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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.

For the Love of Blog: Don’t Forget to Include Blogging in Your 2018 Plan

Speaking from experience, blogging can sometimes seem like a daunting task. Finding topics that your readers will view as interesting is challenging and then developing them into posts that maintain someone’s attention and adds value can sometimes feel nearly impossible. However, blogging is an impactful tool that provides a platform to highlight results, share perspectives on trends, increase SEO and create content to leverage for social media.

But with other deadlines knocking on your door, you may be finding yourself wondering how much value blogging will add to your business. Is it really worth your time? Well, to address your questions I did a little digging to uncover and illustrate the benefits of blogging.

If you haven’t jumped on the blogging bandwagon yet, here are a handful of stats that will inspire you to add this strategy to your 2018 plan.

  • B2B marketers that use blogs get 67 percent more leads than those who do not. (Source: HubSpot)
  • 82 percent of marketers who blog get positive ROI from their inbound marketing activities. (Source: HubSpot)
  • Companies that blog get twice as much traffic from their email marketing than those who don’t blog. (Source: HubSpot)
  • 1 in 10 blog posts are compounding, which means organic search increases their traffic over time. (Source: HubSpot)
  • 94 percent of people who share posts do so because they think it might be helpful to others. (Source: nymarketing.com)

If those numbers have convinced you to start blogging, here are several tips to keep in mind as you begin to build out your blog:

  • Use your blog as a portfolio for your work. Develop case studies or write about a successful campaign to not only highlight your company’s ability to deliver results, but also as a way to build a portfolio that you can easily refer to in the future.
  • Be consistent. Develop a blogging schedule that is consistent, yet realistic. People are hungry for content, so the more content you can share the better, however, be thoughtful in your approach.
  • Keep your blog top of mind. This is a skill I am always trying to work on, but one of the things I’ve observed from some of the best bloggers at our firm is that they are constantly thinking about how something can be turned into a blog post. The topic could be inspired by a social movement, a conversation you had with a colleague at lunch, an interesting article you read, or even a struggle you are facing. Point is, there are topics all around you – you just have to be able to recognize them.

Adding another item to your to-do list is always intimidating, especially one that will require time and creativity. However, if you don’t already have a blog, or have a blog but don’t share content consistently, seriously consider adding the strategy to your 2018 plan – the added benefits and impact on your business will be worth it.

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Will the #MeToo Movement Change Corporate Culture?

Imagine sending out a tweet, going to bed, and waking up to 53,000 replies. That is what happened to actress Alyssa Milano when she decided on the evening of Oct. 15, 2017, to send a tweet in support of her friend who had been assaulted by Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein.

Alyssa Milano’s Tweet read, “If you’ve been sexually harassed or assaulted write ‘me too’ as a reply to this tweet.”

The impact of this single tweet was enormous. By Oct. 16, Twitter confirmed to CNN that people had used the hashtag in tweets more than half a million times and within 24 hours, nearly five million people on Facebook used the hashtag.[1] Facebook soon reported that 45 percent of its U.S. users had a friend who had posted using the term.[2]

Now, Time magazine’s editors have selected the #MeToo movement and the people behind it (The Silence Breakers) as the Person of the Year for 2017. However, the “Me Too” movement is not entirely new: Tarana Burke, an activist and supporter of victims of sexual abuse named her movement “Me Too” in 2006. She coined the term to show support for the girls and women in her community who have experienced sexual violence and viewed “Me Too” as a way to show empathy and solidarity for what they’d been through.

Burke never anticipated “Me Too” would be such an instrument of change, but Milano’s tweet galvanized women in a manner that was unprecedented. Clearly, there were myriad factors that played a role in birth of this movement:

  • The year began with the 2017 Women’s Marches across the nation to push for legislation and policies supporting human rights, women’s rights and other issues.
  • Journalist Ronan Farrow deeply investigated Harvey Weinstein, and while NBC initially passed on running his story on grounds it was incomplete, he did more work on it and took it to The New Yorker which published it on Oct. 10.[3] (This once again demonstrates the power and value of investigative journalism. For more on this topic, please see my blog The Importance of Investigative Journalism.)
  • Finally, social media and #MeToo gave many women the opportunity to identify themselves as the victims of inappropriate or unwanted sexual attention, abuse or violence — which emboldened many others to come forward.

According to academics, social movements have a life cycle. They have a period where they emerge, coalesce, grow, achieve success and then dissolve and it makes one wonder at what stage we are today. Will the #MeToo movement continue to grow? Will this movement have a longer-term impact on workplace and societal norms? It is true that many prominent men have lost their jobs, but will there truly be lasting change? And if there are changes, what metrics will measure them?

