Turning News Into Knowledge

Have you ever written something, especially for the spoken word, that just doesn’t sound right?

If so, try these diagnostic tools to determine if your PR or marketing copy is afflicted with one or more of the following. (I’ve certainly had them all at one point or another.)

1.  Prepositionitis. This is caused by a high preposition count. Take, for example, this sentence: The blood drive at the Red Cross starts on Monday and runs for four days. Remove the prepositions and voilà: The Red Cross four-day blood drive starts Monday. It’s tighter, cleaner, and easier to read and understand.

2. Sentence lethargy. When all your sentences contain the same – or close to the same – number of words, it can sound listless and lethargic. Wake it up by varying your sentence lengths and it will sing and dance. Follow a 26-word sentence with a six-word sentence, then a 12-word sentence, a … . Well, you get the point.

I tend to do this automatically now when I write, and I certainly do it when I edit.

3. Hypocan’trism. For some reason, many of us tend to limp along on word crutches we really don’t need. One symptom is beginning too many sentences with “there is” or “there are.” Throw them away whenever you can and your copy will run freely. For example: There are 30 people enrolled in the program. Chuck that crutch and write: Thirty people are enrolled in the program.

4. Statement syndrome. Are all your sentences crafted as statements? If so, consider alternating with other sentence types. Although they should be used sparingly, consider a question or two. Throw in command sentences. And spice things up with exclamatory sentences – with or without the “!”.

For example, replace: The food at XYZ is really good with: Are you looking for a great meal? Try the food at XYZ. It’s really good!

(Can you tell I used to work as a radio copywriter?)

5. Weak – or no – transitions. When it comes to the spoken word, you have to take your listener by the ear and lead him/her smoothly through each point in the copy. These transitions – and, but, although, however, etc. –stitch your thoughts together seamlessly. And here’s another transition tip: Use the last two or three words in one sentence to begin the next. Example: He said he would do better. Do better than anyone else with his environmental policies.

6. A thready pulse. This can be the result of an over-use of verbs that often are – well, just let me just say it – wimpy. You know them: is, are, has, have, had, was, get, got, etc. Sure, they’re indispensable and vital for healthy writing, but relying on them too much can make your copy dull and boring. Put your piece under the microscope to see if there’s a more useful, explanatory – even more exciting – verb waiting in wings. Example: He had a lead in the polls. Consider: He enjoyed/celebrated/basked in his lead in the polls. One caution, however, be careful your new verb doesn’t change the meaning.

And if you’d like to go beyond the verb to inject even more colour and verve, look at changing She had a headache to Her head pounded like a …. .

Yep, I could have completed that sentence with a cool and creative simile – but I won’t.  Figures of speech, my friend (along with Joss Whedon) are topics for a future article on slaying the mundane in writing.

“The monkey’s the only cookie animal that gets to wear clothes, you know that? So I’m wondering, do the other cookie animals feel sorta ripped? Like, is the hippo going, ‘Hey, where are my pants? I have my hippo dignity.’ And, you know, the monkey’s just (French accent) ‘I mock you with my monkey pants.’ And then there’s a big coup at the zoo.” – Oz in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

At first glance, it might be tough to see how Darth Vader and Eminem made as big an impact on the Super Bowl as did the Green Bay Packers and Pittsburgh Steelers.

After all, the latter two actually played the game. Duh.

But as the two squads were completing passes, scoring touchdowns and running picks something else was happening (between plays, of course, but still). That something was the Super Bowl advertising juggernaut, which shows itself every year, kicking itself into high gear.

Eminem, who was a spokesperson for two brands during this year's Super Bowl.

Indeed, we all know – or, at least, think we know – how important Super Bowl advertising campaigns have become for big-name firms. Likewise, the value of social media campaigns to the larger concept of brand awareness shows itself more each day.

But what happens when so-called “traditional” ad campaigns start burning up social media sites – what then?

