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Syndicating Content

I recently had the pleasure of writing Sharing Your Content Through Syndication with my friend and mentor, Diane Lofgren. It was published on PR News earlier this month.

In the process, we had a great conversation with Tomas Kellner from GE Reports. It was fascinating to learn more about the brand journalism strategy at GE and I appreciated the simplicity of his guidance: “I find and report many of the great stories that are inside the company and that really deserve to be told to a wide audience in our online magazine, and then syndicate the stories via Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest and even SnapChat.”

 

Check out the full article: Sharing Your Content Through Syndication  on PR News.

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Restarting

It’s been a long time since I last posted. Time to get back in the habit!

Today, I’m fascinated by the decision by the American Medical Association to declare obesity a disease.

I’m honestly of two minds about this:

By declaring obesity a disease, I believe that it will receive increased attention and focus from doctors — a much needed change. But I worry that declaring obesity a disease will stigmatize and alienate those most in need of support from the medical community.

What do you think?

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Beware of “Experts” and “Gurus”

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the rising importance of digital media in the last few weeks.

What used to be something I took an interest in during my spare time is now a central part of my job, day-in and day-out. In truth, new media is not particularly “new,” but it has evolved quickly in recent years. Fortunately, I’m comfortable with technology and have been able to learn new technologies and be an early adopter, as appropriate, for my clients/employers.

I’m very proud to say that I took my first (and only) HTML class in 1994, developed my first client website in 1998 and started this blog in 2004. I even met my son’s father on a listserv in 1997 — long before online dating was trendy! Digital and social technologies became a part of both my personal and work life when the domain was reserved for self-proclaimed geeks. Today, digital technologies are more than mainstream, they are a way of life. There are endless platforms available for promoting brands and engaging audience. As a result, virtually everyone in the PR, communications, marketing and advertising industry seems to be in catch-up mode, clamoring to prove their expertise in the space.

Earlier this month at the PR News Digital PR Summit, I had the good fortune of presenting on a panel about Creating a Digital Dream Team (scroll through PR News TV at PR News Online for an interview by me on the subject). During Q&A, I was asked what kind of expertise I look for when I am hiring someone for a digital media role. My answer was direct and, to my entertainment, widely Tweeted: “I’d be skeptical of people who bill themselves as ‘gurus’ or ‘experts’ in #SM. We’re all making it up as we go.”

Ultimately, expertise in the digital space is not about knowing the trendy new platforms nor even about successfully executing one or two campaigns. When I evaluate whether people can be successful in the digital space, I want to know they will begin with a clear strategy (what are we trying to accomplish?) and are willing to invest the time to develop meaningful relationships with the audiences they are trying to engage. I want to know that they will fully integrate digital and social strategies into their overall plans, not see digital or social platforms as separate programs. The ability to understand the value of integration is what matters most to me.

Diving deeper into the subject of integration, I recently published “Integrating Social Media into PR Plans: What You Need to Know” in the PRSA Strategist.

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Eliminating the Perception of a Digital Divide Among Seniors

I’ve recently attended a few social media conferences where speakers wrote off online engagement of seniors. Their assumptions about seniors, I believe, was based on out-dated stereotypes. Stereotypes that assume that just because you may have hit or surpassed the “magic age” of 65 that you have no digital connections.

It’s time for us each of us to give up those old stereotypes.

Just today, I received a retirement notice from a former boss who notified her network that she was giving up her landline in favor of her cell phone and Skype.

Kaiser Permanente also released survey data today that showed that Medicare beneficiaries are embracing the Internet to manage their health. From Jan Oldenburg: “The biggest surprise from the survey was discovering that the typical Kaiser Permanente Medicare beneficiary who is registered to use My Health Manager is very comfortable with computers, using the Internet daily and reviewing their medical record online a few times each month.”

If those results are convincing enough for you, perhaps I should introduce you to my 75+ year old parents. Between the two of them, they own three laptops (each has a Mac at home and they travel with a small PC to email their family), an iPhone and a Kindle.

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