Archive:

The holiday season is a perfect time to enhance the tactics your brand is using on social media. Add storytelling elements, concentrate on visual content and create a consistent theme for your posts, writes Jamie Izaks of All Points Public Relations. Tell followers how your brand can help them during the busy holiday season. And don’t forget to include a CTA.

The holiday season is here and many are making merry away from their desks. Yet social engagement doesn’t end, not even on Christmas, says Emma Monks, Crisp’s head of trust and safety. In fact, more social messages are sent to retailers during the holidays than at any other time. Here are a few ways brands can mind their social channels and reduce risk during the holidays.

It’s easy to forget that social media is a relatively new phenomenon now that it’s so deeply ingrained in our lives. But even as it has grown and evolved over the past decade or so, the rule book for social platforms is still being formed day by day. And it’s remarkably easy for companies, leaders and individuals to screw up what could have been a perfectly normal tweet. As proven by Rudy Giuliani’s recent Twitter grammatical error that unintentionally linked to a domain that was then used by a comedian for a political prank, the book of best practices on Twitter could still use some tweaking.

One of the maxims of employee communications is to avoid announcing job cuts or restructuring during the holiday season. General Motors ignored that norm with its announcement yesterday. Here are six other takeaways for communicators from GM’s announcement.

Communicators and marketers often devote a lot of effort to choosing the right words to use in their messages. While words matter, there is an argument or two to be made for also considering the heart when creating a message. And believe it or not, emotion counts when creating messages for both B2C and B2B audiences.

Even just a couple of years ago brands were more than a bit cautious when wading into social and political issues. Things are different now. Consider the size and scope of the 56 companies that signed a letter yesterday protesting rule changes for transgender people. Still, brands need to be careful when taking stands on social and political issues.

Vin Scully is one of the greatest communicators who ever lived. In that spirit, on the occasion of the 19th no-hitter he’s announced (the first was in 1952) we collected a few of his best quotes.

Clients come and go, but properly analyzing a loss can lead to reassessment, adjustment and more business.

Companies that one time used their agencies to disseminate earnings reports now frequently post them on their Web sites.

If your client doesn’t look polished and speak well, all of the messaging you perfected loses value.