by Caroline Leach | Mar 7, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Social Media
A 
= 1K wds
And ampersands are awesome in company names. P&G. H&M. A&E.
Not so much in copy.
Unless you’re trying to fit a complete thought into a 140-character tweet. Or about 100, to leave space for a retweet.
When you’re trying to economize on “spaces” (a shorter word than “characters”), using the ampersand symbol “&” saves 2 spaces over “and”
So “and” becomes “&” – “for” becomes “4” – and “creative” becomes “cr8v”
And sayings become acronyms. LOL. OMG. IDK.
Or emojis. 
Need guidance on using these “picture letters” that originated in Japan? If you have teens in the house, you already know. Otherwise, check out Emojipedia.
And who needs punctuation? That period at the end of a complete thought becomes extraneous. It might even be the character that puts you over the limit.
Conversely, as the NYT recently reported, “punctuation on steroids” could be just what you need in place of actual words!!!!!
And in my quest for brevity as I substitute “calm” for “serene” or “luck” for “serendipity,” I wonder if longer words will fade away over time. They take up too much space in our world of limited character counts and attention spans.
Yet this would be a huge loss for the human experience. Words have nuance. They spark emotions. And tug on us in different ways.
That’s why my well-worn copy of the Dictionary of Synonyms is just as important as my dictionary.com app.
And speaking of limited attention spans, while I was linking to the app, I noticed 7 Words the Internet Reinvented.
It also made me wonder if some of the most beautiful words in English could be facing extinction.
What about serendipity, mellifluous and effervescent? Or insouciance, labyrinthine and denouement? Are they just too long in our evanescent and ephemeral environment?
Yet there’s upside to all of this. My fervent hope is that jargon-like words such as “utilize” will fade away, and we’ll simply say “use.” Maybe Strunk and White will finally get their wish to see “prestigious” truly become “an adjective of last resort.”
Parts of this are difficult for someone who prefers clean and clear copy, free of abbreviations and other affronts to the eye. To someone who has a hard time with the AP Style convention of abbreviating states – Calif., Colo. and Conn. There’s much more majesty in California, Colorado and Connecticut.
Like everything in life, it’s a balance. And it’s about your audience. Whom are you writing for? Whom do you want to influence? What form of the language do you need to speak to do that?
IDK, wht do u thnk ?!?!? . . .
by Caroline Leach | Mar 2, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Leadership, Learning, Social Media, Work/Life
Photography was never my strong suit.
Yet we live in a visual world. And as a “word” person, I need to keep learning about visual ways to communicate.
Enter Instagram.
Setting goals. My reason for being on Instagram is to develop my photography skills and the eye for the visual. I began with beautiful scenery, and my next area of focus is people.
My audience is a mashup of personal and professional contacts. I’m not strictly focused on a business-related goal. Yet.
That said, great resources for using the platform for business to “share your brand’s point of view” can be found right on the Instagram site.
Getting started. A James Dean quote inspired me one weekend while I was out and about. “Dream as if you will live forever. Live as if you will die today,” caught my eye. It was so powerful and timeless that I wanted to share it. And thus began my Instagram posts a year ago this month.
Set your goals and then just start. Learn and adjust as you go. Explore your passions as they evolve. Connect with interesting people and brands. “Like” and comment on others’ posts. Have fun with the experience.
After all, isn’t that what life is all about?
Finding people and organizations to follow. Starting with my employer, I’m proud to follow @DIRECTV, @DTVBlimp and @DIRECTVCareers.
Working in entertainment, I enjoy following major events like the @GoldenGlobes and @TheAcademy. Plus favorite TV shows @DowntonAbbey, @TheGoodWife and @BetterCallSaul. And an amazing documentary about “ordinary women doing extraordinary things,” @EmpowermentDocu.
Then there’s the mashup of work colleagues, community friends and family members. You never know where inspiration is going to strike.
Creating compelling content. Instagram is my online, real-time photography class. I keep an eye out for compelling images in the everyday world. I practice taking different shots from different angles, with different lighting. I experiment with the fun filters available on Instagram. I try cropping images in different ways.
On the topic of photos, I take a counter-intuitive approach to bio photos across social media platforms. Most of the great advice about building social media profiles says you should use the same photo across all platforms to build your personal brand.
However, I use different photos for different reasons. My LinkedIn profile has the professional bio shot provided by my employer. This matches my employer’s corporate bio for me.
My Twitter profile has a bio shot that I had done independently. And since I’m not tweeting in an official capacity for my employer, a professional photo not associated with my employer made better sense to me.
My Instagram profile has the same photo as my Facebook profile. Since my purpose for being on Instagram is more informal, I felt something with a more casual feel would work better.
Fitting it into daily life. Wherever I go, I’m on the lookout for visually appealing images. The blue trees above were from the @DIRECTV holiday celebration event at our Southern California headquarters. As I was heading home, I was struck by the colorful vibrancy our amazing Corporate Events team led by Kerin Lau had created. A quick snap of a picture and a comment mentioning DIRECTV was all it took to capture and share the moment.
And many of my pictures are taken while I’m out exercising. So I’m taking steps for my health and my Fitbit at the same time as I’m creating content. The added benefit is I find I’m more attuned to and aware of my surroundings. This creates more mindfulness in my life in general, plus deep gratitude for the natural beauty of our planet. All good things for a healthy and productive life.
