Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
“Deliver a message or an offer with a call to action; you can also insert a link and a hashtag so your target audience will see this #Twitter”
The above statement is exactly 140-characters long, which meets Twitter’s legendary length restriction for a tweet. I love Twitter because it’s a simple, intuitive tool and timely news source, especially for media professionals. Adhering to the 140-character limit is what made Twitter unique from other social platforms. Users had to be concise and to the point with their messages – but (as most things change) Twitter is said to be changing that rule.
According to an article in Re/code, Twitter is rumored to be building a new feature that will allow users the option to tweet a message with up to 10,000-characters. As someone who works to increase brand awareness, I see this as a great opportunity for messaging – and in PR, it’s crucial to craft the right message and deliver it to the right audience.
With 10,000 (or more) ways to potentially tweet a message, brands will have new opportunities to add value to their audience. Here are three reasons why Twitter’s character limit expansion will be beneficial for brands:
1.) More opportunity for thought leadership, audience building, and brand awareness. It can be extremely difficult to deliver a thorough message in 140 characters – I’m sure every tweeter has struggled with this at some point. The opportunity to provide a deeper, more in-depth perspective will establish users’ thought leadership on a topic or industry. In essence, tweets will soon be a type of long-form content where users will craft a snazzy headline in 140 characters, and viewers decide to expand and read the content. Users won’t be forced to leave Twitter to read your entire message, which can significantly increase the number of people who actually see it.
2.) An improved content marketing platform. Brands will have the opportunity to engage with their audience in new ways. With a more detailed message, brands will have more opportunity to educate, inform, and add value within the content/tweet itself. Furthermore, the tweet will still appear in 140 characters on the timeline – so tweets will still look the same as users scroll through tweets via their timeline. The silver lining is that users will not be forced to click a link and leave Twitter to get more information, which is less disruptive for your audience. Instead, the viewer will choose to either expand the tweet or click the link to learn more, which can still generate organic website traffic.
3.) More analytical data. Brands will be able to get even deeper insights into what messages are sticking. Currently, Twitter analytics show the impressions and engagements with a tweet, including detail expands, likes, retweets, profile clicks, follows, replies, and email shares. The possibilities with a character-limit expansion are sweeping, such as the number of expanded tweets, how long the tweet was expanded for, how far viewers scrolled down the expanded tweet, whether users clicked the link provided in the expanded tweet, or in the 140-character timeline view. Data is incredibly valuable to measure success.
It’s as though the 140-character “rule” became Twitter’s core essence. Since people fear change and a tweet is considered a small chirp, not a long birdsong, it is understandable why people are hesitant about the reported character limit expansion. It’ll be interesting to see if and when this goes into effect, how users react and how brands take advantage of this new opportunity.
A new client of Communiqué PR is spearheading the introduction of consumer drone services in the U.S. and the media are taking notice.
Cape Productions (Cape) is a drone video service for ordinary people who love to engage in action sports, with a current focus on capturing amazing footage of friends and family shredding the slopes at ski resorts across the country. Consumers at these locations are able to use Cape’s service to have their experiences filmed automatically via drone and edited by Cape’s professional video team. Shortly thereafter, customers receive personalized, professionally edited videos of themselves to watch and share with friends and family. Essentially, it’s like hiring a personal film crew – all you do is ski and wait for the video to be delivered.
The FAA and Regulating Drones
One of the major obstacles for many businesses to overcome (depending on their specific area of focus) is navigating and adhering to all federal regulations relating to their product. This is particularly true in the areas of healthcare or car manufacturing or heavy industry when there are genuine concerns about consumer safety and/or how the service can impact the environment. For the drone consumer industry specifically, which is still in its infancy, regulations are much less established and business and consumers alike who want to utilize drones anxiously wait for guidance from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as they pursue their drone ambitions.
