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.
“I don’t have time.” This is a common statement I hear from executives when speaking with them about social media. While I appreciate senior managers are busy, I believe it is essential they make time to use this powerful medium. Otherwise, they will not have a good grasp of this new technology and how it is impacting communication and disrupting traditional forms of marketing.
Jennifer and I wrote about this subject in a recent article published in the January 2010 issue of Seattle Business magazine called, “The Social Media Blind Spot.” In the article, we encourage executives to sign up for and use social media. We share examples of how Seattle-area businesses and non-profits are using Twitter and Facebook, and provide some simple tips on how execs can get started.
Once executives have had a first-hand experience engaging via social networks, they will be better equipped to evaluate the potential benefits of social media to their organizations. For more ideas on how to use social media to achieve your business objectives, please feel free to contact me.
As you may remember, in October the Communiqué PR team read “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” and discussed how we could apply the principles outlined in the book in both our private and professional lives. We are currently reading the book, “Just Listen” by Mark Goulston.
“Just Listen” provides eye-opening insights and practical tips for learning how to effectively reach people in virtually every scenario — defiant executives, angry employees, family members and others. Mark Goulston M.D., veteran psychiatrist and business coach, discusses how to get difficult people to do what you want in tough situations.
As PR professionals, we are often required to reach out to and connect with a variety of people — editors, analysts, bloggers, clients, vendors and venture capitalists to name a few. The premise of Dr. Goulston’s book is that by listening and acknowledging another person’s point of view you will be much more successful in achieving your goals.
Whether it’s counseling clients on a particular strategy to help propel their business forward, or sparking a journalist’s interest in a compelling story idea, it’s easy to get caught up with our own needs and forget to listen. This book provides practical tips and guidance on how to rewire ourselves to be able to truly listen to those around us in order to provide the best PR services possible. We have put his suggestions to work and seen some amazing results.
Dr. Goulston not only provides perspective on how to make people listen to us, he also discusses the following:
- Taking control of a stressful situation
- Steering clear of toxic people
- The power of saying thank you and apologizing
- Gaining trust and establishing relationships with the gatekeepers
Whether you’re a PR professional reaching out to a journalist, a CEO obtaining buy-in from board members, or a manager dealing with hostile employees, “Just Listen” provides a blueprint for connecting with the hardest to reach people and turning them into allies. We highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to improve his or her communication and listening skills with business associates, friends or family.
I have been thinking about the responsibilities of a panel chair as I prepare to moderate a panel on damage control later this month. Colleen and I have been doing a significant amount of speaking as we promote our book, “Strategic Public Relations.” In addition, many of our clients are asked to chair panels as they achieve thought-leadership positions within their industries. Given this, I thought I would take a minute to share my thoughts on the attributes of a good facilitator or panel chair.
- Be Prepared. Think deeply about how the panelists can add value to the audience. What are the questions attendees want answered? Once you have identified the key questions to be addressed be sure to share them with the panelists in advance. Part of your role as a moderator is to make sure the members of the panel are well prepared. To do this, I recommend sending the panelists written materials and holding a brief call with them prior to the panel.
- Make Introductions. Another key role as the facilitator of a panel is to introduce each of the panelists as well as the topic. You want to keep the introductions brief, but it is important the audience understands who is presenting and why they were selected to participate in the discussion.
- Establish the Ground Rules. Consider taking a few minutes before you delve into your discussion to review ground rules for the discussion. You can do this by simply stating, I know each of you have a lot of information to share today, but in the essences of making sure we cover XYZ, Id like you to limit your response to a couple of minutes.
- Frame the Discussion. Make sure you tell your audience what is in it for them. I like to grab the audience’s attention by helping them understand the three things they’re going to get from us as a group. For instance, for my damage control panel at Enterprise Social 2.0 the audience can expect to learn the following three things: 1) what they can do to prepare for a crisis; 2) best practices for leveraging social media during a crisis; 3) how to turn a negative into a positive.
- Keep Things Moving. It’s important to maintain the pace of the discussion. If the conversation is moving into a rat hole, you need to re-direct it. This can be done simply by stating, “I want to remain true to our goal of covering X and we have limited time today, so Joe, I’d like to have you share your perspective on XYZ.”
- Engage the Audience. Consider ways to involve the audience in the discussion. It might be helpful to ask for a show of hands around a subject before inviting the panelists to delve deeper with their comments and feedback. In Amsterdam, I may ask the audience for a show of hands on how many of them feel as if their company is prepared to respond to a crisis using social media.
- Conclude the Discussion. Finally, as the moderator you will be responsible for wrapping up the discussion. I like to summarize some of the key points, thank the panelists and call for questions from the audience.
If you have been a panel moderator and have other thoughts or best practices, please share them with us.
We thought you’d be interested to know that Harry Sandler, director of strategic ticketing for Digonex Technologies, will be speaking at Ticket Summit, a leading industry conference for the secondary ticket market being held in New York on January 13 to 15. Digonex is rapidly becoming known as a leader in the dynamic pricing market and has published numerous contributed articles on this topic including: “Maximizing Virtual Goods through Dynamic Pricing,” which was published in the Dec. 3 issue of Virtual Goods Insider; as well as “Guest Commentary: Dynamic Pricing: A Fair-to-All Solution to Event Ticketing Prices,” which was published recently in TicketNews.com. Harry will participate in a panel discussion titled, “How to Price Your Tickets” on Fri., Jan. 15 at 10 a.m. and will provide insight on how companies can determine if they are pricing their ticket inventory too high or too low and will offer tips on how to adjust and optimize ticket prices for maximum profit. Harry has more than 40 years experience in the industry and has worked extensively with venues, promoters, managers and artists. For the past five years, Sandler has worked on ticketing strategies for the music industry, developing new and innovative pricing platforms. Ticket Summit brings together hundreds of experts within the ticket industry and provides an opportunity for leaders to discuss important issues surrounding ticketing, other panel sessions will include:
- “Building Your Brand”
- “The Economics of Ticketing”
- “Legal Issues and Ticketing Trends”
- “The Broadway Box Office”
- “Then and Now: The Primary Market”
To learn more about the Harry Sandler’s panel or trends in ticketing, please feel free to contact Communiqué PR at [email protected].
In previous blog posts we’ve written about thought leadership – sharing examples of how we have helped our clients establish themselves as a thought leader in a particular category.
With the New Year and many companies setting goals around establishing thought leadership, we thought it would be helpful to revisit the topic beginning with our definition. Thought leadership is when a company (or person) is recognized for its innovative solutions, and its deep understanding of its business, the needs of its customers and the broader marketplace.
Clearly public relations and social media can be driving forces in helping companies gain recognition as thought leaders. So what are some of the communication strategies and tactics that can be employed to establish and maintain thought leadership?
Consider the following ideas:
- Write – Contributed articles, case studies, guest blog posts and white papers from a wide group of executives can all play an important role in establishing a company as a thought leader.
- Comment – Share your perspective with journalists and analysts. Proactively offer commentary on industry trends via buddy e-mails.
- Speak – Get in front of key audiences with speaking engagements at reputable trade shows or conferences.
- Build Third-Party Advocacy – Identify and build relationships with third-party influencers (analysts, academics, customers, etc). Having a group of people who can speak on your behalf can be very powerful.
- Leverage Social Media – With the rise of Facebook and Twitter, social networks can be an excellent vehicle for raising awareness of a company’s solutions and understanding of the marketplace. And don’t think social networks are just for business to consumer products. According to a recent survey from Forrester, 91 percent of all technology decision makers consume social content.
- Win Awards – Awards can be very effective in establishing thought leadership with myriad audiences – consumers, industry folk, venture capitalists and even members of the media.
Without a doubt each company will have different strategies and tactics for achieving thought leadership; however, it’s important to remember that when used strategically, public relations and social media can be effective programs in establishing recognition for a company or person.
Thought leadership will continue to be a key objective for many organizations in 2010 as they continue to look for ways to build credibility and brand awareness with customers in the face of the current economic and media climates.
Interested in learning more about how PR can help establish your company as a thought leader? Drop us a line at [email protected].
We are excited to announce Communiqué PR has placed three contributed articles in pharmaceutical industry publications on behalf of OnRequest Images. These bylined articles illustrate the importance of branding in the pharmaceutical industry and provide insight on how companies can leverage imagery and photographs to convey a unified brand image, increase awareness of their products and services, and boost consumer confidence in the company.
The three articles include:
- Pharma Marketing News – December 16, 2009
- Pharma Magazine – March/April 2010
- Pharmaceutical Representative – February/March 2010
In the past, Communiqué has also worked with Pharmaceutical Executive, a leading pharmaceutical publication that provides fresh insights on strategy, marketing, and competition to new ideas about R&D, finance, IT and emerging markets. We established a relationship with the publication and as a result, placed a contributed article on a clientís behalf. We are thrilled to re-engage with this industry and continue to strengthen our relationship with this market segment.
To learn more about OnRequest Images, visit http://onrequestimages.com/.