October 2011
Social media demands personality. Yet most companies and brands are uncomfortable with personality. Marketing consultants – like yours truly – have been encouraging them for years to temper personality in favor of staying on message.
If your brand is in social media, you may want to rethink that balance.
Lisa Barone at Outspoken Media wrote a phenomenal post about the problem that causes most brands to commit social media suicide: they act too big and miss the opportunity to connect with users.
“I don’t care how big your brand is,” Barone wrote. “You need to act small because that’s what attracts people.”
Social media is unlike any other media because individual consumers own it. They represent their own interests and have different expectations for the way they interact with brands they support.
Treating social media like any other media is a sure way to waste your time, resources, and money.
Can you fix the big brand personality problem? – Outspoken Media
August 2011
We hear a lot about spin.
The most frequent and best practitioners of spin work in Washington, D.C. Here’s what spin has done for them:
- Congress’ approval rating is now 14 percent – the lowest in history.
- President Obama’s approval rating is 42 percent – near the lowest of his presidency.
Nobody inside the Beltway is safe from the backlash of spin.
Consumers are far too smart and have far too much information at their disposal to believe spin. Ironically, the spinners would try to spin that another way.
June 2011
When asked why he’s so successful, legendary comedian Steve Martin often replies, “Be so good they can’t ignore you.”
Being so good often means changing what you are doing now. Much of this issue of the Atkinson Advisor focuses on change, whether it’s communicating change to your organization or changing to stay ahead in difficult times. And sometimes, it’s about undoing the wrong change as Howard Schultz did at Starbucks.
We hope there’s at least one idea in this issue that helps make your company so good that others can’t ignore you.
Martin follows his own advice. His Twitter account is definitely one you can’t ignore.
April 2011
Business decisions can have significant consequences. IBM capitalized on this fear for years with “Nobody gets fired for hiring IBM” or some derivative of that phrase.
But buying has become more complicated. Most of us don’t want to start with the sales team because there’s nothing less fun than being put on the prospect list. We need a way to test drive companies before we buy.
Good content marketing allows prospects to take your company for a spin and see if they think there’s a possible fit. About a year ago, our firm revamped its website. I’ve had at least two people a month give us positive feedback on our embrace of social media, blogging, and Web. 2.0 stuff in general. That’s exactly what we wanted to happen. The previous website received few compliments that I can remember.
Test driving is more than products and service. Can visitors understand your style? Can they see your inspiration in action? Do you learn from the successes and failures equally? Are you operating in the present or living off the past?
February 2011
Atkinson Public Relations celebrated our 25th anniversary on Feb. 1. The following are Chairman Sue Atkinson’s reflections from the firm in 1986.
It’s difficult for the people on our team who were still toddlers or teenagers in 1986 to fathom the way we worked back then. 25 years ago we did the same things, just a little bit differently.
Word processing: The assistants had just gotten memory typewriters, but the rest of us were still on our IBM Selectrics or even ancient manual typewriters. We used Wite-Out by the case or that white stuff you put on the paper and then backspaced to correct mistakes or changes.
News releases: With no email, we had to either mail or hand deliver releases to the local media by courier. And of course, there was no digital photography or scans. The local photo shop made lots of revenue from doing photo reprints, which we then meticuously labeled on the back.
Search: The Internet was still in the stages of government development and not available to businesses. Hence no Google or other search tools. If we needed to do research, we usually sent interns to the Nashville library or to Vanderbilt to take notes on a legal pad or index cards.
Local media: The only local news outlets were two daily newspapers and the three network television stations. Every public relations person’s challenge was when to release big news. The Tennessean came out in the morning and the Nashville Banner came out in the afternoon with a mid-morning deadline. You always heard flack from the one that didn’t get the story first.
News cycle: The news cycle happened once every 24 hours. Breaking news was reserved for only the most significant stories.
Casual dress: Didn’t exist. Office dress was business attire every day – suits and ties for the men and jackets with skirts for the women – pants were verboten.
And there was an ashtray on every desk and conference table. Yes, I can relate to most of what I see on Mad Men.
– Sue G. Atkinson
December 2010
Happy holidays from the Atkinson Public Relations team. Thanks to you and all our great readers for the opportunity to share a few ideas about communication and leadership every other month.
We wish you a holiday filled with laughter and a New Year rich with opportunity.
See you in 2011.
