My own career as a reporter was short-lived, not even three months at the “El Independiente” in South Tucson. Still, I enjoy sharing an outsider’s perspective on the plight of journalism. Curating these posts on our journalistic brothers/sisters, I’ve captured five takes with a PR bent. The Wall Street Journal Tries BuzzFeed Storytelling When I …more
The grab bag makes its 2014 debut today. Three takes coming at you. A Little SEO Humor Marcus Thompson II, the San Jose Mercury News sports journalist, showed his storytelling chops with a terrific column on Barry Bonds lending a helping hand to the Giants during Spring training: “At a news conference to kick off …more
A good percent of the U.S. population has watched the Budweiser “puppy love” ad that ran during the Super Bowl. At last count, YouTube views were about to crack the 50,000,000 mark. I believe that qualifies as a viral video. What exactly in the video caused so many people to watch and share? Of course, …more
I conducted a storytelling workshop at UC Berkeley last month that had a fresh wrinkle. A chunk of time was devoted to applying the concepts of storytelling to one’s personal branding, specifically the resume and LinkedIn profile. Several questions zeroed in on the “Skills & Endorsements” real estate in LinkedIn. While I’m an advocate for …more
Our campaigns increasingly pay homage to search and online presence. Regardless of the organization, the target audience at some point conducts due diligence online. Which means bringing digital skills to the table in building a client’s online profile. I recently shared a case study from our China team in which WeChat anchored a campaign. And …more
I’ve always thought the Thomas Friedman line should read, “The world is flat … except in China.” Many U.S. Internet and media companies have entered the China market with dreamy aspirations only to find Kafka-esque obstacles at every turn. Watching the latest social media company take the leap, LinkedIn, should make for good TV in …more
Every publication has embraced social media. For proof, look no further than the “cutting-edge” journalism of Tactical Knives which connects with readers through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Pinterest (knives on Pinterest is a story for another time). But here’s the question I posed to our crack research team: Do publications operate their social channels in …more
As best as I can piece the data together, the three largest news release distribution services (PR Newswire, BusinessWire and Marketwire) sent out roughly 642,000 news releases in 2013. If you’re keeping score, that’s about 1,759 news releases per day. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. You can quote me on …more
Who cares if Warren Buffett is still getting the hang of this Twitter thing? The man knows how to apply storytelling techniques to business communications (heard he’s a pretty good investor too). There’s no better example of Buffett’s storytelling acuity than his annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that came out over the weekend. The …more
