last successful campaign that you pulled off yourself. Chances are, you relied on the talent of many to make your vision a reality. Particularly in a collaborative field like public relations where you are asked the win of the public, the media, potential partners and sponsors, it takes the efforts of many to make something spectacular happen.

Habit 7 – Sharpen the Saw
In the age of social media, a public relations professional must always be looking for ways to add new skills to his or her toolkit. Learning doesn’t end in the classroom, and the field is ever changing. A decade ago, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist. Yet now they are mainstay tools of communication. Commit yourself to lifelong learning, and understand that there is always more to learn. And you’re never too much of an expert to learn something new.

This article was originally published on 1 December, 2012 by Amanda Miller Littlejohn on millerlittlejohnmedia.com.

Guest Post: Top 3 SEO Tips for the 3 Top Social Media Networks

Fri, Feb 01 2013

Guest Post: The increasing impact of social media on search rankings has led a mad rush of activity in both social media and SEO. But how successful have your attempts been at maximizing the impact of social media for search rankings?

Here are some practical strategies to help you unleash the full SEO potential of the top 3 social media platforms.

Top 3 SEO Tips for Facebook

1. Use of Keywords in Facebook Wall Posts
When you post status updates or create new posts on your Facebook wall, be sure to include your keywords. The posts are indexable by Google and have high chances of figuring on the SERP for relevant keyword searches if they are suitably optimized.

2. Use of Relevant Anchor Texts and URLs on the Facebook Page
You know the significance of relevant anchor texts and urls for SEO. The same applies to your Facebook page too. Use anchor texts in your posts and updates and in the ‘notes’ section. An important place to display your website url on Facebook for maximum SEO benefits is the ‘about’ section.

3. Deep Linking to Your Website from Facebook
While sharing content on Facebook, make sure you link to the specific content page on your website and not merely to the home page. This allows readers to directly access the content you are referring to and also improves the overall link profile of your website, contributing to SEO.

Top 3 SEO Tips for Twitter

1. Use Keywords in your Twitter Bio
Use the 160 characters available for your Twitter profile wisely and optimize with the right keywords. Your bio is the meta description for your Twitter page and decides search ranking as well as click-thru traffic rate.

2. Shorten URLs in Your Tweets
Having your website URL for people to click thru is crucial for SEO. But given the 140 character limit of Twitter, the best option is to use URL shortening services like bit.ly or tinyurl.com, that redirect to your content. Thus your website gets traffic and link juice, both positive SEO factors.

3. Optimize your Tweets with Keywords
When you create tweets, remember that the first 27-40 characters are the most crucial from the SEO view point, as they serve as the title tag. Optimize them with the right keywords.

Top 3 Tips for Google+

1. Link out from Your Google+ Profile
Google+ allows do-follow links from your Google+ profile using anchor texts of your choice. So you can link back to your website, contributing to its link juice and enhancing the search ranking.

2. Pay Extra Attention to the First Sentence of your G+ Post
The first sentence serves as the title tag and is most sensitive to Google bots. So use your keywords accordingly.

3. Implement Google+ Author Tag
By verifying your authorship to Google via your Google+ profile, your headshot will be displayed alongside your results. This increases the click-thru rates and improves traffic and consequently enhances search rankings. Click here to learn how to implement the author tag.

What are your favorite social media SEO tips?

This guest post was written for PRIA by Yasir Khan. Yasir Khan is one of the leading SEO consultants in Canada and founder of www.quantumseolabs.com.

Infographics: the answer to information overload?

Thu, Jan 31 2013

Infographics – they’ve been called the language of the internet, visual essays or data visualisations, and they’re spreading rapidly. Thanks to information overload and the advent of digital and mobile technology, more and more readers these days ‘skim the surface’ rather than dive into narrative. Writers and designers are being challenged to cut down on unwieldy text and use their skills to tell visual stories that are easily and quickly understood.

That’s why, in the age of big data, infographics have truly come of age. Writing and designing a sustainability report for Lion, one of Australasia’s leading food and beverage companies, recently gave us an opportunity to test our skills in this area. The report was published a fortnight ago as an interactive pdf on the company’s website www.lionco.com. Check out the infographics on pages 1, 4 and 19.

What lessons have we learned from our foray into infographics?
1. It’s a collaborative exercise: Strategic thinking is as important as good design, so an effective infographic (there are plenty of bad ones) comes about as a result of close collaboration between writer and designer.

2. The numbers must tell a story: An effective infographic requires a clear vision of the story behind the numbers. All good stories are built on a firm angle or idea, not just a topic (for example, tax-effective investments is a topic, 10 tips to saving tax on your investments is an angle). Infographics must make sense of the numbers so that the story they share is easily understood.

3. Show, don't tell: Writers are often told to use the ‘show don’t tell’ technique to enable readers to experience the story through actions rather than words. In infographics, the ‘actions’ become visual. In the drafting process we revisited every element to see whether we couldn’t further ‘visualise’ the data.

4. Observe the principles of good design: Infographics must be aesthetically pleasing, so your choice of fonts, colours, size, graphical devices and spatial relationships is critical.

5. Clarity is key: It’s vital to edit the superfluous so you present the most compelling data – in the least amount of space. The reader must be able to look at it and instantly know what it’s about.

Incidentally, internet chatter and the self-styled specialists who have sprung up in recent times would have us believe that infographics are new. But they’ve been around for a long time.

Indeed, as The Guardian newspaper’s newly launched Show and Tell infographic site points out, German physician Fritz Kahn’s extraordinary poster, visualising the human body as a vast network of machines and industrial processes, was published in Stuttgart in 1926.

And The Table of Universal History, a visualised history of humankind, from the creation of Adam and Eve to the then present day goes back even further. It was published in Paris in 1858.

This article was originally posted on Businesswriters & Design.

Can Anyone Read the Writing on Your Blog?

Wed, Jan 30 2013

I make my living as a freelance copywriter, which is why many people won’t play “Word With Friends” with me.

They figure I must know dozens of long and esoteric words. But I believe my success depends on my limited vocabulary of words more than six characters or three syllables.

Why? Because keeping it short and simple makes writing more understandable, whether it’s a blog, an ad or an article. I’m not trying to impress my readers—I’m trying to inform, persuade and entertain them. And the way to do that is to write so that they can quickly grasp the message.

