1. Easier to follow conversations. Whether it is a networking event you are attending or a TV show you are watching, hashtags will allow you to see what your friends are saying about a certain topic of interest.
2. Direct conversations. Brand pages will be able to encourage people following their page to discuss certain topics. By using the hashtag, brands can help steer the conversation to a particular product, event or topic.
3. Increased engagement. Everyone is looking for users to engage with their Facebook page. Hashtags have the potential to both increase viewership and expand the reach of posts.
4. They are fun. I’ve noticed my friends using hashtags on Facebook for months, even though they didn’t actually do anything, until now. Hashtags are a fun way to talk about events you are going to, share your thoughts or engage your friends in what you are talking about.

What are you or your company excited about using hashtags for?

The post Four Reasons We’re Excited about Facebook Hashtags appeared first on Red Shoes PR.

Valuing value

The foundation of Rifenbary’s “No excuse” consists of: accountability, integrity, defining success and purpose. I’ve been thinking about one of the exercises used to demonstrate purpose since we left the talk. The very basic principle is you motivate people by making them feel valued. To demonstrate showing value, Rifenbary called out one person in the group and the rest of us were instructed to shout out why we value that person.

It was a very simple exercise, but it was a great demonstration of how we seldom are that direct with those we work with. When is the last time you looked one of your colleagues in the eye and said “I value you because of…”?

Public relations, like many professions, is an extremely stressful career. Throw in the small business and agency settings and it can feel like a pressure cooker some days. What makes Red Shoes PR work is that we function well as a team, we can depend on each other to help us get through the tough days. Having the opportunity to look each other in the eye and list why we value that person is cathartic and hearing what my coworkers value in me definitely makes me more motivated to jump in and help out when someone else needs it.

I highly recommend taking some time to sit down with your team and person-by-person, share what you value in each other. The short time it takes to do this exercise will pay back tenfold in the improvement in your team dynamic.

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These days we see more and more media outlets using multimedia in their news coverage, going beyond just the broadcast TV norm. And it’s not just happening in larger markets. Just last week we were informed that a reporter from an area newspaper was standing outside one of our client’s buildings to get video interviews directly from employees. I’m also seeing more and more newspaper reporters film and edit short news clips on their iPhones out on assignment and that gives them the ability to send it back to the newsroom for immediate access to the public.

Working in communications, we can learn a lot from this morph in the news industry. Think about that next time you post to your social media or send out a press release. How can you incorporate more visual aspects and multimedia into your company’s communications? Because in the end, that is what our audiences want.

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Here are some reminders and tips for your company’s social media, marketing, PR team or whoever may be in charge of your social media channels to keep in mind following events that shake the nation, your state or even your community:

• If you use a social media scheduling service, like Hootsuite, for example, review all posts you have in the hopper, whether they are scheduled tweets, blog posts or Facebook statuses. Reschedule ones that promote your company’s events or announcements for a later date, especially on the day of the tragedy. Promoting your company during devastating times will make the company look ignorant and unempathetic. You’ll also want to avoid sending out information that seems lighthearted or funny, given the circumstances of a tragedy.

• Show your support online – and be genuine. Let those who are affected know that they are not alone by sending words of encouragement their way. Though not everyone will see your message, those who do will be grateful in knowing that so many people are thinking of them.

• Share information with your company’s networks on how they can help get involved with recovery efforts or funds that may be set up for specific disasters or tragedies. Is your company starting a specific fund to help out? Let people know how they can donate. Or simply use your social media channels to relay information about preexisting funds (such as the American Red Cross efforts) or services that are lending a helping hand.

In the face of national tragedies, disasters and crises, it is important to scale back traditional social media posts for two to three days following the event. What other rules or practices does your company follow during difficult times?

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonahowie/8583949219/

The post What should you say? Social media best practices during national tragedy appeared first on Red Shoes PR.

Downsizing, layoffs, pay cuts, benefit changes, restructuring or bad reviews. No matter what the difficult news is or the reason for delivering it, there are certain considerations that must be made in these situations. Here are some tips for senior management on how to make the best out of delivering difficult news to your employees.

Plan ahead. And then plan some more. The bigger the announcement and the more people affected, the more planning is required. Obviously there are different levels of your internal audience. Prepare who will be notified, in what order and with what message.

Avoid delays. Don’t sit on your negative news hoping situations will improve. Once your preparations are made and all your ducks in a row, act in your employees’ best interest and don’t delay. As they say: bad news delayed is bad news compounded.

