Listen Up By Susan Tomai, Founder, Oratorio
Great communicators are also great listeners. Before you start giving advice, the best thing you can do for your clients is to listen - really listen - and hear what they want to say and achieve.
I’m a great believer in the “get to know you” conversation at the start of a media training or presentation training session. Rather than getting right down to business with the training (which is what some clients expect given their busy schedules) I prefer to just let the client talk for a few minutes first. When they let their guard down, when they’re relaxed and being themselves, we glean a wealth of helpful information about messaging and performance style that makes the rest of the training session much more personalized and time-efficient.
I can’t tell you how often we’ve been in a training session with a client and a senior comms director will say “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.” What they don’t realize is that the show already started with the first handshake.
Turning up the volume on Twitter
By Christopher Breene, Founder, GFTB Digital
With social media and digital media playing such a big role in the media landscape, we asked our go-to digital strategist Christopher Breene of GFTB Digital for tips on amplifying your message on Twitter.
If you’re making an effort to use Twitter as part of your marketing and communications strategy, that’s great – but keep the following in mind for maximum impact:
- Develop a consistent voice
Tone, word choice, grammar, and a consistent voice are important on Twitter. Users expect you to have your niche, be consistent in your content choices, and engage in a specific voice. - Keep your imagery crisp and uniform
Does your Twitter image match your Facebook image? Your website? Your brand? You want to keep images uniform across all channels and continue to refresh them over time. - Do your #homework
The number one way to grow your audience on Twitter is to engage in trending topics and moments. Twitter organizes trends and lets you know what is trending in any major city at any time. Take advantage of this and weigh in with hashtags. - Learn the lingo
Did you know the @ symbol on Twitter doesn't just indicate username? It's also a way of checking in. For example, if you're visiting Oratorio and want to tweet about it, say: "Spent today @Oratorio meeting with DC's two best media trainers. Mind blown. #MediaTraining" - Buff up your bio
One of the best ways to get noticed in Twitter searches is to include your location, your website link, and key hashtags in your bio. Check out @OratorioDC and @GoForTopherB as examples. Be sure to use these in your Twitter bio to enhance your branding. - Livetweet with the best of 'em
What is Twitter doing? Investing in big events, video streaming, and livetweeting. What should you be doing? The same. There are tons of events streamed and livetweeted on Twitter all the time. Make sure your company is a part of the conversations on the breaking news in your industry. - Tweetdeck is your friend
Tools like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Buffer, and more help you to amplify your Twitter efforts, monitor conversations, and filter out the noise - all for free. In Tweetdeck (my favorite) you can make custom columns from lists, hashtags and users, and monitor everything in real time. - Try Twitter Lists
Twitter lets you build custom lists to pinpoint the news you want to see and curate audiences. Want to follow specific journalists? Add them to a list and they'll get a notification. Want to keep an eye on your competition? Add them to a private list and they won't. - Target Twitter Ads
Boost your efforts with Twitter ads targeting sales, website clicks, followers, and more. This is a great way to take your great original content and align it with brands and organizations you trust.
FUN FACTS & DATA:
- Live streaming video will further accelerate streaming videos overall share of internet traffic. Streaming video accounts for over two-thirds of all internet traffic, and this share is expected to jump to 82% by 2020, according to Cisco’s June 2016 Visual Networking Index report.
- Live video’s value comes from its unique ability to add an authentic human element to digital communications. As a result, brands are leveraging three main streaming methods to connect with their viewers: tutorials, product launches, and exclusive and behind-the-scene footage.
- Advertisers will continue to invest heavily in online video, especially as live streaming video gains traction. Already in the US, digital video ad revenue reached $7.8 billion in 2015, up 55% from 2014, according to figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau.
- While live streaming is still in its early stages, brands are leveraging micropayments, mid-roll video ads and direct payments from social platforms, to monetize their live streaming videos.
- The success of live streaming video hinges on brands overcoming a lack of measurement standards in the space, as well as changes in social media sites' algorithms that affect what content users see.
Source
Want to learn more ways to turn up the volume on your Twitter efforts? Drop us a line on our contact page!
Christopher Breene is a marketing and digital media strategist and the founder of GFTB Digital. Outside of his role as our digital media consultant, he has worked with corporate clients such as Sam Adams, Volkswagen, Kroger, and LexisNexis to develop first-class digital strategy over the past 6 years.
Mass Protest As Communication Strategy
By Bill Connor, Partner
Oratorio’s main business is showing individual clients how to perform more effectively in TV interviews and presentations. We show one person how to reach a large audience in a single moment with carefully crafted key messages. But a look at this past weekend reminds us that it often works just as effectively in reverse. A big crowd can influence a single person and lead to significant change.
After President Trump announced his Muslim ban last Friday, thousands of people rapidly took to the streets and the airports to protest. Then the White House changed, or at least clarified, its policy. As of this writing five days laterthe future remains uncertain for refugees and other foreign nationals who want to to come to America, but the messages delivered by the protesters made a big difference - and those messages are likely to multiply.
It Worked For Him, But It Won’t Work For You
By Susan Tomai, Founder
The standard guidance Oratorio has always offered our business clients is straightforward: don’t call attention to your competition’s brand, don’t point your finger at your audience (literally and figuratively), be honored and humbled to represent your constituency. The President-elect tossed all that out the window and still won the election. Does this mean that the old communication rules no longer apply in the age of Trump? No. It worked for him, but it won’t work for you.
Only Trump is Trump. He is truly sui generis. He makes news, he insults, he burns bridges – and he moves on to his next fireworks display. To him, all publicity is good publicity. He doesn’t care. There are of course plenty of public figures who think quite highly of themselves, but no one else possesses the same combination of self-assurance (some would say narcissism), combativeness and showmanship. No one could equal or out-Trump Trump.
And this is a good thing. Of course the delivery methods have changed; as Trump continues to demonstrate, Twitter and other social media platforms are hugely important. Communicators can successfully bypass the traditional media and speak directly to their audiences, up to a point. But the traditional news media still matter - and disciplined, credible message development and delivery are still essential to communications campaigns, no matter what the medium may be.
Like him or not, Trump’s approach has succeeded. But running for President and being President are not the same. As of Friday he won’t be talking solely to his supporters anymore - and even he may discover that more discipline and restraint will be required to run the country.
Ready, Set, March!
By Susan Tomai, Founder
I live right across the river from The U.S. Capitol, so of course I’ll have a houseful of out-of-town guests this weekend for the Women’s March on Washington. Beds and towels are ready and the refrigerator is full – all systems go.
But I haven’t participated in a political exercise of this magnitude since I got off a bus on the Washington Mall in the 70’s, walked right into an anti-Kissinger protest and got hit in the head with a sign and fell to the ground. To say I am a bit anxious about this weekend is, well, you know: back then we had no dirty bombs, ISIS, mass shootings. But I’m going, pink hat and all, and it is my prayer that the march will not only be peaceful, but will make a difference in the lives of every girl and woman, now and for generations to come. Yes I’m nervous, but I’ll be more nervous for the female population if we don’t show up. I just realized I need a new pair of sneakers too.