Stories by Steve Goldstein

Delta Air Lines jettisoned the bland, cheery persona employed typically by social customer care representatives in favor of stoic sarcasm in two now-notorious Twitter replies to author and political commentator Ann Coulter. Execs may have felt like heroes for an hour or two—now they just have to deal with the full-on conflict.

If you’re knee-deep in an all-consuming career, you probably don’t take much time out to ask yourself how and why you got there. A little navel-gazing can go a long way, though. Paychecks aside, asking yourself why you’re in a particular line of work can put you back in touch with your original inspiration, your core ambitions and your native talents.

Stockholders might literally own a brand, but employees—from the C-suite to the customer-service level—are the brand. This sense of unity and shared responsibility needs to be communicated up and down the line, over and over again. At the very least, basic kindness will take root in an organization—not a bad trait to have while the world hungers for the next trending story.

Looked at clinically, we know that the president’s communications skills can’t help but influence the tone of civic discourse online and, to a lesser degree, in person. Individuals and organizations must swim in, navigate and adapt to these incivil waters.

President Trump’s June 29 tweets about “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough have generated plenty of outrage in the professional media, on social channels and in home kitchens across the land. In his tweets, the president, fed up with the MSNBC morning news show’s critical coverage of his administration, went easy on Scarborough… Continued

The post Trump’s ‘Morning Joe’ Tweets: Apotheosis of a Communications Strategy appeared first on PR News Blog.

President Trump’s June 29 tweets about “Morning Joe” hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough have generated plenty of outrage in the professional media, on social channels and in home kitchens across the land. In his tweets, the president, fed up with the MSNBC morning news show’s critical coverage of his administration, went easy on Scarborough… Continued

The post Trump’s ‘Morning Joe’ Tweets: Apotheosis of a Communications Strategy appeared first on PR News Blog.

“We know data visualization is important, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy,” said Kevin Hartman, head of analytics, consumer, government and entertainment for Google, at PR News’ Visual Storytelling Boot Camp in Chicago. “You have to keep your storyline simple and readable,” said co-presenter Carolyn Barth. “And you have to know your audience and think about what’s practical for them.”

The PR pro of 2000 had to master media relations, crisis communications, internal communications, media training and change management. The brand communicator of 2017 very likely must master those same areas, as well as social media, data and analytics, visual storytelling, influencer marketing, SEO, content marketing and even advertising. This expansion of PR has been driven by technology, of course, but also by the communicators themselves, each of whom must be a jack of all trades and master of all.

Before you hit send, go back and visualize the recipient for a couple of seconds. Are they at the desk when it comes in? Will they read it from their phone while on the road? In other words, have you written something that will cause them to open it and/or something that stands out from the 90 other emails waiting on them?

You’ve probably either sent or received a version of this work email: “Who posted this tweet on the brand account? I think it’s too [personal/political/off-brand/sloppily written/insensitive/blatantly promotional/factually incorrect/ill-timed].” If you’ve never written or seen an email like that, you should congratulate yourself and your team. You’re managing to speak with a consistent brand voice on Twitter.