There are obvious safety considerations when dealing with drone technology. As with any piece of advanced tech, sometimes the mechanics simply don’t work or fail at the wrong time. Cape not only understood this fact when creating the business, but welcomed the challenge of ensuring that its service is safe for anyone who wished to use it. It knew from the onset how important working with the FAA would be in creating a scalable business model for its drone video service and wanted to go above and beyond any regulations set forth to manage its operation.
To that end, Cape has worked closely with the FAA since its founding to ensure that it was compliant with all regulatory requirements and that their service was legal and safe. In fact, Cape has conducted thousands of flights across the globe in places with extremely harsh conditions and still has a 100-percent safety record.
Cape Granted Unique FAA Exemption
At the end of 2015, Cape received word from the FAA that they had been granted an amendment to the company’s existing Section 333 exemption for commercial drone operations. In a nutshell, the exemption is tailored specifically to Cape’s operations and makes them the first drone operator in the U.S. legally allowed to fly drones within 500 feet of customers and in an area wider than a closed set.
What does that mean exactly? In this precedent-setting exemption, the FAA is now allowing Cape to fly its drones much closer to people and outside of a closed movie set – the first time this has ever been allowed for a consumer drone service. The previous restrictions on where and how close a drone could fly hampered many potential consumer and commercial uses for drones, and this amendment is groundbreaking for the industry as it lays the foundation for different drone operations in the future. But more importantly, the exemption now allows Cape the ability to create even more stunning videos of people engaged in action sports and opens the possibility for them to expand its model into different areas where people would want to hire a drone for filming purposes. (Some of the world’s greatest athletes, including the U.S. Ski Team, have also started using Cape to enhance their training).
Communiqué PR understood that the media would be interested in this regulatory news and immediately helped Cape build a strategy to maximize coverage for when it made the announcement to the public. The process was straight forward, but had to be executed with precision: First, identify the heavy hitters and beat reporters covering drone news and regulatory updates. Second, draft a release which incorporates key messages and talking points centered on the importance of the news and which ultimately ties back to Cape and its service. Lastly, share the news under embargo with prioritized media to help seed stories and shape the media coverage when the news breaks.
As a result, media interest in the announcement has been expansive, in-depth, and inclusive of the core messaging Cape wanted highlighted. Here are a few examples of the coverage:
- Fast Company: You Can’t Use a Drone to Film Yourself Skiing but these Ex-Googlers Will do it for You
- USA Today: FAA Approves Ski-video Drones
- BuzzFeed: Drone Photography Company Wins FAA Exemption Ahead Of New Regulations
- MarketWatch: This is the First Business to (Legally) Fly Drones Around Americans’ Heads
- Forbes: Ex-Google Employees’ Drones Turn Weekend Warriors Into Ski Movie Stars
- Drone 360: Cape Productions Granted First-of-a-Kind Permission from the FAA for Drone Video Service
Communiqué PR congratulates Cape on its recent achievement and the wonderful media coverage it has received to date. This is only the beginning for a company that has ambitions to be the largest, most trusted drone video operator in the world, and we here at Communiqué PR are dedicated to making that happen.
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If the stock market has got you down, consider this: The conceptualization and launch of new companies, as well as the contraction and consolidation of existing businesses, are tenets of “economic dynamism,” a concept that illustrates the ebb and flow of financial progress needed for economic stability and progress. In a nutshell, fluctuations are necessary for growth.
Yet with the number of new businesses introduced to the market each day, why do 92 percent of startups fail within the first three years? Many say scaling too quickly is the culprit, while others say it’s entering a crowded marketplace. While this varies across industries, company success typically boils down to three things: company innovation (IP), category leadership (positioning), and expected growth in revenue and customer base (valuation). Companies should consider these factors as they look to differentiate themselves from established competitors, not only to steal market share, but to carve out niche markets that properly position them for growth.
Differentiate & Position Your Company for Category Growth
Before a company considers whether or not to develop products or innovate within an established category, it is important to consider the current competitive landscape and the nuances of each player. Will the company be going up against large, established companies with several lines of business and a diversified product portfolio? If so, one option is to introduce technologies or innovations that capture a relevant yet parallel market need, one that will make the new company so valuable that people will be willing to pay a premium for that additional functionality and make the company an attractive acquisition target in the years ahead.