It’s easy enough to check if you’ve succeeded: All you need is a readability calculator. Check online and you’ll find a selection of free calculators, including those from Online-Utility.org and Simple Measure of Gobbledygook (SMOG). But if your program of choice for writing is Microsoft Word, as mine is, you have readability scores built in.

You probably run Spelling & Grammar to check your blog before posting it for the world to see. (If you don’t check your blog, we have another issue entirely.) Just make sure that in the Spelling & Grammar tab, you tick the boxes to Check grammar with spelling and Show readability statistics. Then run the check on your words.

1. Review the Readability Statistics

The example here shows the results from the blog you’re reading right now. After Word confirms that, yes, I could still win a spelling bee and, yes, middle school English paid off, you’ll see the Readability Statistics pop up. The numbers don’t necessarily make intuitive sense, so you make be tempted to ignore them. Don’t! Take a minute to find out what those digits mean.

2. Check the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level.

Being contrary, I tend to look at the last section—Readability—and the last number first. The Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level shows this blog at 7.3.

Looks like the average U.S. 7th grader can understand what I’ve said. That’s perfect. Middle schoolers may not be my usual target audience but—according to the National Adult Literacy Survey—most U.S. readers will trip along happily at about the 8th grade level.

Often I look no further than Grade Level. If that’s good, all else tends to fall in place. But if the Grade Level runs over 10, I explore the other indicators.

3. Note the Flesch Reading Ease

The number hovering above Grade Level is Flesch Reading Ease, which is a measure of understandability based on average sentence length and average number of syllables per word. A score of 100 is as easy as it gets. Our goal is 60-70, and we’re on the mark with 66.7 here.

(So who were Flesch and Kincaid? Rudolph Flesch was an author, readability expert and advocate of plain English who developed the score in the 1940s. John P. Kincaid modified the test later to provide Grade Level.)

4. Nix the Passive Sentences

Above Ease lies Passive Sentences. You probably already know what a passive sentence is: One in which the subject does not do the action. A classic example: Ronald Reagan’s “Mistakes were made,” referring to secret arms deals with Iran. Who made the mistakes? We don’t know. Who will fix them? Not surprisingly, Reagan chose not to use the passive here: “I will set things right.”

Unless you’re a politician, skip the passive sentences. They weigh down your writing and wear out your readers. Note that for this blog, passive sentences register a paltry 1%. For a short piece, that’s exactly what I want. In a longer piece—an article or case study, for example—I might allow a few passive sentences, but still not many.

5. Obey the Law of Averages

Now what if the Readability numbers didn’t look quite so stellar? For example, I recently edited a case study with a brain-numbing 14.8 Grade Level. I can guarantee most members of the target audience hold advanced degrees, but that doesn’t mean their eyes won’t glaze over before they glean the valuable content. To bring that Grade Level down into the high school range, I cast my editorial eye on the Averages section.

6. Trim Sentences Per Paragraph

In the example here, the Sentences per Paragraph is 3.5. If you recall the rules of paragraph structure, each should encompass a single idea. The challenge is to determine when you’ve used up that idea. I cut off the ideas fairly quickly to deliver punchy, precise prose.

But I also cheat a bit: Often I bold the first sentence in a paragraph instead of creating a separate subhead. Then I make the bold pieces flow together to tell a story. That works really well for readers who would more accurately be called skimmers, so I give myself some leeway on the Sentences number.

7. Cut Words Per Sentence

Next take a look at the Words per Sentence. Here I’ve got 13.5 words, which works fine for a blog. To produce the greatest impact, you’ll often see much shorter sentences in ads—but unless you’re Hemingway, that will seem a bit choppy in a blog. So aim for clear, direct sentences than run 15 words or fewer.

8. Limit Characters Per Word

Finally I look at the Characters per Word. My blog’s petite words average only 4.5 characters in length, well under the suggested 5.0 limit. Don’t use a longer word when a shorter word will do. You don’t get extra points for using pulchritudinous instead of pretty.

But do use a longer word if it’s the specific meaning you want—and your readers will understand it. That’s especially relevant for techie writing, where it can be challenging to keep the Characters number low. If you’re truly discussing the concept of ubiquitous communication, then use that term. Otherwise go for something simpler.

9. Follow the Counts

I tend not to look at anything in the Counts section unless a client gives me specific limits. But Glen at ViperChill analyzed the most tweeted posts and determined the average length runs around 1100 words. That said, write as long as you need to add value, then stop. At 1040 words, I’m done here.

This article was originally posted by Diana Kightlinger on jeffbulas.com.

Guest Author: Diana Kightlinger is a professional print and digital copywriter and content writer for high-achieving businesses, from solo entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 companies. Her focus is not just on words, but on producing results. For more helpful info, like Eclipse Communications on Facebook and sign up for the Eclipsewriter Blog.

A Facebook cheat sheet for brands

Fri, Jan 25 2013

If only you could spur more engagement on your company’s Facebook page.

You’d surely earn a raise and a promotion. Your phone would ring incessantly with job offers; your significant other would love you more. Your Chia Pet would grow lush and verdant.

Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of Facebook engagement, but a recently published infographic could help unlock some of the mysteries.

Lynchpin SEO compiled statistics on the types of posts that garnered the most comments, shares, and “likes,” for more than 1,500 brand pages on Facebook.

These stats reveal an array of interesting things about brand pages. For instance, updates with emoticons saw higher interaction rates than those with pictures. So much for our aversion to smiley faces.

Meanwhile, posts that contain the words “take,” “click,” “submit,” “check,” and “shop” experience significantly lower rates of interaction. (Helpful hint: You probably want to avoid those words.)

Check out the full infographic below—no guarantee it will vastly improve your life.

This article was originally posted on January 8, 2013 by Michael Sebastian on PR Daily.

5 things scuba diving teaches me about PR

Thu, Jan 24 2013

We can see parallels in nearly anything. Sometimes analogies work; other times they don’t. It depends on perspective – and experiences.

As a long time member of reserve components of the military, I often think of PR as the “indirect fire” – the artillery and mortars that “softens” up a beach before the infantry assaults (think familiarity before a sales call). I once had a boss that thought that was ridiculous; I had another that thought it was genius.

