The grab bag returns after a month in exile. Three quick takes on the intersection of storytelling, digital and communications. To SEO or Not SEO in the Headline Actually, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. We can learn from media properties like Business Insider that have mastered the art of headline eye …more
Virtually every great story encompasses failure or at least a crisis. Apple flirted with bankruptcy. J.K. Rowling lived on welfare before Harry Potter came to the rescue. Everyone told Freddie Patek he was too short to play professional baseball (naturally a favorite). As Fortune Journalist Patricia Sellers noted in discussing storytelling in business, “If failure …more
I had a hunch this was going to happen. While the media trumpeted the arrival of Warren Buffet on Twitter, I wondered aloud if he would have staying power. To help his onboarding process – communicating in staccato-like bursts can throw off the most brilliant of minds – I even crafted 20 evergreen tweets that …more
The most visible intersection of social media and customer support has to be Twitter. At any given time, you’ve got twitchy customers taking their complaints to the masses. A quick look at the tweet stream from one of the whipping boys of social floggings, Comcast, brings us “deep” customer interactions such as: Just in case …more
I never quite understood how social media could actually add new content to the conventional storytelling in news reporting. Until now. Last week, I got an email from a college buddy and fraternity brother – and no, they’re not one and the same – with the subject line, “My story went national.” My first thought …more
We are huge fans of the ProfNet service from PR Newswire. By sending daily alerts on media stories in motion, ProfNet eliminates much of the guesswork in pitching a client source to a journalist. Two variables go a long way toward determining whether your ProfNet effort produces a thought leadership win. The first can be …more
Every PR company with a pulse wants to differentiate. It’s not easy. Client centric. Smart. Results-oriented. These words and others show up again and again in agency descriptions. In updating the Hoffman overview for the Council of PR firms, we strived to take the audience behind the curtain. Here goes: Do you perceive communications as …more
Here’s a quandary for communicators. Your CEO has been incognito to the media for 26 years. Rather than charge forward into the mainstream media, he prefers a gentle re-entry. This is not the time to pitch Morley Safer. Huawei’s communications team faced this very situation. Its CEO, Ren Zhengfei, was ready to meet with the …more
Every startup shares one common trait – They’re trying to disrupt the status quo. It’s hard. Legacy competitors in the space – in some cases huge companies with massive resources and years of operation – dominate. Their longevity begets MMM, market muscle memory, which adds to the challenge. It’s easy to fall into the …more
