Kerry Ogata

Thrilled to have hosted a webinar on the Ethnicity Pay Gap with three exceptional experts on the subject. Our discussion delved into systemic biases, actionable solutions, and the imperative for change. Let's turn insights into action for a more equitable future. #EthnicityPayGap #DiversityandInclusion

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I asked media for their PR pet peeves. Here is what Dan Ackerman, Editor-in-Chief of Micro Center News (and former Gizmodo EiC, CNET Editorial Director), shared: ☑ Get to the point: Reading through a long email or press release to figure out what the "new" information or announcement is can be a pain. I love seeing an executive summary at the top—this is what's new, and these bullet points are the key takeaways. As I've said to a few colleagues over the years, the operative word in "News" is "New." ☑ Time zones: I deal with a lot of embargoed information. Please, please, please, make sure to include important dates and times in EST and/or PST. Don't ask me to calculate what Central Time is in NYC or to figure out which countries use CET vs. CEST (Central European Summer Time). ☑ Avoid AI: I'm already seeing the dreaded spammyness of AI-generated copy sneaking into press releases. AI tends to deliver an extra-large serving of word salad. Don't feel like you have to pad a word count with AI—shorter and more direct is better. ✅ Bonus: A reverse pet peeve! I hate to give this secret away, but following up works. I can have thousands (sometimes tens of thousands) of unread emails. If you follow up, it's statistically more likely that I'll see your email and devote a few minutes to reading through it and considering it. If you don't hear back from a likely candidate you expected to hear from, there's at least a decent chance the email just flew by in the daily torrent. [EiC (Editor-is-Chase) note: Be sure to check out this tech ex-EiC roundtable featuring Dan, where they discuss the state of tech journalism in 2024: https://lnkd.in/gi7Utihb] ✍ 🚘Media drive-by takes on PR #pr #publicrelations #communications #mediapov

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#communications pro survey: What prevents us from writing well more often? One thing I’ve recently relearned is allowing our writing to be overly influenced by what can get approved, rather than what will effectively communicate with the audience, is a misstep. To be sure, few of us can simply ignore our approval chains. But, as with many aspects of life, finding balance between often contradictory perspectives is what brings success. What do you think?

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AI Killed Writing Tests So How Can You Evaluate Editorial Talent?

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MULTIPLE CITIES

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Renewed campaign: End Boring Block Paragraph Writing Now! Let's end the plain block paragraph approach in PRs, etc. (anecdotally from my view, still 50% of press releases are guilty of this), the long exec quote, the stale earnings announcement, the boring post (across all channels) that lacks any call-to-action. 📢 We need more bullets, bolding and pictures of dogs! And really, we need the story not only to be helpful in its intent, but also in its visual presentation. Content needs to guide its audience to key messages with simple features like bolding and bullets, to both stand out from the general marketing noise we consume hour to hour online, and to help draw a reader's attention to the key takeaway(s) you want them to remember (or pause at, and read more about). 💡 I've always liked the F-shaped reading pattern (vs Layer Cake) research from Nielsen Norman Group - https://lnkd.in/gcxB_BVx. It is a great reminder that people want to maximize their time as much as possible when digesting your story, the content you present them, and will (potentially) quickly scan unless you give them a visual reason to pause. Standing out in fighting the quick scan? SAS does a great job, month to month, in their PR messaging. E.g., https://lnkd.in/gPPJPZ5D Even mixing up a traditional IR post a little is a big win for your audience. I bet you will scan right to the infobite (always better than a longer infographic, I think!) here in Garmin's most recent earnings, for example: https://lnkd.in/gFibdcYH ⌛ Focusing more on a reader's visual content experience is a win for many brands across all channels their audience might discover their story, but we've got a long way to go still in seeing a more wide-spread adoption of this approach. Just remember: Avoid the boring multi-block paragraph presentation whenever possible! (FYI, I am guilty to some extent of the plain block paragraph style on this post, I know! Sometimes a channel just doesn't help you as much as you want it to.) #goodcontent #picsofdogsarealwaysawin Cc: PR Newswire

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One of the hottest topics in comms at the moment..is your organisation ready? Learn from the experts on how to prepare in this upcoming webinar. #cybercrisis

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Each press release represents months or years of effort, and the PR Newswire team is honored to help you connect with the people who matter most. Discover how we empower our clients to amplify their news to a global audience. 📰📣🌎 Ready to get started? Let's chat! #MomentsThatMatter #PressReleaseDistribution #EngageYourAudience #PRNewswire

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What are the trends in marketing thought leadership and how can polling give your brand an advantage? Join #B2BMarCom on May 23 to learn more.

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“I just need a few key messages that I should hit.” It’s a common request that every communications pro has encountered many times ahead of a media interview. And if you’re anything like me, you roll your eyes. Why? Because key messages are fine and good, but only if they are used to form a broader narrative. More often than not, they’re seen as a license to be repetitive, robotic and focused only on your own outcome. Brute-forcing key messages down a reporter’s throat doesn’t help them do their job. Media opportunities are a two way street - you give value, share expertise and contextualize whatever you’re talking about in exchange for the profile the media outlet can give you and your business. The best and only way to respect this duality is to shape a simple and memorable story which contains the messages you want to hit, and which shows instead of telling why what you’re discussing is important and meaningful. I used to keep a folder of video clips that could’ve been titled “when key messages go wrong” - often depicting some hapless executive or politician stumbling through a repeated response straight from the message sheet he or she was handed. They universally looked silly and unprepared, and the interview did nothing but undermine trust and damage the speaker’s reputation. Next time, before the camera starts rolling, think about a story instead of a key message. Your brand will thank you.