So having just returned from a Scuba diving vacation in Bonaire, I was reviewing (amateurish) photos I had taken and had this inspiration. Maybe it’ll work for some but not others, but here’s five things Scuba diving makes me think about in PR:

Check your buddy’s equipment before you dive. Most Scuba courses teach you to do this; but some get sloppy after a while. Don’t let complacency set in – recreational diving has one redundant system and that’s your buddy’s air. If it doesn’t work, you’ll be sucking water: that’s not good. There isn’t a second chance. Likewise, proof you work before you publish. As the old saying goes, you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
Look for things in unusual spaces. Many new divers swim hard – that is they fin hard, which uses a finite amount of oxygen more quickly and causes them to miss seeing creatures. Experienced divers know that you’ll see more if you just mosey along; in fact you’ll see more staying in one place and looking around than you will finning at 30 kicks a cycle. It takes some practice to spot sea life that Darwin’s law has empowered to be well camouflaged. Good PR people can see a story tucked away and camouflaged – the key is to bring it out in interesting ways. The secret of PR isn’t in media lists or name dropping; it’s finding ways to make a story interesting. Find a unique viewpoint and that will go long way to earning news.
Grow eyes in the back of your head. The four eye butterfly fish has faux eyes on its body to make predators think they are watching from all directions. In PR, you’ve got to be more knowledgeable about what you are pitching than the reporter or blogger you are approaching. It’s no easy feat. These people get hundreds of pitches a day – people clamoring for their attention. You’ve got to be smarter and while we can’t grow eyes on the back of our heads, we can work at devouring content, reading everything we see, getting smarter everyday, and looking for trends to connect the dots to a good story.
Nature (and business) rewards tenacity. This trip was the first time I’ve ever seen a Sharp Tailed Eel. At first I thought it was a snake ; as I observed the animal, I noticed it is a tenacious hunter, poking it’s head in nearly every possible gap, hole and dent looking for food. PR pros too need to be tenacious in looking for opportunities. When I was on the agency side, I relished finding opportunities for my clients. Now on the corporate side, I still do the same, but challenge my agencies to match my tenacity. There’s a place for your story – you just have to find it.
Find unlikely friends. My final dive of the trip – dive #26 of the week (which is a lot) – and residual Nitrogen had built up in my body. At 30 meters below the surface (breathing Nitrox), I saw something intriguing: a Giant Green Moray Eel was shacking up with a Giant Caribbean Lobster beneath a shipwreck. My dive watch was going ballistic – beeping with complaint – with just five minutes left at that depth of no decompression time. Knowing I’d fly out the next day at 30,000 feet, I had to be careful. I had time for a photo, but I’d have to be quick about it before gradually moving to more shallow water. And it made me think: how often do PR people pair up with unusual suspects for a pitch? It’s one thing to pitch your own organization, but what if you worked – jointly – with another? That could be the difference between a solid story and a top-tier bite. Yes, ideas like this take time to develop. I once worked on a story with Blackboard; unfortunately, the PR team there didn’t want to play. It’s too bad too, because a rising tide lifts all boats.

This article was originally posted on April 25, 2012 by Frank Strong on Sword and the Script.

13 for â��13: A Bakerâ��s Dozen of PR To-Doâ��s

Wed, Jan 23 2013

Now that your personal New Year’s Resolutions are sealed, it’s time to think about what sort of impact you plan to make this year for your company, your stakeholders and, just as importantly, for yourself. To help, I’ve compiled 13 action items, in the hope that a few of these will resonate with you. I recently read that it takes 66 days for a habit to form to the point it becomes subconscious, so when you try these ideas below, give it until mid-March to assess if you’ve been successful. That’s assuming you’ll start on this list now….

Learn your company’s business mission and make sure your PR is aligned with that mission and the 2013 goals; your communications efforts are less meaningful if they have only a marginal impact on your organization.
If you can accomplish the item above, then it’s time to fight for a bigger PR budget.
Talk to a journalist at least once a day – either in person or by phone to get in the rhythm of always developing and improving media relationships.
Understand the Barcelona Principles. They are important to your communications measurement efforts and will elevate Public Relations in the business sphere.
Befriend your IT department since your online content is dependent on the back-end systems working.
Always be learning: take time at least once a month to listen to a Webinar, attend a conference, read a business book.
Become financially savvy: whether it’s for your clients or for your department, understand a P/L (profit/loss) statement and be comfortable speaking about revenues, profit and margins.
Give time: mentor someone and/or volunteer your time to a cause you care about and don’t look for credit and applause for your efforts.
Hone your business writing skills every day and read other good writers for ideas on how best to articulate your internal or external messages.
Avoid eating lunch at your desk at least twice a week – remove yourself from your office to refresh your thinking, connect with colleagues, de-stress. Consider taking the IT guy to lunch (see item #5).
Spend at least 15 minutes every day on social media – if you don’t tweet, post something on Facebook; if you don’t share a story on LinkedIn, pin a photo on Pinterest; if you don’t write a blog, comment on someone else’s. Or conduct a listening campaign, soaking in the social media conversation around you. Fifteen minutes is not a lot of time to flex your social media muscles.
Collaborate with Marketing – this could be the year to break down the silos between PR and Marketing, so plan a meeting to discuss integrated communications ideas.
Shorten your daily task list – give yourself a break and accomplish a few things each day that matter rather than a lot of things that don’t.

What would you add to this list? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

This article was originally posted on January 7, 2013 by Diane Schwartz on The PR News Blog.

How to use design to engage readers

Tue, Jan 22 2013

Good graphic design can complement great writing to engage readers and deliver more effective company communications. Indeed the two in combination can produce a result far stronger than you’d get from text alone.

Here are nine steps to help you produce designs that will draw and engage readers:

Readability is king. Page design should never get between the writer and the reader. Great design enhances ease of reading. That said, having headings and graphics at different sizes, and in a hierarchical order, indicates how you want the reader to navigate the page, where you want their eye to go to first, second, third and so on. Use of scale also creates energy. It can create drama or tranquillity and really brings a layout to life.

Clutter. Keep everything simple and clean. A cluttered layout is difficult to navigate because your eye won’t know where to look first. It doesn’t ‘invite the reader in’.

Text. Experiment with typefaces. There are thousands of beautiful and interesting typefaces which can create a mood and give life to a piece of writing. These ‘display’ fonts are great for headings and pullouts. For body copy, the typeface should be easy to read but reflect the style of the piece. For instance, a report should reflect contemporary design (and like fashion, it changes all the time) but a classic Winnie the Pooh children’s book would not look nearly as beautiful if typeset in a modern sans-serif font.

