by Caroline Leach | Dec 26, 2016 | Change, Corporate Communications, Learning
What does the future hold for PR and communications? Check out the Relevance Report.
New from the USC Center for Public Relations this month, it’s full of innovative ideas on what’s ahead.
Global. Mobile. Video. Data. Emotion. These are just a few of the trend areas accelerating in the year ahead.
The biggest learning for me? It’s the parallel and seemingly paradoxical rise of data and emotion as drivers of influence. Data drives better decision making, while emotion is a prime influencer of people’s opinions and behaviors.
Find out more in my latest blog post on the USC Annenberg Alumni website.
It’s about what you’ll learn in this insightful report, with nuggets of wisdom from Annenberg’s Bob Feldman and Heather Rim as well as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman.
The post is part of being a proud Annenberg Alumni Ambassador this school year. It’s a thrill to share the best of this distinguished school for communication and journalism.
The Relevance Report gives timely insight into trends that will impact society, business and communications. It features thought pieces from communications leaders who identify the issues, ideas and innovations that will be relevant to the communications industry in 2017.
by Caroline Leach | Dec 11, 2016 | Careers, Social Media, Work/Life
It’s the holiday season. That means year-end networking events.
They always seem like a good idea when the invitation arrives, don’t they?
Yet when the appointed hour comes, I often regret my affirmative RSVP.
Except I didn’t this month when I dragged myself away from a compelling work project at 6:30 one evening and made myself go to the event I said I would attend.
It was a professional networking event of my son’s high school, for alums and parents to get to know each other and share ideas.
To honor my commitment, I intended to stay for 30 minutes. But happily and unexpectedly, that extended into a fun-filled 90 minutes.
Why? As I reflected on it, there are a few ways to make the most of a networking event.
In particular, think about the social savvy aspect, or social media element, of the people you meet and the conversations you have.
- Have a goal or two. Why are you attending? What do you want to accomplish? For me, I wanted to meet local professionals related to my son’s school to feel more connected to the school and the local community. I wanted to meet interesting people and hear what they were doing.
In part, I was inspired by marketing strategist Dorie Clark‘s advice in Harvard Business Review about networking with people outside your industry. She makes a compelling case for deliberately exposing yourself to diverse points of view.
And just like social media is about sharing and giving, the same is true for a networking event. Approach it from the perspective of how you can help others.
How do you do that? Here are a few ideas.
- Scan the attendee list. Look up a few people in social media to see who you might want to meet. What have they posted about recently? How can that be a conversation starter?
- Scan the latest news. Know what’s happening in the world that day. See what’s trending on Twitter. You’ll be better able to engage in conversations and ask people for their thoughts.
- Wear something that makes a statement. Pick something that you feel great in. A bright color, an interesting tie or a fabulous pin can help you connect with people. And you’ll stand out in photos that are posted in social media.
- Stand in the doorway for a moment when you arrive. This helps anchor you and lets you scan the room to see who you might want to meet.
- Put your name tag on your right side. This was something I learned in grad school at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. When you shake hands, your name tag becomes more prominent and easier to read.
- Grab a beverage. Stick to one drink and sip it slowly. Hold it in your left hand, so your right hand is ready for shaking hands.
- Have a question or two ready. This will depend on the group. For mine, I asked about how people were connected to the school.
- Introduce people to each other. Make a point of connecting people you know to each other. Say something great about each person that provides a conversation starter.
- Look for small groups. It’s easier to start conversations with one or two people. You can start with a comment on the food or the venue or something interesting they’re wearing.
- Post about the event. Take an interesting photo, add a caption about something new you learned and share the spirit of the event.
- Share content about the event. If the event has a hashtag, search it and share relevant and appropriate content.
How do you make the most of a networking event?
by Caroline Leach | Dec 10, 2016 | Social Media, Work/Life
How do you keep your professional and personal social media activity separate?
The answer? You don’t.
Why? Because you can’t.
It’s all one big blend. It’s the way we live our lives today. What’s personal is professional, and vice versa.
It’s similar to the way that external and internal communications in corporations used to be separate spheres. There was a sharp dividing line between them. But now, what’s internal is also external. The lines have been blurring for quite some time.