Finding adjunct uses. Everything interconnects, I shared in How to Be Social.
This blog requires a variety of images, so the photos I snap for Instagram also become part of my personal photo library. There’s no copyright to worry about or payment for the images, since I’m the photographer.
And over the holidays visiting family in New England, I followed my nephews and niece in Instagram (and somewhat surprisingly, they followed me back). And I helped my mom set up an account, so she can follow us and feel more connected to our lives across the country.
My teen daughter and son are great coaches. They help me through the “how do I . . .?” moments. And I heed their advice to post no more than two images on any given day. That keeps the quality up and hopefully means followers look forward to seeing more, rather than wishing to see fewer, posts.
What are your best Instagram tips?
by Caroline Leach | Feb 28, 2015 | Corporate Communications, Learning, Social Media
1,030 tweets ago, I joined Twitter.
It was April 2012, the same month we launched a social collaboration platform at my employer.
In addition to a leadership blog I started on the platform to figure out what I was doing, it seemed like the right time to join Twitter too.
It wasn’t until just over a year ago that I really engaged with it, though. Dorie Clark inspired me with her Forbes article on how to dramatically increase your Twitter following.
Setting goals. One of the challenging things about Twitter is figuring out why you’re there and what you want to accomplish. At first I couldn’t articulate any clear goals, other than trying it out.
Then I realized with my voracious reading habit, it could be a way to share great content, without becoming a near spammer by emailing too many articles to friends and colleagues.
My goal became to share content related to my professional interests – corporate communications, change, leadership, human resources and corporate social responsibility.
And it’s an opportunity to promote my employer, with an emphasis on community involvement @DIRECTVSchools and talent development @DIRECTVCareers.
As always, it’s important to disclose my affiliation and be clear that opinions expressed are mine. And I follow the light, bright and polite mantra from How to Be Social.
Getting started. After opening your account comes setting up a 160-character bio. This is a chance to be interesting and use #hashtags, @mentions and links. Upload a photo. And update the bio from time to time as you and your interests evolve. Work Smarter with Twitter and HootSuite by Alexandra Samuel is a great Harvard Business Review e-book to jumpstart involvement.
Finding people and organizations to follow. Just like being social in LinkedIn, you can connect with your existing contacts to invite people you already now. Every time you meet someone new, see if they’re on Twitter and follow them. If there’s someone you want to know more about, follow them. I also follow the media outlets in my News Rituals of a Communicator.
Following people back. Early in my career, I read John Maxwell‘s book, Becoming a Person of Influence. What stuck with me was his premise that people are open to influence from those who are open to influence from them. John Maxwell was one of the first people I followed on Twitter. And I was gleefully surprised when he (or whoever manages his account) followed me back.
That influenced my thinking about who I’ll follow back. I’ll follow back people and organizations who seem professional and legitimate. Accounts that offer Twitter followers for sale or have inappropriate content? No thanks; not interested.
Tweeting compelling content. My daily news ritual as a communicator also allows me to find tweetable content to share. There’s @WSJ and @nytimes. And @latimes since I’m in Southern California. Also love @HarvardBiz, @TheAtlantic and @PsychToday. As often as possible, I look up the reporter’s Twitter handle and add it to the retweet.
Lots of favorite people – @AmyJCuddy, @AdamMGrant, @LVanderkam, @PenelopeTrunk, @MartyNemko, @brainpicker and too many more to list.
Being visual. Tweets with images get 150% more interaction than those without, so include a photo or video with as many tweets as possible. @TheAtlantic now includes an images with nearly every tweet. This is highly engaging, with an Instagram feel. Perhaps that’s one reason why Instagram seems to be neck and neck with Twitter with the number of users.
Reciprocating. Retweet great content that fits with your area of interest. Give it your personal spin by tapping “quote tweet,” and adding a few personal words, followed by “RT” and the original tweet. (If that puts the tweet over 140 characters, you can do an MT – modified tweet – by making minor changes such as “&” for “and” or deleting extraneous words like “that” to save characters).
If I like a tweet that isn’t fully relevant to my subject areas, from one of our local schools for example, I’ll favorite it rather than retweet it.
Growing followers. According to Dorie Clark, the more often you tweet, the more followers you’ll attract. At a minimum, I tweet at least once a day. Three to five tweets are better, spaced throughout the day. And try a message to new followers to say thanks and engage on a topic of interest.
Fitting it into daily life. Plan a tweet first thing in the morning, at mid day and at the end of the day. If you’re the super organized type, create an editorial calendar. Research says the best times to tweet are Mondays through Thursdays between 9 am and 3 pm. Of course, you have to factor in your own geographic location, who you’re trying to engage with and where they’re located.
Finding adjunct uses. There many ways to use Twitter beyond connecting with people on the platform–
- Researching people I’ll soon be meeting
- Assessing a job candidate I’m about to interview
- Vetting a speaker I’m considering for a leadership conference
- Getting quick, authoritative info in real-time a crisis situation (the 2013 LAX shooting being one example)
- Engaging with compelling content and colleagues at conferences, by sharing valuable sound bites and images. Speaking in larger venues highlighted for me the importance of preparing your speech to be shared via social media in short, tweetable statements.
What are your best Twitter tips?
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