Column width. Generally, keep widths narrow. There’s a reason newspapers and most magazines do this. It’s easier to read in bite-sized chunks and if you are briefly distracted, it’s quick and easy to find where you left off.

Colour. Never be afraid to use colour. Colour is an essential element in page design. It can create mood and emotion, emphasise important elements and help break up a page to make for a more interesting read.

Beware typewriter hangovers. Avoid underlined type except in website links. Underlining was the only way to emphasise anything on a typewriter, and some people still cling to it. You have easy access to bold or italic. Bold is best used as a marker to indicate the opening of a new section, sub section, or category (as with the opening of this paragraph.) Italic is best in the middle of running text where it’s less distracting than bold. Vertical and straight quote marks are another hangover from typewriter days. Now we have curved ‘open and close’ marks that insert themselves automatically.

White space is your friend. Use it instead of rules. Let your page breathe. It helps keeps a page clean and uncluttered (there’s that magic word again). And judicious use of white space can help guide a reader around the page.

Choose the right design for the document. Design should reflect the medium and type of document you’re working on, and appeal to the people who’ll be reading it. An academic paper should look different from a magazine. In fact the type of document will affect all your design decisions – choice of typeface, colours, photography style and layout.

Remember there’s no cookie-cut solution. That’s the beauty of the creative process. Every job is different. The rules of thumb above are basic guidelines but ultimately, great work depends mostly on the talent of its creators.

This article was originally posted on Businesswriters & Design.

12 most fabulous ways to make your Facebook cover photo pop

Mon, Jan 21 2013

Are you ready to market your business with an imaginative and original Facebook cover photo? Need some inspiration to make it happen?

Rev up your creative juices with these 12 fabulous ways to make your Facebook cover photo pop.

1. Branding

Rather than posting a random picture, reinforce your brand by choosing a photograph or image that best represents your company.

Fans expect to see something that they associate with your brand—something they can relate to. When a picture fails to match the expectation, there is a sense of disconnect and disappointment. Understand what your brand represents and then determine how you can convey that both visually and emotionally.

2. Product announcement

Ready to roll out a new product or service? Put it on the cover photo. This will entice potential customers and hold the attention of current fans.

For example, if you sell cupcakes and your latest offering is a decadent mocha caramel brownie truffle, sharing an image (or two) of this decadent dessert will leave your fans salivating and begging for more. Before you get started though, read Facebook’s strict cover photo guidelines.

3. Make a collage

If a simple Facebook cover image is not enough, try a collage. Create a colorful collage including pictures that represent the essence of your business.

If you’re a landscaping company, share gorgeous pictures of beautifully designed front and back yards. If you offer small business solutions, share images of your top products and services.

4. Fan of the day

If your fans love your brand, harness their adoration. After all, nothing beats a third-party endorsement from a raving fan. Whether you choose a fan once a week or once a month, add them to a special page app—which includes their picture and description—for anyone visiting your page to see.

You can be sure that they will appreciate the recognition and, hopefully, join in the celebration by sharing the information from your page.

5. Upcoming event

Do you have an incredibly important date coming up? Launching a new product? Opening a location in a new part of town?

Take the opportunity to tease that event. Build excitement around your marketing campaign by incorporating it into your Facebook cover design. Just remember, create interest but don’t give everything away. Facebook teaser campaigns can be effective at arousing curiosity and gaining the attention of your niche market.

6. Holidays

Don’t be afraid to let a day be more than just a date on a calendar. Holidays are a free opportunity to create content that people are already emotionally connected to and truly care about.

What’s that you say? Your company loves to create jobs in America? And it’s the 4th of July? What a coincidence.

It may sound hokey, but paying homage to a holiday and making a connection to your business can go a long way in creating a loyal fan base.

7. Location

Feature your storefront or location on your cover photo. If you sit at the corner of a popular location in town, feature it in your cover photo. Through proper branding, you can create a powerful identifier both offline and online.

8. Faces of satisfied customers

Having a cover photo that displays your customers enjoying your company’s products or services is a surefire advertising method. If you have proven to satisfy customers, other potential customers will be interested to see and hear from them. Not only will this apply to one of the previous ideas listed, it will also be a great way to build immediate trust.

9. Behind the scenes

Add that personal touch to your cover photo by showcasing your team members or staff. Behind-the-scenes photos are a fun way to allow fans to better understand your company’s operations and services. I relate it to watching a movie on DVD or Blu-Ray. I love seeing the behind-the-scenes shots taken while the movie was filmed. It is intriguing to see the process of an idea born into movie magic.

While your product probably isn’t a Hollywood movie, you can be sure that what you do, and how you achieve your results, remains interesting to your fans and customers.

This post is a segment of an article by Rebekah Radice published on PR Daily. To read the original article, click here.

2013 Training Update

Fri, Jan 18 2013

The PRIA 2013 Training Calendar provides a greater variety of training than ever before in all states and territories, and it’s much more affordable. Early-bird prices now apply to members, RCG staff and non-members, a reduction of 20%. These discounts revert to full price at the four weeks from the published date, so it pays to get in early. An interstate travel allowance of $200.00 is also applicable to full-day workshops not scheduled in the state of residence.

Prices excluding GST (including GST)	Full day early bird	Full day last 4 weeks	Full day interstate	Half day early bird	Half day last 4 weeks
Member	$400 ($440)	$500 ($550)	$300 ($330)	$218 ($240)	$272 ($300)
RCG staff	$480 ($524)	$600 ($660)	$400 ($440)	$320 ($352)	$364 ($400)
Non-member	$560 ($616)	$700 ($770)	$500 ($550)	$364 ($400)	$400 ($500)

A total of 46 training days are scheduled around the nation, delivered by industry experts who reference up-to-the-minute case studies and provide hands-on coaching of the skills. Full-day and half-day workshops cover the core PR skills of:

Media communication
Crisis communication
Campaign planning & measurement
Social media
Business practices, and
Writing/Collateral preparation.

The Public Relations Institute of Australia – proudly supporting the development of PR knowledge and skills. For more information, contact Julian Kenny on 02 9331 3346 or by email at julian.kenny@pria.com.au.

Guest Post: 5 Twitter Crimes You Could Be Guilty Of

Thu, Jan 17 2013

Out of all the social networks you use, none is more public, easily accessed, or random than Twitter. Whether you use it to market your blog, your website, your company, or just yourself, there's no doubt that this platform is one of the most effective.