While we associate innovation with major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, large multi-national corporations typically don’t have the luxury of innovating from within since they are publicly traded, under shareholder scrutiny, and focused heavily on operating efficiently to meet the current market need. Innovation takes creativity and time, and that’s why corporations partner with or develop their own think tanks or incubators to develop and explore new ideas and products. As a way to quickly differentiate, many corporations often take the approach of innovating through acquisition, to purchase smaller companies in the hopes of bringing in fresh ideas and IP into their existing service lines for further development and implementation. For this, they look to the nimble startup world.
For example, take the company Relate IQ (acquired by Salesforce), a company that launched in 2011 as an intelligence layer on top of CRM database and campaign technologies. The company focused on extending the functionality of traditional CRM platforms by providing additional data insights around how often people from within organizations collaborate with each another both internally and externally with sales prospects. Relate IQ aimed to solve the problem of tracking communications from one domain to another so that sales professionals could better understand who last contacted a potential customer, keeping all team members informed about the sales process. This technology was novel, relevant, and complimentary to Salesforce.com, which acquired Relate IQ for $390 million in July of 2014. Now the technology is being offered as Salesforce IQ to help teams manage their business development activities.
Now take former Communiqué PR client VoloMetrix (acquired by Microsoft), a company founded by Bain executives who based their technology on established time-and-motion studies utilized in the consulting world. By understanding people’s roles within a company and how they spend their time, consultants could be armed with valuable information to present strategies for organizational alignment and process improvements. In creating VoloMetrix, the company utilized the backbone communication channels for today’s businesses (email trends to inform business decisions), and helped create the category known as “People Analytics.”
By attaching itself to the Exchange email servers within corporations, VoloMetrix’s technology could anonymously extract the metadata associated with email and calendar items to reveal, in aggregate, who communicated and met most frequently with others internally and externally around parameters like time of day, geography, and within departments and divisions. This new dataset could then be used by consultants to identify correlations about qualities that defined a successful sales person, like the size of internal networks and the frequency at which these individuals contacted prospects. This approach caught the attention of Microsoft, which acquired VoloMetrix last year in September of 2015.
So what does this mean and how can it inform your business decisions?
Well, we know that Microsoft has been moving toward cloud-based technologies with Office365 to compete with Google and desired a way to create a communications intelligence layer, most likely to arm its consulting and data insights practice. Salesforce is investing heavily in data intelligence technologies and clearly has a competitor in Microsoft Dynamics for sales analytics, since their People Analytics technology (acquired through VoloMetrix) can extend both within and outside an organization. Traditional consulting firms like McKinsey and Bain will also be looking to partner closely with Microsoft lest they miss out on this very valuable data set already being used by companies around the world.
When examining this mini case study, key takeaways for companies are to anticipate the market shifts within a particular category – in this case, toward analytics and insights for sales and CRM, and innovate in this domain. As companies work to enter a new category or market, they must first understand how third-party analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester are defining the space. Next, they must pinpoint larger companies within the space, understand their offerings inside and out, and then position their companies well for future growth through differentiated products and services that could easily snap into existing services but are necessitated by proprietary algorithms and datasets.
In many cases, when and where these companies enter the market will ultimately determine their success.
I recently returned from my first major international trip – I spent two months backpacking by myself through Southeast Asia, and it was by far the most adventurous thing I have ever done. Before I left I had a sinking feeling that I was making a huge mistake. I had never traveled further than Canada without my parents, why did I think I could navigate Asia by myself? Beyond concerns about personal safety, I also worried how a two month absence would affect my career. My company generously gave me a two month leave-of-absence, but what if I couldn’t get back into the groove of working when I returned? My job means a lot to me, and I didn’t want to sacrifice it.
