Communications
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 01st, 2010
Measurement in PR has always been a challenge and that hasn’t changed with social media. Understanding and showing the value of what we do isn’t always easy for communicators.
There is a good article on Socialtimes.com that addresses measurement in social media. It’s more from a marketing viewpoint, but it applies to the use of social media in PR or communications efforts.
One of the points in this article talks about bounce rates. It asks: Are people coming to your website from social media sites or networks, but leaving quickly? This is a good question and one that is worth talking about.
Participating in…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 25th, 2010
There is an excellent post on Mashable on The Science of Building Trust With Social Media. The content in this post provides an interesting perspective on what can be achieved through social media and what some of the challenges might be. It is also worth reading the comments below this post to see what others are thinking.
One of the great things about the widespread acceptance of social media is that good organizations, the ones that want to develop and provide good products and services for their customers, have a real opportunity to build trust. This isn’t as straightforward as it…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 23rd, 2010
Jay Baer has a good blog post that outlines 39 social media tools that he uses and that would be of value to most communicators.
We have sent a link to his blog to the AHA Crew for a quick review. At AHA, we are always focused on improving our skill sets and knowledge. A list like this allows each of us to do a check on what we are using and what we might check out. With social media, tools and technologies change so quickly that it is easy to stick with ones you know, rather than check out something new—and…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 01st, 2010
There is a great post on problogger on how to add more fun to your blog. It is worth a read. Adding more fun to your blog will inspire you to blog more often and, done well, it will re-engage your readers. When you are into it, they will be into it.
Just a quick note on blogging…I have read plenty that says blogging is dead. I don’t think blogging has hit its prime yet. I think it goes back to understanding your objectives. Not every CEO should blog and I don’t necessarily think that every organization should have a blog. However,…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 08th, 2010
A new year is always good to review what you, as an organization and as individuals, did well the year before and what you could improve upon. Here at the AHA office, we’ve been doing a pretty strong inventory of 2009. We turn seven in 2010 and while it might not be a typical “milestone” number, we’re quite excited about our upcoming anniversary on April 1. (We know, April Fools Day!)
During our period of “taking stock,” I was also given the task of writing a proposal for a potential new client. I love writing proposals and plans, learning about a…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 06th, 2010
Kami Huyse at Communication Overtones has a great blog post on why Twitter Is Making Us Lazy. She hits the nail on the head with this post while she reminds us that social media is just a tool. Great public relations is about creating a strong relationship with your stakeholders. It is about sharing ideas, thoughts, a vision and, in some cases, explaining why the people in an organization took or didn’t take a specific action. Tools like Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social media networks or tools assist in the dissemination of information and are meant to help create a…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 18th, 2009
The NY Department of Health and Hygiene’s video campaign to wean the people of the big apple off soda has certainly generated a great deal of discussion in both traditional media and online.
When you think about the number of people that this video has reached, it is quite impressive. It had national coverage in both the U.S. and Canada (and I would imagine around the world). If the objective of this video is to change behaviour, I think it works. I will think twice about having another drink of pop, that’s for certain.
Shock value works in this case. The video is…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 16th, 2009
Who could resist that headline? I just read an interesting blog post on Mashable by Patrick Moran entitled: 5 Tips To Grow Your Business in 2010. Although Moran approaches it from a marketing perspective, this piece has great value for communicators as well.
The popularity of video is growing rapidly. In the past in Canada, video new releases (VNR) haven’t been widely used. That’s changing, I believe. In the United States, VNRs are used extensively. CNN even has a distribution service (CNN Newsource) where an organization pays to have its VNR distributed.
I was having a conversation with a colleague yesterday about social…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 10th, 2009
Susan Young has an amusing and somewhat realistic blog post on the 10 things that clients say that scare PR professionals. It’s worth a read. For those of us in PR, it will make you nod your head and chuckle. For clients, have a read with your sense of humour turned on, you may find yourself nodding and laughing too.
The post raises a good point and one that we, at AHA, discuss quite often. We have a range of clients from senior communicators in large corporations to CEOs and business owners to start up entrepreneurs. And believe me when I…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 03rd, 2009
I think communicators follow scandals like the one that is dogging golf great Tiger Woods with a different mindset. Our focus is on what needs to be done to minimize the damage and what the person in the spotlight could do to save or rebuild their image or personal brand.
Tiger Woods is an international icon and this news, however private, was the lead on most newscasts last night and will be in the spotlight for days to come and online forever. We had a very lively discussion in the AHA office about this situation and what we would advise Tiger.
Now,…
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