Communicators – marketers, advertising folks and public relations people – talk a lot about target audiences, and as Brian Reich points out in a blog entry at the Public Relations Society of America’s blog ComPRehension, new media and new technology may be causing static between message sender and message receiver.
Communications models have long taught us that the responsibility for a message being received lies with the sender, because static and noise can interrupt even the most carefully crafted message on its way to the receiver.
Reich, author of Media Rules!, offers an important precaution: don’t let the toys and the new technology become your new static.
He’s so right. Far too much of the dialogue among public relations people today is about the medium … not the message … which brings us way too close to proving Marshall “the medium is the message” McLuhan right. It isn’t about Twitter and it isn’t about your iPhone.
Message is always first. Without a message you have no reason to communicate. Whether we choose some old fashioned form of delivery (like a postcard or a newspaper) or instead create a viral pathway through a social network, we ought to be more concerned with targeted messages.
Let’s not leave the target audience asking “WHAT?”
Stefan Bucher is a Graphic Illustrator, Designer, and Writer, who runs 344design studio out of L.A. He’s done work for notable clients such as David Hockney, Roxio, and Tarsem and his work has graced many design publications. One day, he took time out from his busy schedule and he challenged himself to what began as a personal experiment. For 100 days, he would create a drawing of a monster/creature beginning with just one blotch of blown ink. Then he would film himself doing so each day for 100 days. This spawned what is now known as the Daily Monster.
Toward the beginning of this project, people started to inquire about the story behind each creature. The catch was that there was no story; the story was for the viewers to create. After the first story was posted, this became viral and people from all over the world began writing in and posting stories on the Daily Monster. What began as a personal experiment grew into a “monster” of its own.
This is a great example of how social media can be used to create a buzz, encourage participation, conversation, and a network of loyal participants. And isn’t this the major goal of most businesses? How do we build consumer awareness? How do we build a buzz and excitement around a brand? How do we gain and keep consumer interest? Stefan Bucher was able to achieve all this and more without promoting or “selling” his blog. He put the power in the hands of the users by giving them a sense of ownership, getting them involved and providing an environment/platform for them to thrive.
With the political conventions in full swing, everyone’s using talking points … and accusing each other of spewing them. But in the business sense, talking points are a useful and important tool in assuring targeted communications.
Needless to say, I was taken aback the other day when a client sent over a first draft of a set of talking points that would be used to keep everyone on track on a very negative situation and found that there were 16 talking points … and, frankly, the real issue wasn’t addressed until #10.
That often happens when too many people get the chance to edit … and in these “track changes” days everyone can easily add a point or two. It is also what happens when we forget the real reason for talking points: they define the most important things we want people to remember.
Whether you are aiming for a small internal audience or hoping to ensure that you’ll get your points across in a media interview, talking points are the three (maybe five) key things you just absolutely have to get across.
It isn’t about sound bites … it is about your message. But if you don’t plan carefully, instead of getting your message across it may come back to bite you.
A former Sentinel reporter who now blogs about the newspaper penned an interesting entry this weekend, taking the Sentinel and others to task for missing the story of Barack Obama’s vice presidential selection.
While I agree many newspapers around the country were likely upset about not breaking the news in their print editions, I don’t believe the message here is that newspapers are broken.
Instead, the message is that presidential campaigns are now learning what those of us in the communications business have advised for years … news media do not consider it their job to tell your story, and often the best way to ensure your message reaches the audiences most important to you is to take that message directly to them. That’s exactly what Obama’s campaign did.
An excellent editorial in today’s St. Petersburg Times, and other editorials printed around the state in the past couple of weeks, take aim at Florida’s growing budget crisis and call upon the state Legislature to take bold action.
Highlighted in these editorials is a unique coalition of agencies that represent children and families, seniors and all taxpayers in between … Florida’s People – Florida’s Promise.
In the interest of full disclosure, our firm represents one of the group’s founders and has been involved in planning and promoting the initiative, which seeks to protect Florida’s most vulnerable citizens from additional across-the-board budget cuts.
Though the group’s mission and message are important, I think the lesson to be drawn for communicators lies in the decision-making process behind the group’s formation.
We often think in terms of identifying the target and taking aim with the right message (our weapon of choice). Hence the name of our blog. But when tracking truly big game — and Legislators overseeing a more than $60 billion budget certainly apply — we also need to remember that the most successful big game hunters work as a team.
That’s what the Florida’s People group is doing. After competing for years for dwindling budget dollars, the founding organizations – including Children’s Home Society of Florida, AARP and others – decided to stand and fight together. Since that time, more than 50 additional organizations have joined the team.
As the cacophony of another Legislative session draws near, their message has a much greater chance of being heard above the din. For the sake of Florida’s future, we should all hope that it is.
After just posting advice to potential CEO bloggers, which included staying away from personal opinions in a corporate blog, here’s a risky analysis of a set of Orlando Sentinel headlines. My purpose here is not to stand up for George W. Bush (who is depicted one way in print and another in the paper’s online edition), but rather to note that newspapers are at risk of losing their core credibility if they don’t start paying attention to details.
In its online edition this morning the Sentinel ran this headline after the president addressed a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in town:
“Veterans give mixed reaction to Bush’s speech in Orlando”
Those who picked up their Tropical Storm Fay-soaked paper in the driveway saw the same story with this headline:
“Bush finds friendly crowd at VFW event”
In fairness to the headline writer, there is this sentence in the 11th paragraph (which by the way was the 6th paragraph on the jump page of the printed edition):
“Though the vets as a group cheered their commander-in-chief, several said afterward they had mixed feelings about the president many of them had voted for.”
“President Bush stopped briefly in Orlando on Wednesday to praise veterans, defend his decisions about the war in Iraq and argue that the nation is in the midst of a worldwide battle against terrorists that will affect America for years to come.”
The story also said:
“Though the president has been dogged by 30 percent approval ratings, he was greeted warmly by VFW members, a group that is mostly male, older and white. They cheered when he talked about the passage of a new GI Bill – which Bush initially had opposed – but saved some of their most enthusiastic applause for his remarks about terrorism.”
A solid editor would take a second look and ask why one headline was so different than the other. Is it any wonder why people question media bias?
Self-deprecation can be a great tool for public speakers, but for bloggers?
In her BlogWrite for CEOs, social media consultant Debbie Weil steps out on a limb to share her artwork as a way to illustrate that those who blog must first overcome fear of the unknown.
Debbie is right. CEOs can make important statements and move the needle for their organization through social media, but if they elect to step outside their comfort zone they need to be careful not to diminish the value of their opinions.
But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and many of us who saw Debbie’s painting may disagree with her claim that she has “no artistic talent whatsoever.” After all, people collect everything from Picasso to Red Skelton.
(Actually, Debbie, I might make an offer for this in a gallery. I like it.)
(Whether I could afford it or not, I’d never bid on this … but who am I to judge?)
Skelton is relevant because his clown personas Clem Kadiddlehopper and Freddie the Freeloader made you laugh by making fun of themselves … but the serious blogging CEO who wants to use social media to get a point across might be better served establishing credibility.
(Making us laugh was his profession, but that’s not a CEO role in most cases. Like Debbie Weil, Skelton was also a serious painter.)
Here are five things a blogging CEO should keep in mind to establish a credible blog:
1. You are speaking for the organization … your brand is your credibility and your blog should reinforce it.
2. People choose to read your blog … if they’ve made that decision be sure there is something in it for them, not just your ego.
3. If you manufacture refrigerators, be cool … with cool meaning relevant. A refrigerator blog isn’t about your political leanings.
4. Don’t try to be hip … there’s no rule that says blogging is only for people who understand computer languages, only that the language you use be understandable.
5. Bloggers read other bloggers … take the time to find some you appreciate and reference them in your comments (hence the “social” in Social Media).
In light of Washington’s latest scandal dealing with a public figure lying about infidelity, one question keeps popping up in my mind: How is it that politicians still haven’t learned? In today’s world of full disclosure and extreme investigative reporting, one would think that the truth will come to light at some point … so what good is lying about it?
Putting political opinions aside, this circumstance is yet another testament to the importance of open and honest communication.
As PR professionals, we have long studied best practices for dealing with bad news, and denial ISN’T one of them.
Even if your audiences aren’t too forgiving with the messages that you relay, you can at least be assured that your organization’s credibility remains intact. Because while you can’t always make your clients look “good,” you can make them look professional, honest and sincere.
John Edwards’ campaign manager for his 2008 presidential bid, David Bonior, was quoted as saying: “You can’t lie in politics and expect to have people’s confidence.”
I should think that applies to everything in life.
You’ve heard the saying, “perception is reality,” and it seems as though Olympic organizers in Beijing hoped that what you perceived as happening would be good enough.
As my colleague Dean pointed out in a previous post, games are being commentated remotely—something very few people probably noticed.
It’s been widely reported that opening ceremony fireworks were done digitally by way of 3-D computer graphics.
And, thoughts of Milli Vanilli came rushing back after reading the story about the Chinese girl who lip-synched during the opening ceremony because the child whose real voice you heard was “unsuited to the lead role.”
Combine these things with swarming rumor and apparent proof that members of the Chinese gymnastics team are under age and you’ve got an Olympics filled with illusion. Thankfully, victories such as those by Michael Phelps, continue to bring the positives to the surface. But, it just made me wonder, what’s more important perception or reality … or are they one in the same?
Like many people around the globe, a good bit of my attention this week is focused toward Beijing and the Olympic Games. It is the curious two-week period every four years when suddenly sports that we generally don’t follow, such as archery, swimming, fencing and gymnastics, suddenly become important and sources of national pride.
While watching one morning, the Equestrian competition came on and the announcers began their analysis with the odd comment that they were announcing the competition while watching from the NBC studios in New York City. I paused and actually rewound the picture (aren’t DVRs great?) because I was so surprised by the comment. I had never before heard of someone broadcasting a sporting event without actually being on-site.
At first I was taken aback by what almost felt like an act of deception, but as I thought about it, I realized that this kind of remote broadcasting is really just a testament to how technology has now made location irrelevant, even for the media. Whether blogging about a political debate, reality television program or athletic contest while sitting in your living room or announcing an equestrian event happening in Beijing while sitting in New York City, being on-site is now no longer necessarily crucial to being able to analyze or announce an event.
While I hope that we never get to the point where John Madden and Al Michaels are broadcasting the Super Bowl while actually sitting on Madden’s Bus in a parking lot in Omaha, I do expect that as technology continues to expand and as budgets continue to decrease, this kind of remote broadcasting will probably become more common.
Posted by Curley & Pynn - The Strategic Firm 
Posted by Curley & Pynn - The Strategic Firm 
Posted by Curley & Pynn - The Strategic Firm 
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