Sitting at my desk a few weeks after returning to Seattle, I can safely say that my all my fears were unfounded (except my concerns about food poisoning – those were valid). Once the jet lag wore off, I realized that traveling alone was the greatest thing I could have done for my career. It shook up my world view, put my priorities in perspective, and gave me a sense of personal confidence that can only be gained from knowing you can navigate the world on your own.
So how, exactly, did traveling by myself make me a better PR professional? Let me count the ways:
Sharper decision-making skills. The ability to make clear decisions is an essential leadership skill in any industry, particularly PR. Public relations professionals often make decisions that could have a long-term impact for our clients so we must evaluate our options carefully by weighing the pros and cons and considering our clients’ overall objectives.
While traveling by yourself, you’re required to make thousands of decisions that impact your safety and the overall outcome of your trip without anyone else’s guidance. Sometimes it’s a quick choice – do I argue with the taxi driver who is trying to rip me off or should I let him keep my money? In other situations there may be more time to evaluate your decision. For example, I spent days deciding whether to go to Vietnam as I originally planned or stay in Cambodia an extra week.
Ultimately, I made the decision to stay in Cambodia, and based on my time constraints and personal travel style I’m confident that was the right choice for me. Over time I learned the importance of sticking with my decisions – once you make a choice and there’s no going back, don’t question it. Trust that you have sound judgement.
More cognizant of cultural differences. In today’s global economy you’re bound to work with clients or partners based in other parts of the world, and the more aware you are of cultural differences the smoother that partnership will be.
Travel immerses you in another culture, pushing you outside your comfort zone by placing you in a world where everyone does things differently than you. I spent the first week of my trip volunteering in a small village in eastern Thailand, and trying to learn the local customs was a humbling experience. As the volunteer coordinators patiently showed me how to use a bucket shower and reminded me to take my shoes off inside it hit me how seemingly small habits can have a big impact on how people live their lives differently.
This is important to remember when working with people from other cultures. For example, if someone doesn’t respond to your email as quickly as you’d like it might be because they have different expectations around timeliness.
Language barriers can also have a big impact on international business partnerships. In the U.S. we’re lucky that people across the globe have taken the time to learn our language. Being able to speak multiple languages is an impressive accomplishment that many Americans don’t possess, so remember to be patient when communicating with people who aren’t native English speakers.
Better at adapting to changing circumstances. If you’ve ever traveled to a third world country, you’ve likely experienced questionable accommodations, confusing streets signs, and a three hour bus ride that turned into an epic seven hour journey. Unexpected things happen when you travel, and you learn to cope. Personally, I think seeing the humor of the situation is the best way to deal with it – you have to admit, arriving at your “hostel” to discover it’s essentially a barn painted blue is pretty hilarious.
In the PR world things can change quickly – your client might have a crisis that you need to jump on immediately or a journalist may leak news that you’ve been carefully preparing to announce for weeks. When these things happen, it helps to be highly adaptable. I feel more prepared to deal with these situations knowing that I’ve experienced far more unexpected scenarios on the road.
More confident. You never truly understand what you’re capable of until you do it. Traveling by yourself is challenging. It can be lonely, overwhelming and, at times, scary. But all of the lows you experience while traveling make the highs even more satisfying.
Knowing that I have the strength to handle the challenges of solo travel has given me a sense of confidence I’ve never felt before. This confidence will help me in all aspects of my life, including my career. Having the self-assurance to stand behind my ideas, speak up in meetings, and push back against clients will go a long way as I look to climb the corporate ladder.
If you have the urge to see the world but feel nervous to go it alone or worry how it will impact your career goals, consider the many way that travel enriches your life – both personally and professionally. From my experience, the benefits outweigh the possible drawbacks, and what I learned through my travels will lead me to more opportunities in my career and beyond.
