Is your organization listed in Wikipedia? If it is, is it accurate?
When a potential client comes to AHA to talk about what we can provide to them in terms of public relations or communications, we always check out Wikipedia (among other places) to learn more about the organization. The information isn’t always complete or accurate. More and more, when we ask about Wikipedia, the response that we get is that not everyone understands what to do or how they can update or revise their Wikipedia listing.
I came across a great post on Ragan.com over the weekend that outlines how to approach your Wikipedia listing. It’s worth a read.
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There is a great deal of energy at AHA today – right across the country – from our offices in Gibsons and Vancouver to our long-term contractors in Calgary, Toronto and Halifax. Today, we officially launch our Brand Journalism services. You can check out some information on these new services here.
The fact is – Brand Journalism has been around for several years; McDonald’s CMO Larry Light coined the phrase in the early 2000s. There are many definitions out there. Some we agree with; some have a different approach than we do. Our definition can be found here.
At the heart of what we bring to clients with our new AHA Brand Journalism services is the opportunity for you to tell your story to your stakeholders in a credible, engaging and interesting way, using the right medium for the right audience. That also means getting it out to your audience through the right distribution channel – whether that’s a social media network, your website, YouTube or other avenues. (There is also a crucial measurement component and the expectation that content created through the Brand Journalism approach will support the organization’s business objectives, but that’s for another blog post.)
At AHA, we’ve always had a focus on creating credible, relevant content for clients – whether it was for a news release, a targeted pitch, a video interview, video news release or other communication vehicle. It had to be newsworthy, it had to meet news values and whatever the topic, it had to be a compelling story. Identifying and packaging great stories has always been at the heart of great public relations and what we do here at our agency. But now, we’ve put together a world-class team of print and broadcast journalists and strategic communicators. You can see the team and our bios here. I will be blogging shortly about the Brand Journalism Team. The skill sets, expertise and experience on this team are exceptional and we’re incredibly excited about each person and the combined talents.
Back to the topic at hand. We all know that the world has changed drastically when it comes to communication. A decade ago, the most strategic way for an organization to get its story told was to generate media attention. While media relations is still an important component of what we do, there are additional opportunities to tell your story – directly to your stakeholders. This is where Brand Journalism comes in. We work with you to define goals and objectives and identify great stories about your organization, your brand and the people – employees, your senior executive, customers or clients – who bring your brand to life. We also help you to develop a clear understanding of your stakeholders – from staff to potential and current clients or customers, to industry influencers and thought leaders, to your board of directors, to media, and to government. This includes reaching out in the way that specific stakeholder groups expect or need to be communicated with – and when. We don’t just create great content and walk away. We help you to reach out to your target audience and engage. We measure your success and challenges every step of the way so that we can refine or evolve the program. We also look at how we can effectively maximize and repurpose the use of the content – making the most of your human resources and budget. It’s all about providing great content, great value and telling a great story.
This is the first blog post outlining the value of Brand Journalism and showcasing the new AHA Brand Journalism services. Over the next few weeks, we’ll blog about how Brand Journalism can augment, support or extend your media relations campaign, how much we respect and admire journalists and bloggers (Brand Journalism isn’t about replacing the media), and about our Brand Journalism Team and what the benefits might be to your organization.
There is a great deal of passion behind our new Brand Journalism services. We strongly believe in the value of these services. We are confident in our ability to deliver exceptional, professionally produced stories in a range of mediums that will engage and interest your stakeholder group(s) – not to mention the positive impact it will have on your overall brand’s reputation.
We’d love to hear what you think about Brand Journalism.
If you think your organization would benefit from our services, please send me an email or give us a call at 604.303.1052.
We didn’t have a blog post yesterday as we were preparing for a webinar about Google+, delivered by Chris Brogan (an AHA favourite). From all accounts, Chris spent a huge amount of time (reportedly upwards of 250 hours) going through Google+ and he shared his insights, tips and hints. We’re excited to bring these to life on our end and continue learning from thought leaders to help our clients with their Google+ objectives.
There are quite a few articles out right now about the battle between Google+ and Facebook. I have listed a few below for you to review. One of the best insights comes from Brogan – in this article on Forbes.com.
His quote: “First off, if you’re immediately thinking, ‘The LAST thing I need is to figure out yet another social network,’ you’re totally right. This is the last thing you need. However, if you were fortunate enough to be a CMO back in 2007, and you said that about the transition from MySpace to Facebook, then you know what happened to people who didn’t surf the new wave instead of riding the one that petered out.”
I grew up at Maclean’s, Canada’s national news magazine. It was my first real job out of university and I was a part of the Maclean’s “family” for decades. Until I started AHA in 2003 (with co-founder Paul Holman), I was listed on the masthead as a Contributing Editor. At Maclean’s I was surrounded by some of the best journalists in the country (and I would argue, in the world). They were smart, knowledgeable and dedicated. Quite a few of them took the time to help me, mentor me, show me the ways of journalism and taught me how to tell a good story based on facts. They also drove into me what makes a story and how to pitch it so you got approval to do the piece. That is a skill set I use every day as a communicator.
We have a process at AHA that is similar to what a story idea would go through in a newsroom. We put the idea and the pitch through its paces and spend time on making sure that not only is the core idea able to stand up, that the pitch itself is crafted in a way that speaks to the community or audience that we are targeting. And, I have to say – sometimes the pitch might not generate coverage, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. There is only so much room for stories in newspapers, magazines, morning shows and the news. Sometimes, it isn’t the story, it’s the space and that’s where, as communicators, we are fortunate to work in a time that allows us to share the story through websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media networking sites.
I recently came across an interesting post on Ragan.com that talks about how to pitch media. It’s worth a read.
There is a skill and a craft to pitching media and to generating coverage for an organization. It takes time, effort, research and planning – and it takes an ability to take the facts and information and tell them in a compelling way. So much has changed in the last decade – technology has given us so much opportunity to share information and our stories with a larger community. What hasn’t changed is that if you want someone to pay attention, at the heart of it all, you need a story that matters to them and you need tell it well.
On a side note, I have to admit that watching the reports about the News of the World newspaper being shut down because of the phone hacking scandal, I wish that I could recreate the Friday nights at Maclean’s when we would all go for a beer after work and talk about news. I would love to know what they think of this and if they were ever tempted to bend their integrity for a story.
