AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes – a model for airline CEOs (courtesy of Says.com)
Airline incidents and accidents are magnets for public attention.
Unlike a common road accident or a train delay, an air disaster is both dramatic and tragic.
Tag: communications
Public Relations Strategies in the Digital Age
What is the role of Public Relations (PR) in the digital and social age? Should we merely hustle for media coverage while producing corporate annual reports?
Well, the answers to these questions may surprise you. At least according to Gini Dietrich (above), author of the book and website Spin Sucks.
Mastering Persuasion in Sales, Advertising and PR
Sales guru Zig Ziglar was a master in persuasion (courtesy of Attitudes 4 Innovation)
Persuasion is a huge part of our every day lives. It is a major aspect of human-to-human interactions at work, play or school.
Without it, we are unable to get what we want in our interactions with people. And that certainly sucks.
Enterprise Messaging Comes of Age with sqoope
Everybody’s on an instant messaging app these days.
Fast, convenient and almost idiot-proof, they allow us to communicate quickly with each other via text, photos, videos and more. Tapping on our data connections – be it 4G or WiFi – data-based messaging is just as instantaneous as SMSes without incurring higher mobile charges.
However, messaging on a consumer platform becomes a little dicey when it comes to work. For a start, what happens if an employee leaves the organisation? Would the organisation still be able to access his or her message files and records?
Consumer instant messaging platforms may also be subject to various security risks like phishing attempts or “poison URLs”. In addition, archiving key decisions made via messaging may be virtually impossible due to personal privacy issues.
What then should companies do?
How To Write a Great Speech
Michelle Obama at the DNC (courtesy of AP Images)
[This post was updated twice on end March 2015 and 27 July 2016]
Michelle Obama brought the house down at the Democratic National Convention this year. Her wonderful speech affirming Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was widely lauded as one of the best speeches made in the ongoing race for the President of the United States, with elections slated for 8 November 2016.
Some have even proclaimed that she was the star of the show that night – and she isn’t even a politician by any measure of the word!
Writing to Save Your Life
Image courtesy of DiscoverySchool.com
I came across this post by Kian Ann recently on the need to write well on the Internet. While crafting some suggestions to him on the comments section, I decided that I might as well expand this into a blog post.
How does one write well? Is there a secret formula that you can apply in order to be a wicked wordsmith?
Powerful Points that Rock
Seth Godin, the master of all things marketing, shares some valuable lessons on how to make an impression with your powerpoints. I am definitely guilty of some of the worst trangressions (like bullet points) but I suppose some of these old habits die hard.
In particular, I like his 5 point list below:
- No more than six words on a slide. EVER. There is no presentation so complex that this rule needs to be broken.
- No cheesy images. Use professional stock photo images.
- No dissolves, spins or other transitions.
- Sound effects can be used a few times per presentation, but never use the sound effects that are built in to the program. Instead, rip sounds and music from CDs and leverage the Proustian effect this can have. If people start bouncing up and down to the Grateful Dead, you’ve kept them from falling asleep, and you’ve reminded them that this isn’t a typical meeting you’re running.
- Don’t hand out print-outs of your slides. They don’t work without you there.
More of Seth Godin’s post here.
Other than Seth, the other masters of the art of presenting are Steve Jobs (whose product launches are always spectacularly choreographed), Guy Kawasaki, Lawrence Lessig and of course the guru of all gurus Tom Peters. Most of the time, these masters do not have elaborate 20 point slides (Seth says bullets are for the NRA) with complicated charts and graphs. Simplicity, it seems, is the key to powerpoint success.
The best reference on how to create presentations that sizzle AND sell is Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds. Simply the best online reference on this subject matter. And its all free.
The 4 Cs of Marketing
Getting a bigger bang for the buck (or any bang for that matter) counts more than ever in an increasingly saturated marketplace.
The advent of multiple new and traditional media channels – and the ever increasing weapons of mass distraction – makes it prudent for one to do so.
Value through Videos and Virals
I came across this fascinating post from Marketing Sherpa about how one can use both blogging and video logs (or vlogs) to generate word-of-mouth interest. While the subject matter is about golfing equipment and apparel, the same principles can be applied across other “experience-rich” businesses. They include sports retail, travel agencies, leisure attractions (especially zoos and theme parks), restaurants, and maybe even museums.
Everyone’s talking about all of the things you can do with online video — and why not? Once production completes and the clips are on your site, it’s essentially a 24/7 downloadable TV commercial.
But the space is becoming more competitive, and marketers will have to find ways to cut through the video clutter sooner rather than later as the medium matures.
See how one golf-club manufacturer used original programming in a blog and in merchandising to build their email database from scratch.
It would be great if Singapore businesses can explore leveraging on the power of youtube, Yahoo! video and other such channels.
Social Media Relations
Came across this excellent piece from the net savvy executive on how one should manage and deal with bloggers, podcasters, you-tubers and other digital denizens. They have coined a new term for it called Social Media Relations. This could be an interesting offshoot from traditional public relations which is usually more concerned with Main Stream Media (MSM).
The key roles of Social Media Relations?
1) Coordinate the development and implementation of social media engagement strategy and policies, including blogging policy, formal blogger relations programs and social media monitoring programs.