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Media

Too Much Teleprompter? Can the Crutch Dilute Your Message?

United States President Barack Obama has been criticized of late for his overuse of the teleprompter, the device which aids him as he offers his riveting speeches and ongoing campaign of change for America. Even in the midst of a jostled economy and uncertain end, there is still criticism and focus on those things that can be considered non-essential or mundane at best. Can a teleprompter really be overused?

Some of the greatest speeches ever given by U.S. Presidents have not been without the aid of notes and teleprompters. They are quite handy if the orator forgets his lines or train of thought. Not to mention the awkwardness that can result if he loses his place in his paper notes, having not given the teleprompter a chance. The actual device itself is quite useful but has many organizations and individuals in a quandary because they feel as if Mr. Obama relies on it too much. The feeling is that he is not really “connecting” to the American people and talking to them instead of at them. CEO’s and other heads of companies use this media tool quite effectively as well to convey their own messages. But is this little contraption over-used and over-rated?

The media wants to get the news and developments first-hand, when-they-happen and not miss one complete iota of information that can be beneficial to their audiences. They want fresh, natural and relaxed news that they can use to report the news and entertainment. Perhaps the teleprompter hinders that? Maybe they are used a little too much and make the person appear less than genuine or that they are delivering a “canned” message?

CEO’s can and should use notes, teleprompters or any other aids they may need to effectively convey their message, but never to a point where their messages may appear less than genuine. This is where they may lose their audiences interest and sometimes even their own credibility. Delivering a speech should be with facts of course, but always, always from the heart.

Does your company’s CEO use teleprompters or any other speech aids? Does Obama’s use of his teleprompter affect you in any way or make you believe him less?

The Obama Brand and How it Can Help Your Organization

Since President Obama has taken office, things have been pretty steady and busy with policies, changes, developments, etc. Suffice it to say, that a dull moment there hasn’t been! But while there is a lot to do in the office of the most important job in the free world, President Obama has been making lots of strides to make sure that his “brand” is melded into the minds of the citizens and the voting population. He wants to make sure that you remember him. And as a corporate entity, you should want and aspire towards the same branding for your business.

President Obama effectively uses the tools of social networking very well and has shown that he is able to manipulate  them with ease. Of course, it takes a team of specialists and experts to position him to be this effective, but it is done nonetheless. His weekly radio addresses on YouTube are one of “firsts” that the president has used in his office as a means of mass communications to reach the people. He uses the weekly addresses to bring the citizens up to speed on where things stand with the economy and what the next step(s) is.

He also effectively uses email campaigns to reach the taxpayers, briefing them on where the state of the economy is, what’s next on his agenda, what key areas he wants to focus on next, etc. It is almost as if he wants to make sure to address everything that could possibly be on the taxpayer’s mind. Possible? Hardly, but the effort is made nonetheless.

Social networking, marketing and branding. All three effectively implemented by the president. So can you do the same? Yes you can!

Branding your company, product, or image is not difficult to do at all. Start with social networking and begin building your “image” into the minds of your customers. Be “in their face” at every available opportunity. Compile your mailing lists. Ask questions. Answer questions. Become the expert and the “go-to” person. Brand yourself by becoming something and/or someone that people will search out for the answers.

What can you do to start branding your corporate image? Make a deliberate and calculated use of whatever social platform that you wish to affect. In other words, don’t just start a Facebook page or a Twitter page just for the sake of it or because “everybody’s doing it.” Develop a plan and a desired outcome for your goals. Obama’s campaign certainly didn’t start last year or two years ago building a network of supporters. It all started with a deliberate use and a reason for a Twitter presence. His exact use of media platforms is one of the key components that catapulted him to political stardom. His staff was able to deftly use the social media networking sites to create the Obama brand. It strengthened his network, increased his following and furthered his political platform. You can do the same with and for your corporate brand.

How can you effectively use online tools for your organization in particular? What platforms do you feel would benefit your corporate entity the most?

The Know More Media Business Debacle: A Series of Unfortunate Events – Are YOU Ready For Unfortunate Events?

Numerous online website and companies use Google as a source of revenue for their product or services and also to strategize how they will align with their competitors. The competition is fierce, no doubt, and the quest to be at the top of the Google search engine in any industry is coveted by large and small businesses alike.

Major online blog networks base and build their business model around advertising sales, keyword strategizing and placement and search engine ranks. The search for being first, being on top and being the most clicked site(s) consumes most days of CEO’s, journalists, bloggers, freelance writers and online marketers. But what happens when you simply cannot compete with the stiff competition that is in Google’s tight grasp, only to be given to the highest bidder or the most prolific clicker?

Only last week, Know More Media, a large online blogging network of business news and developments, announced that they would be closing their doors forever. Know More Media had been struggling some time with ad revenue and securing sponsors to keep their network afloat, but as the business owners found out…it was too little, too late.