Bring solutions to the table. Bad news without solutions is worse news. Work with your fellow management team and remaining employees to ensure the team is working together to avoid another similar situation.

Be empathetic. Your message must be human. Empathize with your employees as they take in the difficult news, and try to figure out what to do next. They deserve a compassionate message. Always treat your people with respect and dignity.

Deliver with clarity. To avoid the challenging situation of having more questions than answers, put together an FAQ list and how you will address the answers to those questions during your planning stage. This will help to ensure the receivers of your message are left with little wonder of the direction the company is heading.

Always remember your multiple audiences. Many overlook the chains of people outside of the direct conversation who will be affected by this news. Remember that when delivering bad news, such as employee layoffs, more than just the employees will take notice; your board of directors, clients, customers, investors, partners and media will be listening and watching, and will likely want more information.

The post How to deliver difficult news to your employees appeared first on Red Shoes PR.

It gets even more confusing when you read articles about what posts do show up and what posts don’t show up. Here are some main points of frustration that I’ve seen on Facebook pages-

• What to post: I’ve seen many articles that say you need to go visual. And I agree to an extent. A cool infographic or compelling photo are much more likely to get a like from me than simply text. So, in theory you would think that your visual posts get the most viewership. However, I’ve noticed on our client pages that when we post text only, such as a quote or a question, about 2/3 of people who like our page see that post, compared to about 1/10, which seems to be the general analytic when it comes to posting photos. My recommendation is to post a mixture of visuals and engaging content such as questions, polls or quotes. Pay attention to what people seem to be responding to.

• Paid posts: I’ve dabbled with posting promoted posts, especially if it is for an event that we are trying to get the word out. I find it to be really frustrating that even with PAID posts, not everyone who likes your page sees it. I also find the way they explain the different audiences and choices when purchasing an ad to be very confusing and not user friendly. It is hard to determine the best way to do an ad. My recommendation is just to go ahead and try it. They are relatively low cost and while they seem confusing, we have noticed an uptick in attendance for events that we have chosen to do do paid promotions.

• Engagement: Companies obviously want numbers to be able to show that their page is working. Many times we report number of likes, number of comments, etc. However, it’s important to remember that there is another audience out there who is seeing your posts. Even if someone doesn’t choose to like or comment, you still had their eyes on your post for a few seconds. It is difficult to measure this type of viewer. I recommend to remember to keep these people in mind and remember that just because you may not have a ton of likes on every post, you still may be getting decent viewership.

So, what is the solution to these frustrations? Unfortunately, I think we all know that Facebook will continue to change and continue to find ways to make money, which means more ads and less benefits of a free page. So you have to find what works for you or your company. For example, we have found that one of our clients gets a much higher level of engagement when we post about staff awards or accomplishments. Their audience likes seeing the people who work at the company doing good things in the community and in the workplace.

What have you found works for you or your company?

The post Getting Around Facebook Frustrations appeared first on Red Shoes PR.

Last Friday, Karen Schlieve and I attended the Partnership for Community Resilience – Critical Infrastructure Restoration Workshop, which was put on by Southeast Wisconsin Homeland Security Partnership, Inc. The morning session featured the following private companies sharing their emergency preparedness strategies: We Energies, American Transmission Company, Time Warner Cable and AT&T. The afternoon was a facilitated crisis exercise where the participants worked through what would happen if an EF5 tornado hit downtown Milwaukee.

We left the event with the following crisis reminders:

September 11 was a wakeup call – 9/11 was a tragic event and it served as a huge wakeup call for public and private entities alike to get their crisis plans in place and be prepared to manage catastrophic situations. During the morning workshop, we heard company after company reflect on how unprepared they were prior to September 11, 2001 and how the terrorist attack served as a wakeup call. If you’re still waiting for that wakeup call, get motivated now to start your company’s crisis management plan; if you don’t, you’ll learn the hard way that: “The only thing more difficult than preparing for disasters is explaining why you didn’t.” (Dr. Rex Archer, Kansas City, Mo. Public Health Director)

Collaboration is critical (and under appreciated) – If you work in the private sector, the development of your crisis plan should include input from the public sector. Consider reaching out to your county’s emergency management department to see what help they can provide. On the other hand, if you’re contacted by your state, county or city, to participate in a workshop or provide input into a plan, make every effort to do so. If there’s a major disaster, you will find yourself reaching for contacts in the highway department, health department or police force – do yourself a favor and make those contacts before you need them.

Strive to be redundant – Whether you’re on vacation or without power, you could find yourself unable to get to work during a crisis. In the event that you’re unavailable, you better have redundancies built in in your company. Are you the only one who is a Facebook administrator or the only one with access to the company credit card? If you haven’t shared this information with others, you will only hurt your company in the long run. Starting now, cross train your boss, your direct reports or your colleagues on what you do on a daily basis. Organization and details are important so that if someone needs this information quickly, they know where to go.

I hope these three reminders will be motivation for those of you who have yet to put your crisis plan in place. Creating a crisis plan may seem like a daunting task, but start small, pull in outside help and soon you’ll be on your way.

Photo courtesy of: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thelightningman/

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Your answers can also help gauge the severity of the situation you may be dealing with and could tell you how proactive you need to be in getting your message out.

Here are a few of the questions we like to ask right out of the gate:

• Was 911 called?
Why do we ask this? Simple. If 911 was called, the chances that the media will be tipped off about your crisis significantly increases. Media outlets monitor local police scanners 24/7 so if you call the police, fire department or paramedics, be on alert and expect some follow up from your local media.

• Has your internal audience been notified?
In public relations we talk a lot about the importance in sequencing in your communications, crisis or not. If you are announcing a mass layoff, organizational embezzlement or have experienced injuries on a job site, it is critical that your employees or stakeholders (such as donors or board of directors) don’t find out from the media or the rumor mill.

• Have you begun to monitor media and online conversations?
As soon as you become aware of a crisis, make sure to set up ways to monitor media and online conversations. This can help in messaging and timing your announcements. You can use a free service like Google Alerts or set up keywords through a paid news monitoring service like Cision or Critical Mention. One other service we have been using to monitor online conversations is Mention.

• Are you taking detailed notes including notations of time?
Identify someone in your organization to take detailed notes regarding the situation. Your notes should include when certain activities have taken place, media request call logs, communication with specific stakeholders and any anticipated questions that you need answered.

To see additional questions, download our full list of crisis communications questions:

If you have a crisis communications plan in place, this checklist would often be one of the very first pages. If you haven’t taken the time to fully develop an entire crisis plan, a good first step would be to put together a checklist of your own. It can help start conversations that your leadership team should be having in the very first (and often most critical) hour that a crisis takes place.

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Set the standard for continuously generating new ideas. The media love outside-the-box thinking. So how do you keep these types of ideas coming?

• Hold a brainstorm with coworkers. Often times it takes more than one person to come up with the next big thing. Pool your resources by gathering your coworkers to do a quick 15-minute brainstorm. Bringing in fresh perspectives and talking through projects is a great way to form or perfect an idea to bring to the table.

• Stay current. Reading regional, national and global news on a regular basis can help keep your mind fresh. News is always changing. Often times the media are more interested in your story if it can be tied into a larger picture – something that is taking place on a national level. If you don’t stay in tune with current events, you risk missing out on forming the perfect pitch or idea to bring to your next meeting. Keep in mind that reading industry-specific news falls into this category as well.

• Change your scenery. By working from a coffee shop, a different location within your office building (think conference room or gathering room) or your home, you can clear away all the normal day-to-day distractions that occur while working from your desk. Sometimes that’s all it takes to clear writers’ block or think of a way to angle your pitch so it stands out.

What tactics can you add to the list?

Photo credit: Flickr Creative Commons (deichgnu)

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Here are some points to consider when trying to position yourself as a thought leader:

1) Determine or forecast what hot topics are impacting your line of work. All industries have trends and if you keep up with those trends, chances are you can position yourself as a thought leader. Think about two or three current questions that are facing your clients or customers and your answers to them. Developing content around your customers biggest pain points will help dramatically.

2) Go on a public speaking tour. Speaking engagements are a great way to get your name and expertise in front of decision makers, potential customers and other industry experts. Whether you are looking for local, regional or national speaking opportunities, there are many business groups or trade associations looking for speakers and topics. Contact the president or programming lead to pitch your idea.

3) Start a blog. Blogging is a great way to share information publicly – and at the same time increase your SEO (search engine optimization) so people can find you. You can also gain new followers by promoting your content in industry forums, social media platforms and inserting it into an enewsletter for your customers. Make sure to offer timely, consistent content to keep people coming back to your site often.

4) Contact the media. Reporters are always looking for savvy industry experts to offer their advice or expertise on a certain issue. Whether you are quoted in a news article or are asked to write a monthly column for a publication, that visibility will allow readers to keep you top of mind when making decisions. You can then use the clips as a business development tool or showcase them to your employees and customers.

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