Marketing Communications

#Blog4NZ blog post

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 22nd, 2011

AHA Creative Strategies is participating in #Blog4NZ, a three-day blogging extravaganza that spotlights New Zealand as a fabulous tourist destination. (To see other tweets and posts from travel bloggers around the world, visit Twitter here.)

As the Canadian PR agency for Tourism New Zealand, we connect with Canadian travel journalists on a regular basis. We work with Tourism New Zealand to create the opportunity for leading travel journalists to visit New Zealand and to share their experience with their readers and/or audience. Recently, we have been fortunate to have received coverage about New Zealand in The Toronto Star,…

How To See Your Organization As A Content Creator

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on March 15th, 2011

I spent a great deal of time with some of the best journalists in the world when I worked at Maclean’s and I am thankful everyday as a communicator that I had that opportunity. Creating engaging, interesting and informative content isn’t easy – and writing clearly and concisely adds additional challenge to the craft.

We have heard for many years that content is king. Your stakeholders visit your website, your blog, Facebook page, Twitter page or other social networking sites to learn, to connect, to join a conversation and to either learn something or to tell you something. What you…

Is Your Blog Still Relevant?

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 21st, 2011

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding a Pew Internet study that says that young people are moving away from blogging and are more focused on using Facebook and Twitter.

The New York Times has an interesting piece on it as well.

We have had an interesting discussion on this study and the response it has received here in our Vancouver PR agency. While the report itself does show that young people prefer the fast, short updates provided by Facebook and Twitter – it appears to me that we are missing some context here. While Facebook…

Fortune 100’s Use Of Social Media

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on February 17th, 2011

We admit it. We’re geeks here at AHA Creative Strategies. We love reports, surveys and statistics. We like to dig deep, go beyond the obvious and put context to our analysis of information. Communications giant Burson-Marsteller released its second annual Global Social Media Check-up recently and we’re pretty excited to dig into it. In fact, I am already planning my Friday night around it. (I know, pretty sad.)

While this report focuses on Fortune 100 companies, don’t discount its value to your organization. Fortune 100 companies may have larger communications departments and budgets, but there is valuable information…

Social Media is a Part of Your Communications Strategy

Posted by Paul Holman of AHA Creative Strategies on January 28th, 2011

Social Media is a Part of Your Communications Strategy from AHA Creative on Vimeo.

In today’s video, Ruth talks about social media as a part of your overall communications strategy.

The Best Social Media Campaigns Of The Year

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on December 01st, 2010

It’s that time again – the “Best of…” lists are starting to come out. Amy Vernon reviews the best social media marketing campaigns of the year at Imediaconnection.com.

Wondering why I am showing you marketing campaigns and not PR campaigns? The fact is, marketing and PR are both parts of a campaign these days. Social media has changed the days where the ad team would do one thing, the marketing group another and PR would just try to use what they did to generate some editorial and word of mouth.

At our Vancouver PR agency, we look at…

Can You Write?

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on July 26th, 2010

Shel Holtz has a very interesting piece on whether writing is a core skill for a professional communicator. He did a round up, asking several strategic communications professionals for their take and their responses are thoughtful and relevant. It’s an interesting topic and this piece is definitely worth reading.

AHA TAKE

There are some communicators who focus more on the actual craft of writing in their day-to-day work than others, but I can’t imagine that a professional communicator doesn’t need solid writing skills to do their job. Communication is at the very foundation of what we do…

Integrating Social Media Into Your Communications Plan

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on May 13th, 2010

Our friend and colleague Della Smith of Della’s Q Workshops gave an excellent presentation last night for the Canadian Public Relations Society. In the presentation, Della discussed how a communicator can (and should) integrate social media into the communications plan for their organization.

Della and I have developed an interactive workshop for organizations that addresses the challenge that communicators face: How do you integrate social media into your communications plan? This workshop is unique because it takes participants through the planning process and, at the end, they walk away with a first draft of a communications plan that…

The AHA Social Media Strategy – Breathe In, Breathe Out, Carry On

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on April 22nd, 2010

We hear it from clients, colleagues and friends all the time. Keeping up with what is going on in social media is overwhelming. Just recently, Facebook rolled out community pages and began to group people based on likes. They have also stopped supporting Facebook Lite, which appeared to be a Twitter-like approach to Facebook. Ning has announced that it will eliminate the free component of its service…and the list goes on and on. How can anyone keep up not only with the changes, but what they mean to your organization?

At the AHA office, we understand…

Maximizing Your Website

Posted by Ruth Atherley of AHA Creative Strategies on April 20th, 2010

There is a great piece on Hubspot.com entitled 4 Ways To Make Your Corporate Website More Social. This is a recurring topic here on the AHA blog and with our clients. An organization has a real opportunity to use their website to provide relevant information and to connect with stakeholders. Unfortunately, more often than not, websites don’t receive the attention they should because the focus is on some other online tools or technology that have more buzz, hype or profile at the moment.

Take a good look at your website or have a professional provide an audit on…