Online Communications
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 15th, 2010
Last week, I spoke to an audience that consisted of members from several different groups, boards and associations. They are all a part of a large—and important—industry. It was a very interesting presentation. (In the interest of client confidentiality, I am not going to identify the group I spoke with.)
When I present, one of the first questions that I ask is if anyone is tweeting. Not one person in this group raised their hand. It was the first time in more than 18 months that I was in a room that did not have at least 25% of the audience…
Read more
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…
Read more
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…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 15th, 2010
The Harvard Business Review has a good article on how social media is impacting coverage of the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, B.C. It’s worth a read.
Right now, Vancouver is in the world spotlight. We, at AHA, have an office in Vancouver and have been watching with interest on how the games are being covered by both traditional and social media.
How information is reported has changed drastically. While social media was in play during the Summer Games in Beijing, it’s now two years later and Vancouver is a much freer society than Beijing. Those who support the games—and those who don’t—now have…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 12th, 2010
I recently read an article in drovers.com that I found very interesting. It seems that Yellow Tail wine, based in Australia, was set to support the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). However, according to this article, many U.S. wine drinkers and food producers were unhappy with this decision.
At first glance, I wondered why…isn’t helping animals a good thing? It turns out that there are reports that very little of the money that runs through HSUS actually goes to the care and help of animals. The groups that were against Yellow Tail supporting HSUS used social media as a part…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 03rd, 2010
I came across a great post by Brian Solis on social media integration. It’s worth a read. (Just about everything Brian writes is worth a read.)
Integrating social media into your communication efforts doesn’t stop when you write a strategic plan. It is an ongoing and evolving effort. We have recently had some interesting conversations with a client that we work with on a project basis. This client is someone that we have a huge amount of respect for and we want to see him succeed. His company is young and growing and he has a strong philanthropic focus. He came to…
Read more
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,…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 27th, 2010
In my role at AHA, I attend conferences, I take online courses, I read blogs and online media, and follow social media and PR visionaries on Twitter and on other social networking sites. I am always learning.
A few years ago, I went through a stage where I felt I had to know all of the social media, social networking, and online tools and technologies to do my job. It became overwhelming and I realized that I started to view each new things as “it.” The old adage that if your only tool is a hammer, you treat everything as if…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 26th, 2010
Joel Postman has a good post on socialmediatoday.com that touches on 5 social media myths. It’s worth a read.
There are quite a few myths out there. We hear quite a bit about them at the AHA office. Many of the standard ones are listed in Joel’s piece.
We’re always interested in how organizations perceive the use of social media and what the misinformation or misunderstandings might be.
One of the myths that is sometimes overlooked is that social media is “different” than PR. This doesn’t mean that PR “owns” social media or that, depending on the scope of the campaign, that it isn’t…
Read more
Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on January 19th, 2010
The econsultancy blog has a great post on social interaction measurements. It’s worth a read.
Katie Paine also has another post worth reading (she has a lot of posts worth reading). Here, she talks about problems in calculating the value of PR, based on what the equivalent ad space would cost. Measuring that way is so out-of-date, it always surprises me that it is still used. PR is about relationships, educating people about an issue or cause and helping to inform opinion. Comparing it to what an ad would cost is of no benefit.
With outdated ideas like these continually being brought back to…
Read more
Follow us on 