But despite its simple premise, which is becoming a member and starting to tweet, you can still commit a lot of mistakes and end up losing the benefits that you should be reaping from this social media optimisation tool.

So to help you out, I've compiled THE gravest crimes you can commit as a Twitter member...

1. Overtweeting

Is there even such a thing? Of course, there is.

For example, you tweet...

“just visited Seattle's Best Coffee for a grande java chip. #woot #yum”

after 2 minutes...

“meeting @Bina_berries and @Jammricks at @YellowCab for #dinner #cantwait”

and within seconds...

“stuck in traffic. #argh #facepalm”

These are followed with tweets related to almost everything that happened to you within a day, including what you had for dinner, the funny conversations you had with your buddies, what time you got home, and what you did before going to bed.

If this sounds familiar to you, then you may be guilty of over tweeting. But don't worry because you're not alone; a lot of Tweeps (they are Twitter users, for those who are not too familiar with the term) are doing this without being aware that they're overdoing it.

This is one of the few dangers of Twitter. Because it is so interactive and it encourages real-time feeds, it can be quite easy to get carried away with your tweets. If there are less than 25 seconds in between your posts, some of your followers may get annoyed that all they see on their newsfeed is your name.

So, learn to hold back. Some moments of your day may be worth tweeting, but choose which ones are really worth publishing. Think about it like this: probably no more than 1 out of every 10 thoughts you have is worth tweeting about. Twitter is not designed to be a ‘journal’, after all.

2. Automating or spamming

Both are actually worse than over tweeting. Let us start with the first—automating.

Some people, especially bloggers, choose to automate their tweets, replies, or even follows when they are busy. But the thing is that automatic tweets have no “voice” and no personality. Even if you wrote these posts yourself, your followers will see right through your scheme and you will risk being unfollowed.

Spamming is the same thing. When I see promotional links placed on a tweet, especially one that misleads me into “clicking”, I immediately consider it as a spam. Another pet peeve is when some of my followers @mention my name followed by a tweet-ad, not even giving me the chance to choose to share the tweet to my followers, which I find incredibly annoying.

These simple, albeit slightly irritating, crimes could be one of the few reasons why you are being unfollowed. And obviously, you don't want that to happen to you.

So ideally, every time you press that Tweet button, your post should be your own voice, not an automated text from one of those schedule-your-tweet online software tools.

3. Lashing out

Another potential danger with Twitter is the fact that there is no censorship or limitation to what you can say. You can call other people bad names or speak rudely, and no one can stop you. Of course, you may be blocked or reported, but the damage has already been done.

Therefore, you should be careful with EVERY SINGLE THING you say on Twitterverse or in cyberspace for that matter. Remember that nothing is ever truly removed, forgotten, or considered private when online.

The best thing to do is keep your cool. If you read negative comments about a photo you posted, or receive rude replies about a tweet, stop right there and don't reply just yet. Nothing you say out of anger or disgust is rational. I know I sound like I'm preaching here, but a lot of celebrities and public icons have actually fallen into this trap. Sure, you can post a public retraction at the threat of a libel case, but the damage has already been done. You've said it, whatever bad retort you came up with. And worse, it doesn't do well for your online image, whether you are just a private individual, a public icon, or a business entity.

In a gist, don't lash out. Or at the very least, don't lash out in public.

4. Ignoring your profile

A lot of Tweeters (a variation for Tweeps) blatantly ignore the appearance of their profile pages, not knowing that it is a major influence when attracting more followers.

Ideally, you should use it to promote whatever identity you're holding, be it a blog, a website, or just yourself. And don't be afraid to get creative, that's the whole point.

Just know that there is a fine line between creativity and being outrageous. Do not over “optimise” your profile page, as that may only discourage potential followers. It should reflect your personality without being tacky.

And lastly, it should be pleasing to the eyes. Overly bright colours or neon backgrounds are obviously a big “no-no”.

5. Being stagnant

If over tweeting is a sin, then under tweeting is also a crime. If you log in only once a week or tweet once in 3 days, you will lose your followers. And, most importantly, if you don't follow, reply, or at least retweet some posts, then you will jeopardise your online rep.

You should make it a point to sign in at least once a day, if only to stay updated of what your followers are saying and what topics are trending. And best of all, log in to update your followers about your own important events.

Conclusion

It's really easy to use Twitter, which is why some of us get carried away with our online activities. But don't worry because even if you've committed these pitfalls, you can still climb your way back up the social ladder by sticking to relevant and honest interaction.

About the Author:

Jonny Lis is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Smart Traffic, which is a private company of SEO experts in Australia and the UK. He oversees SEO strategies for Smart Traffic's 300+ campaigns.

Buried Treasure: How to Find Great Content Right Under Your Nose

Wed, Jan 16 2013

Remember when you were a kid looking for shiny rocks, or maybe frogs? Sometimes, a cool one was right in front of you... and you still missed it. Other times you'd step back... and suddenly there it was! That can be such a great feeling.

Today, as a marketer, you might have in your hands the keys to a treasure chest of great content... but you just need a little help finding the lock.

PR people—whether in-house or external—often excel at creating content. Their daily work can yield a ton of information for blogs, social media posts, email alerts, newsletters, etc. So I'm often surprised to hear marketing managers describe what their PR people do—but not mention them as content resources.

Stepping back and looking at things a little differently can help you find treasure you didn't know you had—without weighing down your team or running up the bill. Here are some of my personal favorites for finding content gems.

Awards nominations can be a gold mine. Entering awards that media outlets host or sponsor often guarantees earned-media coverage for the winners. Plus, those questions on the entry forms about a person's background or community activities open up entirely new avenues of information. They take a lot of time and effort to complete, so you want to get the most from them that you possibly can.

Circulating completed and approved entries to marketing, social media, and content creation staff can spark all kinds of excitement:

"I didn't know Alex launched a nonprofit. I could write a blog post with what I have right here!"
"Louise closed that many deals last year? That's a great 'would you believe' item for the Facebook page!"
"These regulations Reggie's researching look pretty big. Maybe we should do a webinar or email alert..."

The process works the other way, too: If the awards entries are prepared by the marketing team, share the entries with the PR folks. The details in an entry for one of my clients gave me the information I needed to land her a great TV interview.

Is PR hiring a photographer or videographer for an upcoming event? Those professional-quality images—whether of a new office, sales event, or a client reception—could go into a photo stream, YouTube channel, blog, or newsletter. Just be sure the photographer understands the game plan ahead of time, in case her contract doesn't cover it; and if you plan to use the shots in a sales brochure or presentation, be sure the subjects sign photo releases.

The best PR people craft juicy email pitches to reporters. The objective viewpoint and down-to-earth wording of those pitches could be very valuable in other contexts; sometimes their clever turn-of-phrase can be just what you need to make another project sing.

Most PR teams listen in on media interviews with company executives to provide back-up, monitor the messaging, and maybe just stay up to speed. Touch base with them afterward and ask what came up that might not make it into the story but would still interest your target audience. Once the story comes out, that unpublished information could inspire a blog post, podcast, or eye-catching infographic.

PR firms monitor media coverage, but you can ask them to also look for information about an emerging trend, even if it's not specifically about your company. When something good information comes up, make sure the social media team knows to post a link on Twitter or Facebook. You can also circulate the information to executives who blog or use LinkedIn for business development: Many who would be reluctant to post status updates or discussion items about themselves are more than willing to spread the word about something that would interest their contacts. Ditto for the HR folks looking for items to attract good candidates.

Hopefully, you have somebody who spends a lot of time refining the messages and graphics for compelling presentations. As long as the information in those presentations isn't confidential, there's no reason that the best bits shouldn't see the light of day in another format. Post an edited version on SlideShare, or sculpt it into an e-book for business development.

Also, don't be shy about asking what else your PR agency can do, and what the cost might be. One new client recently asked me to suggest someone who could write the text for the website that the client had started developing before we came on board. It was perfectly natural for my agency to pick that work up, since the messaging we were crafting related just as well to the client's Web presence It was great for us, since we got more work, and great for the client, who saved a considerable amount of communication time. (Entrepreneurs, especially, can benefit from having the same team on multiple, related projects.)

That's not to say you should dump more work on your internal PR folks, or run up the hours on your PR contract. The issue isn't about making anyone work harder; it's about making use of what you already have—and getting the good stuff to the people who need it and will appreciate the help. Knowing what questions to ask, and when to ask them, can save money and time, and it can get ideas flowing like never before.

One final suggestion: people may resist sharing information if they think someone else will get the glory for it. So be sure to give credit where credit is due, even if you go a little overboard. Acknowledgment can go a long way toward keeping the lines of communication open—and the creativity humming.

This article was originally published on January 8, 2013 by Terri Thornton in MarketingProfs.

Seven Top Tips for Healthcare PR

Tue, Jan 15 2013

Like every speciality, healthcare PR has its own little quirks. You can bet that behind every "breakthrough" story on the TV news and every heart wrenching "miracle cure" in the Sunday Telegraph is a health-focused PR consultant who knows how it works.

Clients and peers sometimes ask what we think is the key to successful health-focused PR. The short answer there is no one "key" to healthcare PR. Here are our 7 top tips to healthcare PR.

Personalise the story: There's an adage in healthcare media relations that will always hold true – "No case study, no big story". All big health and medical stories lead with the personal angle; the patient, the success story or the family. You might think it's too hard to get a good case study. That's fine – it just means you think it's too hard to get a big story.
It's not about you: Good healthcare PR is driven by what others say about your products or services and your issues – not by what you say about them. If it's a development in depression, what do the mental health groups think, if it's a cardiovascular story, what will the Heart Foundation say about it. Remember, you're the client and/or manufacturer, so what you think doesn't count for much in the context of a news story.
Tell healthcare professionals first: So Today Tonight is going to feature your big medical breakthrough. What will doctors say when the viewers start asking them questions tomorrow. OMG, did we even tell the doctors?!
It's not about your media release: Don't waste precious time and resources haggling over the copy in the fourth paragraph of the media release. It's about the news package you can pull together around the release – a case study, an expert, some new stats, a breakthrough development, all announced at a major medical conference – not about the words in the media release
A health week or health conference is not a health story: A health week might act as a backdrop for a story – but it is not the story itself. Don't think you can get media to do a story about asthma because it is Asthma Week. PR Consultant: "But it's Asthma Week!" Journalist: "So what?"
Own the research, own the story: Many health-focused stories are underpinned by the release of new research – sometimes about prevalence or otherwise about the success of certain treatments. Make sure it's you that owns, commissions or controls the research – otherwise you're just playing PR catch up with the people who do.
Know the marketing codes: Good marketers know that specific codes for prescription-only medicines and over-the-counter products determine what can (and can't) be done from a PR perspective. For example, some aspects of some codes allow media releases but forbid direct to consumer ads. Part of your job is to understand what is possible and to work with your PR agency to maximise what is legal.

This article was originally posted on January 11, 2012 by Martin Palin, Managing Director, Palin Communications.

Register now for 'An Introduction to Healthcare Public Relations'. A FREE PRIA webinar presented by Martin Palin on Friday 15 February, 2013.

Australian Community-Based Social Marketing Workshops

Mon, Jan 14 2013

The cornerstone of sustainability is behaviour change. If we are to move toward a sustainable future we must encourage individuals and businesses to engage in a multitude of actions (e.g., waste reduction, water and energy efficiency, pollution prevention, etc.). To date, most programs to encourage such activities have relied upon disseminating information. Research demonstrates, however, that simply providing information has little or no effect on what people or businesses do. But if not ads, brochures or booklets, then what? Over the last decade a new approach—community–based social marketing—has emerged as an effective alternative for delivering programs to foster sustainable behaviour.

Throughout February, Doug McKenzie-Mohr, a pioneer and leader in the rapidly growing field of community-based social marketing, will be delivering introductory and advanced level training at workshops in both Perth – Introductory Workshop, Feb 12 & Advanced Workshop, Feb 13-14 and Sydney – Introductory Workshop, Feb 18-19 & Advanced Workshop, Feb 20-21. These workshops will be of interest to those working to promote waste reduction, water and energy efficiency, modal transportation changes, catchment protection, and other sustainable behaviour changes. Those who work to promote behavioural changes that promote health, such as active lifestyles, will also benefit from attending. Community-based social marketing is a unique approach to fostering both environment and health related behavioural changes and is now being utilized in thousands of programs globally. Please find brief descriptions of the workshops below.