And how do different online leviathans such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube interact with each other, especially when interested folks are tweeting, viewing, commenting and posting about TV commercials at breakneck speeds?

Inspired by these and other questions tickling our brains, we loaded up our MediaMiser social media monitoring software with keywords and got to work. The Super Bowl, whose celebrated television advertisements have inspired public chatter for decades, seemed as good a backdrop to us as any – but what we found about how users of video sharing sites and social media interacted, both in the run-up to the game and days following, surprised us.

It just may surprise you too.

So check out our most recent report, Brand awareness through social media exposure – A media scan & analysis of Super Bowl XLV commercials, for a glimpse at whether Justin Bieber’s legions of fans were any match for a pint-sized spokesperson of a different kind.

As usual in any community, debates are standard fare.  In the PR measurement community, two ongoing discussions centre around the use of advertising value equivalencies (AVEs) and the term ROI.  (More on the latter at a later date.)

Where AVEs are concerned, there seem to be two extreme views – they’re useless as effective measurement tools or they serve as a valuable evaluation methodology.

I, like many others I’m sure, tend to fall in the middle.

I believe AVEs can be very useful if they’re used to measure outputs, i.e., to evaluate the practitioner’s abilities and capabilities in attracting media attention. The information gathered also can help direct subsequent campaigns.

More importantly, perhaps, is that high AVEs can help justify publicity expenditures to organizational bean counters.  In other words, they produce a figure that can help budget holders see the value in spending money to garner media publicity.

One example of this is the space trip Guy Laliberté (Cirque de Soleil) launched (literally) in 2009, partially I’m sure for his own enjoyment but also to promote his One Drop Foundation, a nonprofit organization he created to increase awareness of the millions of people who don’t have access to clean water.

Was it worth the $35 million he spent on his own personal star trek?

He and many others, I believe, would say “yes.”

According to Montreal’s Influence Communication, the media coverage (television, Internet, radio, and newspaper) generated by his space visit  reached a media audience of 878.8 million people in 71 countries. Computed with no weighting or factoring, the AVE was valued at more than $592 million. Where the foundation is concerned, 92 per cent of the coverage was earned between Sept. 30 and Oct. 14 when his Poetic Social Mission in Space show was broadcast.

To a bean counter, this is the equivalent of a juicy porterhouse steak!  .

However, and here’s what puts me in the middle, while the measurement of the outputs show great value, what about the outcomes with target audiences?

Was there an increase in awareness of the foundation among key publics and stakeholders?  If so, did this awareness generate positive perceptions?  Did more potential donors and key opinion leaders engage with the foundation?  Did donations to the foundation increase?

If nothing happened back here on earth to benefit the foundation, the trip and that wonderful AVE add up to a lot of sizzle – but no steak.

Claudine Wilson is a senior associate with MediaMiser. This post was re-posted from her own blog, PRHunter, with permission.

Chris Sorensen of the Toronto Star reported in a Dec 10, 2007 article that an unpublished study revealed one of every four Canadians has a Facebook account.

That’s nearly eight million Canadians. And of those accounts, 85 per cent were added in the past year-and-a-half, and half the users were over the age of 30.

According to the article, “some U.S. research estimates that nearly half of all Americans surfing the Internet now visit either MySpace or Facebook.”

I’m sure advertisers and market researchers already know this and are planning to exploit this phenomenon.

That said, it will be interesting to see how corporations and governments try to monitor and analyze social media such as Facebook and MySpace, since they likely won’t be added as a friend and therefore shutout.

The other day a discussion arose here at MediaMiser about the usefulness of corporate blogging. Our director of finance raised the issue that for many organizations blogging could be perceived as a non-revenue generating activity.

For our company, maintaining a blog is a no-brainer. Not only do we analyze traditional media, such as print and broadcast, we also analyze new media content such as blogs. So it’s important that we understand the medium (blogosphere) intimately. One of the many ways to do that is to maintain our own blog.