Blogging is a task that is easy for any writer to begin. It’s been the latest craze for a number of years. As of December 2007, Technorati (a social networking site) reported that they are tracking over 112 million blogs on their system! Blogs are created for personal journals, corporate blogs (in the case of the one I write here for Corporate-Eye) and network blogs, like the one that was maintained by Know More Media.

The ease of starting and maintaining a blog for a writer is simple. He simply writes great, compelling content, uploads it to the blog and gets paid. How simple is that? But the business end of blogging for a corporate organization or a network is wholly a different story. The corporate blog network must constantly analyze data that relates to traffic, sponsors and ads and they have to continually review conversion rates and how those numbers factor into the revenue’s bottom line. It is a business that is easy to run but is a business nonetheless. Essentially, if a network is not productive or can not generate significant revenue through their ad placements, they suffer and this can make the network unappealing to potential sponsors or those willing to place ads on the sites.

Know More Media handled the news quite well and quite professionally in letting their bloggers and the Internet public know what the turn of events would be in the upcoming weeks. There were lots of sad bloggers and lots of heated discussions in the blogosphere on the reasons why this blog network failed. No one but the executives and the founders know exactly what caused the network to crumble, but there is general agreement that in order for a network of any size to function well and stay in competition, they must be managed well, be business savvy and know the inner workings of effective strategizing, marketing and online advertising in order for the network to experience success.

I for one was one of the bloggers at the network, and was taken aback by the news. My leadership blog at Leader Notes was one that had been started by the CEO of Know More Media, Hal Halladay. When I first began blogging on the network, there was an air of positive energy, attitudes that said “full steam ahead” and a business that was dedicated to thriving and seeing their bloggers do the same. It is amazing how so much can change in such a small amount of time.

Now with so many unanswered questions looming overhead, what will happen to the blogs, the bloggers, the founders and the network as a whole? How does a company bounce back from such a devastating action? What steps can your company take to ensure that this type of thing is avoided? Although the network is leaving and there are a number of bloggers in indecisive states, Know More Media is an unfortunate example of how quickly a business can take a turn for the worst. They have shown us all that we must carefully make provisions for the unknown and constantly think two to three frames ahead of ourselves in our business mind frame. I now speculate perhaps how they wish they had the chance to re-think all of their decisions…again.

Transmedia Storytelling, SEO and the Corporate Site

communication-networkFor many, the main take-away from the Social Media in a Corporate Context conference in Manchester this week will have been the importance of setting proper, targeted, objectives if you’re planning to venture into social media.

That was certainly emphasised by many of the speakers who were sharing their experiences. As an example, at the follow-on workshop, Cision asked ‘how many sales from a page with 7 likes?… with 203 likes?… with 2037 likes?’

The answer, of course, was zero in all three cases, because Facebook likes don’t easily translate into sales. You do need to be using the right measures, and aiming for suitable targets – which won’t be the same for all companies.

There was a lot of great material shared at this conference; if you weren’t there, make a note to check out the next one. This was my third, and I still came away full of ideas triggered by people sharing their perspectives and experience.

For me, though, there were three slightly different angles of interest in this conference.

SEO and social media

The first is the increasing significance of SEO in using social media for corporates. Now this is probably a conference subject all of its own (and if it isn’t it should be) but I got the clear impression that more people were carefully crafting their uses of social media for search engine optimisation than they used to. And not as an add-on, either, but as an integral part of their communications strategy.

As an example, Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance explained that most of their traffic came in from searches using their brand name, indicating that these visitors were already at the bottom end of the Awareness / Interest / Desire / Action sales funnel: aware of them and ready to buy. Lloyds TSB Commercial Finance decided that they wanted to increase the number of people at the Awareness stage, and developed a tactical plan to derive social media content suites from each press release (e.g. 50 tweets, 5 Facebook updates…). Great idea.

And I loved Cision’s suggestion of a ‘keyword bible’, to be used for all communications (yes, including press releases) and to stand alongside the style guide, tone of voice guide and social media policies.

Transmedia storytelling and corporate messages

The second is the importance of transmedia storytelling to convey corporate messages: using all channels available to convey elements of the corporate story, using each medium as appropriate, and telling a consistent but not repetitive story, revealing corporate culture by showing rather than telling, and using each medium to reinforce the story and move it on.

A good example here was Reckitt Benckiser who shared their Powerbrands Facebook game story with us: they use the game to raise awareness of the company among their target audience of students and people in their early careers, while conveying the corporate culture of high performance and innovation through the game. Astonishingly, they have 161,000 monthly users, of whom 60% are in their target audience (and 20% will be in the target group when they’re a bit older). The fact that the game reinforces the corporate culture while their audience is in ‘play mode’ (rather than ‘career research mode’), is a brilliant move.

Journalists and corporate communications

The third is the the changing relationship between journalists and the corporate communicators. Some of the key points made in various different sessions over the last two days included:

  • designing the corporate site’s media section for journalists, considering:
    • availability of multimedia
    • simplicity and speed
    • breadth of content
    • range of stories
  • being aware that journalists might:
    • have to create two versions of a story, one for online, and one for print – and that often online comes first, and needs different elements
    • source stories from social media (your social media stream and that of others), including taking quotes from social media
    • be posting stories during your press conference, so providing them with content (links, images) in advance is helpful

And there were more… We all know that the business of journalism and publishing is changing; it was very interesting to hear from journalists in the field about how the changes were affecting their work day to day.

Expect us to come back to these three topics again, because there’s a lot to unpack in those three alone…

British Petroleum Oil (BP Oil) Gets it Right

Having vision when it comes to foresight in economics is very important, whether you’re in politics, business or even religion. It’s not always about who’s right, but more often about what’s right. And when you get it right…

I frequently get those annoying emails from well-meaning friends and peers, giving digs on Obama and politics. They generally poke fun at what he’s doing or how he’s doing and why he’s doing it. I usually don’t even read them or if I do, I don’t take them seriously. After all, politics is a sensitive subject for many, and discussing it can open a heated and never-ending discussion.

But, what is interesting to me is one of the political views that President Obama had about clean, sustainable energy and how it can affect our future. Most of our energy sources as a nation and around the world is transported in and often directly linked to questionable agencies or organizations with ulterior motives. While the consumer is screaming for better, more cost effective ways of attaining resourceful energy, businesses that deal in this industry are also calling for more cost effective ways of handling it. Of course, this is ultimately important in the corporate sector as well, and I found that BP Oil is one of the responsible corporations and is doing their part to ensure clean energy.

Recently, they’ve constructed a wind farm in the Midwest for gathering and producing clean energy. Criticize them? Forbid! Now while I respect other’s political opinions, I can’t help but laud companies like BP Oil who are doing their part to make sure that we enjoy clean energy. BP’s efforts will do several things:

  • create more jobs
  • increase positive communications between business to business and to consumers
  • provide clean, sustainable energy

No, everything is not great and wonderful when it comes to issues like these, but I think too often we concentrate on the wrong thing or are focused wrong and place too much emphasis on what doesn’t count. What do you think?

Full of Croc or a Great Idea? The Croc Shoe Company Does a Good Thing

Donating proceeds for good causes has always been something that major businesses and corporations have done for years. They do this in an effort to spread goodwill AND to bring exposure to their companies. Many times, large corporations will make an all out televised effort to spread cheer, or some will even do local-based community efforts as a way of furthering their mission and objective.

The event has long passed, but some things worth noting that made this public relations effort memorable is 1.) the international significance that it reached and 2.) the product itself.

Since everyone wears shoes, it’s a given that the campaign would appeal to the majority of customers nationwide. Crocs are heralded by many as being one of the most comfortable shoes available. Although it lacks a bit in fashion and style, is rather large and clunky looking and doesn’t seem quite certain as to what gender, age group or social group that it wants to market to, it remains a popular shoe choice. However that doesn’t stop the company from branding itself and making it one of the most popular consumer shoes available today. 

The shoe campaign that Croc started along with Dispatch, a popular American Rock Band, was certain to bring in record crowds who loved this music style and those who either wore or liked the Croc shoe. Companies who sponsor events such as this are not always necessarily appreciative of the drawing crowd attraction, but that the crowd does get what they’re selling…and in this case, it’s the shoes. Crocs specifically.

The other element about this program that was impressive was the international significance of how the company marketed itself. They coupled with another international effort, pooled their ideas and resources and offered an incentive for customers to buy. For every purchase that the customer made, there would be a recycled pair of Crocs donated to the foundation, Soles United, and the shoes would be given to  Zimbabweans. There were over 10,000 shoes donated to this effort, so in essence there are now about 10,000 Zimbabwean residents walking around in their country fashionably sporting an in-demand pair of classic Croc shoes.

What’s so special then about a company and a donation effort? The way they reach the consumer. Some media outlets especially like special interest stories that make a difference in the lives of others. Even more so, stories that reflect a giving nature and that highlight on the good that companies are doing rather than all of the wrong things are also especially nice. With Croc, they are not just giving away money, but they’re being a part of an effort to give people something that they also need…shoes. How ingenious could it be to have your name tied into an effort that helps a group of people, in a way where the help is wanted and needed, and at the same time bring classic exposure to your company and product? Sure it’s savvy marketing, but it also scores high media points and limitless warm and fuzzies with consumers. Shoes and people go together, well, like shoes and people.

Not a bunch of Croc. Just a great idea!