How Vanguard runs a decentralized, in-house social media team

How is your social media team structured?

At Vanguard, marketing is decentralized and social media is embedded within business lines.

Allen Plummer is on Vanguard’s institutional marketing team. He’s responsible for marketing in its business-to-business efforts, including addressing corporations, pensions, 401(k) plans and small-business owners.

Social media at Vanguard has always been in-house, Allen says, for two reasons: the regulated nature of their business and the need to control content. From a compliance standpoint, they have to audit and get legal approval of everything to be published. Creating content in-house gives them more control over their brand image and monitoring across any channel, he says.

Allen works with a team of seven: two writers, two editors, one designer and two channel managers. They all run Vanguard’s institutional presence across Twitter, LinkedIn and its blog.

“It’s really hard to make the case for headcount, so more and more marketing teams are learning to do more with less,” he says.

For Allen, that means pulling from the creative talent that’s already within the company. A lot of his team’s primary responsibilities are in advertising, print and the Web. Social media is just part of each team member’s job.

When he brought them on, he says, he wasn’t looking only for good content creators. Allen sought team members with a passion for social media, too.

“When you’re bringing content in-house, you can teach a talented writer to write tweets. What you can’t teach is that interest or desire to learn social media. One common factor we have is the idea of being innovative, being interested in the space, loving to learn and being really tech savvy.”

Want to get your employees involved and active online? Download our free guide: 6 steps to crafting an internal social media plan.

Although they’re decentralized, it helps that Allen’s team members sit close to one another. They have weekly in-person content meetings to go channel by channel and discuss content quality, themes and balance. They also have a daily, 30-minute standing huddle to handle urgent situations; they cancel it when it’s not needed.

He says these meetings and having a group email address help his team stay agile. They’re also prepared to cover for one another if someone’s out.

Allen says, “You can make it work in a small team, but you have to be prepared with a contingency plan” to take up the slack.

One winning feature of a decentralized team, he says, is the ability to make quick decisions independently. As the social media team’s leader, Allen serves as editor in chief. He doesn’t want his approval process to create a bottleneck nor slow the team down when he’s gone.

“A measure of success for me is a team that can handle social [media] on their own and doesn’t depend on me to make every single decision,” he says. “Fortunately, we’ve got great folks who do that, and everyone truly feels ownership over their work. I love seeing our team evolve and seeing their instincts and skills in social [media] grow.”

A version of this article first appeared on SocialMedia.org.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1itvvzj via video game production companies
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1jZ21v2

5 steps to creating a useful media contacts list

In the PR business, it’s all about whom you know. Like most PR pros, you probably have a modern day Rolodex (a spreadsheet) of your strongest contacts—the reporters, bloggers and influencers you’ve been working with for years.

Layered on top of that is a list of folks you’ve probably pitched many times, maybe interacted with a little, but they aren’t the ones who will pick up the phone when you call.

After that are the rest—the tens of thousands of influencers you’ve never met, but should forge a connection with for that new client, new story or new role.

With so many moving parts and so many reporters, bloggers, analysts and other influencers to reach, building a killer contact list for every campaign can be a full-time job in and of itself.

Thank goodness for interns, right? Get real.

The interns don’t know that Ronnie Reporter hates email subject lines and will do anything for a cronut. They don’t know that you and Betsy Blogger bonded over dirty martinis in ’04.

No, you can’t leave this job to the intern. What is a PR pro to do when it comes time to build a media list?

For quick results, a lot of pros go straight to a media contact database and pull a list using search terms. No one reading this is flacky enough to blast that media list with a single, automated pitch so we won’t go there.

[RELATED: Top journalists get 100+ pitches per day. Learn how to make yours shine through.]

But once you have the list, do you stop there? Negative.

Now is when the real work begins.

Building a great media list should take as much care and strategy as you’d apply to anything else in your job. Let’s go through some proven tactics to help you manage your reporter and blogger relationships the right way.

1. Value quality over quantity

The old idea that any publicity is good publicity is woefully outdated. Pitching as many people as possible—even one-on-one pitching—does not lead to mass quality coverage.

What it leads to is wasted time and potentially burning relationships with valuable contacts.

Make sure everyone on your media list not only could care about your story, but shouldcare about your story. This means doing your research.

Reporters move around a lot, so make sure each and every contact on the list still covers the beat listed in the database or spreadsheet you pulled them from.

For that matter, make sure they are still at that media outlet. Read their most recent articles and social media posts. Find the connection between what they’re writing about and the story you want to pitch.

In other words, don’t be lazy.

It’s vital to explain this to your clients, or boss if you’re internal, so they understand the importance of securing good coverage versus any coverage.

2. Check out your competitors

Hey, they’re probably doing the same thing.

Taking a look at your competitors’ media coverage is a great way to identify influencers who cover the same industry or topics you’re looking to pitch.

3. Ask before you add

It’s amazing how much a little respect and consideration can soften even a cynical reporter.

Seek high-level influencers you’d like to reach out to someday and ask if you can add them to your list for your company or client who is in the beat they cover.

It’s the difference between being just another PR flack filling their inbox and being a considerate resource.

4. Take the time to make personal connections

I believe PR is the original growth hack, and I also believe the key to frequent, high quality wins lies in the power of the relationships. You can’t automate that.

There are certain influencers who will appear on your media lists repeatedly. Pay attention to these folks.

If you are in the same city, ask for an in-person meeting just to get to know them and their pitching preferences. If you are not in their city, ask for 10 minutes on the phone to find out how you can become a valuable resource.

Trade shows and events are a great place to connect with journalists, bloggers and influencers. Coffee is good. Booze is better.

This is about establishing relationships, not giving them a hard sell, so take it easy and focus on finding out how you can help them in the long term.

The effort will pay you back in spades.

5. Stay informed about who covers your topics of interest

Don’t wait until you’re about to start pitching down the list to read up on what these media contacts are writing. It should be part of your daily or weekly routine to follow the reporters and bloggers who matter most to your company or clients.

It’s the easiest way to get into their world, and you’ll be pleased to find that opportunities to connect have a way of organically emerging when you stay in the know.

It’s also a great way to show media contacts that you didn’t just pluck their name from an enormous database, but that you’re someone who actively follows their work. It won’t hurt to engage a little on social media and comment on their posts.

Media relations: It’s not the easiest game in PR town, but it’s definitely the most worthwhile when you manage it right.

Use the right tools, build a great media list and you’ll find the relationships turn into PR gold.

Aly Saxe is the founder and CEO of Iris, software for agencies and in-house PR teams. She founded Ubiquity Public Relations, an agency representing high-growth B2B tech startups, in 2007. A version of this article originally appeared on Spin Sucks.

(Image via)

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1RE4nK2 via video game production companies
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1GQ04La

11 tips for designing and distributing top-notch infographics

Reaching a target audience is never guaranteed. With the right team and solid best practices, however, you can get to where you want to be.

Those best practices start with infographic design and end with distribution.

To entice, inform, entertain and impact your target audience, it’s up to you to design well and keep that audience in mind. You can’t overlook the little things (colors, fonts, etc.), or be blind to the big things (proper infographic design styles for target demographics and publications).

Keep these best practices on hand the next time you design an infographic:

1. Know whom you’re designing for.

Before you do anything, ask yourself the following types of questions: Who is the target audience? Are they allergic to certain colors?

Ask these questions up front, because blanketing your decisions with broad generalizations rarely works.

You’re creating art for your audience. A tech company’s infographic will probably look different from one for a cosmetics blog. Make design choices according to the infographic’s purpose, not because you “have been really into lucite green lately” or you “just wanted to show the world that geometric shapes can define our souls.”

2. Watch your spacing.

People often forget that consistent spacing is important. Grids and baselines ensure viewers look at and internalize each component of your infographic. No one wants their audience to think, “What the heck is happening here?”

It’s not just designers who will notice poor spacing. Even your mouthy grandmother who thinks paisley is still in style will ask, “Why is this thing up here when that thing is there? And why aren’t you married yet? Are you saving for a house?”

Aligning design elements isn’t hard, people. (And Grandma, I’ll get there when I’m ready.)

3. Use clear, logical fonts.

Don’t go wild with fonts. I don’t care how tempting or fun it is. Your infographic will look like a ransom note.

Limit yourself to one or two font families and as few font styles as possible, or you’ll risk terrible viewer reactions. Bad typeface design stands out immediately—within 300 milliseconds of looking at it—and the brain is usually unable to remember what it read after another 300 milliseconds. (As typographer Stephen Coles said, “You can’t be a good typographer if you aren’t a good reader.”)

Your goal isn’t to showboat that you used the Harry Potter, “The Godfather” and “Tron” fonts in some terrible new genre mashup. Subtle changes in font size, weight, color, letter case and other decorations can help differentiate content and make elements stand out. Your goal is to help the reader identify headers, body copy and captions. You’re a guide—not a clown.*

* If you are a clown, please pardon my rudeness. I shouldn’t have made a generalization. That was rule No. 1. (Really, go back and check.) I remain respectful of, and fascinated by, your lifestyle. How you ended up in this article is beyond me.

4. Consider who will see your infographic-and where.

“People” isn’t a target demographic. It’s the answer you’d get from someone who has never considered his intended audience. If someone asked you to design clothes for “some person” without any other details, you’d have no idea where to start. Designing anything well requires details, and the Internet certainly isn’t one-size-fits-all.

To stand out in the chaos of the digital world, think about all the places where your infographic might appear, and consider these questions:

• What’s the biggest image size the blog, landing page or microsite will allow?
• Because Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest display different image dimensions, should you truncate your information to focus on one or two main points?
• Will someone print your infographic? If so, that changes the color and resolution game. Use RGB for Web; CMYK for print. Ideal resolutions are 72dpi for Web, 150dpi for retina screens and 300dpi for print.

Now you’re ready to start creating your infographic.

5. Pick the appropriate data visualization.

Let the information be your guide. Determine the data visualization type that’s most sensible and effective. Bar charts don’t make sense with standalone statistics, and choosing a pie chart to illustrate 20 percentages will make you look insane.

[RELATED: Discover how to harness the power of images at this visual communications and infographics conference.]

Make the information clear for the reader. Assume the reader is interested in your information, but not a data scientist.

6. Be aware of colors and values.

It doesn’t matter what your favorite colors are. Can you read the text against the background? Do the two categories in the legend contrast strongly enough to show a difference? Are the patterns and colors in the charts interesting, yet effective?

If you have trouble reading or deciphering anything, assume your readers will, too. Ignoring these design elements early on only causes you trouble and more work down the road. Design with integrity.

7. Optimize your infographic’s landing page for sharing.

People sweep this tip under the rug too often. Your infographic should live on your publishing platform (e.g., your blog), and be ready for you to show off.

You need sharing buttons to make it easy for online readers to share your infographic across social media channels. Remember that viewers will need some context, but not a lecture. (Nearly all respondents to a Demand Gen Report survey—95 percent—said they preferred shorter content.) To give viewers what they need, include a two- or three-sentence introduction featuring SEO keywords and a clear call to action.

8. Break your infographic into snackable pieces for social-media sharing.

Breaking up your infographic into smaller images extends its lifespan. Think of these snippets as good vampires—like Count von Count from “Sesame Street"—living forever and amping up your numbers.

When you make your content easy to consume and share, your traffic will soar.

9. Use paid social media promotion tactics.

Organic traffic is awesome, but it’s often the outcome of at least some intentional outreach. With ever-changing social media algorithms, it’s increasingly likely that your content will get lost.

That’s why paid promotion is evolving into a standard practice, with advertisers in the United States and Canada ramping up paid spending on social networks by 31 percent this year alone. Adding paid amplification to your posts will give them the boost they need to attract eyeballs.

To help make that happen, use images and determine the most relevant channel(s) on which to promote your work.

10. Share the infographic with publications that cover related content.

If your infographic is about a cutting-edge app that mails you a pizza when you’re sad and lonely, don’t pitch it to Highlights, the magazine for kids. Contact publications and journalists who post content similar to your infographic’s topic. Offering editorial content provides reporters with valuable visual assets for their posts and gives you greater visibility.

Keep your interactions friendly to build long-term relationships. Try to get reporters to anticipate your emails or seek you out for their future content needs.

11. Leverage all relevant owned channels.

Because this isn’t the "Mad Men” era, you don’t have to rely on advertising to promote your infographic (and you can’t day drink on a Wednesday).

You own media channels. You have an email newsletter, a blog and probably dozens of social media accounts. Besides, you have internal company feeds and employees with social media accounts. (Don’t underestimate employee advocacy. Leads developed through employee social media marketing convert seven times more frequently than other leads.)

With all those arms extending your digital reach, you’re like some beautiful, tentacled monster.

Now that you’re on your way to becoming a digital demigod, go forth and be the good you wish to see in the infographic world. These key moves will help you design well and distribute far.

Jake Kilroy is a copywriter for Column Five, an infographic design agency. A version of this article originally appeared on the Column Five blog.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1M5LEag via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1PZGDll

4 ways digital does it better

Digital communication enables you to:

1. Launch big ideas without big bucks: Connect with your entire organization, in-office and remote employees, by using budget-friendly digital storytelling practices.

2. Keep content fresh: Share visuals, videos and copy in real time to keep your employees engaged and updated.

3. Stay on task: Develop your digital signage to solve many fundamental communications problems.

4. Boost efficiency: Use crowdsourcing and mobile apps keep your employees connected and productive without chaining them to a desk.

Is your digital communications strategy keeping up? If not, learn best practices at the Digital Communications that Motivate Employees to Achieve Company Goals conference in Las Vegas, March 15-17. Experts from U-Haul, Chevron and Blooming Brands/Outback Steakhouse will share practical tips that you can use immediately.

Re-charge your employees and your digital strategy for more powerful communications.

Register here.

(Image via)

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1WnYfa7 via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1jWLjwa

11 motivators for your Web video strategy

Videos have gone from being part of the plan to being the plan.

Consumer popularity, ad spending, quality—all of it is going up. Video isn’t just here to stay; it’s still growing.

Video is the type-O blood of content production; it goes with everything. The bottom line is: You need an online video strategy. Here’s why:

Videos are in demand.

Client interest in video has grown roughly 89 percent in the last three years, and nearly three in four agencies (72 percent) say online video ads are at least as effective as television.

It doesn’t make sense for you not to make videos right now.

Videos are personal.

With more components than even the most pretentious cup of coffee, online video is a collage of what defines you. Between the script, voiceover, music, visuals and colors, you can personalize each element in a way that’s vibrant and authentic to your message.

Videos are perfect for the mobile market.

Advertising continues to gain ground through mobile devices. Smartphone users are more likely to watch ads and branded content, and they’re more likely to talk about it. Video ads are ideal; they’re quick, cool and easy to watch in one sitting, potentially with others.

Which ad category do you expect will have the largest overall increase in digital media spending this year?

Videos are insanely shareable.

When it comes to our friends’ interests, social media sharing is practically a game of roulette. Even if you share an article with a headline like “This Article Is Literally the Only Thing That Will Keep You Alive Tomorrow,” you’re still likely to get only 50 percent engagement tops.

Video’s different; it’s one of the most shareable content forms out there. By the time you can text your friends to ask whether they saw the video you posted, they’ve probably already watched, shared and re-watched it.

Videos are emotional.

With video, you’re not giving viewers only knowledge; you’re giving them an experience. Video can kick open the saloon doors of your heart and drag your outlaw emotions out and parade them around. It’s why you’ve spent your whole life crying over sports movies and working on your slowest clap ever. You don’t have to be the Prince of online videos to shred some heartstrings. The music/visual combination is lethal to the fragile emotions of men and women everywhere.

Videos are universal.

Any culture can understand the combination of visuals and music. Subtitles might be necessary for any direct messaging from one country’s audience to another, but that’s a small fix that gains a large audience. Sometimes, you don’t even need them. After all, did you understand a single word of Psy’s “Gangnam Style” video? Probably not. Still, it became YouTube’s most-watched video.

Videos are easy-to-digest summaries.

Remember, you’re in the video ad business. Whether you’re shooting for high-level concepts at their most accessible or explaining a minute part of the concept in straightforward detail, your videos should typically be less than two minutes long. They should be short, stylish and intriguing.

Videos contain strong calls to action.

Not to say that print or downloadable goods lack great calls to action, but video is a less challenging medium for conveying it. Not including a full-screen call to action at the end of a video would seem strange and incomplete. Audiences have just come to expect it.

Videos drive decisions.

Videos are engaging, and they lead to serious moments of consideration. Online users spend 88 percent more time on websites that feature videos, and 73 percent of Internet users say they’re more likely to purchase a product or service because of video.

Videos are reusable.

Treat video strategy like a cocktail dress—not a wedding dress. Get out of the mindset of, “Oh, it served its purpose, so I’ll just stash it next to the home videos I’ll never watch again.” Instead, you can reuse videos over and over. Relevant article? Drop in a video. Timely story? Post that video back in your social feed.

Videos are only going to get more popular.

We aren’t talking short-lived fascination here. Last year, consumer Internet video traffic accounted for nearly two-thirds of all consumer Internet traffic. In 2019, it will reach 80 percent. It’s why 64 percent of marketers expect video will dominate their strategies in the near future. After all, YouTube has more than 1 billion unique visitors each month—and that’s just one channel.

Jake Kilroy is a copywriter for Column Five, an infographic design agency. A version of this article first appeared on the Column Five blog.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1KJgZu1 via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1KJiubL

5 key skills for curating terrific content

Tens of millions of pieces of content are shared each day, reinforcing the notion that content is king and distribution is queen.

However, in the attention economy, getting your content noticed is what makes you belle of the ball.

As marketers are challenged to furnish steady streams of engaging ideas, curating others’ content is essential. Nevertheless, curation merely shifts the challenge to “How do I identify and curate valuable content?”

I recently read “Non-Obvious: How to Think Different, Curate Ideas and Predict the Future,” by Rohit Bhargava. He presents a framework for identifying non-obvious trends, homing in on five crucial skills for marketing professionals:

1. Be curious.
2. Be observant.
3. Be “fickle.”
4. Be thoughtful.
5. Be elegant.

Here’s how to apply those skills so your curated content rises above the rest:

1. Be curious: Learn something new about your target audience.

To break out of ruts and conquer tunnel vis­ion, we need greater curiosity, Bhargava says.

Specific application: Update your targeted demographics. Have they stagnated? Are you focusing on the same needs and issues? Consulting the same sources?

Identify your audience members’ common interests, values and beliefs beyond those directly related to your interest in them, so you can expand the scope of content topics and sources that will attract your customers’ attention.

For example, a company offering high-end fashion may want to curate content on other topics that touch their audience’s interests and values—travel, say, or the psychology of extroverts.

Download the free white paper, “Creating a Consistent Message,” to discover how to keep your organization’s message and voice on track across all your internal communications platforms.

Particular value: Brand awareness stage. Curating a topic that’s fascinating to your market, but not directly related to your product or service, increases your odds of getting noticed by the right sorts of people.

Content discovery tools, such as drumUp, Klout, and Prismatic, mine the people you follow by using keywords, so you can see exactly what’s capturing their interest.

2. Be observant: ‘See what others miss.’

Being observant, as Bhargava explains it, is to “see what others miss; notice the small details that others don’t find significant.” Cultivating this skill helps you uncover underserved areas where your curation can distinguish your organization from its competitors.

Specific application: Get more specific about what turns a lead into a customer.

• Where are the knowledge gaps?
• What are some unacknowledged challenges?
• What questions must B2B prospects answer internally to justify a purchase?

Particular value: During the evaluation and decision-making stages.

Talk with sales reps, customer service reps and current customers to ferret out these undiscovered details. Listen to what end users, not just decision makers, have to say.

Being observant affords you your greatest opportunity for curating original themes and topics.

3. Be fickle: Respect the slow burn as well as the spark.

We need patience to find the nonobvious—which is where the skill of being “fickle” comes in—says Bhargava, who redefines being fickle as “capturing ideas without needing to fully understand or analyze them in that same moment.”

Specific applications:

• Don’t dismiss the outlier ideas and feedback you uncover. Outliers may be the tip of an unaddressed issue that’s worth exploring and can afford you the chance to offer your audience something fresh.
• Follow new sites and blogs that your audience members like, even if you don’t see something valuable to share right away.

Continually clip and note articles or reports that strike you as interesting, even if you can’t yet clarify why. Evernote and Trello are popular tools; I’m a fan of Zotero.

Set aside time to review your clippings and notes. Are any connections sparking? Even if you don’t see one immediately, listen to your gut if it’s urging you to keep that piece around.

4. Be thoughtful: It sets curation apart.

“[The] curator is the imparter of value,” Bhargava says. Your singular insights and expertise augment your curated content.

Being thoughtful establishes authority and trust with your audience; it adds genuine value, not generic commentary. Offer these enhancements:

• Provide context with new statistics or anecdotes from your experience.
• Develop or support a point or theme that increases the piece’s relevance for your specific audience.
• Share action tips so your audience can use the new information.

Specific application: Everywhere. You’re not curating if you’re not being thoughtful.

5. Be elegant: Style supports substance.

Being elegant is about “developing your ability to describe a concept in a beautiful and simple way for easy understanding,” Bhargava writes.

Such elegance enhances your ability to communicate your insights and analysis. It applies regardless of your brand identity and voice, whether you’re working for a global telecomm company or a local micro-brewery.

Specific application:

• Clean writing
• Images that attract attention and reinforce or amplify your message
• Presentation formats that keep people engaged

New curation tools let you move beyond a post or report. If you want to package and deliver multiple pieces of content together, Roojoom (a client of mine) is a great option, helping you add your insights, expertise and call(s) to action to each bit of content.

Your curation is only as valuable as your sources and insights. Use these five skills to discover others’ creativity that you can curate in your own, original way.

A version of this article first appeared on MarketingProfs.

(Image via)


from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1inUEvf via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/20etb1r

Study: Brand newsrooms are 'overhyped'

Your brand newsroom may grab press in industry publications, but is it really effective?

In a new study, chief marketing officers say that it’s probably not.

PR Council recently released a report and said that about half of executive marketers ranked real-time advertising and brand newsrooms as the most “overhyped” approaches to marketing.

Check out the list below:

Looking for an approach that’s not puffed up? You’ll have to create a truly integrated marketing approach through PR, advertising, digital marketing, social media and mobile strategies. It’s a piece of cake—right?

Not quite. Nearly all CMOs think marketing should lead the way in crafting a brand’s narrative, and more than 90 percent also think marketers should control brand journalism and social media efforts.

Download the free white paper, “How to be a brand journalist,” to learn how to tell your organization’s compelling stories.

More than 70 percent say working with influential bloggers and people on social media, as well as community management, should be led by a marketing team. What’s left for PR pros to manage? Respondents said media relations, interactions with investors and analysts, executive coaching and crisis management.

With these perceptions, it might be tough for PR pros to successfully implement an integrated marketing approach in their brand newsrooms.

Check out The Holmes Report for more on the study.

(Image via)

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1M0gopP via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1inzsWh

The 9 things that matter more to employers than grades

A friend who works with the alumni association at my alma mater asked an interesting question on Twitter.

Listening to students worry about their GPA, does it really matter what it is?Is that an accurate summary of how you’ll be as an employee

— Tim Bograkos (@timbograkos) April 27, 2011

The tweets poured in, and the overwhelming sentiment was that college GPA matters very little in professional success.

Grades are the determining factor for performance in school. But in the professional world, that’s not how it works. Your bosses won’t tell you which questions will be on the test.

Your college GPA is a combination of several factors but isn’t really the best indicator of how you’ll perform in the working world. We all know that person with perfect grades who struggles socially or that person who couldn’t care less about school but seems to have no trouble making great things happen in their life. Book smarts and street smarts are very different things.

Take your classes seriously. Do the work. Show up and learn something. Meet your professors. But I’m here to tell you, the GPA you achieve in college doesn’t matter.

Here’s what does:

1. Knowing how you learn

Spend time during college determining how you best learn and retain information. Some people need to see it, some need to hear it, some need to write it, and some need to practice it before it sticks. As an employee, you’ll need to learn new things as you go, remember them, and prove you’ve absorbed the information.

2. Applying theory to real-life situations

It’s one thing to recite the 4 P’s of marketing or learn how the purchase decision funnel looks on paper, but things won’t always happen in the marketplace the way they do in your textbooks. Learn how to take fundamental information and proven best practices and apply them in new situations or projects. The real world will always throw new variables at you, so knowing how to adapt theory to practice is crucial.

3. Time management

Learn how much time you need to research and write a paper, get to your classes and jobs on time, fit a workout in your day, and still have something of a social life. Time management is a vital skill. In your professional life, you’ll need to know how to manage your time to meet deadlines, tackle to-do lists, and avoid banging your head against the wall in the process.

4. Relevant professional experience

Jobs, internships, student organizations, and volunteer projects in your industry will prepare you best for the working world. Do as much as you can to work in your field during college and learn about what you want to do (or in same cases, what you don’t want to do). Your future employer will take your experience as the absolute best indicator for your potential in a new position.

5. A portfolio proving you can produce work

Keep samples of your best work from classes and internships. Many employers will want to see your work before hiring you. If you’re not building a portfolio through things you’re required to do before you graduate, then produce these things on your own time. Practice writing articles, press releases, pitches, designing publications, compiling clip reports, research summaries, or anything else you might be hired to do. Practice is important.

6. The ability to give and receive feedback

Learning to accept praise and criticism is incredibly important. You’ll participate in employee reviews with your boss someday, so the ability to hear different types of feedback, internalize it, and adjust accordingly will matter to your job performance.

It’s also important to learn to how to give feedback to others. When you collaborate with colleagues, you’ll have to offer positive and negative comments on others’ work.

7. Presentation skills

Offer to be the speaker on behalf of your group in your classes, and learn how to present your projects as an intern. The ability to convey ideas clearly, speak confidently with your bosses, and discuss your experience in interviews will be an important part of your professional life.

8. Writing skills

It’s sad how many students leave college lacking solid writing ability. Focus on developing this skill, because it will matter in everything from reports to pitches to emails. You don’t have to become a blogger, but finding places to practice writing content and have it edited will really help improve your skills.

Download this free white paper to discover 10 ways to improve your writing today.

9. Your network

You’ve heard it many times: “Who you know is more important than what you know.” It’s true. (It’s what you need and who you know.) Start building your network right away. Get in the habit of meeting new people, nourishing your relationships, and helping others by making introductions. You are most likely to find job opportunities through your network. Build it!

What else matters more for students than GPA? Or am I wrong? Is GPA more important than I’ve made it out to be?

A version of this story originally appeared on Becky Johns’s blog.

(Image via)

This story first appeared on Ragan.com in November 2011.


from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1LEnli9 via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1RgeGUT

Hillary Clinton brushes off Republican candidates during debate

Winning a primary debate online has become just as important as—if not more than—what happens on stage.

CNBC tracked the number of new followers each Republican candidate received, along with their mentions on Twitter, during Wednesday night’s debate. Reporters Nicholas Wells, Eric Chemi and Mark Fahey explained the power of winning with the social media crowd:

For example, in the September GOP debate, we saw Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson gain the most followers during the debate itself — 22,000 each. The next post-debate polls then showed both of them gaining the most among likely Republican voters.

CNBC also posted a chart showing which candidate came out on top:

Though Ted Cruz was mentioned more than 4,800 times in one minute after he made a statement on media bias, and Mark Rubio grabbed more than 3,600 mentions the two minutes after he accused reporters of being “a Super PAC for Democrats,” the clear social media winner wasn’t present on stage.

[RELATED: Elevate your social media game and learn best practices at our Disney World summit.]

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and her social media team tweeted campaign messages throughout the debate, along with live-texting supporters:

Over here getting texts from my girl Hillary. She’s LOLing about this debate. #Hillary2016 http://pic.twitter.com/SUvtdvzmAz

— maggie (@not_excited) October 29, 2015

After several Republican candidates threw barbs at Clinton—Carly Fiorina described herself as Clinton’s “worst nightmare”—the team shot back with a sassy visual tweet:

#GOPdebate http://pic.twitter.com/rBT90JvCmM

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 29, 2015

Twitter users’ responses were largely positive. The tweet has more than 10,000 retweets and 12,000 favorites, and many congratulated Clinton for her timing and humor:

@HillaryClinton social team should buy themselves a drink for this one 👏

— Matt Medved (@mattmedved) October 29, 2015

Well played. RT @HillaryClinton #GOPdebate http://pic.twitter.com/zdDQS6JQyZ

— Carvin’ Pumpkins (@acarvin) October 29, 2015

@HillaryClinton @ctchiappone that is awesome Madame Secretary. No problem with these grunts LOL you could probably debate them in your sleep

— Paul-V-Nikolai (@paul_viktor91) October 29, 2015

@HillaryClinton This is why I love Twitter! #TeamHillary #HILLARY2016

— All Bass, No Treble (@tiffmc1013) October 29, 2015

However, several Twitter users took the opportunity to slam the presidential candidate for the move, and some said using a meme from her Benghazi hearings was inappropriate.

@HillaryClinton I look forward to retweeting this when you lose on election night 2016.

— Jonathan Keller (@jonathankeller) October 29, 2015

@HillaryClinton your social media manager obviously has zero class. And I’m a #Democrat. #sad #childish

— Rosanna M Ortiz (@RosannaOSinel) October 29, 2015

@HillaryClinton @flipcritic http://pic.twitter.com/0z6oy8x8YN

— BATMAN (@Batmancanseeyou) October 29, 2015

What do you think, PR Daily readers: What do you think about tweeting a meme in light of the situation? Is there ever an instance when you’d advise a client to respond in such a manner? What would that be?

(Image via)

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1WkQ1Qj via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1XBt51r

We are waiting for your submission for the 2015 Employee Communications Awards

 

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1Sb1gKl via video company

from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1Gyr6qO

Get social with Disney

It doesn’t take magic to stay on top of all the new features and social channels. All you need is three days, one focused track and practical tips from inspiring experts.

A little magic is just a bonus.

Get it all, including the magic, at the Social Media Conference for PR, Marketing and Corporate Communications at Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, on March 9-11, 2016.

Special offer: Sign up before Dec. 31 and save $200!

Join the experts from Southwest, Microsoft, AARP, and Disney in one of three curated tracks to hear practical ideas you can put into action—and see results immediately.

Social Media Strategies for PR & Marketing

• Use three proven tips to increase Facebook engagement and interaction.

• Create videos that work on all platforms, with just a shoestring budget and a smartphone.

• Relate to customers by sharing stories that explain what your product or service can do for them.

Social Media Strategies for Internal Communications

• Determine which software platform fits your needs and will engage employees.

• Build a social intranet that increases collaboration and boosts companywide productivity.

• Develop a clear social media plan to avoid online conflict.

What’s Next on Social Media Platforms

• Attract a wider audience with contests, advertising, polls and boosted posts.

• Create compelling tweets and share-worthy images with chats and hashtags.

• Develop a social strategy that integrates an array of platforms to optimize reach and engagement.

Be inspired by what’s possible. Discover the latest trends, and achieve social media success.

Register here and save $200.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1ikqSYv via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1MjXfOE

Why your CEO should be tweeting every day

Looking for a way to get more trust in your brand, a lift in consumer engagement and an edge over your closest competitor?

The path toward all those goals may start behind the door with the “CEO” nameplate on it.

Many consumers have come to expect an executive presence on social media, particularly Twitter, as a means of accessing brands 24/7/365. To be fully effective, this presence must be separate from any marketing content but consistent with the message it contains.

For marketers, this means it’s time to drag your CEOs into Twitter Town, if they aren’t already there. We’ll explore the many benefits of executive involvement in social media and offer seven tweet templates to help your executives navigate the platform.

Executives establish a strong brand position

A recent survey by BrandFog revealed that when executives are active on social media, consumers develop a higher level of confidence in the company’s leadership.

A whopping 81 percent of the several hundred respondents felt that leaders who engage on social media are “better equipped to lead a company, communicate values and shape a company’s reputation in today’s changing world.”

As BrandFog’s study concisely points out, “The ROI of social media is that you now exist.”

Executives who are active on social media convey that they are invested in the companies that they run. Even if they’re secretly planning to jump ship, they appear committed and the company appears more stable.

This baseline of involvement becomes even more vital in times of crisis, when consumers and competitors alike often look to executives to see how to respond to difficulties.

If executives post for the very first time after their database has been hacked or there’s been a fire at their warehouse, any words of reassurance will ring hollow. If, however, they have an established social media persona, their commentary will seem far less biased and far more trustworthy.

Of course we hope that crisis management is one thing a CEO’s social media account is never used for, but there’s no way to create the presence amid turmoil. It has to be pre-established to be viable in a company’s moment of need.

From brand awareness to brand loyalty, one tweet at a time

A positive initial association and crisis management aren’t the only benefits of a tweeting CEO, however. Consumers routinely go beyond high-level brand awareness and become more likely to make a purchase from a company with socially active executives.

The same BrandFog study found the brand awareness established through executive visibility “builds greater trust, brand loyalty, and purchase intent.” When faced with the choice between a brand whose activities are front and center and whose messages are presented consistently and another brand that’s maintaining relative radio silence, consumers will nearly always pick the brand they know more about.

In a B2B situation, this becomes even more important. Business execs will look at every potential point of communication to make sure the leaders they’re signing on with have things well under control and will be around to maintain the partnership for the long term.

Why Twitter is a good starting point

There are lots of options for executive engagement on social media, but Twitter is a low-risk way to get started that also has a low entrance threshold.

You can grab a Twitter handle and start tweeting in a matter of minutes; there’s no potentially paralyzing need to fill out a full profile, as one might encounter on LinkedIn or Facebook.

Because handles come so easily, Twitter is also an easy place for executives to create a professional persona that they can differentiate from their personal social profiles. Even if they already have a personal Twitter handle, they can grab a branded version and not worry about overwhelming personal connections with corporate content.

Finally, the instant gratification of Twitter can give hesitant executives the quick wins they need to get on board with such a project. When they join a chat and get 50 new followers in an hour, they get a sense of accomplishment that takes a lot longer to achieve on Facebook or LinkedIn.

If you do encounter a lot of resistance to Twitter, you can start on another network first. You might also check out MarketerGizmo’s Tweet This, Not That guide, which can help you argue the benefits of Twitter for businesses.

Tweet templates for successful branding

So, the benefits are clear, and you want your CEO on Twitter. What you don’t want are executives who create more problems than they solve with wildly off-message retweets or inappropriate shared links.

To keep them on track (and out of your hair), give them these seven tweet templates they can rotate in and out. If they use one of these once per day during the week, these templates can represent two weeks’ worth of original tweets.

I recommend also including a list of appropriate hashtags that are relevant to your industry, product and brand and offer explicit guidelines on how many they should use in each tweet.

Tweet type: What I’m reading

Have a rabid content consumer in your executive suite? Have her tweet the contents of her bookshelf or RSS feed.

Sample content: Really enjoying an article from @author (or @website) [link]. #hashtag1 #hashtag2 #hashtag3

Real-life example:

Tweet type: Office culture

Offer about 100 characters on an exciting, fun or unusual office event. These should include @companyname and/or #companykeyword every time.

Sample content: Beautiful day for some gardening with @CompanyName. Pulling weeds for a good cause! #CharityName

Real-life example:

Tweet type: Conversation

These should be an authentic, in-the-moment back-and-forth with a follower, fellow executive or industry leader in response to a post or current event. Try to make them read like a text message, and remind your executive that these conversations can extend over multiple tweets.

Sample content: @fellowCEO - I’m dragging today too! Time for a caffeine infusion. #humpday

Real-life example:

Tweet Type: Event shout-out

These are an easy way to show your company’s involvement in your industry. Mentioning an event, Twitter chat, conference or other relevant happening that involves executives or employees works great. Don’t forget to include the appropriate hashtag and handles.

Sample content: @EmployeeName and @OtherEmployee - enjoy your time at #conference and bring back some new strategies! #marketing

Real-life example:

Tweet Type: Quote

Stumped for content to fill out your Twitter feed? Quotes can be great if not overused, particularly if your executives can mix their personal interests in with more business-centered topics for authenticity.

Sample content: Nobody can say it better: “This is a fantastic business quote.” - @PersonWhoSaidIt

Real-life example:

Tweet type: Self (and company) promotion

Keep these to a minimum, but don’t be afraid to talk about your product. It’s not called social media marketing for nothing.

Sample content: We just added a new product to our line! I’m like a proud parent! #companyname

Real-life example:

Tweet type: Images

Use sparingly so you don’t overwhelm your followers. Images can look great in a Twitter feed, but overusing them may get you unfollowed or muted. As far as content, these can fall into many of the other tweet types (office culture, quote, event shout-out, etc.).

Sample content:

Real-life example:

Filling up a Twitter feed while maintaining brand loyalty

A good Twitter feed isn’t all about the person who owns it. Be a good social citizen by sharing other people’s content more than your own. The easiest way to do this is to retweet liberally and often. Thank people who retweet and follow your executive accounts, too.

Some CEOs may do better if someone else does this part for them, so a shared social media scheduling software like Buffer or Hootsuite may be required.

You can also set up notifications to your social media marketing team when someone follows, mentions, retweets or favorites something on an executive Twitter account, if you need focused follow-ups and can’t rely on your executives to do it.

Brand loyalty and executive engagement start with training

Pairing up reluctant executives with experienced Twitter users is a great way to kick-start their presence on the network, and you can extend this system to other networks as well.

Cisco uses this kind of reverse mentoring, and one participant declared that, “EVERY executive should have a [practitioner] help mentor them. Most are fearful of not being considered an expert. Once the fear is gone, social media [is] a great tool for executives to use.”

The Altimeter report that produced the Cisco example above correctly emphasizes the need to keep executive involvement on social media focused on business goals and objectives. You also should make sure your mentors structure their training around the brand awareness, loyalty and positioning that each tweet helps produce.

Remember, “[a]n executive’s eyes will glaze over if you try to explain hashtags on Twitter, but they will pay rapt attention if you can demonstrate how Twitter can be used to turn a complaining customer into a company advocate. And they will pay even more attention if you can tailor the education around how social media can be used to achieve their specific goals and objectives.”

Andrea Fryrear is a content marketer for MarketerGizmo. A version of this article first appeared on Convince & Convert.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1XA7pmt via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1Sapip3

Infographic: Why your brain craves infographics

We live in an age of information overload.

We check our email as soon as we wake up. We listen to podcasts while we commute. We check Facebook on our lunch breaks and listen to music while we work. We watch TV during dinner and read articles or scroll through Instagram while we lie in bed trying to fall asleep.

All that doesn’t even include the pop-up ads, commercials, billboards and branded social media posts we’re exposed to.

People receive five times more information today than they did in 1986, and to keep up with the constant barrage of content (whether it’s self-inflicted or otherwise) we have to process information faster.

That’s why our brains crave infographics, an infographic from NeoMam Studios says. (I know, I know: How meta.) The visual format helps us understand information faster and more efficiently.

[RELATED: Discover how to harness the power of images at this visual communication and infographics conference.]

Here are some statistics that illustrate why infographics are appealing:

• People remember 80 percent of what they see, as opposed to 10 percent of what they hear and 20 percent of what they read.

• Color visuals increase people’s willingness to read by 80 percent.

• It takes only one-tenth of a second to understand a visual.

• In a study, 67 percent of people were persuaded by a presentation that included visuals. Only 50 percent were persuaded by a purely verbal presentation.

• Another study found that when people read a medicine label with text and pictures, their rate of understanding was a whopping 95 percent. Those who read a text-only label had a rate of 70 percent.

There’s more in the infographic below:

(View a larger image.)

​

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/20bkLrt via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1XA32bb

5 oft-misspelled idioms

Some idioms are confused in the speaking; others just in the spelling. The following idioms are usually pronounced correctly, but they are often misspelled in writing.

1. waiting with bated breath

The word bated in this expression is often misspelled “baited.” For example, “We’re waiting with baited breath to hear if Rosie O'Donnell is officially coming back to daytime screens.”

The word bated is from a shortening of the verb abate. “To bate” means “to reduce, to lessen in intensity.” The expression “bated breath” is the only survival of the word in modern English. Read more here.

2. lo and behold

People use this to mean something like “and then see what happened.” The idiom is frequently misspelled as “low and behold.” Lo is an old form of “look.” Read more here.

3. pore over

Not to be confused with the noun pore (an opening in the skin), the verb pore means, “to study or examine carefully.” In expressions like “pore over a book” and “pore over my taxes,” the word is often misspelled as pour (to transfer liquid). Read more here.

Download this free white paper to discover 10 ways to improve your writing today.

4. toe the line

This expression derives from the practice of lining up with one’s toe touching a line that has been drawn on the ground. Competitors line up to begin a race or some other competition. When everyone “toes the line” in this way, conformity has been achieved. In modern use, the expression occurs almost always in a political context with the meaning of “to conform to a political party’s platform.” It is often miswritten as “tow the line.” Read more here.

5. pique one’s interest/curiosity

The French borrowing pique means “to stimulate.” The word is sometimes misspelled as peek and peak. Here are some examples, one of them from a site that offers marketing advice:

“It was that statement that peeked my interest in acting,” says Loretta.

Lingerie styles, construction, and cultures have always peeked my curiosity.

Udemy has really peaked my interest.

Headlines That Will Have Peaked My Curiosity

A version of this article first appeared on DailyWritingTips.com.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1O8yXOj via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1N9veOZ

From the debates, 10 takeaways about body language

The presidential debates have been a feast for body language fans.

As a political junkie, I’ve been following them avidly and commenting on them for CNN, Forbes, and Business Insider. In the first 10 hours of debate time there were plenty of hits and misses.

Following are my 10 lessons for anyone trying to succeed in this high-stakes game—or in the business world, where attitude and demeanor are crucial:

10. Trump is a game-changer. Whether you love him or hate him, Donald Trump has changed the political world—at least for now. The first Republican debate, on Fox, saw him sucking all the air out of the room with his outsized personality, his alpha-male dominance and his mugging for the camera when he wasn’t speaking. He got more air time than anyone else talking, and if you add up the times the camera cut away to his facial histrionics, the rest of the candidates hardly showed up in Round One.

Will his new politics of outrageous statements, emotional outbursts and happy slaughtering of previously sacred cows work in the long run? We don’t know yet, but the political pundits have started to shift and are opening up to the possibility that it just might work.

What is the message to all the other politicians in the fight?

9. Candidates need to learn to be “authentic” fast—or die. I put authentic in quotes, because it’s not possible to know the real truth of Trump’s opinions. Is he really such a misogynist? Does he really hate Mexicans? I have no idea, but he’s convincing when he says so—meaning there’s no apparent conflict between body language and content. If he’s pretending, he’s a good enough actor to pull it off.

With his blunt opinions, Trump changes the game for everyone. If you can’t find something to be “authentic” about, you simply have no chance in this election cycle. The traditional political instinct to make nice, avoid alienating people and make only a few strategic enemies looks too calculating next to Trump’s broadsides.

The political pros who don’t know how to play this new game of emotional openness are quickly dropping by the wayside.

8. There’s no longer room for a Jimmy Stewart. Lincoln Chafee might be the last example we will see of a genuinely nice guy offered up on the altar of strong, negative opinions—and look how long his campaign survived.

In this election cycle, nice is not going to cut it. Anger is practically equated with honesty. Did you notice that a good deal of Hillary Clinton’s debate kudos came from her several moments of “authentic” anger?

There’s an interesting discrepancy between Americans’ call for an end to the dysfunction in Washington and the fact that the only candidates doing well are polarizing figures. If we carry that logic to its inevitable conclusion, ladies and gentlemen, we will increase, not decrease, the divisions long after the campaign is over.

7. There is room for toughness. The candidates who so far have done well for themselves have displayed varying forms of toughness. Trump, Carly Fiorina, Clinton, Bernie Sanders—they’ve all passed the test by standing up to real or imaginary bullies. Ben Carson is an interesting exception—his first debate performance approached near-invisibility, but he has survived and continues to appeal with his Trump-like “authenticity.”

6. Openness is the body language secret weapon. I work with clients to help them open up their body language. It’s difficult to do even in front of an audience that wants you to succeed. Imagine how hard it is before an audience with many wanting you to self-immolate.

The real body language differentiator for the successful candidates so far has been openness of their facial and hand gestures, but especially their hands. Once again, Trump has practically patented the open-arm, upturned-palm, “so sue me” gesture that says, what you see is what you get.

Sanders is not far behind, yelling at the audience about income inequality with his hands flailing on either side of his body, open like some sort of cranky grandpa who no longer cares what anyone thinks.

Incidentally, in body language terms, the lack of openness was what obliterated Scott Walker. His gestures never rose above the typical politician's—self-protecting and self-serving.

5. Trump is the first real television candidate, not Kennedy. The received wisdom in the pundit world is that candidate John F. Kennedy projected his brand of cool, making Richard Nixon look shifty and ill-shaven by comparison, and using the relatively new medium of television to win with what some considered style over substance. There’s a well-known meme that has Nixon winning the debate among people who heard it on the radio.

Kennedy realized only half the opportunities that TV offers, though.

Television, as Marshall McLuhan famously noted, craves emotion. Trump is the first candidate who, perhaps thanks to his prior stints on TV, knows how to give viewers what they want: hot emotion.

If you want to succeed post-Trump, there are only two choices: Go big, or go very, very strong. Sanders is going big—the left’s version of Trump. Both Fiorina and Clinton have opted to go strong, mostly, keeping their emotions under wraps for different reasons.

The exceptions are Clinton’s angry moments about Planned Parenthood and Republicans, and those have a good deal to do with our long relationship with the Clinton saga and the question of her emotional openness or lack thereof.

4. The path ahead for candidates who want to survive is clear. The choices are stark for candidates in the coming months. You either figure out how to open up, get emotional in some way and on some subject that works for you, or you put yourself forward as the strong, quiet adult in a room full of children. I do believe either approach could work.

I don’t think, though, that Sanders would fare well head to head with Trump, because Trump would simply win the shouting match—the facts and politesse be damned.

Someone who could raise an eyebrow and remain quiet—but strong—in Trump’s company could dispatch him quickly by making him look like a child having a tantrum. To do so, you’d have to come prepared with a few tough, surprising home truths, delivered with force and authenticity.

Openness is key—it is simply impossible for politicians used to the old retinue of carefully constructed hand gestures that they’ve used for the past couple of decades to succeed.

3. Focus is essential. The only possible alternative to bluster like Trump’s is intensity. Fiorina displayed that admirably in her answer to Trump’s disparaging of her looks. She paused, pursed her lips and spoke quietly, but with passion. It worked, and her standing in the polls improved.

The challenge is that focus is hard to maintain under the hot lights and with a dozen other candidates on the stage all vying for attention. Making noise as Trump does is the easier option.

2. It’s coming down to trust, and the shortcut to trust is consistency. So, candidates had better be consistent.The electorate is evidently looking for a person it can trust. That isn’t new; electorates have been doing that—and have been disappointed—since elections came about.

Because trust must develop over time, in the short run we use consistency as a stand-in. That’s why playing gotcha is such an endless game in the campaign season. If we can catch our opponent doing something inconsistent, that’s “proof” that you can’t trust him or her.

It’s imperative for candidates to find their voice and their rants and stick with them. If you appear to change your mind, or waffle or even display all-too-human uncertainty, you’re toast.

1. Forgotten amid all this ranting is positive storytelling. We live in an angry age, and ranting against one side or the other has worked well for virtually everyone who’s tried it. One day the pendulum will swing back, though, and the opportunity will be there for the candidate who can tell us a real story with a happy ending.

Download this free white paper to learn how to tell compelling stories that navigate through the noise, boost your brand and drive sales.

We Americans are optimists still, underneath the angst and the bitter cultural divides. The candidate who can show us the way forward to a better future—not just a negative one of fewer enemies, whoever you think the enemy is—will ultimately win.

America can’t succeed by turning off the lights, shutting the door and pretending that we’re not home. Do we really want the future to knock on someone else’s door? We have to find a way forward that is generous, open, even-handed and creative.

The candidate who can tell us that story will win, if not in this election cycle, then certainly the next one. The future still responds not to the bitter, but to the bold.

How can you apply these insights to your communication efforts, or to bolstering your CEO and other top executives?

A version of this article originally appeared on Public Words.

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1XzRCnR via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1P6i4Co

5 ways PR pros can become stellar researchers

Research in the Internet Age is almost too easy.

You can do it any time of day from the comfort of your own office or home. Heck, you don’t even have to change out of your jammies. Doing your homework on a client or an industry isn’t about being nosy; it’s necessary if you want to be effective.

Here are five tactics that PR pros should use to become outstanding researchers:

1. Create a successful strategy.
Every effective campaign plan needs objectives, audience information, a roadmap for how the plan will be executed and measurement tools. You gather all that important information through research.

“Extensive research can help you target the appropriate audiences, find the right influencers and even determine the most cost-effective budget,” says Chrystl Sanchez of Weber Shandwick.

2. Learn your clients’ industry, and identify their unique needs.
Unless you work for an agency that focuses on a specific industry, you’ll eventually encounter a client whose business is uncharted territory to you.

The client is a great starting point for information, but your research skills will come in handy as you learn more about the industry, as well as about that client’s competitors. You must learn what your client does better than and differently from its competitors, and identify its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

You won’t find those answers in a crystal ball; you’re going to have to hit the Internet and industry-related publications.

Learning all you can about an industry will help you to understand issues and challenges a prospective client may face and determine how you can help, according to Bottom Line Marketing & Public Relations in Wisconsin. Check out the prospect’s website, annual report, social media pages and blog posts.

3. Understand which news outlets are right for your client.
Most PR pros say that they know better than to mass-pitch a blind email list of journalists and bloggers, but any reporter will tell you that this horrid practice still happens daily.

Stop doing it. Instead, research news outlets to identify the right ones to pitch on your client’s behalf. You’re not done once you find the outlet; take the extra step by finding the right reporter.

You don’t call an electrician to clean your swimming pool, so don’t email a tech reporter with a pitch about your client who just launched a fashion line. It endears you to no one, and it shows that you were too lazy to personalize your pitch.

Understand newsjacking and learn how to make it work for your content when you download this free guide.

4. Identify story ideas.
This task requires Internet research to identify studies, reports and trends related to your client’s line of work. Reporters often localize stories about national trends and studies, so having this information handy increases the chances of getting your clients in the news.

Identifying story ideas also requires research in the form of boots on the ground. You must be comfortable putting on your reporter’s hat, getting into your client’s trenches and asking the right questions to uncover story potential. What seems routine and mundane to your client may not be seen that way through an outsider’s fresh eyes.

5. Measure your results.
How will you know what worked in your PR strategy if you don’t measure?

Researching your results may be as simple as reviewing the objectives stated in the original plan and determining whether they were accomplished. It could get more involved and require looking at Web traffic and the relative success of social media and journalist outreach efforts.

Google Analytics, Twitter Analytics, Facebook Insights and tons of third-party software platforms are available to simplify the process.

Showing clients that you’ve done your homework lets them know that you mean business.

(Image via)

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1ReTmin via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1HcnlC3

The buzzwords that refuse to die

Partly, it was the cliché-in-the-making “zeitgeisty” that got my attention.

Partly, it was a series of provocations from Twitter spirit @sheigh, who shares my fear of buzzwords and has been known to scare me with tweets such as this: “Leverage hyperlocal onboarding tactics to capture the low hanging fruit…”

Either way, we at Ragan Communications have decided that Halloween week is an ideal time to terrify ourselves with tales of jargon and corporate-speak that strangle organizational speech and writing.

Although Forbes’ jargon madness season has passed and end-of-the-year roundups are still two months off, it’s never a bad time to list our most dreaded buzzwords.

In that jugular vein, my Ragan colleagues and others helped me scare up a crypt load of terrifying terms and frightful phrases that might your cause friends, family and editors to gnash their teeth in dismay:

‘Zeitgeisty’

This word came to my attention via Walter Kirn, author of “Up in the Air.”

Worst adjective ever: Zeitgeisty. Just saw it on the jacket of a literary novel and couldn’t bear to open the book because of it.

— walter kirn (@walterkirn) October 5, 2015

Alarmingly, several online dictionaries allow this word, at least as slang. Kirn’s call-out prompted one Twitter user to reply, “I’m sure it was empowering & facilitative, too.”

'Hack’

A word to the wise: If you have ambitions to write for Kristin Piombino, associate editor of Ragan.com, lose the word “hack,” as in “10 simple life hacks.” @Sheigh also offers “growth hacker” and “headline hack.”

Download this free white paper to discover 10 ways to improve your writing today.

'Game changer’

PR Daily co-editor Beki Winchel warns, “I cannot stand any version of 'game changer.’ 'Gamification’ isn’t much better.” She’s not alone.

@ByWorking Just me or is there a revived overuse of “game changer”

— sheigh (@sheigh) September 2, 2015

Mystical titles

Several colleagues offered suggestions from the mystic job description subset of verbal nuisances. “People also should stop using 'guru’ and 'ninja’ to describe themselves and/or their job positions,” Winchel warns.

Likewise, unless you are Jimmy Swaggart, don’t describe yourself as an “evangelist” around Susan Young, editor of Ragan’s Health Care Communication News. She sums up her reaction: “Grrrr…”

'Shiny (new) objects’

This buzz phrase—which describes glittery distractions, such as a new social intranet that nobody uses except to post cat photos—may soon replace the beloved “low-hanging fruit” in popularity.

'Circle back’

Kristin Farmer, Ragan’s director of sales and strategic partnerships, has been hearing this one far too often lately. And while you’re at it, she begs everyone to table “value add,” “vertical” and “table it.”

'Rewire our brains’

Courtesy of @sheigh, this brings to mind Dr. Frankenstein tinkering with the brains of his poor monster. Really, since when has monitoring multiple screens and devices caused an evolution in the neurology of any creature?

'Synergy’

Don’t try to “synergize” with John Cowan, managing editor of Motivational Manager and other Ragan publications. He hates this word, and he’s similarly leery of “engagement.”

“I believe there’s such a thing as engagement, I just don’t think it can be measured: '37 percent of the workforce is engaged,’” he writes.

Agree or disagree, you have to admit that only a cliché-monger would use that word. (Oh. Never mind, then.)

Micro-anything

Bill Sweetland, a Ragan editor and linguistic purist, responds with terror to the specter of “micro-aggression,” which “sticks in my craw like a paring knife turned sideways.”

His dark tale—which itself would be considered a micro-aggression in some quarters—prompted Winchel to relate the word that haunts her night and day: “micro-moments.” Executive Editor Rob Reinalda helpfully defines this as “the metric equivalent of a trice. There are six trices in a jiffy, by the way.”

'Media’

Reinalda, also known as The Word Czar, reminds quaking staffers of his “intolerance for 'media’ as a catch-all term.” Here is Reinalda’s entry in our in-house style guide:

“Journalists are not media,” he writes. “Media placements/promotions are not media. Media is the plural of medium, a channel of communication. Media should, in most cases, take a plural verb form. The exception is social media, which is a monolithic entity unto itself; that term takes singular verb forms.”

More cow pies!

That’s not all. In his email, Reinalda adds, “'Taking __________ to the next level’ is another cow pie, as are 'thought leader’ and 'influencer.’ They make me want to hurl my guts into a 'sales funnel.’”

Reinalda and Sweetland ghoulishly teamed up to offer a Halloween treat bag full of alternatives to “thought leader”:

• Thought manager
• Thought caretaker
• Thought helper
• Thought stager
• Thought carpenter
• Thought toreador
• Thought balloon-animal twister
• Thought cellist
• Thought coxswain
• Thought aviatrix
• Thought thinker

Finally, while exploring dungeons in any houses of horrors you may find yourself in, avoid getting caught in “thought straps"—as in: "Let’s put on our 'thought straps’ and come up with some possible solutions,” Piombino writes.

After a chilling exchange of buzzwords here at Ragan Communications, Young warned, “I am guessing we all may have nightmares tonight.”

I’m leaving the lights on, just in case.

@ByWorking

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1RBA2M4 via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1NATibT

How to grab 1,000 shares on your next blog post

Good content deserves to be seen. It’s that simple.

For content marketers, it’s not enough to simply create an engaging piece of content. The second part of our jobs is to make sure it’s distributed and consumed comparable to the time you put in creating it.

Download this free white paper to learn how to tell compelling stories that navigate through the noise, boost your brand and drive sales.

The steps are straightforward: Start with a compelling headline (and for all of our sake, don’t make it click bait-y).

Then, make your content as easy as possible for your readers to share it through social media channels.

Optimize the content for search engines, add a compelling image and share your content again and again.

Monitor the results and optimize your process for next time. Keep sharing it.

Want more? Razor Social and Canva have collaborated on an infographic that provides more detail to each of these steps—all in an effort to help you achieve 1,000 shares for your blog post:



(Image via)

 

from Ragan.com http://ift.tt/1OWND3d via video company
from Tumblr http://ift.tt/1H99tsb