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.
As we all adapt to the “new normal” during the coronavirus pandemic, like many industries, PR agencies are rewriting playbooks for how to pitch reporters.
It’s a balance of continuing to drive results for clients while ensuring pitches are not tone deaf, appealing to reporters’ humanity, and counseling clients on the risk of appearing like they are capitalizing on the pandemic. It’s not easy and quite frankly the most challenging type of strategy development I have experienced in my career.
While PR professionals are not saving lives – and those that are have my upmost respect and eternal admiration – we are influencing how people think and how they feel. Many of us are grappling with our own fears and anxiety due to isolation and the uncertainty of the entire situation. But it’s our job to maintain our composure and help our clients communicate with their audiences as calmly as possible during this crisis.
In a recent blog on PR Daily, Elizabeth Tower Powell of DAI Partners shared an interesting perspective about how this is impacting the ways we provide counsel and help our clients during the coronavirus:
“When we tackle crisis situations, we usually have the advantage of objectivity. We address a disaster for clients, not with them. It is their problem, not ours. Right now, we’re experiencing the crisis together and its impact is severe. We don’t know the end date or the outcome and it’s difficult to suggest solutions.”
Considering this thoughtful viewpoint, I agree that we must take a step back and be very intentional in our strategy recommendations and execution to ensure we are thinking objectively on behalf of our clients. Given the enormous economic uncertainty and the need for brands to continue communicating with the public, below are four tips that can help.
- Communicate. It seems like a no-brainer, right? We are not expected to have all the answers but being proactive in staying in touch, being available and offering support and guidance can be very impactful. Working for a solutions-oriented agency, communicating without a direct result in mind can seem counterintuitive at first, but it goes a long way in building strong relationships with clients and demonstrates humility.
- Go above and beyond. Clients are taking on new and different responsibilities, as are their target audiences, and to those that want to weather the storm we need to roll up our sleeves and do whatever it takes to get the job done. Perhaps this is not the typical proactive pitch or communication plan development that is included in the scope of work; however, clients need resourceful help now more than ever.
- Showcase success, tactfully. This tip resonates with me as I am, likely overly, concerned about my clients appearing tone deaf or attempting to capitalize during the pandemic. That said, people are longing for something new and positive to watch. Take the launch of John Krasinski’s ‘Some Good News’ YouTube series, created to bring some positivity during these difficult times. Ok, maybe we can’t all be The Office’s beloved Jim, but we can help clients understand the importance of strategically showcasing good news, such as new business or new hires, as it can be reassuring to others that succeeding in this environment is possible.
- Look forward. It’s easy to get caught up in accepting that the current environment will be our “new normal.” I could be wrong, but I truly believe it is temporary, even if temporary is longer than originally anticipated. In a recent and rare address from Queen Elizabeth about the pandemic, an optimistic determination struck a chord with me when she said, “I hope in the years to come everyone will be able to take pride in how they responded to this challenge.” As PR pros it’s our job to help our clients plan for recovery and prepare for the future.
There are many unknowns with COVID-19 – from a health to an economic perspective – but I firmly believe we must maintain an optimistic outlook in the face of trying times.
In the interim, as you work to determine what is resonating with media, you may find the COVID-19 Media Guide for PR Pros, by D S Simon Media, as a helpful resource specific to broadcast. The sponsoring agency is surveying local news outlets on a weekly basis about what they are open to covering during the pandemic. Clearly, hard sell messages don’t make a lot of sense right now, and this guide can help provide some additional perspective on how brands are succeeding at this during the current climate.
In the age of coronavirus, it seems that life has turned virtual.
Self-quarantine and social-distancing mandates have led many to turn to teleconferencing and virtual hangouts to maintain professional and social connections. Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype and Google Hangouts have become essential for workplace collaboration and friendly check-ins. And adoption rates have surged: Teams reported 12 million new users in March after widespread social-distancing guidelines were put into effect.
However, the shift to virtual meetings has also brought an audience of co-workers and colleagues into our private homes, for which we may not always be prepared. It’s easy to overlook that, by participating in a virtual meeting, we’re putting our personal space on display, along with our work-from-home wardrobe, whatever it may be. How can we ensure we’re appropriately set up for virtual conferencing?
Fortunately, Julie Lasky of The New York Times is here to help. In a recent article, she detailed several ways we can look our best on webcam. Here are a few tips from her article that might come in handy for your next teleconference or virtual happy hour.
Lighting is Key
First, make sure your lighting situation is appropriate. Avoid having a light source directly behind you or within view of the camera, as this can cause glare for your audience. Having the light directly opposite you can help you literally shine for the camera – in the best of ways, of course.
