Social Media Archives - Page 11 of 65 - AHA Creative Strategies

Our new AHA graphic recording

We just posted a new video on the front page of our website, and I have to say, we’re pretty excited about it. It is a graphic recording that we produced in collaboration with Tanya Gadsby of Drawing Out Ideas. Graphic recording is a creative way to communicate and it is a tool that can be incredibly useful in helping you to connect with your audience or community. The AHA video is only one example of how a graphic recording can be used; there are several other options, depending on your needs and objectives.

Tanya is exceptional at her craft. Not only was she an absolute delight to work with, she also brought a level of creativity to the project that was of huge value. She has a rare talent and is able to blend creativity with a strategic approach – it’s really impressive. She understood who we are (as AHA and as individuals) and she was able to help us to create a visual story that captured our uniqueness in a way that is engaging, compelling and useful. This graphic recording helps to showcase who we are and what we do, and it does it in an interesting and imaginative way.

The world of communication has changed. It is important that as PR professionals, we evolve with new tools and technologies. I believe that graphic recordings are a great example of a new way to tell your story or to explain a complex topic to your stakeholders. It’s different, it’s fun and yet it provides the opportunity to give details in a way that holds a viewer’s attention.

At AHA, we’ve always been interested in the visual components of storytelling – our Fast Take Friday video blogs are highly popular and we are looking at bringing those back soon. The graphic recording is another way to help connect with potential clients to explain what we do and showcase our ability to use new tools to tell stories.

For our blog posts, Paul has become an expert at finding the right images to help explain the information. Visuals are becoming more and more important as the world continues to search for information online. I love words, and I have made my living by stringing them together to tell stories for longer than I care to admit. However, words and imagery go together. As communicators, it’s up to us to identify and embrace new ways to tell our clients’ stories. Graphic recording is one of those new ways that we are incredibly excited about.

Do you have a medium that has worked well for you?

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How can your organization’s stories be told?

Media relations is an important component of what we do here at our Vancouver PR agency. We love developing newsworthy media pitches and connecting with journalists. It’s exciting, interesting and fun. And it’s more challenging than ever to grab the media’s attention – even with a great story pitch.

The world of journalism has changed. There are fewer resources being put towards the types of stories that we, as PR professionals, pitch to media. Good stories aren’t picked up because of lack of space, airtime and journalists to cover them. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had a conversation with one of our media contacts and they say: “I love this story, but we don’t have the resources available.” I have to admit, there are days when it is a little heartbreaking. However, there is a silver lining to this shift.

Organizations can tell their own stories in a compelling, authentic and engaging editorial style. Your stakeholders are out there looking for information about your product, services and brand, and you have the opportunity to provide it to them through your website, your blog, social media and other online sites, videos (and they don’t have to be expensive, slick corporate videos – flip style or editorial style videos can be great and far more reasonable than you may expect), articles, white papers, etc.

We are quite thoughtful about our media pitches. We go through the same process of gathering information that I learned at Maclean’s magazine. We take our media pitches very seriously and our high success rate at getting pick up in media outlets reflects the quality of our work in this area. Although sometimes, there just aren’t the resources available for a media outlet to cover the story. That’s when we take the media pitch and use it to build out an article, a broadcast segment, or a series of blog posts that we share via social media networking sites. This means that if a good pitch doesn’t get picked up, it still has huge value. And I have to say, sometimes the results that we get from the organization producing their own content is more relevant than if it had been covered by traditional media.

How could you tell the stories about your organization? Would it be by using video? A blog? An editorial style article? There are huge opportunities in this area. It’s very exciting for PR agencies like ours, that have writing and storytelling skills, and for our clients.

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As some readers of this blog know, I have been dealing with an issue with H&R Block on behalf of a family member. I believe that it is important to acknowledge their efforts when an organization responds to an issue that is put in front of them.

Yesterday, I received a response from H&R Block that they are dealing with this issue. What they have put forward satisfies me for the moment. They have had someone with knowledge about the type of issue that my stepmother is facing (due to their error) look into this and they are taking steps to correct it. I was told that my stepmother should receive the refund that she is entitled to (and has been trying to get for the last year) in two to three months. I appreciate that they have taken this issue seriously and are working to resolve it. I will keep you posted on what happens next.

What I want to focus on in today’s blog post is the communications aspect of my interaction with H&R Block.

As a person with an issue, here is what I did to get results:

I was polite. (I said please and thank you; I did not use profanity.)
I did not get personal. (My issue is with H&R Block, not with any one person.)
I outlined my expectations, and they were not unreasonable.
I followed up. (I was the polite squeaky wheel.)
I did some research and included people in senior positions in the organization in the e-mail conversation.
When I felt that my issue was not receiving the consideration it deserved, I reached out via social media (this blog, Twitter and Facebook) to share my frustration and engaged the support of others.
I let the person who was communicating with me know that I appreciated the efforts they told me they are now taking.
And I will continue to follow up. This is not over until my stepmother has the refund cheque from the government in her hands.

Good customer service is a key element of operational excellence and brand reputation. In my opinion, customer service should be a priority for every organization. If you drop the ball here, it can turn into something quite costly in the long run.

And if you messed up, say you are sorry. I have dealt with issues and crisis with clients where the legal team and I have had incredibly loud discussions about this. I understand the challenges around “legal” responsibility, but if you made a mistake, acknowledge it, explain why it happened and what you will change so it will never happen again. As human beings, we want to forgive – but we won’t do that unless you apologize and take responsibility. (Which – I have to say – H&R Block has not done yet. I am waiting for them to get to this stage of our discussion.)

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Here at AHA, we are preparing to head to New Zealand for the 5^th year of TRENZblog, the social media campaign that has us blogging and tweeting from the country. First, as we check out areas on a familiarization trip (this year it’s Wellington, the Marlborough region, and the Christchurch & Canterbury region), and then from TRENZ, New Zealand’s largest travel trade show.

We are always excited to head back to New Zealand – it’s a fabulous place. The beauty of the country is breathtaking and each region has its own unique charm. And the people of New Zealand are exceptional. Friendly, welcoming and more than a little bit cheeky.

Five years ago, TRENZblog was a bit of a leap of faith on the part of Tourism New Zealand. In 2008, the online world was just finding acceptance in the mainstream. In fact, five years ago I had the opportunity to interview New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and I was the first travel blogger to be granted an interview with him.

TRENZblog has now become a bit of a “regular” connection between trade media and New Zealand tourism operators. This project is a resource in providing trade media and travel trade professionals with timely and relevant information about tourism activities in the country.

We have recently been working on several proposals and that always makes us take a look at ourselves as communicators and what and how we do things. TRENZblog is a good example of seeing a shift in the landscape and moving that way. We recognized that the online world and social media were game changers when it came to PR and strategic communication and we knew that in order to serve our clients well, we had to evolve. TRENZblog is one of those projects that could have easily slipped by without much fanfare. It’s kind of workhorse PR initiative. It’s not big and flashy and it likely won’t win us any awards, but it gets the job done – and it gets done well. TRENZblog produces results and over the past four years, we have measured and reviewed what we could do differently, what works and what doesn’t, how we can continue to improve.

We’re really proud of TRENZblog. It’s a good project that meets its objective. The fact that we get to spend time in New Zealand while we implement it is a bonus.

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