In my own life, I used to draw a dividing line. I tried to limit Facebook to friends and family. If colleagues sent me a friend request, I steered them to LinkedIn.
But some people defied categorization. How about the person I worked with who was also involved with our community’s education foundation? Were they a professional or personal contact? In reality, they were both.
And some content I want to share with professional and personal contacts. As an avid reader, I get asked by people in both spheres about what I’m reading. Rather than spam people with article links in emails or texts, I share content in Twitter. People can opt in if they want by following me.
A good framework for personal and professional social media strategies appeared in Harvard Business Review.
Ariane Ollier-Malaterre and Nancy Rothbard researched how professionals use social media, noting that many “felt compelled to accept friend requests from professional contacts.” From their work, they identified four potential social media strategies.
- Open. You post whatever comes to mind. No filters. Not surprisingly, this is a high-risk strategy and is not advised.
- Audience. You keep your networks separate, as I used to do with friends and family in Facebook and colleagues in LinkedIn. This works for a while. But it increasingly becomes impossible to maintain as networks become more fluid.
- Custom. You post content to two different audience lists and/or on different accounts on the same platform. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands or retain an agency to manage your social media, this isn’t a sustainable strategy.
- Content. You post content that is appropriate for all audiences, similar to a G- or PG-rated film. In our increasingly blended world, this is an ideal strategy. You’re consistent and efficient in how you connect across the personal and professional.
The authors recommend the custom or content strategies. While the custom strategy sounds good in theory, it’s too cumbersome for real life, with the time constraints we all face. Try it if you dare, but my bet is that you’ll end up with the much more practical content strategy.
You can make your life easier and more satisfying by blending your social media approach with the content strategy. This requires acting consistently with integrity, class and style in whatever you do. And isn’t that part of living a good life?
What if you want to vent or share something snarky in social media? You have two options, if your professional and personal reputation is important to you.
The first is something we probably all heard from our parents – if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. The second is to keep it to real life, in a face-to-face setting.
It’s important to be thoughtful not only about the content you post, but also the content you share and the content you like. The aggregate of this activity reflects on you just as much as original content you create and post.
This is all part of what it means to act with social savvy in our ever-evolving world.
What strategies work for you in addressing the personal and professional aspects of social media?
by Caroline Leach | Nov 26, 2016 | Change, Leadership, Social Media
“If a company or a person does something great but no one knows about it, does it really matter?”
That’s a question I asked in my very first blog post.
Yes, there are random acts of kindness intended to be done under the radar. Yet, hearing about them can be inspiring when others share the news, like my sister did on Facebook.
While getting coffee in her Connecticut town, she overhead another customer buying a gift card for the police officer outside who was directing traffic. That’s an instant day brightener. And maybe it will inspire others toward similar acts of kindness.
Data and information are collected about us every day, according to The Reputation Economy by Michael Fertik. The question is what we want that data to say about us as a person and as a professional.
Do we want it to open doors or close them? Do we want it to augment the hard work we do every day or detract from it? Do we want it to make our life better or make it harder?
More and more, everything we do has implications for our own personal reputations as well as the companies where we work or that we own. This is both in real life, or IRL, as well as how that becomes represented in social media.
This means we each have great power to do good in the world, to a larger extent than has ever been available to us. And it also means we have the potential make major missteps.
This means each of us needs social savvy.
What’s that?
SOCIAL SAVVY: the vital ability for people to personally brand and market themselves successfully in social media in our ever-evolving world.
This skill is important throughout our lives.
It applies to high school students who are preparing their college applications or moving into the working world.
It applies to college and grad school students who are getting ready to transition into the working world.
And it applies to people throughout their professional lives. For corporate professionals in particular, the stakes for social media are higher.
Social media can help or hurt careers. It can add to or detract from a corporate reputation and an employer brand. It can make acquiring top talent a breeze or a burden.
The risks are high, but so are the rewards. And in our ever-evolving world, no one can afford to sit on the sidelines. The pace of change is too fast for that.
Corporate professionals often ignore or short-change social media. Why? They don’t have the time, they don’t see the value and they don’t want to make a mistake.