To look your finest, avoid sitting directly under a source of light. This can create unwanted shadows on your face, making you look more like a ghost than a co-worker vying for valuable meeting time. Consider using ring lights or lamps and position them two feet opposite where you’re situated.
Make Sure You Can Be Heard
Next, consider the acoustics of the room, if you will. Hold your meeting in a setting where sound is absorbed and echo is minimized. Rooms with carpeting, window shades or curtains, and other upholstery can be ideal, as these can help contribute to your own personal sound booth. Large rooms composed of wood and glass are nice, but may be counteractive when it comes to trapping or bouncing sound.
Also, if you use headphones or AirPods, make sure they work appropriately with your computer and the application you’re using. Being ill-prepared for technical snafus can lead to a communication breakdown.
Know What’s in the Background
When considering your backdrop, keeping things simple often pays off. Neutral backgrounds will help keep the focus on you. Opt for rooms with neutral colors such as light blue, light gray, off-white or beige. Minimize background activity and avoid having multiple rooms or areas of high foot traffic, such as a staircase, within view of the camera that can distract your audience.
Or maybe you’d like to give your audience something to look at. Sometimes this can help with introducing a sense of calm, vibrancy or optimism. Try creating a simple setup, with a bookshelf in the background or placing a plant nearby. Or you could film yourself in front of an elaborate painting or art piece to try and inject a little inspiration into your setup.
It’s easy to overlook the unintended consequences of letting outsiders virtually enter your home. Pets may bark during client calls, children may barge into the room and cry during work meetings. These things happen. But creating your own niche for hosting virtual meetings will help you maintain consistency and a semblance of normalcy with your work routine. And it will help keep you prepared for whatever the job throws at you, keeping you focused on what’s important and less preoccupied with how you appear.
This blog isn’t for designers. This blog is for the people who write and want people to read their work, people who work with designers, and people who have always wanted to learn more about design. You don’t need to become an expert in Adobe Illustrator, become fluent in color theory or learn all there is to know about fonts. In order to create a good design, you just need to follow some rules about layout, visuals, and text.
I’ve written up some very basic guidelines based on my experience with designing infographics and apps. I hope they will help you think about how you want your content to look. I’ve also included sources with more in-depth information if you’d like to take a deeper dive. A well-planned design will make your content more readable, your key take-aways easier to find, and people will want to read your work. You don’t have to follow these guidelines, but it’s always good to know the rules before you break them.
Note: If you have a style guide you want to reference, now is the time to check it for tips. When I talk about your page, I’m referring to the area on which you’re designing. Your page may vary in size and shape. When I refer to your copy or content, I simply mean the words on your design.
Layout
One of the first things that you should focus on when drafting your page is what it looks like from far away. You should be able to identify the different elements and see how they interact. If your entire page is covered in text with no spacing, it’s not going to be readable. If your eye doesn’t flow over the page, it’s going to be frustrating to look at. If you want people to be able to read your text, you need to know how to adjust your layout based on your medium and you need to grid your page.
Gridding is the structure that your design is based on. It buffers text from the edges, separates columns, aligns content and makes it visually satisfying. The organization that gridding brings makes your design cleaner and more readable and, if your content goes across multiple pages, helps bring the pages together. Using a grid with two or three columns for text is a great choice in many mediums. It’s generally accepted that column widths should hold between 50-80 characters.
To determine how to grid your content, first you need to consider where it will be shown. The medium could be an image posted on Twitter, a word document, a banner or one of many other formats. The medium should determine the size and shape of your page. It should also suggest margin gridlines based on visible area, which can help you determine other grid spacing.
When working on your layout with a designer, discussions on layout can include the addition of open space, aligning text with other elements, and mirroring other formats. It may help to provide sketches or find examples of layouts you like when giving feedback.
Visuals
Next, think about what the entire page looks like together, considering the colors of your work and the images or graphics you plan to use. If you use colors that don’t match the content or colors that clash with the other colors on the page, your reader may become distracted and choose not to read your content at all.
When you’re working with color, less is more. Consider how different one area of your page looks from the rest, or the contrast. A pop of color will bring your readers’ eyes to that area, so use it for your most important information or key points. If your brand already has defined colors, use those. Otherwise, choose a color that you like or one that fits with your content. Depending on the hue or saturation, you can use this as your accent color, your background color or your highlight color. The next step is to find or build a color palette, or a selection of colors that go well with each other. Ideally, choose colors that are different enough that a black and white print out would still be readable.
When it comes to graphics, prioritize quality. An image that’s pixelated or doesn’t relate to your content makes it seem like you don’t care. A well-chosen image elevates your subject by connecting your readers’ unconscious relations to whatever the picture is. To ensure your image won’t be pixelated, check your medium and try to have a minimum of 180 pixels per inch (ppi). If you’re using non-image graphics, make sure that you’re using a vector graphic rather than a raster graphic.
Like word associations, color and image associations can have a mix of cultural and personal influences and may not always translate between people. When working with a designer, discuss emotive goals and consider requesting versions of the work using additional color palettes to compare the differences.
Text
Finally, look at your page’s text. In English-speaking countries, text goes from left to right and from top to bottom, so make sure that your copy flows the same way. If you set up your gridlines correctly, your copy will line up cleanly with the rest of your page, you’ll have space between columns, and your lines of text won’t be longer than 80 characters. Try to avoid what designers call orphans, the lone word ending a paragraph on a different line, or widows, a lone line of a paragraph in a different column.
Like many of these concepts, typography is its own area of expertise with such immense amounts of detail that it can become overwhelming. Font is a variation on the weight or style of a typeface, but, in most cases, they’re interchangeable. For now, I’ll simply introduce the categories of typeface: serif, sans-serif and display. In general, it’s a pretty good bet to use a serif font at one size and a sans-serif font at another.
Serif fonts have small embellishments like the base on the “l,” the weight at the tip of the “a,” or the tail on the end of “u.” Many feel these fonts are easiest to read in print and have an older feel to them. My favorites are Times New Roman, Perpetua and Georgia.
Sans-serif – or without serif – are the cleaner, minimalistic fonts you often see online. These are easiest to read and ideal for online body text. My favorites are Lato, Segoe UI and Tahoma.
Display fonts are used for small areas of text like titles or subheadings. These typefaces are not designed for legibility, so don’t use them in bodies of text. My favorites are Pacifico, Satisfy and Elephant.
One of the trickiest but most valuable concepts is visual hierarchy, which is basically how your brain understands and prioritizes the content on the page based on size, shape, color and contrast. A large, bold header is going to attract more attention than the smaller text you put in your paragraphs. An italicized section of text in a distinctive color will draw your reader’s eye. Determine the three or four most important sections or elements of your text and use formatting to prioritize them. Too many fonts, weights or colors will muddy your text and make it harder to read. Be mindful about the flow, what you want your audience to remember, and how weight and color affect the balance of the page.
When giving feedback on someone’s work, ask them how they chose the typefaces and why they decided on that organization of visual priority. If you disagree with the ranking of information, discuss the first three pieces of text you want the audience’s eyes to see.
If you follow these recommendations, you should have a good foundation on which to build your skills. Simply, leave space for the text to breathe, use a color palette when you can, and stick to two or three fonts. When in doubt, ask someone you trust for feedback.
Following design rules will lead to cleaner, more legible work that your audience will want to read. Designing is imparting mindfulness, structure and creativity into what people see. You may not call yourself a designer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create well-designed work.
According to data from the Pew Research Center, one-in-five U.S. adults say they get their news from social media. That’s slightly higher than print newspapers. If you’re reading this and you have a Facebook or Twitter account, you probably already know that this trend presents serious concerns in the age of COVID-19.
Further data proves those concerns warranted. A recent Pew Research Center article shared findings from a survey uncovering that people who turn to social media for political and election news are less likely than others to closely follow coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The survey data also reveals that more than half of these consumers have seen made-up news about the pandemic on social platforms. According to the survey, “Those who use social media as their common news pathways – 18 percent of U.S. adults – fare comparatively poorly when it comes to answering” questions about the virus.
It’s simply harder for individuals who scroll through social media feeds for their news to know whether that post their friend’s uncle shared is backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Additionally, the spread of false updates or preemptive sharing of developing stories can exacerbate already challenging situations. For example, with social media news feeds constantly updating, individuals could be exposed to a developing story’s headline once and then potentially never again.
We’ve seen information spread like wildfire during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is critical that reporters and news sites don’t take advantage of these uncharted times. It’s equally as important for the rest of us to ask questions of our sources.
Social media can be a great source of comfort and connection, especially now. Unfortunately, it’s not the best source of accurate information about COVID-19. While reading the news can be anxiety inducing, ensuring the spread of accurate information is critical to keeping people safe.
If you have gotten into the habit of relying on social media for news, please check out CDC and World Health Organization’s “latest updates” pages, as well as their social media accounts. These sources may provide important perspective for you and your loved ones.
As offices were closed to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 and individuals shifted to working from home, there was a spike in Zoom and MS Teams meetings. Virtual team happy hours were added to peoples’ schedules and existing meetings were converted to video conference calls.
We all enjoyed a glimpse into our co-workers’ homes (at least the background behind their video images) and relished working in sweats from the comfort of our kitchen tables. We adjusted lighting and video camera angles to look our best and shared memes about video calls gone bad.
Now it’s been a few weeks into working from home and the novelty of these virtual meetings is starting to wear off.
It seems there are a lot more meetings, leaving less time to actually get the work done. Friends have shared that they are maxed out on video calls. They have back-to-back meetings with the intent to stay connected and intentionally try to overcommunicate with colleagues as we all work in isolation. At the end of the workday, as the virtual meetings wrap up, we face the challenge of trying to get work projects and tasks done. On top of pressures to stay connected, working from home can make work-life separation challenging.
Below are some tips to navigate the increased demand for meetings while working from home:
- Block time on your schedule to work through your to-do list. Each day have a block of time dedicated to doing the work and GSD. If someone sends a meeting request for this time, see if there are alternative times to conduct the meeting. Some requests may require you to flex your scheduled work time; however, having something on your calendar will make it easier to push back.
- Schedule breaks. Make sure you take a couple of 10- or 15-minute breaks to get up and move around your home. Breaks give you a chance to recharge and when you’re working at home, it is easy to lose track of time.
- Say no or gracefully opt out of participating in the meeting. There are likely some meetings that are optional or which your participation is not required. Additionally, sometimes a video call is not the most efficient way to move the project forward. Be selective in participation of virtual social gatherings. Be mindful of how you say “no” or decline a meeting; especially as everyone is working remotely, nuance can get misread via email/text.
- Have a clear agenda and objective. When setting up a meeting, provide an agenda in advance and let intended participants know what the objective is of the meeting. Take time to check in with people at the start of the call and then focus on working through the agenda and staying on task to accomplish the intended objectives. If you are invited to a meeting and the objective is not clear, secure that information when accepting and/or at the start of the call.
- Remember in some instances, people just need human-to-human socializing. Around the world, we’re all going through stressful times and many of us are experiencing considerable change in our home, work and social lives. As a result, catching up and maintaining emotional connections is critical. If you sense a co-worker is anxious or depressed, check in with them and consider being a sounding board.
For additional guidance on virtual meetings, please consider the following articles:
- What you Need to Know About Holding Productive Virtual Meetings During COVID-19, Forbes.com
- What it Takes to Run a Great Virtual Meeting, Harvard Business Review
- When Coronavirus Causes you to Meet Differently: 6 Tips for Making the Most of Remote or In-Person Meetings, Forbes.com
What tips do you have during this time to manage the uptick in meetings, getting work done and maintaining work-life balance while working from home?
Growing up, my main source of news came from the television or newspaper. It seemed like a simple transaction. Accredited journalists discussed politics and ethics. I watched and listened, without a doubt in my mind that what they told me was true. Thanks to social media, news is constantly at our fingertips now. Determining what’s true has become a much more difficult proposition.
We see it all the time – a misleading or plain old false tweet blows up, and only after it’s been recirculated thousands of times is it debunked. It happens to me too. I see something that feels urgent and important, and there I go, off to the retweet races before checking the source. I know better. Still, it happens.
As we are flooded with countless articles about COVID-19, the issue seems especially urgent. I decided to create a step-by-step system to make sure I slow down and question everything. It’s difficult to decipher fact from fiction in a situation evolving so rapidly. I thought it would be helpful to share my list with others.
Check the Profile
- Who is in their network and who do they follow?
- What’s their background and apparent biases?
I’ve found it helpful to follow a handful of trustworthy journalists who possess a strong background and an objective lens. It allows me to save time by not scrolling through hundreds of posts. I also have the confidence that the information is credible and reliable.
Do They Cite Sources?
- Are their sources clearly cited in the post?
- Is the information being distributed in other media outlets?
Citations are one of the key differences between a factual and fictional post. A simple hyperlink to a report or to a credible article is an easy way for readers to be certain the information is true.
Does It Add Up?
- Trust your intuition – if the headline doesn’t match the article, you should be wary.
- Refer to dependable websites when there is information being spread that’s hard to verify.
There’s a handful of great websites that fact-check information buzzing around the internet. Snopes, Factcheck.org and PolitiFact are a few of my favorites. If you’re still unsure, it’s helpful to look at government websites such as the CDC’s site, especially during times of natural disaster or the current Coronavirus pandemic.
These past few weeks have been extremely difficult, to say the least. We are all doing our best to simply stay safe and healthy. It’s more important than ever to filter out false information and focus on the truth.
For additional ideas on how to determine if you’re receiving news from a trustworthy source, check out these other posts: