Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.
From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.
Last week, I read a really interesting article in the New York Times titled, “Don’t Call Me, I Won’t Call You” by Pamela Paul. The story examines the cultural shift from using the telephone (including mobile phones) as a primary communication tool to today’s ever present preference of email and text. Paul writes, “According to Nielsen Media, even on cellphones, voice spending has been trending downward, with text spending expected to surpass it within three years.” The story got me thinking about my own phone habits both in my personal and professional lives.
While a teenager I was obsessed with the phone (the old fashioned kind you plugged into the wall and sat by for hours talking to friends), in my adult personal life, I rarely use it opting to text, instant message (IM) or email my friends and family. However as a PR professional, communication in various forms – email, phone, formal press materials, etc. – is the bread and butter of my job. Many journalists and clients prefer to communicate primarily through email, but there is almost a lost art of mastering the phone conversation in a way that isn’t intrusive to today’s communication standards.
How I approach the phone call is to be thoughtful and respectful. Oftentimes, picking up the phone can not only be more efficient, it can also be critical in building and fostering relationships with clients and journalists in a way that email can lack. Before making that call, I always ask myself the following:
- Is it more effective to pick up the phone and have a conversation with this person?
- Will a conversation positively impact the desired outcome?
- What time of day would be the best time to reach this person?
Additionally, I always try and keep my calls short and succinct. I always preface why I’m calling at the start of the conversation so if the recipient is busy, on deadline or is strapped for time they can let me know right away and we can determine a better time to talk. Lastly, I typically send an email to the recipient recapping the salient points and action items of the call so that there is consensus on what was discussed on the call.
Pamela Paul sums up the piece best saying, “We may be returning to the phone’s original intentions — and impact. ‘I can tell you exactly the last time someone picked up the phone when I called,’ Mary Roach said. ‘It was two months ago and I said: ‘Whoa! You answered your phone!’ It was a P.R. person. She said, ‘Yeah, I like to answer the phone.’ Both were startled to be voice-to-voice with another unknown, unseen human being.”
We recently had the pleasure of working with the founders of the Rwanda Girls Initiative (RGI), Suzanne Sinegal McGill and Shalisan Foster, with an announcement sharing their milestone achievement of opening the Gashora Girls Academy. Their story had all of the right elements for us to share a compelling and inspiring story with the media of how two women teamed up with local companies to drive change in Rwanda.
Soozi and Shal are two local philanthropists from the Bellevue-area who shared a vision of providing high-quality secondary school education for girls in Rwanda. They first began their endeavor three years ago and collaborated with a number of Washington’s top education and business leaders who provided their expertise and resources to the academy, including MulvannyG2, Washington State University and the University of Washington, among others.
Together, they built the Gashora Girls Academy, an upper-secondary boarding school in the Gashora sector of Rwanda, which offers academic excellence for young women and will have a lasting impact on the greater community and the world. The culmination of their efforts was realized on Feb. 7, 2011 when they welcomed their first class of 90 girls to the academy.
To raise awareness for RGI, we focused our efforts in securing interviews with local, regional and national media. It was clear that this story contained a strong local angle, given the regional leaders involved, but it was also a timely for national media to consider as the 17th anniversary of Rwanda’s devastating genocide in April approaches. Furthermore, Rwanda is a country that can serve as a model for stabilizing many of the world’s most difficult crisis regions, including Egypt and Libya whose recent events have taken center stage across the media over the past several weeks. Education – particularly among young women – will play a critical role in Rwanda achieving its goal of becoming a middle-income, knowledge-based country by 2020.
Journalists were eager to learn more about RGI’s vision and share the news about how they developed a replicable model for educating girls in Rwanda. As a result of our outreach, RGI was featured in local and national media including:
- NYTimes.com, “Girls in the Spotlight: A Lesson from Rwanda”
- UPIU.com, “Environmentally Sustainable Women’s School opens in Rwanda”
- Puget Sound Business Journal, “Local donors launch Rwanda girls school”
- Seattle Times (front page NW Monday section and online), “2 Eastsiders give global reach to girl power”
- KOMONews.com, “Bellevue women build school for Rwanda’s future entrepreneurs”
It was a sincere pleasure working with Soozi and Shal, whose enthusiasm and passion for their project has encouraged me to think about what I can do to help make a positive impact in this world. What they have accomplished in just three years is truly remarkable as it leaves a lasting impact on the young women and the country of Rwanda for years to come. I could not agree more with what Seattle Times’ reporter Jerry Large wrote in his column about Soozi and Shal, “They are modeling values in action, and everyone touched by their work wins.”
It was an honor to have had the opportunity to support them in their PR activities and I look forward to hearing about the future success of Soozi and Shal, as well as the young women attending the academy who will most likely become the future leaders and change-makers of Rwanda.
This morning, The New York Times (NYT) announced sweeping changes to its subscription model, including some very intriguing digital options. Joining the ranks of The Wall Street Journal, the NYT will now offer limited free content online, and keep everything else available only to digital subscribers. The NYT claims this move “will strengthen our ability to provide high-quality journalism to readers around the world and on any platform. The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our website and on mobile applications.”
Beginning March 28 in the U.S., the NYT will be different in the following ways:
- Online users can only view 20 articles per month before they’re requested to become a paid digital subscriber.
- Smartphone and tablet users will get the “Top News” section free of charge, while everything else will be limited to the paid subscription.
- If you subscribe to the physical paper, you’ll get free access to all online content.
- For those people who want to upgrade right now to the paid subscription, there are three different options ranging in price from $15 per month to $35 per month.
While this won’t likely have a significant effect on communication strategies, there is one interesting key point I’d like to make. According to the announcement, people that click on a NYT’s article via a social media link on Twitter or Facebook, will be able to read that article, regardless of whether or not they have reached their monthly limit.
The takeaway? Utilizing social media to highlight and publicize interesting NYT articles about your company or your industry will be more important than ever. Editorial coverage in the NYT is often coveted by companies, due to the newspaper’s high readership, global reach, reputation and credibility in the field of journalism.
With this new online viewing limit, it will be difficult to ensure a mention of your company will be read by the masses, which means it will be more important that communication professionals assist clients by working together to tweet, re-tweet or post NYT articles that we know will be of interest to our audience. It’s our chance to become even more of a thought-leader in our given industry, as well as a valued member of the social media world.
Do you think the new subscription model for the NYT will change your communication strategy? Do you plan on being more diligent about posting links on social media? Join the conversation in the comments below.
We often get questions from our clients, particularly in the B2B space, around the value of blogging. Do people really read blogs anymore? Why invest in a blog over Twitter or Facebook? How do you launch a successful blog? The reality is that today’s businesses are driven by data, insight and engagement with their target audiences making blogging a key fundamental in any B2B social media strategy.
While many B2B companies believe that blogs are tailored for more consumer oriented brands, there are a number of excellent B2B corporate blogs including Oracle, SAP and Ariba that are leveraging this platform as a vehicle to establish thought leadership, increase awareness and visibility and drive online engagement and traffic.
I was excited when I recently came across an interesting article on Social Media Today surrounding B2B blogging trends for 2011. The trends were gathered vis-à-vis a survey by the founders of B2B Marketing Zone who interviewed B2B marketing professionals and PR bloggers. Some of the 2011 trends outlined include the following:
• B2B Blogging Will Grow – “Given the increasing popularity of inbound/content marketing (and the declining effectiveness of advertising), more companies will start blogs in 2011.” While less than half of today’s B2B companies have blogs according to the article, there is a significant opportunity to establish thought leadership and drive additional traffic to your website which will lead to an increase in B2B blogs in 2011.
• B2B Blogs = Big Value – In addition to positioning a company as an expert, a B2B blog provides an opportunity to provide new and existing customers with “frequent updates versus static websites.” Additionally, according to the survey there is a, “direct correlation between blogging and B2B customer acquisition” making blogs a viable platform to help drive sales.
• Content is King – As more B2B marketers are tasked with driving online content that translates into leads, blogging will become a critical component for delivering compelling content. As with any type of blog, to achieve success and effectively engage and drive readers to return, topics must be relevant, timely and regularly updated.
These trends come as no surprise given what we’re seeing with our clients. A significant portion of our PR plans for this year include establishing a B2B blog or up leveling current blog activity. It will be exciting to measure the results at the end of the year to see if these trends are on par and we were able to move the needle to help organizations meet their business objectives.
Do you have any favorite B2B blogs? I’d love to hear about any successful examples, drop us a line!
Earlier this month, we visited Lewis Elementary in Portland to facilitate broadcast interviews with KATU, KPTV and KOIN. What was the exciting news that drew three stations to Lewis?
The draw was the announcement of a new digital learning pilot program introducing iPads into the classroom. Reporters came to talk with students and teachers involved in the program as well as executives from Bookbyte, a Communiqué PR client.
While not all news will resonate with broadcast media, this story had the essential elements. First the local story ties into a national trend of integrating technology into classrooms. Additionally, we were able to offer compelling visual elements and interviews. Ultimately though, timing played a big role.
Originally the interviews were slated for late February. However the threat of snow in Portland and potential school closures resulted in rescheduling the interviews for the next week. Coincidentally, the interviews took place the same morning Steve Jobs announced the iPad 2, which provided news producers with a timely connection to the story of iPads being integrated into classrooms.
Here are a few quick tips to consider:
- When working with broadcast news outlets, in particular, it can be helpful to have some flexibility so you can adjust to breaking news or competing coverage.
- Help the reporters understand any relevant connections to developing news. In this case the iPad 2 announcement.
- Be clear and upfront with reporters if other outlets are covering the news. It was not a surprise for the reporters when they ran into each other at Lewis Elementary.
- Offer various angles and contacts when multiple outlets choose to cover the story. We were able to offer each outlet different classes, teachers and students so each outlet was able to develop its own take on the story.
By providing producers and assignment editors with the right elements, and adjusting to competing news, we were able to secure coverage with several local news broadcasts.
- KATU, Portland students tap into education with iPads, March 2, 2011
- KOIN, iPads in the Classroom, March 2, 2011
- KPTV-Fox 12, Portland Students Learning with iPads, March 6, 2011
As you can see the kids really helped sell the story! We want to thank the students at Lewis Elementary as well as the teachers and administrators who welcomed us and the media into their classrooms and ensured they had the needed media releases on file.
For more information on pitching broadcast check out the following posts: