Online Communications

Before I leap into today’s blog post – I owe you an apology. Our AHA blog hasn’t been as active as usual and it completely falls on my shoulders. It’s been busy in our office and our focus has been on working with our clients to meet some tight, challenging deadlines. We’re loving every minute of it – we live for challenges and deadlines – but our blog and Fast Take Fridays have suffered. My apologies. I am committed to getting back on track starting today and going back to our writing, videotaping and posting schedule. I know if we had a client who went off track, I would be giving them a little grief with some nudging to get them back into the schedule. So, I had the same talk with myself this morning – and here I am back at it. (I can be quite persuasive when I want to be!)

I was reading a piece in the New York Times about people who write fake book reviews. And it really struck a nerve with me. I learned a long time ago not to trust all the reviews online – especially about books and for travel.  There is an entire growing industry that will write reviews on books, products or services – and just about anything you can think of – for a price. That’s not a review; it’s advertising or advertorial or promotion, but it’s not a review. And in my mind – it is unethical.

Public relations is about authenticity and transparency – and not disclosing that you have been paid to do something is about as far away from that as you can get. It doesn’t mean people can’t get paid for checking things out for organizations. In my opinion, Chris Brogan is a perfect example of approaching this with integrity. He discloses when he has been given something – the product, a payment or he gets an affiliate referral fee when you click from his email or website and buy something. I also trust Chris; he has proven time and time again that he won’t lie to me about a product just because he got paid to review it. I am good with that approach; just tell me your relationship with what you are reviewing.

This New York Times article is worth a read. It may open your eyes to the fact that a lot of information that we are being fed online just isn’t true – and, in fact, some of it is downright dishonest. We’re still working out the ethics and values of the Internet. And I think it’s going to take some time.

When you do check out reviews online, put the review and reviewer in context. Check out their other reviews. I almost didn’t stay at a hotel because there was a scathing review of it from someone. At the last minute, I checked out what else this person had reviewed – and he had reviewed a lot. He hated everything. He had over 200 reviews on TripAdvisor and not one of them was positive.

Often the first five to ten reviews for a book or product are from friends, families or employees of the company. Unless they disclose their association or affiliation, I wouldn’t trust them. And especially with people who have self-published or are from a smaller company promoting their book, products and services – you will often see a small group of people who write reviews for each other. There is a little circle of promotion that happens that is pretty easy to identify. Put reviews in context. Don’t take them as face value.

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Regular readers of our AHA blog know that we’re big fans of Chris Brogan. He’s smart, he’s talented, he’s kind and he’s generous with his knowledge. A pretty great combination, if you ask us. We always find something interesting on his blog – topics that engage us in conversation and discussion in the AHA office and with clients. One of his recent posts on how important it is for communicators to do more than “talk well” resonated with me. This post is worth a read.

We know that the world has changed and that technology has empowered us – as communications professionals and as people. The use of visuals to tell a story is more popular than ever and more accessible, thanks to widespread access to technology (and the reasonable price tag).

As communicators, we will always be charged with developing positioning and messaging. I can’t imagine that speeches, newsletters or editorial style content are going away anytime soon; however, there is so much more to communicating these days.

We have used both professionally shot and flip style video for many years now. While we are smart enough to know when it’s time to bring in the professionals, we have also learned how to shoot and edit our own guerilla/Flip style videos. We use Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest (and so many more) – all online communications tools that demand a different understanding and approach to communication, including how to engage with an image or video. Our abilities don’t end there – Paul took a web design/html course so we can better understand what it takes to build a site. Not that we, personally, will build a site, but we need to know what it takes and be able to make minor changes. I am obsessed with online measurement and we have spent time at conferences and workshops focused on how to interpret online stats and measurements. I am continually reviewing the incredible information that can be gleaned on Google Analytics to better understand what works online for our clients and what doesn’t. SEO is another area that it is important for communications professionals to understand.

All of this at once can seem overwhelming, I know. But if you are a communicator, you can choose one area a month and spend a little time understanding how it works and what it means to your organization (or you can just call us and we can help).

It’s important to have at least a working knowledge of a wide range of communication tools and approaches relevant to today’s technology and to the expectations and demands of your stakeholders.

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We are big fans of David Henderson. An award-winning former journalist, Henderson tells it like it is and he doesn’t pull any punches. In many ways, he reminds me of some of the diehard news journalists I have had the pleasure and privilege to work with when I was at Maclean’s. Getting the story was what they lived for; covering breaking news and explaining what was happening and why to our readers was their reason for being. And they didn’t hold back when they had something to say – like Henderson.

His recent blog post talks about what news media is like today, and what that means for the news we see and read as consumers. That made me think about how much journalism and the news that comes into our homes each day has evolved over the past two decades. I know that magazine journalism has changed since I worked at Maclean’s. It had to. The morning and evening news has changed too, and it continues to change.

I have a television in my office. Not only does it make me really popular during events like the Olympics, but it also allows me to have different news channels playing throughout the day. I don’t sit there and stare at the TV. Sometimes the sound is off so I can concentrate (although I grew up at Maclean’s, so I can work pretty much in any busy, noisy, stressy environment). I get a taste of several news and talk shows each day and there are times when something catches my interest and I think: “Well, that’s changed.”

As a communicator this is important on several levels. How we pitch media has changed and how people hear or take in information has changed as well. Now, I am not saying that your daily newspaper or evening news should be the standard by which you communicate. I’m saying that it is important to review all media forms – from the newspaper to the nightly news to community papers to cable network talk shows to blogs, Facebook and Twitter – with a view of looking at the language being used, the topics being covered and the amount of time or space allotted to them. Check the newspaper comments online and see what elements are creating discussion among the readers; follow the nightly anchor’s Twitter feed and see what people are saying about the broadcast. Find out what resonates and why. Understand how information is being communicated today – don’t assume it’s the same way as yesterday. Identify the realities of the situation so you know what is and isn’t an appropriate pitch to media currently. If there are situations like Henderson points out, where the media seem to be ignoring a big story, find an alternative distribution channel for it: your blog, a guest blog post, a video segment or link to the information on social networking sites.

The news media is a lot different than it was even five years ago. Make sure you stay up-to-date with your current affairs.

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At AHA, we understand the value of using video in communication initiatives. Some of the work we do in brand journalism has video segments as the central communication tool.

One of the challenges that we face is finding the balance between what the client wants to say and what the viewer really wants to see. And sometimes that is harder to do than it should be.

We have had some passionate discussions with clients about the content and length of their videos over this. (For the record, I believe strongly in passionate discussion – even disagreement. As long as it is respectful and focuses on the topic and not on the people, a discussion where not everyone agrees can be of huge value. Done well, it can create an exceptional end product or result.) It can be hard to get someone to move away from what they want to tell and focus on the other side – what people want to hear, how they want to hear it and when they want to hear it.

In working with clients, one of our responsibilities is to provide a strategic perspective. To me, this means that I must represent the perspective of the community, the audience and/or the stakeholder group during the planning, creative and implementation stages of the process.

During planning sessions, I often ask (respectfully, of course): “Why does that matter to this audience? Who will care about that point? Does that need to be included? Does that need to be said in that way?”

For the most part, at AHA we’re not big fans of overly produced, corporate style videos. It always depends on the client’s objectives, of course, but in all of the research we have done, for all of the videos we have made (as AHA and in our prior lives before we found the happiness of AHA), time and time again it comes back to creating compelling content that the target market relates to. That doesn’t mean you don’t need good production value; it does mean that you need to understand how to tell a story that is relevant to the person you are telling it to.

Too often, video becomes overwhelmed with corporate speak, too many messages and even becomes embroiled in the politics of an organization. (If VP Smith is in the video, we have to include VP Jones. If we film at the East Office, we have to also film at the West Office. And the list goes on.) This dilutes the value of the video and moves you away from the objective – to create relevant, compelling content that connects you to the viewer.

 

When you are producing video for your organization, it’s crucial to take the focus off what you want to say and focus on what your community wants to hear from you.

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