PR





January is an interesting month. People are setting goals in both their personal and professional lives. It’s a time of new beginnings, of focusing (or refocusing), of excitement and hope. We’re no different here at AHA. We took some time over the holiday season to set our goals and to outline what we want to achieve, experience and create in 2012.



One of my professional goals is to work with more clients who realize that great PR is about building relationships, about educating and informing, and about engaging with your target market or stakeholder group. Social media has made a huge impact on public relations. There are many avenues for great PR and they include traditional approaches and new media. One of the areas I am excited about is in the area of brand journalism. Brand journalism allows organizations to create interesting, useful pieces – video, articles, Q&As and more – that share relevant information that is of value to the stakeholder group.



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I am on location at a video shoot for a client today and as I took the early ferry into Vancouver (a short 40-minute commute from my home on the Sunshine Coast), I heard a report on News 1130, a local radio station, that grabbed my attention.



It seems that a local politician used the images of two children in campaign brochures without getting permission from their parents. As a communicator, when I see issues like this, I wonder how it happened. In this day and age, taking photos of children without the written consent of their parent(s) or legal guardian(s) isn’t a smart move. Using those photos without written consent is a big deal.


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At AHA, we feel fortunate that we get to work with our clients. We have great clients and many of the people that we work with have been with AHA for a long time. Several have changed organizations and brought AHA to work with them in their new role.



At AHA, we are consistently focused on finding the best ways to work with our clients. What makes a client stand out is that they focus on finding the best way to work with us. Working in partnership means that we build a mutually beneficial, respectful relationship. We have a commitment to client service and to delivering excellence and results for our clients. We also expect our clients to have a commitment to us as an agency as well.



Here are some points on how to get the best from your agency:



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At AHA, we spend a great deal of time working with clients to create interesting, informative and engaging content. It isn’t about what the client organization wants to say as much as it is about what their community or stakeholder group is interested in hearing, discussing, and learning.



For some organizations, this is a big paradigm shift. It can, in fact, be culture shifting. There is a perception with the fast-paced, 24/7 cycle, and user-generated content online, that organizations have lost control of their “message.” When in fact, the social media era (in my humble opinion) should be seen as providing the most opportunity to let your target market (and others you haven’t even considered) in on the conversation about your brand, organization, and product or services.



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I recently received an email from an organization in the communications field asking for my input. The email offered me the chance to win an iPod Shuffle. I found it surprising that an organization in this field would reach out to communicators and offer that as the prize. The communicators I know either have iPhones or smart phones that hold music or they already have a music player. And a Shuffle is pretty far down the food chain. An iPad would have been a better prize; only about half of the communicators I know have a tablet of some type.



It was clear to me that this organization either didn’t think about the audience for this request or didn’t care. Trying to better understand the “what’s in it for me,” I went through their request. (There always has to be something in it for the person you are asking to take action.) They wanted to know about social media and how it has impacted what I do, but nowhere did it say that it would share the results. An oversight perhaps… But then I realized I have received emails from this organization before – emails trying to sell me reports. I didn’t take the survey and I asked to be removed from their mailing list.



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