About the Workshops

Introduction: The introductory workshop provides a comprehensive introduction to community-based social marketing and how it is being applied throughout the world to foster sustainable behaviours. Those who attend the workshop will learn the five steps of community-based social marketing (selecting behaviours, identifying barriers, developing strategies, conducting pilots, and broad scale implementation) and be exposed to numerous case studies illustrating its use. Each participant will receive a copy of the new edition of "Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing." The introductory workshop is a mandatory prerequisite for the advanced workshop.

Advanced: This completely new two-day advanced workshop provides an in-depth exploration of how community-based social marketing can be used to foster sustainable behaviour. This workshop introduces new research on selecting behaviours, identifying barriers and benefits (including market segmentation), applying behaviour change tools (including some exciting new developments regarding the use of commitments, norms, prompts goal setting, and social diffusion), and piloting programs. Further, participants will also be coached in making community-based social marketing presentations to their agency or community and will receive PowerPoint and Keynote presentations for this purpose. Finally, each participant will receive a copy of the new edition of "Fostering Sustainable Behavior: An Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing." To ensure a high level of learning and exchange of ideas, this workshop is restricted to individuals who have previously attended my introductory workshop. If you have not yet attended an introductory workshop, you can attend the introductory workshop that precedes the advanced workshop in either Perth or Sydney and then attend the advanced workshop.

For further information and to register for any of these events, click here. Please note that these workshops often fill to capacity, so register early to avoid disappointment!

The PRIA announces it has appointed an interim CEO

Thu, Jan 10 2013

The PRIA is pleased to announce that Catriona Barry has been appointed as Interim CEO from 7 January 2013. Catriona comes to PRIA with a wealth of governance knowledge, strategic and business planning attributes, financial management, strong leadership skills, and change management experience. Catriona, formerly COO of Special Olympics Australia will work with the National office and Board to position the PRIA with a new strategic direction to tackle the challenges of the market and consolidate its position as Australia’s industry body for PR and communication professionals.

Catriona commented “I am delighted to be taking over the reins at the Public Relations Institute of Australia at this crucial stage in its transition and development.

As interim CEO I look forward to meeting the many members who are dedicated to their profession and to public relations in the broader community.

I will be working on a number of interesting initiatives during this interim period. They will include a drive for more members, delivering a quality service to current members and ensuring we are relevant and accountable to them in line with best practice international governance guidelines.

Finance and resources are always a challenge in a not for profit organisation and I look forward to bringing my financial management experience in this sector to benefit the Institute.”

Catriona Barry Biography

As CEO of Special Olympics Australia, Catriona Barry was instrumental in the growth of this innovative not-for-profit organisation that transforms the lives of people with an intellectual disability through a national, year-round, multisports program.

Since stepping into the newly created role in 2006, Catriona’s leadership allowed Special Olympics to add new sports, increase the amount of volunteers who deliver the program in local communities, and grow the number of athletes with an intellectual disability who are now benefiting from this quality sports and social program.

In 2008, she successfully introduced a Community Sports-Link initiative which increased the reach of Special Olympics to new areas through partnerships with schools, sports clubs and community groups.
Starting with a staff of two, the organisation quickly grew to over 20 staff, which included at least one employee in every state to lead and support community programs in that area.

Much of this has been made possible by Catriona’s sound financial leadership, government lobbying skills and the implementation of a new organisational structure.

Where Special Olympics was once a federation of state organisations working independently, it now operates as a cohesive national organisation with everyone working to the same strategic goals. Government advocacy, and the resulting increase in government funding, has also put the organisation in a much stronger financial position for continued growth and development. This is supported by the introduction of a new skills-based Board with experience across a wide range of industries.

Prior to joining Special Olympics Australia, Catriona was the Volunteer Services Manager for Special Olympics Ireland where she was responsible for the recruitment and management of the 30,000 volunteers who delivered the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin.

She has also held positions with Sydney Festival and the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympics Games (SOCOG) which delivered the “best Olympic games ever” in 2000.

Catriona completed a Masters of Community Management at the University of Technology in 2008 and was the recipient of a fellowship from the Harvard Club of Australia where she attended the Strategic Perspectives for Not for Profits program in 2011.

Can you help? Event sponsors, partners and speakers needed for 2013

Thu, Jan 10 2013

We have a full calendar of events planned for 2013 for PR professionals at all stages of their careers. To ensure they are the best events possible, we need your help to find event partners, sponsors and most of all speakers you want to hear from.

Do you work for an organisation or have a client who would like to reach senior communicators working across Victoria or any other state? We have a range of exciting opportunities for them to get involved with.

Here are some highlights:

- Major partner for our 2013 Women in PR Luncheon
- Event hosting partners for our Leadership Breakfasts and workshops
- Product sponsors for our Women in PR goody bags, raffles and silent auctions
- Venue spaces for our boardroom luncheons and workshops
- A major sponsor for our Not-for-Profit Half Day conference

If you or someone you know is interested and able to help, please contact Neil O’Sullivan at neil.osullivan@pria.com.au or call 0452 460 933.

If you'd like a closer look at what event's are coming up in each state just click on the links below;

Victoria

South Australia

Tasmania

Why subtle marketing is effective

Thu, Jan 10 2013

Marketing is any type of communication – any part of the business that communicates with the outside world is marketing. The best marketing is done subtly. So what is subtle marketing and who does it the best?

I was on a Qantas flight this week and while waiting for the 747 to back away from the terminal, I noticed a faint tune over the cabin sound system. What was the noise? Qantas was playing their latest soundtrack Atlas. The song was composed specifically for Qantas and their communication by ex Silverchair front man Daniel Johns and appears in their latest You’re the reason we fly campaign.

Daniel Johns said in a recent article for news.com.au, he wanted the song to be big, something special… and not just a jingle. Getting comfortable in my seat before take off, I felt like I was being serenaded by Qantas; all passengers were being hypnotized by Qantas as the music was being played ever so softly throughout the aircraft. This is very clever of Qantas, creating an affiliation with the brand and their campaign.

Being in marketing, I tend to block out any advertising, so the fact that I remembered the tune and linked it back to Qantas was testament to the fact that Qantas achieved their intended desire.

Another campaign that got me thinking about subtlety in marketing is the Coffee Club campaign where will I meet you? The waiter staff in the stores all wear apparel that says wherewillimeetyou.com.au and if you visit the site it actually redirects you to the Coffee Club website.

Now I don’t know if the website is subtle but the apparel is very effective for a marketing campaign because it grabs the consumers attention and plants the seed of curiosity. So if you are sitting in the Coffee Club with a mobile you most probably will do a quick Internet search of this or search it at home when an ad sparks your memory.

Even the Commonwealth bank ad that just had ‘Can’t’ was effective as it sparked curiosity in a very subtle way as the Commonwealth Bank logo or slogan was not present. It may have been a little confusing in terms of branding but it got people talking before and even after knowing whom the ad was coming from.

Subtlety versus unique

Richards and Richards is a men’s suit and shirt store in Brisbane that has created a very unique marketing opportunity.

Richards and Richards has created within the apparel store a R & R Café Bar that is open even when the store itself is closed. This is unique because it is not common to see a café or bar within an apparel store. In terms of subtlety, they have great opportunities to incorporate their men’s suit and shirt side of the store in creative and subtle ways. Through promotion, quirky meal idea and much more, Richards and Richards can bring both aspects of the store together.

Is subtle always effective?

If a message can be converted in the way a business, product or service wants without it being misinterpreted or misconstrued, subtlety is exactly what you want.

It is fair to say people don’t like the idea of being bombarded with messages from various businesses trying to promote a product or service, therefore creating the thought that marketing efforts should be a little less obvious in the way they communicate them.

On the flip side, something to consider is people admire and liken to honestly and upfront communication. Australia’s campaign to eat more lamb or pork campaigns were both as straight as they get. The campaign themselves had humor but there was no hidden message just straight to the point that Australians should eat more lamb/pork.

The art of subtlety

The art of mastering subtlety is creating powerful messages in a cool yet confident way. If your marketing communication isn’t pushy or needy, consumers are more likely to respond positively to your message.

Strong brands now create relationships with their clients by creating stories within their campaigns. Many perfume and cosmetic brands do this to entice their target market into a fantasy as opposed to simply trying to persuade them into buying their product. This is a very subtle way because people aren’t fixed on the product but the development of the story. Obviously the last second or two promotes the product but consumers need to sit through the first thirty seconds of a story.

Take bloggers for example, they have an audience but need to entice them to continuously keep them coming back. Titles of blogs, the content and even images is what draws them back, so the more interesting and less sales driven the blogs are the more receptive to what you are selling they will be.

Overall, the message is clear that subtlety in marketing is key. The more subtle your communication efforts are the more powerful they can be. Consumers don’t want to be told what they should buy but they still like to buy so the key is the entice them to want to buy your product or service.

As any part of a business that communicates with the outside world is marketing it is vital to take control of the content going out and make it work for you and your business.

This article was originally posted on December 21, 2012 by Michael Kava in Dynamic Business.

So you think you can work?

Wed, Jan 09 2013

Most people are committed to their role and want to do a good job. They are neither lazy nor un-willing, but they are not working efficiently – they work hard but not always smart.

Most of us have never been taught how to work.

What a bold statement to start with. However in our view, this is one of the most important reasons for lack of execution and lower than expected performance. Most people are committed to their role and want to do a good job. They are neither lazy nor un-willing, but they are not working efficiently – they work hard but not always smart.

It normally surprises people when we say this, but we believe most people have never been taught how to work. We go to school, university and gain a qualification. We train and qualify as doctors, accountants or engineers, and one day we start working.

We get a desk and before we know it we have to handle many paper documents. We get a computer and we get bombarded with emails. We get a job description and we suddenly are swamped by tasks and ‘to do’ lists.

“In 45 years of work as a consultant (..) I have not come across a single natural, an executive who was born effective. All the effective ones have had to learn to be effective. And all of them had to practise effectiveness until it became a habit.” Peter Drucker, one of the founding fathers of effective organisational management.

We are not born naturally effective. We have to learn the principles and practice them until they become habits.

The impact of our lack of efficiency and effectiveness does not stop in the workplace. When we ask our clients what they would like to do if they were more in control of their work and time, we often get:

“Come home earlier to see my kids”
“Have more time to go to the gym and look after my health”
“Avoid bringing my work stress home”
“Avoid waking up at night thinking about what I forgot to do”

Inefficiency impacts us both at work and at home. So much time, energy and money is wasted because of poor execution.

Here are a few very simple suggestions to work smarter and gain more control at work.

Think quarterly

The first characteristic of highly successful people is that they are very clear on the goals they want to achieve and what they need to do to achieve them. By deciding what to achieve, you need to decide not only on what to focus on, but also on what you will not do.

As the leadership expert Peter Drucker put it ‘the key of strategy is omission’. That is, the key is not only to decide what you want to do but, as importantly, what you will not do. Too many people take too much on, and struggle to do anything well.

Once a quarter, block off an hour and ask yourself a simple question: ‘What are the two or three things that, if I did them extremely well over the next three months, will have a significant long-term impact on my performance?’

Stick to two or three, no more. Yes, that’s hard. We always want to do too much. Be clear on, what I call, your high impact activities, write them down and pursue them.

Plan weekly

Once a week, review your three high-impact activities for the quarter and organise your coming week. These activities have to become a must, a priority.

Book meetings with yourself in your diary to advance your three activities. Organise your calendar so that 60–80 percent of your time is spent on them.

Easy to understand, harder to do. Very often the people I coach argue that they have a lot of urgent crises to attend to before having the time for these high impact activities. Guess what, last minute crises will always happen. If you wait for a perfect time you might wait a long time.

Your high impact activities need to become a must. Thefirst thing in your diary. The rest will have to fit around.

Act daily – focus

On a daily basis, be disciplined. If you have booked a meeting with yourself to spend two hours on one of your high impact activities, be 100 percent focused on this topic. No distraction, no interruption, no starting late, having a break or checking a few emails mid-stream.

Ask yourself a simple question: why would you have less respect for meeting with yourself than with someone else?

If you have a meeting with a very important client, it’s likely you will arrive on time and well prepared. You would not dream of making a few phone calls, allowing interruptions from colleagues or checking your emails during the meeting. So why would you want this to happen to yourself?

When you have a meeting with yourself to progress one of your high impact activities, start on time, focus 100 percent, don’t allow interruptions and distractions.

This article was originally posted on November 14, 2012 by Cyril Peupion in Dynamic Business.

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