Developing social savvy is how professionals can create and implement a social strategy to highlight and share their own thought processes and achievements, along with those of their organizations.
Social savvy is a powerful way for corporate professionals to build their personal brand, advance their career and embrace their future.
What are some examples of social savvy? What does it look like?
- Using social media to build and amplify your personal brand, the unique value that you bring to the world
- Positioning yourself in the most favorable light, for a number of career and life paths
- Positioning your employer or company in the most favorable light
- Advancing your career through a positive social strategy
- Helping others advance their careers
- Helping your company achieve its goals
- Building your employer’s corporate reputation and employer brand
- Knowing what to do and not to do in social media
- Seeing the links between real life and social savvy
- Knowing when and how to engage with critics
How are you demonstrating social savvy?
by Caroline Leach | Nov 25, 2016 | Corporate Communications, Learning, Social Media
Podcasts are a powerful way to share your story.
But what exactly is a podcast?
It’s “a digital audio or video file or recording, usually part of a themed series, that can be downloaded from a website to a media player or computer,” says Dictionary.com.
Podcasts are taking off. From 2015 to 2016, podcast listening was up by 23%, Jay Baer reported from Edison Research‘s work.
What’s driving the growth? People enjoy greater mobility with smartphones and tablets, Baer says, rather than being tethered to a laptop. Podcasts are easy to listen to on the go.
This is why podcasts have become part of my own personal learning plan and drive-time strategy. Although I’m lucky by Los Angeles traffic standards, I spend more than 60 minutes commuting each day.
That’s a perfect chunk of time for learning. And with lifelong learning being both a pleasure and an imperative, what better time to listen to a podcast?
Data analytics and social media are at the top of my learning agenda. I’ve been enjoying FiveThirtyEight, Freakonomics and Social Pros.
It’s easy to get started. Just search topics of interest on iTunes, download your favorites and start listening.
My work colleague Doug Magditch first got me thinking about podcasts. He invited me to be in his Life at AT&T series, one of his Corporate Communications initiatives.
(This is where I note that opinions expressed here are my own.)
Doug’s conversations with colleagues show how employees are delivering on the company’s mission to connect people with their world – everywhere they live, work and play.
With a degree in mass media, Doug began his career as a reporter and multimedia journalist. His creative skills as a storyteller, his editing skills weaving together a narrative and his on-air presence make Life at AT&T a hit.
He invited Eliska Paratore, Joan Marsh and me to share what it’s like to be a woman in a leadership role at the company. Timing it with election season, he framed it as hearing about leadership “from the veeps.”
This was my first experience with a podcast, and I learned a lot in the process. Here are 10 tips for a perfect podcast.
BEFORE
What’s the best way to prepare for a podcast? Become familiar with the format and give yourself plenty of interesting material to work. This helps with responding naturally and spontaneously during the recording session.
- Listen to previous podcasts in the series. Understand how the format works. Identify what worked well and what you’d like to emulate.
- Talk with others who’ve been featured. See what previous participants recommend for preparation. This is a step I wish I’d taken.
- Think about the subject and what you want to say about it. Brainstorm and jot down ideas. Then narrow the focus to 3 key messages.
- Gather ideas, anecdotes and data. Chose those that support your key messages. Look for ones that add interest and provide credibility.
DURING
Many of these tips came from listening to myself after the podcast came out and thinking about what I could do better next time.
- Relax and have fun. Conversations are fun and sharing expertise is fun. Recording a podcast should be the same.
- Stand up. The advice for standing up during a phone call to give your voice more energy translates well to a podcast recording. People sound more confident when they stand.
- Use short sentences. This will help your listeners get your key points, not to mention making the editing process much easier.
AFTER
- Promote your podcast. Tell your social communities about it and why they’d be interested in hearing it. In my case, that meant sharing the podcast in LinkedIn and Twitter, including retweeting Doug.
This was easy, thanks to our company’s Social Circle. It provides great content about our brand, ready for sharing by interested employees in their personal social networks.
Inside the company, employees commented on the podcast in an internal social space. When the podcast was released, I visited the page a few times a day to read comments, like and respond to some, and bring additional colleagues into the conversation.
If you’ve recorded a podcast, what worked for you? And what podcasts do you recommend?
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