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You made it into Techcrunch with your latest fundraise story. What next? How do you keep the momentum going? You’ve sent many many pitches to reporters. No one is biting. What are you doing wrong? What’s better to go after: one big exclusive story or a big splash in all top-tier media? We will be tackling these and many more questions in this first-of-its kind virtual meetup with two PR veterans - Bilal M. and Todd Barrish The focus will be on PR tactics and tips that will help you get traction in the North American market. RSVP now, and get all your questions answered on 10th Aug (saturday). Go to the link in the comments below 👇🏼 #publicrelations #corporatecommunications #PR #branding #brand #marketing #startups PR & Comms Collaborative #meetup #saas #founder #startup #automation #tech #digitaltransformation #US #UK #chennai #digitalmarketing #advertising #venturecapital #funding

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PRWeek's great 2024 Business Report highlights the key challenge facing our industry. Communications is more important than ever. Comms and policy leaders are being asked to play far larger roles as business partners supporting ever more stakeholders. So why did the industry suffer so much in 2023 after many years of growth? As an sector, we are not adapting fast enough to the needs. Organizations are desperate for help but also under tremendous financial strain. They now need both senior level counsel and advisory support as well as deep domain expertise to actually produce. By and large, our industry is still split by this chasm - between strategic and tactical. Clients cannot afford to separate these, either in time or money. At Bully Pulpit International our goal is to bridge this divide, building a team that can both 'think and do' at the highest levels. It's not always easy. Last year was a challenge. But if you share this vision for the future, please check out some of our open roles: https://lnkd.in/dGQwJUSG

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SPOILER ALERT 🚨🚨🚨 I don't think TikTok is going anywhere. But, the debate happening among policymakers makes for pretty good conversation. In my latest thought piece for H/Advisors Abernathy, I examined the newscycle to see how a potential #TikToK ban could play a big role in the 2024 election cycle, rankle #BigTech data collection and lay the groundwork for more #dataprivacy advocacy. https://bit.ly/T1kT0kban

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I wrote a piece for Politico on major trends buffeting the media including artificial intelligence, deepfakes, and fighting disinformation in an age of dwindling resources. The conclusion is that founders, CEOs, politicians and others in the public eye now face an exponentially increasing threat of reputational damage. In today’s media landscape, a single negative review can quickly go viral, a poorly phrased statement can trigger a global backlash and an ill-judged joke can wreck careers. While the media world’s pace of change is dizzying, the words written by businessman Warren Buffett almost a decade ago have never been more relevant: “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Article here: https://lnkd.in/dtTNY4PU

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On this week's #MetricMonday we're looking at sentiment, a tricky data point to come by, but an inherently critical one to understand #crisiscommunications challenges in real-time. First, let me say that NO algorithm or tool allows you to push a button and get a perfect sentiment analysis – it just doesn’t work that way (i.e. "cool" means something different to a fashion brand than it does to an HVAC company). However, in most cases, you can train tools to give you relevant directional data on sentiment based on publicly visible conversations. Once you have a well-trained monitoring tool in place, the granular approach to assessing individual posts matters a lot less than how you plan to use the data. Typically, I'm using sentiment data to: 👉 Determine the scale of an issue: While sentiment tells you the balance of negative, neutral and positive conversation, it can also showcase how much of each can impact your reputation. For example, if there are 10 product reviews on an item with 2M SKUs sold, does it matter that 6 of those reviews are negative? Perhaps, but it's worth noting how big or small an issue is relative to the conversation volume. 👉 Understand trends over time: Net sentiment is typically driven by events in a company's history. A positive net sentiment can change overnight on the whims of a bad newscycle. Analyzing sentiment before, during and after a critical issue will typically indicate whether the issue will persist or dissipate, helping you determine what the proper next steps might be. 👉 Understand topical relevance: Within all the comments and reposts are natural indicators of what topics are driving sentiment. The public will usually TELL you why they feel the way they do, and thus give you data on what the proper response might be, what channel to share it on, and how that statement might be received. Example: If your brand experiences a wave of negative comments on Instagram, does it make sense to issue a press release to tamp down the noise? Perhaps, but there's a case that it might not work based on where the conversation volume originated. If you’re planning to issue a response during a crisis that doesn’t include the trending keywords among negative responses, how might that message be received? Hard to say for sure but your odds of shifting the narrative are narrow without letting the data guide your hand. In all, sentiment is a great signifier of brand health, but as with all metrics, it's only a good tool if we use it to full capacity. And one more thing...can we not use neutral sentiment as a leading insight? It's perfectly fine to note that your audience isn't impassioned at a given moment, but neutral sentiment is easily the least impactful metric when facing a public issue. If it's all you have, shrink the data set and retrain your monitor based on influencer, channel type, publication or post type. There are insights there somewhere, sometimes you have to hunt for them.

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