While there has been significant analysis of the effectiveness of boycotts, it can be challenging to determine their effectiveness, in part because it is hard to determine the specific objectives of the individuals participating in them. Can’t the same be true for the #MeToo movement?

I hope this is not the case. All people deserve the opportunity to work in an environment that is free from harassment and the abuse of power. Furthermore, individuals who have abused their power should not be in leadership positions in business, government, or in our community.

As Abraham Lincoln said: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” Shouldn’t our leaders be people of upstanding character? Otherwise, who wants to follow them?

For more about Time magazine’s Person of the Year and the #MeToo movement, please check out these articles:

References

[1] CNN, Cassandra Santiago and Doug Criss. “An Activist, a little girl and the heartbreaking origin of ‘Me too”.

CNN. Retrieved December 7, 2017.

[2] France, Lisa Respers (October 16, 2017). “#MeToo: Social media flooded with personal stories of assualt”.

CNN. Retrieved December 7, 2017

[3] Puente, Maria (December 1, 2017) “After Matt Laurer firing, NBC chief Andy Lack faces more questions about a network in crisis”.

USA Today. Retrieved December 7, 2017.

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Twitter Doubles Its Character Limit

In case you missed it, on Nov. 7 2017, Twitter granted most of its users the ability to double the length of their tweets to 280 characters. Users had previously been limited to posts of 140 characters, challenging them to be concise in a way that wasn’t required on other social media platforms. For instance, Myspace and Facebook, two of the leading social media platforms at the time of Twitter’s launch in 2006, gave users the freedom to post without limitations. Now that tweet lengths have increased, it’ll be interesting to see how it affects daily users, including PR pros.

To quote William Shakespeare, “Brevity is the soul of wit” and based on this,140 characters should be more than enough space to compose a thought. As Laura Shubel noted in her PR Daily article, “Should you use all 280 characters?”, a shorter character limit typically helps generate better tweets. Shubel goes onto explain how the old Twitter, limited character space forced people to hone their writing skills to create succinct messages. Shorter tweets might take more time to draft, Shubel asserts, but the exercise can make people better writers.

With the 140-character limit, users often had to figure out how to fit a single thought into one tweet. To do this, they resorted to leaving out punctuation, intentionally misspelling or shortening words, and even incorporating the ever-growing list of text abbreviations to save precious characters. Witnessing users work around the limitation truly showed how innovative people could be with their syntax and punctuation.

Because of this change, PR pros may alter how they and their clients use Twitter. With double the characters, communicators will have much more room for flexibility and clarity. For journalists, tweets can now include more context, which potentially means fewer tweets. With more characters available, there is more room to include more hashtags and account “@ mentions.”  In fact, a few companies have already taken to the idea of 280 characters, some with a sense of humor. Here are some examples of brands maximizing this limit:

https://twitter.com/WDWToday/status/928048426994020352

While users may have wanted something different (ahem, an edit button please), I think the update to 280 characters will be a less dramatic change than some users think. Although visually it may seem like word (or emoji) overload, overall it will help many people communicate in a clearer way.

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A Place for Mom: A Wealth of Information on Senior Living & Related Topics

As 2017 rapidly comes to a close, we want to share a summary of some of the coverage we helped position for A Place for Mom throughout the year. For those interested in the issues surrounding senior living, this roundup offers a sense of the topics that attracted the most significant attention of journalists and their readers.

A Place for Mom is the largest senior living referral service in North America. As such, the company provides a wealth of information about senior preferences for housing, care and other vital topics. We were honored to help position this useful, practical  information.

We began the year by sharing data with journalists about the 10 safest cities for seniors that resulted in the following eight articles:

Next, we developed and distributed news about home equity and using it to fund senior care. This resulted in two articles:

Syndicated content from A Place for Mom remained popular throughout the year. We placed stories about finding love in a senior community, the benefits of shared living for seniors, and tips on taxes, as well as travelling with seniors .Stories included:

In the summer of 2017, we had the opportunity to publicize the results from a survey that clearly demonstrated that seniors want to live in walkable communities. This announcement lead to the following coverage:

This is just a small sample of the coverage we earned throughout the year. We are proud that A Place for Mom is able to provide such a valuable, well-researched resource to seniors, their families and its partner communities. For even more content, we hope you will visit www.aplaceformom.com

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Your Virtual PR Bookshelf

Over the years our team has shared its expertise through posts published to the Communiqué PR blog. Some of the posts tie directly to content included in our book, Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR, while other posts dig deeper into practice areas or capture key campaign initiatives and results.