So again, for us it was easy to justify. But what about other corporations? What’s in it for them?

Almost all mature or reasonably sized corporations should have a corporate blog if they care about branding. Yes, blogging can be time-consuming and can even seem like a chore at times. But if your organization is active in branding itself, a blog can be an important tool.

When discussing this concept the other day, I recalled an English history course that I took at university. 

One day our professor asked the class why the British Navy ruled the waves the way it did, which, ultimately helped make Britain the world power at the time.

The answer was not because it had the best ships or the smartest people. It was because its ships were always kept at sea, while other countries kept their ships in the safe harbors of their ports when not needed.

Because of this, the British Navy was always ‘ready, aye, ready,’ while other navies needed time to find their sea legs.

The corporate world, and life in general, is no different.  To be good at something, you must constantly be doing it. This is where blogs come in.

At some point in an organization’s life-cycle, it will require evangelists to promote the general concept of the organization or its products and services. Generally, at most companies it’s the founders that evolve into this position, while other people grow into management positions.

At this point the evangelists become one with the brand and they must have the credibility and ability to properly articulate the essence of the company.

In this way, blogs provide the sea legs for the evangelists, while at the same time building their credibility and, by extension, the credibility of the company.

Blogs force the evangelists to be constantly communicating and organizing their thoughts. The more they blog and are forced to think, the better they become at articulating the brand. Plus, if the blog is being properly promoted, the evangelists’ credibility grows. And as many companies will tell you, their strength is their people. 

As for blogs becoming a time-consuming chore, the more you blog, the faster you get.  And if your blog is set up properly with the right processes in place, it shouldn’t take up much of your organization’s time. I think our finance director was convinced. We might even see him start posting here in the future!

I’ve been reading some interesting blogs in regards to the Microsoft Vista launch, and  have noticed the benchmark of the Windows 95 launch often gets brought up — especially since sales of Vista have reportedly been slow.

First of all, there are no comparisons between the launch of Vista and the launch of Windows 95. Microsoft threw the kitchen sink at Windows 95. It did things such as advertise on well-known landmarks all over the world, and spent millions of dollars for the right to use The Rolling Stones’ song Start Me Up.

Marketing and PR budgets aside, I think the landscape has changed since the launch of Windows 95.

Computers are no longer a novelty; they are a necessity. People won’t upgrade to Vista as quickly, as Aiden Kenny pointed out from his blog.

I imagine that the majority of the consumer market is going to migrate to Vista by upgrading their hardware rather than purchasing the boxed OS off the shelf at PCWorld.

My take on that is, most people won’t jump before they look. Computers are so pervasive in everything we do, people can’t afford for their machines to be down and, as a result, take upgrading their computers very seriously. Because of this, people will do their research.

For this reason, perhaps instead of simply trying to hype its product, Microsoft needs to hit the trade journals and other periodicals that are read by the folks who sell the hardware. Because if you can’t get buy in from them, people won’t make the leap. In this case, the sales people responsible for selling the computer hardware have a big say, and solution providers, such as Microsoft, need to convince them there is a real reason to upgrade.

Also, solution providers have to start looking outside traditional media and start targeting influencers in the social media sphere — namely blogs. After all, not only are blogs tremendously effective at influencing consumers, but the media is also using them for research purposes.

I believe corporate messaging is just an extension of advertising and vise versa.

When it comes down to it, it’s all just branding and this is why marketing departments and corporate communicators need to work more closely together. Branding is branding and consistency will help reinforce your image to your audience.

That said, I think messaging can also be very dangerous if not used properly. Overexposure can have the same effect as ‘Chinese water torture’.

Also, because corporate branding is being used in an ever-growing variety of media, it’s extremely important that corporate communicators and marketing specialists have processes and a way of managing the message.

Welcome to Turning News Into Knowledge, the company blog of MediaMiser Ltd.