Marketing 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 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…
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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 October 22nd, 2009
Jeff Bullas has a great post on his blog that outlines many of the reasons that companies aren’t using social media. The post showcases many of the points that we, at AHA, have heard from senior communicators and CEOs. What I also found quite interesting are the comments. They put forward a range of perspectives and are worth a read.
In the world of a communicator or marketer, there is a great deal of focus on social media. It’s important for those of us who work in this area to keep in mind that not everyone has embraced social media the way…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on August 05th, 2009
Twitter is still the hot social media tool, despite not being “for everyone.” At AHA, we participated in a social media teleseminar yesterday with Peter Shankman and Chris Brogan (you can check out the tweets at #broman). It was very interesting and engaging and, as always with Peter and/or Chris, we learned something.
After the call we discussed the value of different social media tools and when we got around to Twitter, it was very interesting. We have clients that wouldn’t benefit from being active on Twitter, but we think it’s important for them to be aware of it and to monitor it…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 17th, 2009
I have been thinking about the new opportunities that will come with Google Wave. This certainly has created some great discussion here at AHA.
The description from Wikipedia is: Google Wave is “a personal communication and collaboration tool” announced by Google at the Google I/O conference on May 27, 2009. It is a web-based service, computing platform, and communications protocol designed to merge e-mail, instant messaging, wiki, and social networking. It has a strong collaborative and real-time focus supported by robust spelling/grammar checking, automated translation between 40 languages, and numerous other extensions. It is expected to be released later in 2009.
Google…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on May 26th, 2009
There is a very interesting article by Adam Broitman on iMedia Connection on “Social Media: Whose Job Is It Anyway?” It is a question that is often asked by a range of professionals from front line staff that want to participate, to the communicators, to the CEO and board of directors. One of the key points we make when answering it—and the answer is a little different each time because the organization is different—is that if it is everyone’s job, it will end up being no one’s job. There has to be someone within the organization that “owns” social media.
That isn’t…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on May 25th, 2009
There was an interesting article in BusinessWeek last week about Web 2.0 and managing corporate reputations. I am often asked about the challenges that come with the open conversations created by social media. It’s a valid concern for organizations and one that should be taken seriously.
Some organizations choose to block employee access to social networking sites. That seems to be old paradigm thinking to me and it is a bit like locking the barn door after the horse has already walked out. There are all sorts of ways around being blocked. Think about how many staff members have an iPhone or…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on May 22nd, 2009
There is an interesting article in the New York Times about one of the “hot new jobs” – the social media specialist. Social media, emerging media, interactive media or online communication is becoming more and more mainstream. Communication has changed and organizations that want to engage with their stakeholders and community need to understand that and include social media in their strategic planning.
One of the key points that isn’t included in this article is where the social media specialist “lives” in an organization. Is he/she in the communications department, marketing, or sales? And how is social media being integrated throughout the…
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Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on May 04th, 2009
There is a great post on Todd Defren’s blog, it is written by Paula Drum, VP of Marketing at H&R Block. Ms. Drum saw the value of social media early and she is well-known as an innovator. It turns out she is leaving her current position to lead a to-be-announced e-commerce site. She cross-posts her final H&R Block post on PR-Squared (Defren’s blog) and it’s worth a read. It’s really worth a read.
In fact, Della Smith of QUAY Strategies and I are presenting a Social Media MasterClass today and as one of our going off script and finding interesting content…
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