Consistently the most popular content in terms of unique visitors are posts that provide guidance and tips on core PR activities and foundational elements. We recognize there are great books that cover these topics, however, with the fast-paced nature of our jobs today sometimes tracking down the right reference book can be impractical in the moment.

Below I have captured these posts for easy reference. Feel free to bookmark this page and use it as your PR reference “book.”

The guidance provided in these posts is relevant for both experienced PR practitioners as well as communication students and those starting their careers.

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Stay Smart and Informed With Podcasts – Your PR Career May Depend on It

Whether it’s an hour spent in bumper-to-bumper traffic, a 20-minute walk to class, or sitting on the bus through 37 stops, most people have to endure some form of a daily commute. The way we spend that commute time, however, can vary significantly. Some people listen to music, some read books, and others talk on the phone. Personally, after exhausting my music library during my daily morning commute, I discovered a different, more constructive form of travel entertainment: podcasts.

Specifically, I listen to “The Daily” by The New York Times. At around 20-30 minutes per episode, “The Daily” brings a thought-provoking, nuanced approach to exploring current events. Tuning in while driving has quickly become a much anticipated and valuable morning ritual.

“The Daily’s” secret ingredient is its host, former New York Times political reporter Michael Barbaro. Without a background in radio or broadcast media, Barbaro might seem an unlikely rising personality in the podcast sphere. His soothing voice, the obvious intensity in which he actively listens to his guests, and his knowledge of the world we live in make him an ideal face –  or voice – for the evolving New York Times that now streams more than nine podcasts for its active readers and listeners.

Maybe it’s Barbaro’s affable introduction to every episode that keeps his audience hooked (a rough reproduction would sound something like: “From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This. Is. – dramatic pause – The Daily.”). It could be how he encourages banter with his guests, for example, Barbaro playfully began his interview  with the Times’ chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse with, “I am rudely distracting you from what I imagine is a well-earned cocktail.” But above all, what keeps everyone listening is Barbaro’s unwavering allegiance to his audience.

Barbaro is also not afraid to ask simple, foundational questions like, “So where exactly is Mosul?” or “What exactly does the Justice Department do?” Some podcast hosts may be embarrassed to ask questions that may be common knowledge, but Barbaro’s Everyman style allows him to act as “an advocate for the listener.” Without projecting a know-it-all attitude, Barbaro creates a relationship with his listeners that helps them feel comfortable wherever they are in their own understanding of the world and its current events.

Understanding the different facets of current events requires knowledge of complex political ideologies, international relations and public policy, all of which “The Daily” explains in layman’s terms. As executive producer Lisa Tobin puts it, “‘The Daily’ is about explaining something you’ve always wished someone would explain to you.”

Learning about current events is an invaluable habit to develop both personally and professionally. Staying up to date on breaking news and current events makes us all well-rounded and capable of developing an informed opinion about politics and social issues.

Unfortunately, a significant percentage of U.S. citizens are not committed to making current events a priority. In fact, according to Pew Research, only 22 percent of Americans are “eager and willing” seekers of information and have a strong interest in learning and the news.

As alarming as this statistic may be, it is not surprising. With work, family and a social life life to balance, it is easy to fall out of touch with current events. It takes time and effort to keep up with what’s going on, and even more effort to effectively understand it all. Once staying current on news or other key issues gets shoved to the back burner, it most likely remains there.

Since PR professionals typically represent clients across a wide range of industries, it’s imperative that we be well informed about the business, industry and technology trends being shaped by current events.

For example, the Communiqué PR team recently had an editorial brainstorming session for one of our clients, WGU Washington. The ideas we came up with were based on recent technological advancements including artificial intelligence and how it would affect the job market. Because the team possessed a broad knowledge across several industries, we were able to speculate how these advancements would impact our client’s target audiences, and offer some timely, relevant pitch suggestions.

Not only also does a regular news habit keep PR pros up-to-date with breaking world events, it can provide insight into the elements that journalists need to tell a compelling story for their audience, as well as the language and style they use. This can help PR and communications pros tailor their pitches and writing styles accordingly for different reporters and publications, and ultimately become more effective and successful in their careers.

The importance of understanding current events is irrefutable. To get a jumpstart on your continued learning effort, check out “The Daily” on your next commute. You may be surprised at how quickly Michael Barbaro’s dreamy voice will launch you into podcast Happyland, all the while keeping you informed.

 

 

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