International Public & Corporate Communications Quarterly Digest of Public Affairs News Issue # 4 - 2012
FOREWORD This newsletter is aimed at providing Public Affairs practitioners with a short selection of recently published stories, papers, etc. which may be useful to remain abreast of new trends or to stimulate a debate on the opinion expressed by the authors. External sources are linked and any copyright remains with the authors.
STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS Military StratCom is once again the focus of attention of the international PA community. The Pentagon is revisiting the whole issue three years after Admiral Mullen complained that StratCom had ‘become a thing instead of a process, an abstract thought instead of a way of thinking.’ DOD PA recently decided to get rid of the term StratCom in an effort to refocus on communications as a Public Affairs effort – even at strategic level – in parallel to communication-related activities aimed at influencing the behavior of enemies, and of course in synch with military actions. We reprint here the opinion expressed by Adm. Mullen; the recent DOD PA memo that replaces StratCom - as a military term – with ‘communication synchronization’; and two comments published in Foreign Policy. These are just examples of a large number of opinions circulating in specialized blogs.
In this issue: Strategic Communications: Getting Back to Basics p. 2 Communications Synchronization p. 4 Confessions of a Strategic Communicator p. 5 The Pentagon Is Still After Those Hearts And Minds p. 8 Essential media tips: - The 5 most common PowerPoint mistakes p.10 - Speaking with body language p.11 - 3 Reasons to give phone interview, instead of email p.13 Facebook not a democracy p.15 2013 PR Trends p.17 Social Media Trends for 2013 p.18
The term StratCom was maybe abused within the military to create what Mullen called ‘a cottage industry’. If this is true the solution cannot be just in a name change. But the initiative taken at the Pentagon has at least stimulated a fresh debate on how a military organization can better strategically communicate. These and other issues can be debated at our discussion page http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/grou ps/197500116950819/
The editor
edited by ComIPI http://www.comipi.it/indexEng.html
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From the Chairman – Strategic Communication: Getting Back to Basics By Adm. Mike Mullen Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chttp://www.jcs.mil/newsarticle.aspx?ID=142hiefs of Staff
Washington, August 28, 2009 - It is time for us to take a harder look at “strategic communication.” Frankly, I don’t care for the term. We get too hung up on that word, strategic. If we’ve learned nothing else these past 8 years, it should be that the lines between strategic, operational, and tactical are blurred beyond distinction. This is particularly true in the world of communication, where videos and images plastered on the Web—or even the idea of their being so posted—can and often do drive national security decisionmaking. But beyond the term itself, I believe we have walked away from the original intent. By organizing to it—creating whole structures around it—we have allowed strategic communication to become a thing instead of a process, an abstract thought instead of a way of thinking. It is now sadly something of a cottage industry. We need to get back to basics, and we can start by not beating ourselves up. The problem isn’t that we are bad at communicating or being outdone by men in caves. Most of them aren’t even in caves. The Taliban and al Qaeda live largely among the people. They intimidate and control and communicate from within, not from the sidelines.
And they aren’t just out there shooting videos, either. They deliver. Want to know what happens if somebody violates their view of Sharia law? You don’t have to look very far or very long. Each beheading, each bombing, and each beating sends a powerful message or, rather, is a powerful message. Got a governance problem? The Taliban is getting pretty effective at it. They’ve set up functional courts in some locations, assess and collect taxes, and even allow people to file formal complaints against local Talib leaders. Part of the Taliban plan to win over the people in Swat was to help the poor or displaced own land. Their utter brutality has not waned, nor has their disregard for human life. But with each such transaction, they chip away at the legitimacy of the Afghan government, saying in effect: “We can give you the stability the government cannot.” No, our biggest problem isn’t caves; it’s credibility. Our messages lack credibility because we haven’t invested enough in building trust and relationships, and we haven’t always delivered on promises. The most common questions that I get in Pakistan and Afghanistan are: “Will you really stay with us this time?” “Can we really count on you?” I tell them that we will and that they can, but when it comes to real trust in places such as these, I don’t believe we are even in Year Zero yet. There’s a very long way to go. The irony here is that we know better. For all the instant polling, market analysis, and focus groups we employ today, we could learn a lot by looking to our own past. No other people on Earth have proven more capable at establishing trust and credibility in more places than we have. And we’ve done it primarily through the power of our example. The voyage of the Great White Fleet told the world that the United States was no longer a second-rate nation. The Marshall Plan made it clear that our strength was only as good as it was shared. The policy of containment let it be known we wouldn’t stand for the spread 2
of communism. And relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters all over the world said calmly and clearly: we will help you through this.
fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.
We didn’t need a public opinion poll to launch that fleet. We didn’t need a “strat comm” plan to help rebuild Europe. And we sure didn’t need talking points and Power- Point slides to deliver aid. Americans simply showed up and did the right thing because it was, well, the right thing to do.
And make no mistake—there has been a certain arrogance to our “strat comm” efforts. We’ve come to believe that messages are something we can launch downrange like a rocket, something we can fire for effect. They are not. Good communication runs both ways. It’s not about telling our story. We must also be better listeners. The Muslim community is a subtle world we don’t fully— and don’t always attempt to understand. Only through a shared appreciation of the people’s culture, needs, and hopes for the future can we hope ourselves to supplant the extremist narrative.
That’s the essence of good communication: having the right intent up front and letting our actions speak for themselves. We shouldn’t care if people don’t like us; that isn’t the goal. The goal is credibility. And we earn that over time. Now I’m not suggesting we stop planning to communicate or that we fail to factor in audience reaction, perceptions, or culture. I recognize the information environment today is much more complex than it was in 1909, or even 1999. As someone who “tweets” almost daily, I appreciate the need to embrace the latest technologies. But more important than any particular tool, we must know the context within which our actions will be received and understood. We hurt ourselves and the message we try to send when it appears we are doing something merely for the credit. We hurt ourselves more when our words don’t align with our actions. Our enemies regularly monitor the news to discern coalition and American intent as weighed against the efforts of our forces. When they find a “say-do” gap—such as Abu Ghraib— they drive a truck right through it. So should we, quite frankly. We must be vigilant about holding ourselves accountable to higher standards of conduct and closing any gaps, real or perceived, between what we say about ourselves and what we do to back it up. In fact, I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all. They are policy and execution problems. Each time we
We cannot capture hearts and minds. We must engage them; we must listen to them, one heart and one mind at a time—over time. I’m a big fan of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson. In fact, I had the opportunity this summer to help him open up a new school for girls in the Panjshir Valley. Greg believes that building relationships is just as important as building projects. “The enemy is ignorance,” he told me, “and it isn’t theirs alone. We have far more to learn from the people who live here than we could ever hope to teach them.” He’s right. We are only going to be as good as our own learning curve. And just the simple act of trying, of listening to others, speaks volumes all by itself. I know strategic communication as a term of reference is probably here to stay. Regrettably, it’s grown too much a part of our lexicon. But I do hope we take this opportunity under the coming Quadrennial Defense Review to reexamine what we mean by it. Strategic communication should be an enabling function that guides and informs our decisions and not an organization unto itself. Rather than trying to capture all communication activity underneath it, we should use it to describe the process by which we integrate and coordinate.
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To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate. I also hope we learn to be more humble, to listen more. Because what we are after in the end—or should be after— are actions that speak for themselves, that speak for us. What we need more than anything is credibility. And we can’t get that in a talking point.
We’ve come to believe that messages are something we can launch downrange like a rocket, something we can fire for effect. They are not. Good communication runs both ways.
MICHAEL G. MULLEN Admiral, U.S. Navy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
OFFICE OF THE ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF DEFENSE November 28, 2012 MEMORANDUM FOR COMMANDERS OF THE COMBATANT COMMANDS SUBJECT: Communications Synchronization - A Local Coordination Process This memorandum is in response to questions from the field about the status of Public Affairs and Strategic Communication (SC) in Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). The responsibility for SC in OSD was shared by the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs (OASD-PA) (Communications Planning and Integration) and USD(P) (Global Engagement). COCOMs typically sent SC plans to these organizations for coordination and approval. SC was viewed as a means to synchronize communication efforts across the department, however, over the last six years we learned that it actually added a layer of staffing and planning that blurred the roles and functions of traditional staff elements and resulted in confusion and inefficiencies. As a result, this year we stood down these staff elements. We also realized that these SC plans mostly contained public affairs planning that we once again expect to come through public affairs channels. We avoid using the term SC to avoid causing confusion. The more accurate terminology,
which will be used in future Joint Publications, is communication synchronization. We are continuing our leadership role in communication and reminding those in the communication business that most things previously termed “SC” are in fact Public Affairs responsibilities. lt is the role of the information related community (information Operations, Legislative Afiairs, Public Affairs...) to ensure the leader’s intent is reflected in every staff product, and that The various parts of a command are closely synchronized-there should be no difference between what the Public Affairs office is saying, theJ5 is planning and the J3 is doing. This process can be accomplished with working groups and steering groups in concert with base planning and don't require the creation of additional staff elements. Communication goals should be managed by existing staff elements and in most cases this should be the Public Affairs office. The process requires senior leader involvement and dialogue. Without commander engagement, communication synchronization cannot work. Thank you for your efforts to ensure this important function is accomplished. These efforts will be formalized as joint doctrine in future versions of the joint publication series. George E. Little Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
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Confessions of a Strategic Communicator Tales from inside the Pentagon's message machine. BY ROSA BROOKS
DECEMBER 6, 2012
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/12/06/confess ions_of_a_strategic_communicator
I must have sinned egregiously during a past life, because when I arrived at the Pentagon in spring 2009, I was handed responsibility for the can of worms known as "strategic communication." I was a newly minted political appointee in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's policy shop and no one, including myself, knew quite what I was supposed be doing with my time. But my rĂŠsumĂŠ included a four-year stint as an opinion columnist for the Los Angeles Times. This apparently qualified me as a "communications" expert, so strategic communication policy was deemed an appropriate addition to my murky portfolio. It should go without saying that in and of itself, writing an opinion column reflects no qualifications beyond the having of opinions. I started my job at the Pentagon with plenty of opinions -- many half-baked -- but a mind blissfully free of expertise relating to "communications," strategic or otherwise. Opinionated ignorance is the hallmark of a happy political appointee, however, so I plunged resolutely into my new assignment. For the better part of the 27 months that followed, I spent much of my time trying to figure out whether strategic communication was an idea whose time had come, or a nonidea whose time should come to a rapid end. (Readers with an interest but with limited
attention spans can even look at the highly unofficial illustrated history of DOD strategic communication I put together in late 2009.) If you believe what you read in the media, the Pentagon recently opted for the second view. "The Pentagon is banishing the term ‘strategic communication,'" trumpeted USA Today on Tuesday, "putting an end to an initiative that had promised to streamline the military's messaging but instead led to bureaucratic bloat and confusion." This, the paper reports, is the upshot of "a memo obtained by USA TODAY." But reports of strategic communication's demise are greatly exaggerated. The memo obtained by USA Today -- also obtained by yours truly, and available here -- isn't really about the demise of strategic communication at "the Pentagon," which is, after all, an awfully big building. On the contrary: this latest memo is just another shot fired in the ongoing skirmish between those who believe that strategic communication is merely an unnecessary euphemism for "communications" -- meaning, basically, press statements and talking points - and thus should be controlled by public affairs offices, and those who believe strategic communication is a confusing term, but one that has nonetheless come to stand for something complex and important, something that has more to do with "strategy" than with "communications." I'm in the latter camp. But let's look at that memo. It's been agitating a corner of the blogosphere since Tuesday, mainly because its contents and import have been misrepresented (or just misunderstood) by the media. The memo is from Pentagon press spokesman and Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs George Little to the commanding generals of the various combatant commands. It explains Little's decision to stop using the term "strategic communication," which he believes causes "confusion." According to Little, "the more accurate terminology, which will be used in future Joint Publications, is communications synchronization." The memo also complains that "over the last six years we learned that [strategic communication] actually added a layer of staffing and planning 5
that blurred the roles and functions of traditional staff elements, and resulted in confusion and inefficiency. As a result, this year we stood down those staff elements." "So what?" you ask. Quite right. What we have here isn't a DOD-wide policy change -it's just a badly drafted memo explaining that OSD's Public Affairs shop is changing its terminology and internal structure because it finds strategic communication confusing. Why Little felt the need to inform combatant commanders of his confusion is unclear, but his memo doesn't change anything for anyone at the Pentagon aside from his own staff. It's not a directive or instruction from the secretary of defense; it's not a policy document; and it's not doctrine or military planning guidance -- although Little seems to assume he'll be the guy writing joint doctrine in the future. That's not terribly likely, as Little's memo is also a product of bureaucratic original sin: according to Pentagon insiders, the memo wasn't coordinated or cleared with the Joint Staff or the Policy office before going out. That's a big no-no, and likely to generate powerful new antibodies. Neglecting to clear memos with other offices before leaking them to the press is standard practice for bureaucratic power grabs, of course, and Little's memo certainly counts as such. The Public Affairs office, he asserts, is "continuing our leadership role in communication and reminding those in the communication business that most things previously termed [strategic communication] are in fact Public Affairs responsibilities." This passive-aggressive bureaucratese illustrates one of the reasons sane government employees try to keep strategic communication out of their portfolios: it's one of those things that people can't stop fighting over. For the last decade, strategic communication has been the subject of rancorous interagency and intra-agency bickering. Public diplomacy experts at the State Department think "strategic communication" is what they already do, and want DOD out of the picture
altogether. Meanwhile, the DOD Public Affairs office has traditionally insisted that strategic communication is what they already do, and they want the policy people to stop mixing their peanut butter in Public Affairs' chocolate. Pentagon policy and strategy experts meanwhile maintain that strategic communication has only a glancing relationship to traditional "communications" and is mostly an issue of planning operations to achieve "information effects." And the White House -- which apparently hasn't seen Little's memo -- insists on referring to top Obama advisor Ben Rhodes as the deputy national security advisor for strategic communications.
So what does it all mean? When it comes to strategic communication, is there a there there? Or is George Little right to despise the term "strategic communication," take the view that strategic communication is "in fact" just public affairs, and propose replacing it with the term "communications synchronization"? Little's claim that the term "strategic communication" causes confusion is fair enough. (Trust me: it confused me for more than two years.) Indeed, I've often felt that there's a special place in hell reserved for the person who first foisted the term "strategic communication" on the Defense Department. The term itself was a corporate import, and a pernicious one. In the corporate world, the term "strategic communication" has been used for several decades to describe the coordinated use of activities designed to make the corporate 6
entity "look good," such as marketing, advertising, public relations, community relations, and so on. It carries overtones of manipulation: after all, marketers needn't care if their product is "good" (or healthy, or durable, or safe, or whatever) -- their goal is just to make sure people buy the product, regardless of its actual value. During the early years of the Bush administration, the term "strategic communication" was similarly used to cover a multitude of sins. These ranged from the foolish but relatively innocuous conviction that lots of "messaging" was all it took to counter violent extremism, to rather more sinister efforts, such as paying to clandestinely plant feel-good "news" stories in the Iraqi press. To many, the term "strategic communication" became tightly linked to other regrettable Bush administration neologisms, such as the "global war on terror" (GWOT) and the "war of ideas." In the last years of the Bush administration, internal Pentagon reformers sought to jettison the more egregiously stupid GWOT strategic communication initiatives. Just as important, they sought to rethink the concept of strategic communication altogether. If strategic communication just meant messaging -- or "public affairs on steroids" -- it was indeed a completely unnecessary concept. If there was a there there, it had to lie somewhere else. By 2009, DOD consensus had begun to emerge around a more nuanced understanding of what strategic communication might mean. Ideally, the term could serve as a reminder that everything is a form of communication -that our actions (and omissions) can speak as loudly as our words, and that wise officials, military and civilian alike, must consider the "information effects" of all that they say and do -- from press statements to changes in force posture. This understanding of strategic communication -- which is reflected in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review and other key DOD documents -- has very little to do with traditional press and public affairs activities. In this view, "strategic
communication" refers to the thoughtful integration of issues of stakeholder perception and response into policymaking, planning, and operations at every level. Public affairs, information operations, and traditional public diplomacy are tools that can support and enhance strategic communication, but they aren't the same as strategic communication. Strategic communication, in this view, is less about what we have to say than it is about considering how others may interpret our words and actions.
What strategic communication boils down to, in some ways, is a simple plea: learn, engage and listen; try to understand how people outside the United States view U.S. actors; think in advance about how what we do and say will be perceived, and plan activities accordingly. Invest in developing the linguistic and cultural knowledge necessary to do this. Recognize that sometimes we're going to make people angry, but try not to piss people off by accident. Of course, this still begs the question: why call all this "strategic communication"? There's really no good reason: it's just an accident of history. In my first months at the Pentagon, I tried hard to get rid of the term, which carries negative connotations for many. In the end, more experienced voices persuaded me to give up this quest: the term may be confusing, but it's been in use for over a decade within DOD by now. There have been studiesand reports on strategic communication -- some quite smart -- and DOD has promulgated an official definitionof strategic communication, discussed it in congressionally mandated reportsand memorandafrom the secretary, and integrated it into military planning guidance. 7
It's not a great term, but by the end of 2009 I The Pentagon is still after those hearts concluded that DOD was stuck with it. Rather and minds than squabbling about terminological changes, Posted By Gordon Adams December 11, 2012 I felt we should focus on integrating the http://adams.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/12/11/the_pe insights the term strategic communication had ntagon_is_still_after_those_hearts_and_minds come to reflect into policymaking and planning. Now, OSD's Public Affairs office is proposing that the term strategic communication be replaced with "communications synchronization." It's George Little's prerogative to use whatever phrasing he wants to describe the work of his office, but I think the proposed new term is even worse than the old. "Communications synchronization"? To me, the term has a rather fascistic ring. Though I'm sure this was not the intent, it suggests a rigid determination to make all utterances hew to a narrow party line. Mostly, though, it just misses the point, which is that strategic communication isn't about "communications." Little's memo could have been written in 2002 or 2006. It hearkens back to the days when DOD leadership imagined that disciplined use of the right "messaging" would "win the war of ideas," and ignores a decade of accumulated wisdom. In fact, the memo isn't even a good example of "communication synchronization": it's badly out of sync with the rest of the Defense Department, which for the most part has -slowly but surely -- begun to integrate the concept of strategic communication into dayto-day planning and operations. The good news? Combatant commanders are likely to give the memo the treatment it deserves, and place it right in the circular file.
George Little, the Pentagon spokesperson, appeared to make an important announcement last week, saying "strategic communication" had been banned from the Pentagon's lexicon. Sounded like a good thing; strategic communication was a brainchild of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in full flower of his moment when the Pentagon could not only "do it all," it should "do it all." But when USA Today picked up his memo announcing the language change, feathers flew at the Pentagon. My Foreign Policy colleague Rosa Brooks thinks this is all a tempest in a turf-infested teapot. There is a deeper issue at stake here, though, even if George Little was just asserting turf and some kind of language control. Over the past decade, the Department of Defense has fallen into, fallen prey to, or just chosen to take on an expanded sense of mission. Rumsfeld pushed the department to become, as far as possible, the integrator of stabilization, reconstruction, development, governance, and, yes, messaging for America's overseas engagement, wherever force was present. "Strategic Communication" was very much part of that expansion, aiming to reshape hearts, minds, and governments abroad to behave and understand our benign intent. As Rosa says, it became part of the "war of ideas." Rosa's view is that the Obama administration got this effort under control. She defines the 8
new focus this way: "'strategic communication' refers to the thoughtful integration of issues of stakeholder perception and response into policymaking, planning, and operations at every level...Strategic communication, in this view, is less about what we have to say than it is about considering how others may interpret our words and actions." I would like to think Rosa is right in saying that this bloated mission creep has been reigned in over the past four years. I would like to think that today it is a benign willingness to take the sensitivities of others overseas into account when we shape a national message and overseas operations. But I doubt it.
Department spends on public diplomacy -- it is very like our civilian public diplomacy. What makes this worth keeping an eye on is that this kind of communications management, or "strategic communication," is seen as a very integral part of the broader COCOM and Special Forces mission of "building partner capacity," in which our military works in small teams in close interaction with partner militaries and governments. Sounds benign, but it is the kind of program that can get us in deep pretty fast in a lot of countries around the globe. And it is a program, and a mission, that the Pentagon has enthusiastically signed up for, with strong White House support.
There is some evidence that an institutional reigning in of "strategic communication" has taken place. A new report -- The Pentagon as Pitchman -- by Russell Rumbaugh and Matthew Leatherman, both at the Stimson Center, cautions us that much of what Rumsfeld tried to do has not been embedded at DOD. "There has been no widespread institutionalization of public diplomacy-like activities throughout the Defense Department despite a great deal of rhetoric and effort," they write. The potential downside? The military doesn't do these things terribly well -- it's not a core competence. Giving the forces this mission, moreover, weakens support for the civilian programs at State and the Broadcasting Board of Governors, whose core competence it actually is. And, most worrisome of all, it puts a uniform on America's message -- not always well received abroad, and confusing to other militaries that we keep telling to stay out of government, the economy, and politics.
But the desire to "shape" the views of others, win hearts and minds, and get the message out there is far from dead at DOD. As the Stimson report notes, it is alive and well at the Combatant Commands, and, especially, at Special Operations Command. These organizations are "substantially invested in multi-year programs whose core is a series of news websites built for civilians in regions around the world." While this program is not yet large -- it is about half of what the State
The language may be dead, and a good part of DOD not involved, but the programs that can get us in deep are still very connected to the notion of "strategic communication," whatever George Little says.
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The Five Most Common PowerPoint Mistakes Written by Brad Phillips @MrMediaTraining http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2011/03/10 /the-five-most-common-powerpoint-mistakes/ We’ve all seen that speaker. I’m talking about the one who flies through 100 PowerPoint slides in 20 minutes. Or the one whose font size is microscopically tiny. Or the one whose slides magically appear with an elaborate whooshing noise. This article will help you avoid their mistakes and learn from the best practices governing PowerPoint presentations. Use them and you will position yourself as that rare talent who uses PowerPoint just enough to add value to your presentations. Here are the five most common PowerPoint mistakes – and how to avoid them.
2. Too Many Words Last year, I saw a speaker who crammed about 100 words onto each slide. He was speaking in a large ballroom, and guess what: no one seated behind the first row could read his slides. The entire audience squinted and tried to read his text anyway. And that meant they were no longer listening to the speaker. In general, aim for no more than 3-4 words per bullet, no more than 3 bullets per slide. And please – don’t use your PowerPoint slides as a takeaway. If your slides make any sense as a stand-alone takeaway document without your verbal commentary, you’ve probably loaded too much information onto each slide. 3. Pointless Animations You might think that Microsoft invented PowerPoint because it thought speakers should use all of its coolest features. It didn’t. Here’s what Robert Gaskins, the Microsoft whiz who invented PowerPoint, had to say on the topic: “Despite the lush graphics effects so easily produced through modern presentation applications, most contemporary presentations should return to formats nearly as spare as the old overhead transparencies.”
This is a real PowerPoint slide prepared for U.S. commanders in Afghanistan. It's a perfect example of a terrible PowerPoint slide.
He’s right. Animations and graphics can be used if they serve a specific purpose that helps the audience retain your main messages. But 99 percent of the time I’ve seen them used, they don’t. 4. Not Enough Graphics
1. Too Many Slides Clients often ask how many slides are appropriate for a PowerPoint presentation. There’s no easy answer – some presentations demand none, while others could seamlessly incorporate one per minute. In general, try to avoid more than one slide every three minutes. You – not the slideshow – should be the star of the show. Slides shouldn’t tell the audience new information; rather, they should reinforce key messages. Lose the slide if it doesn’t help reinforce a critical point.
I’ve mentioned that your slides should reinforce your messages; visuals (e.g. simple graphs, pie charts and pictures) are a terrific way to accomplish that. I don’t mean that you should load your presentation with graphics, but rather that you remain mindful of the balance between words and graphics. Look through your PowerPoint presentation. When you come across textheavy slides, ask yourself whether there’s a better way to make the same point through images instead. 10
5. Complicated Visuals The three keys to good graphics are these: simplify, simplify, simplify. Everything on your slide should be visible to the back row – so omit any small text and include only the most essential parts. For example, I use the military PowerPoint slide (above) when speaking about PowerPoint abuse. In order to prevent the audience from looking at the slide instead of listening to me, I give them about ten seconds to take in the slide, then I continue speaking.
Speaking with Body Language: The Five Parts of Your Body Your Audience is Listening To By Mike Jousan http://communicationskillstips.com/body-languagethe-five-parts-of-your-body-your-audience-islistening-to/
When you speak in public, you speak with more than your mouth. Effective public speaking isn’t only about what you’re saying, but how you say it. Public speaking anxiety can leave you looking nervous, afraid, and unprepared. Strong, confident body language is essential for a successful presentation. In the same way that users of American Sign Language portray complex thoughts and ideas with their bodies, your body language is telling your audience a story. Here’s the parts of your body to keep in mind while speaking in public: 5. Back, Shoulders, and Neck
We use this slide in our media training workshop. It is used to reinforce a key point we make verbally. As a more positive example, I use the slide above in our media training workshops (it’s about the importance of remaining on message). It may not mean much here – but paired with the point I make verbally, it’s a critical message that audiences tend to remember.
Do you remember your parents or teachers always telling you to sit up straight? Maybe they told you to stop slouching or told you to stop staring at your feet. So take their advice. Take command of the room and your audience will pay attention. Neck, shoulders, and back all play a role in making sure you maintain an assertive stance for your viewers. 4. Hands How you use your hands will vary with the type of speech. Nervous fidgeting is a no-no. If you’re giving a more stern, professional presentation, a confident grasp on the lectern will do. For more high energy presentations, use your hands to convey ideas. If you’re discussing raising sales, a short gesture upwards will do. Hands can also identify board points or audience members with questions.
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But don’t overdo it! High energy is great, but crazy, frantic, or too fast and you may lose your audience.
giving colleagues more than your words. Keep your spit to yourself. They came to hear you speak, not for the first row experience at SeaWorld.
3. Eyes They say the eyes are the window to the soul. Do you want people to see someone scared and anxious, or do you want them to see a persuasive, inspiring leader? Nervous blinking, frantic gazing, and wide-eyed fear are common symptoms of public speaking anxiety. Use your eyes to convey tone and emotion. A raised eyebrow or a cleverly-timed wink can amplify a point. Also use your eyes to identify with the audience. Great speakers can make eye contact with every viewer in the room. If the audience feels acknowledged, they’ll be more open to your words and ideas.
If you’re keeping track of what your body is doing, you’ll be sure to keep the attention of your audience and make an inspiring impact.
4 Reasons Why your Facebook Page Sucks Written by Ilias Chelidonis http://www.jeffbullas.com/2012/12/17/4-reasonswhy-your-facebook-page-sucks/
2. Feet Be aware of and control any nervous foottapping that may be disruptive during your speech. If you’re commanding a stage or a room, be sure to use those feet to move! You want to interact with your entire audience, not just those front and center. 1. Mouth
It’s more than just where your words come from. Don’t let your fear of public speaking lead to lip-biting, lip-licking, teeth-grinding, tongueclicking, and other mouth- related speaking flaws.If you’re presenting in a smaller venue, such as a small meeting, make sure you aren’t
It has been one year since you launched your Facebook page and you still have a very low number of likes but most importantly none of your fans are talking about your brand. Before I move on, you need to understand that it takes time for your social media investment to realize any return; this is why I intentionally said, one year. Investing in social media, as in any other field, requires patience and long term thinking. Anything that is worthwhile takes time to build and growing tribes and followers on social networks and creating community takes focused effort. One way to think of it is like building a house…”one brick at a time“. In the case of social media it is one piece of content at a time. So, in other words, your Facebook page sucks and there are many out there that really do. So, here are 4 reasons why your Facebook page sucks: 12
1. No social media strategy What is the goal of your Facebook page? Get more likes? Increase brand awareness? Increase sales? Actually, it can consist of all these goals; however, you need to be very clear. This will help you determine the tools and tactics you need to use in order to achieve your goals. Do not just launch a Facebook page because your competitors have one. A key factor to a successful social media strategy is having the right resources available, so make sure you have everything you need to make things happen. 2. No updated content Make no mistake here, the only reason people visit a Facebook page is because of its content. If you do not post anything, none will visit your Facebook page. We live in a very fast moving world where yesterday’s news is outdated content. Post content very often, if possible once a day. In fact 3-4 times per day is better.
deals, however, do it moderately and collect feedback on what your fans really want to see. 4. You do not post any photos The Facebook timeline is focusing entirely on visual content; hence, if you decide to keep posting long text messages, none will read them. Invest in getting high quality pictures that attract attention, it is human nature to stumble upon great visual content. There are plenty of tools available to help you edit your pictures and make them look appealing. If you are doing any of these 4 mistakes, you need to take immediate action. Decide what you social media goals are, format a plan and execute.
There is no short cut on this.
Three Reasons To Interview By Phone Instead of Email
3. Your content is boring
Written by Brad Phillips @MrMediaTraining on December 18, 2012
When you own a restaurant, make sure you post content related to food, drinks and entertainment and not only your latest promotions. When people come to your page, they are looking for interesting and fun content:
http://www.mrmediatraining.com/2012/12/18/thre e-reasons-to-interview-by-phone-instead-of-email/ This is an excerpt from The Media Training Bible: 101 Things You Absolutely, Positively Need to Know Before Your Next Interview, available in soft cover here and for the Kindle here.
They want to see what your new menu is New dishes you recommend Teach them how to cook one of your dishes Tell them where to find other great food within your city Ask for customers to leave a review Show them a video on how you prepare your flag dish
In other words, the content must be relevant to your business and most importantly engaging and exciting. This does not mean that you should never post any special promotions or
Many spokespersons prefer to do media interviews by email, since the format feels familiar and removes some of the unpredictability of a telephone or in-person interview. Email interviews have their place. 13
For example, you might conduct an interview by email when: You have an existing relationship with the reporter. The reporter is seeking technical information that is more easily communicated in writing. The reporter needs a quick answer to a straightforward question, is facing a bruising deadline, or is clarifying something you said in an earlier interview. The reporter prefers to do the interview by email. Logistical issues prevent speaking by phone or in person. The correspondence is about a highly controversial issue, and you must maintain a paper trail.
3. They appear obstructionist (sometimes): The medium in which you choose to communicate often says a lot. If you respond to a controversial topic by email, the reporter may say, “In a written statement, Company X said…” That may look obstructionist to the audience, especially if your critics were willing to speak to the reporter. The contrast of their willingness to talk and your “email-only” approach may make your critics appear more credible. The Power of Unintended Meanings A clever book called The Lexicon of Intentionally Ambiguous Recommendations lists dozens of things employers can say to people who call for references on lousy former employees. To describe a lazy candidate, you can say, “In my opinion, you will be very fortunate to get this person to work for you.” To describe an unproductive candidate, it suggests, “I can assure you that no person would be better for the job.”
While email interviews can be useful, they are too often used by controlling executives and nervous spokespersons who do everything possible to avoid picking up the phone. Don’t do interviews by email simply because it makes you more comfortable; doing so can be counterproductive. Here are three reasons to avoid making email interviews a habit: 1. They preclude useful conversation: Good reporters listen to your answers closely in order to ask informed follow-up questions. Those follow-ups are often helpful to your cause— they can help you gauge the reporter’s perspective, clarify incorrect points, and add context to your message. 2. They prevent personal relationships: Media relations is about relationships, which are especially important when you’re accused of wrongdoing. Reporters who know you are more likely to give you the benefit of the doubt, reducing the risk of negative stories and improving the tone of coverage.
And to describe a person with lackluster credentials, it recommends, “All in all, I cannot say enough good things about this candidate or recommend him too highly.” Email interviews carry the same risk of unintended meanings (which are often less likely to occur in person, since your vocal emphasis and body language help your points come across more clearly). Show your typed responses to a few people before sending them, and parse every word to ensure you haven’t given the reporter a quote you’ll come to regret.
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Facebook Isn't--and Shouldn't Be--A Democracy By Eric Goldman http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericgoldman/201 2/12/17/facebook-isnt-and-shouldnt-be-ademocracy/
(they are long, dense and filled with legalese); the agreements aren’t negotiable; users care more about enjoying the website’s functionality than the details governing that enjoyment; and users routinely “free-ride” by relying on more motivated consumers or activists to identify and combat overreaching terms. In Facebook’s case, I’d add that its website functionality and policies change so rapidly that it’s more than a full-time job to keep up. As a result, we shouldn’t castigate users for not caring more about Facebook’s policies (see, e.g., this Wired story blaming you for killing Facebook democracy). The 99%+ of Facebook users who don’t read Facebook’s privacy policies are behaving quite rationally.
In 2009, Facebook ($FB) nominally enabled user governance by obligating itself to honor user votes before making certain site policy changes. This experiment in user self-governance was radical and largely unprecedented–especially given the size of Facebook’s userbase, which now would outrank all but China and India in population if it were a country. Last week, however, Facebook terminated its usergovernance experiment. This post explores two hypotheses for the experiment’s failure and explains why users never wanted Facebook to be a democracy. The Mechanical Problem Facebook promised to honor users’ votes if users achieved a minimum voter turnout of 30%. This threshold was too high by a lot–at least 30x too high, by my estimate. Facebook logically set a high enough threshold to screen out the crazies or pranksters (see, e.g., the 28,000+ people who petitioned the White House to build a Death Star) and avoid letting small minority interest group hijack the site from the minority. Indeed, in the context of typical U.S. voter turnouts for government elections, 30% would be quite low. Nevertheless, my rough rule of thumb is that less than 1% of users read any website’s privacy policy. Users don’t read privacy policies for a variety of reasons: users can’t understand them
But if I’m right that less than 1% of Facebook users have read Facebook’s privacy policy, then a minimum voter turnout of 30% was off-thecharts ridiculous. There was never any chance of that ever happening, and it was silly for Facebook to put the procedures in place. It makes me think Facebook always intended user empowerment to be illusory–a type of democracy theater. Robert Hof explores this aspect further. The Conceptual Problem An observation: no major user-generated content (UGC) websites operate as democracies. Some UGC websites turn over aspects of their operations to trusted community members, but not the general population; and rarely are key policy questions handled on a straight majority-vote election.
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Even Wikipedia, perhaps the flagship example of a major community-operated UGC website, isn’t a democracy. Wikipedia’s operators reserve certain policy decisions for themselves, and community decisions require consensus, not a majority-vote. Perhaps users don’t want their UGC websites to be democracies. Instead, I think users typically prefer “managed” website experiences. The vast majority of users don’t want to make policy decisions about how the website should work; instead, they want websites to read their minds and give them exactly what they want automatically (i.e., the “surprise and delight” maxim of customer relations). Stated differently, users want UGC benevolent dictatorships, not UGC democracies.
if requires the website to maintain old or duplicative code. And from users’ standpoint, too many configuration options can become overwhelming (as many users already feel about the multitudinous options Facebook does provide). Still, it’s helpful to see how website individualization and personalization is more pro-user than UGC democracy. When users can’t configure their own choices, the next-best option for users isn’t website democracy, it’s competition. UGC websites will remain most responsive to users’ concerns when competitors are nipping at their heels. For example, recall how quickly Facebook’s tone changed after Google ($GOOG) rolled out Google+. Unfortunately, social networking site competition isn’t robust enough to meaningfully punish Facebook for its steady stream of anti-user decisions. If we could solve that competition problem, Facebook users would get better outcomes than they would from any attempt at user democracy, faux or real.
Rather than imposing majority-rule on consumers, UGC websites actually empower users more by enabling users to individually configure their site experiences, such as letting users individually opt-into or opt-out of site policies or functionality. By letting users choose what policies or functionality they want, users get a more direct payoff from their action than voting on sitewide policies. Unfortunately, Facebook is notoriously poor about giving users complete power over their configuration choices. For example, Facebook forced everyone onto Timeline, even users who vocally hated it, and Facebook still doesn’t let users categorically opt-out of being featured in Sponsored Stories. Admittedly, it’s costly for UGC websites to give more configuration options to users, especially 16
2013 PR Trends: What the New Year Will Bring to PR Professionals November 19, 2012 http://onechocolatecomms.co.uk/2013-pr-trendswhat-the-new-year-will-bring-to-pr-professionals/
With the approaching of the New Year, we decided to take a look at some of the key PR trends that will impact PR professionals in 2013 and beyond:
A converged world of real-time communication Social media and mobility have transformed the way we engage with information and consume media content. As online content is constantly being ‘updated’, modified and exchanged across multiple media platforms, PR professionals will be looking to deliver more interactive messages that are evolving in realtime. This will create a trend towards incorporating social media and video into traditional press releases and shifting content towards interactive conversations with audiences, rather than focusing on one-way press announcements. Social media will become more targeted and pervasive Although Facebook and Twitter will continue to dominate PRs’ social media efforts, in 2013 we will see an increased interest in niche online communities and social networking websites. This niche social media targeting will work alongside established social media channels to reach consumers who may be outside the reach of mainstream social media.
What about mobile? The importance of mobile will continue to grow in 2013 highlighting the need for more personalised communication with consumers. While marketing professionals will be looking to utilise the mobile opportunity for targeted offerings, PR professionals will be integrating the mobile channel more actively into PR campaigns. There will be a focus on creating and delivering content specifically for mobile devices and leveraging mobile interactions to establish an ongoing relationship with consumers.
It all has to be fun! With plenty of communication platforms and technologies to choose from, PR professionals will be able to more effectively spread campaigns across channels and engage with consumers using interactive competitions and games. Using the game factor will be particularly important in consumer PR where the agencies that manage to strike the right cord with consumers, will be the ones to deliver the most impactful PR campaigns. It’s not all about traditional media influencers With citizen journalism and blogging becoming key tools for generating and driving the news agenda, PR professionals will be more actively looking to engage with influential online bloggers or social media influencers that can potentially become brand ambassadors for their clients. Traditional media influencers will still remain a priority for PRs but there will be a stronger focus on brand engagement through social media influencers within the target audiences themselves.
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Social Media Trends For 2013The Can't-Miss Social Media Trends For 2013 By Ryan Holmes November 29, 2012 http://www.fastcompany.com/3003473/cantmiss-social-media-trends-2013
Will Facebook continue its reign atop the social hierarchy? Will businesses get better returns on their social media investment? Will your CEO finally learn to tweet? Here’s a look at the biggest social media trends set to unfold in the year ahead. Mobile social media usage continues to soar: In September, Facebook made a monumental-if little noted--revelation in a quarterly SEC filing: "[We] anticipate that the rate of growth in mobile usage will exceed the growth in usage through personal computers for the foreseeable future.” Mobile Internet users are set to overtake wired Internet users by 2015 in the U.S., but this shift is happening far faster on social platforms. What does this mean for the future of social media? Networks that make engagement on the go easy--especially visual platforms like Instagram--are at a significant advantage (Instagram, in fact, already has more mobile users than Twitter). Meanwhile, traditional networks must work to better differentiate their desktop and mobile experiences--ensuring that mobile interfaces are streamlined and fastloading, while also taking full advantage of GPS, near field communication (exchanging information by touching smartphones) and perhaps even ambient location functionality. At the same time, developing viable advertising options for mobile platforms is more critical
than ever. Finding ways to squeeze ads onto tiny mobile screens has thus far proved a serious Achilles heel. Social advertising grows and evolves: To solve the mobile revenue puzzle, social networks will push ahead next year with new social ad models. Traditional banner and interruption ads will decline, replaced by innovative offerings like Promoted Tweets and Sponsored Stories. What makes these so-called native ads unique is that they don’t look like ads at all, apart from small disclaimers. They appear instream and read exactly like another piece of user-generated content. While some users resent this intrusion into their home streams, natives ads potentially enable brands to reach clients on their own turf and on their own terms. Behind it all is the concept of convergence--the idea that ads and content can be interchangeable. Companies, for instance, are already sending out Tweets to followers on their social media channels. Using analytical tools to identify which are most read, they can selectively amplify the best of the bunch as Promoted Tweets, turning content into ads and reaching an even larger audience. International and niche social networks experience dramatic growth: Total social media users are forecast to grow by just 4.1 percent in North America in 2013. Compare that with growth rates of 21.1 percent in AsiaPacific (including China, India, and Indonesia), 12.6 percent in Latin America, and 23.3 percent in the Middle East and Africa. The major networks will continue to make impressive inroads internationally: Facebook users grew by 47 percent in Latin America alone last year. But localized social networks-especially those geared for mobile users--are also experiencing dramatic growth. China’s Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging platform recently surpassed 400 million users (nearly doubling its user base in one year), while twoyear-old competing upstart WeChat already has 200 million users. Meanwhile, niche networks, which offer deeper, more focused functionalities overlooked by the bigger players, will continue 18
to experience truly explosive growth both in North America and internationally. Riding the wave of its acquisition by Facebook, Instagram saw its share of social media traffic grow by 17,319 percent this year, while Pinterest grew by 5,124 percent. What does this all mean for brands and businesses? To maximize reach, it’s critical to keep up with an expanding array of social networks both in North America and abroad. Anticipate increased demand in 2013 for social media management systems that streamline monitoring and posting across multiple
networks. Social media moves beyond the marketing department: In the year ahead, expect enterprises to embrace social media tools-including internal networks, real-time chats and wikis--for uses that go way beyond the familiar applications for marketing and community building. At stake is a potentially enormous boost to the bottom line: Last year, McKinsey published an eye-opening report that pegged the untapped business value of social technologies at $1.3 trillion--and most of that comes from improved office productivity. We’re already seeing HR departments applying social media to streamline application processes, sales teams cultivating leads and monitoring the sales funnel via social channels, and operations and distributions teams tracking supply chains at a granular level. Deeper still, internal networking tools like HootSuite Conversations are enabling companies to free up expertise trapped in departmental silos. (Conversations is sold by my company.)
At the same time, the way social media is rolled out at large companies is fundamentally changing. Until now, adoption has been fueled from the bottom-up, by front-line social media and community managers. But increasingly CIOs, CEOs, and CMOs who have seen the business value of social media are taking the reins. As the C-suite formalizes top-down social media strategy, expect to see social media management systems become as commonplace as office productivity suites and customer relations management software. Big data grows but gets more manageable: Social media has given companies access to unprecedented volumes of information about their clients and buying trends on an aggregate level. The challenge, which confronts everyone from data giants like Facebook to small businesses active on social media, is how to process all of this and turn it into actionable policy. Case in point: 93 percent of North American executives surveyed by Oracle believe they’re losing revenue by not leveraging available data. “We need to build robust systems for analyzing the huge amounts of data flowing in from social media and how they then link to all the other touch points consumers have with the brand,” explains digital analyst Marita Scarfi. The coming year will see the emergence of new software and tools to do just that. Using newwave social media command centers capable of tracking multiple social stats in real-time, from tweets and Likes to customer sentiment, companies will be able to radically improve customer service and predict future buying patterns, not to mention streamline internal communication and increase productivity. This kind of social data is already being harnessed by Nestle to boost customer sentiment, GE to speed up repairs to the electrical grid, and Wall Street to forecast stock prices. Social media education gets formalized: A recent Harvard Business review survey showed that only 12 percent of companies using social media feel they use it effectively. Given the expanded business applications of social media, maximizing impact increasingly requires specialized training. Just knowing how to send a 19
Tweet or friend someone on Facebook is not enough. In 2013, expect to see more social media coursework at universities, as well as dedicated social media MBA programs, as schools rise to the challenge (Syracuse, NYU, Columbia, Harvard Business School, and dozens of other higher ed institutions are already leading the pack here). At the same time, companies will begin to double down on social media education for their existing employees as the entire workforce gains an added level of social sophistication, similar to the Internet 1.0 skillset that was on-boarded a decade ago. Social media skills will join email as part of basic business literacy in the digital age.
Perhaps most critical of all will be social media compliance training to ensure that workers in sensitive industries from finance to healthcare uphold regulatory standards while taking advantage of social media’s benefits. This year has been widely regarded as the year social media made the jump from dorm room to boardroom. In 2013, expect to see companies who have taken the plunge begin to reap expanded returns from their social investments, with help from improved social technologies, innovative ad models, and an expanded user base around the globe.
68% responded they will increase social media marketing efforts in 2013. Also, PR is expected to increase with 63% , and branding and Internet with 61%. If you are still unsure about social media
Source: http://constructionmarketingblog.org/construction-marketing-outlook-2013survey-results/marketing_outlook_increase/
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ComIPI is a no-profit study center aimed at developing and implementing advanced techniques to communicate with the public while respecting ethical principles. ComIPI uses its communications talent, skills and expertise also to help organizations to educate and to inform their target audiences; to develop communication strategies; to train their staff in communication skills; to monitor and analyze results of communication efforts; and, to assess media perceptions on matters of interest. Communications activities are also assessed taking into specific consideration inter-cultural aspects.
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