A good company name defines who the company is and what it offers. The name sets the tone for the business and cues people in on what it does. Sound important? Absolutely, and that’s why it’s critical for businesses to choose a name that’s impactful and easy to remember, but also conveys what the company does. Choosing a name is a lofty task, but a company name is often the first impression of the brand and is therefore a critical consideration for success.
There are a range of methods that can be used to choose a name, but what’s most important is to approach this process systematically rather than emotionally or politically. It can be easy to become attached to a name, but business leaders must evaluate whether that name helps to tell the company story and sets them apart from the competition.
Dos & Don’ts
So where do you start? First, consider tips and pointers from the experts. In an Inc. article titled “5 Things You Should Never, Ever Do When Naming Your Company,” brand strategist Steven Mason shares his Dos & Don’ts for the naming process. Following is a paraphrased list of key considerations:
Don’t:
- Use a name generator because computers don’t understand linguistics or branding.
- Vote on names – people tend to vote for what they personally like, not because it has anything to do with the business or because it is evocative.
- Confuse your preferences with those of your target market.
Do:
- Consider both positive and negative attributes of the business, product or service. Ensure that potential names embody the positive and do not reflect the negative.
- Measure the names against linguistic and branding criteria. Is the name easy to spell? Is it easy to pronounce? Is the name evocative?
- Consider intellectual property – it’s wise to enlist the support of an attorney to manage the due diligence associated with the naming process.
Best Practices for Naming a Company
Next, outline what’s important to convey in the name and begin the brainstorming process. We’ve played a role in helping companies craft compelling names and through our experience we’ve found the following process to be the best strategic approach to naming a company:
- Hold a brainstorming session with executives – This initial meeting helps bring the story of the company to life. By unearthing the company values and the product/service it plans to sell, you’re helping the stakeholders outline the key attributes of the company and are beginning to define the criteria to judge potential names against. Once buy-in is secured on what these key attributes are, move to the next step.
- Determine the top contenders – Use the brand attributes, competitive differentiators, and key messages the company wants to convey to its target audience(s) as fodder for the name brainstorm with the key stakeholders. Hone in on three to five names and then move to the final step to evaluate each contender.
- Evaluate the names based on criteria – Now that there are a few names in the running, rank the strength of each name by measuring it against criteria—have the executives define what’s important to communicate through the name and rank against these criteria. Using measurable evaluators reduces the possibility of naming a company based on personal preferences, internal perspectives, emotions or politics.
Understanding Different Types of Brand Names
Finally, if you’re stumped after defining the key attributes and looking for some inspiration, Lorraine Carter at branding firm Persona Design provides an overview of the top brand name creation categories in her blog post, “Brand Naming: Top Ten Methods for Brand Name Creation.” Following is a summary of types of brand names:
- Acronyms and Initials – brand names that stand for something longer, such as KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken), GE (General Electric) or HP (Hewlett-Packard).
- Alliteration or Rhyming Names – these are often particularly memorable and fun to say (Piggly Wiggly, YouTube and Dunkin’ Donuts).
- Derivative Names – these names are similar to something you have heard, but have been changed to sound different (Nespresso, Zappos).
- Descriptive Names – these describe the products/services offered (Whole Foods and Internet Explorer).
- Evocative Names – these are designed to evoke an image for the customer (The Body Shop, Amazon).
- Founders’ Names – examples include Cadbury (after John Cadbury) or Disney (after Walt Disney).
- Geographic Names – this style associates a region or landmark with a product/service (Patagonia, Cisco—drawn from San Francisco).
- Hybrid Names – these names are combinations of current words or recognized syllables which send the right message when combined (Swissair).
- Neologisms (new, made-up words) – these can be unique and memorable, but require more initial marketing resources to become highly recognized (Omniplex, Kodak and Twitter).
- Personification – these names are based on a persona or a real person who is not the founder (Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima).
As mentioned previously, there are a range of methods for selecting a name, as well as various considerations to take into account. That being said, having a process for measuring names is crucial to success as it removes emotional or political bias that too often comes with such processes. What tips do you have for crafting a compelling name?