Thanks to the fantastic guys at Zoundry, my copy of their blog editor is working again. There is peace in the my world at last! Well, at least as far as blog editors goes… But ‘hats off’ and many thanks to the Support team at Zoundry; it was a very baffling problem that no one [...]
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We have all, for the last few years, been espousing the obvious fact that we, as communicators, no longer control the message. We have been gently and not so gently telling our clients the same. We nod our heads sagely and congratulate ourselves on our ability to grasp the incontrovertible truism that “the audience controls [...]
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We know, we know… It’s been a long time between drinks. Our only excuse is pitiful — we have been frightfully busy. Pathetic, isn’t it?! But despite the long break, Lee and Allan are still full of venom, bile, spite and nasty poisonous stuff. Well, Allan is (for which he is on medication); Lee is [...]
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Many moons ago Robert French, a lecturer in PR over at Auburn University, decided that this new ‘social media’ thingy was going to become important. He decided to ask a few friends, also business communicators and bloggers, to help out by posting the occasional article for his students. I was fortunate and very flattered to [...]
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The fabulous Shel Holtz recently agreed to be interviewed by yours truly on the subject of ‘employee communication’. As one has come to expect with Shel, he was amazingly generous with his wisdom, his insights and his sense of humour — hear for yourself what the ‘Four B’s of employee communication are! Ross Monaghan over [...]
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I am very proud to announce that a fantastic client of mine, the RSPCA here in South Australia, has just launched their first blog. They have been considering moving into the social media world for a little while now and it has been my privilege to help them bring it to fruition. Please feel free [...]
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A new variation on a brilliant old sketch. George: Condi! Nice to see you. What’s happening?Condi: Sir, I have the report here about the new leader of China.George: Great. Lay it on me.Condi: Hu is the new leader of China.George: That’s what I want to know.Condi: That’s what I’m telling you.George: That’s what I’m asking [...]
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I wish I could make this up, but even with a fervently creative mind I never would have had the gall to publicly produce a sign like this Tweet
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Look, I don’t mean to get all ‘heretical’ or nuffin’, but what does ‘Strategic Plan’ actually mean? Can you have an un-strategic plan? When does a plan cease to be ‘strategic’? So too, what is the difference between a ‘tactician’ and a ‘strategist’? Surely the one must involve some element of the other — I [...]
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Measuring the Impact and ROI of Social Media - NEW
Making Social Media Work for Your Business
Social Media: The New Communication Landscape - for Ark Group
How to get started with podcasting in your organisation - for Melcrum Publishing
Contributing author to:
Best practices in social media governance
How to use social media to solve critical internal communication issues
How to communicate with hard-to-reach employees - for Melcrum Publishing
How to use social media to engage employees - for Melcrum Publishing
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Tactical Transparency by Shel Holtz and John Havens.
A belter of a book and a 'must read' addition to any communicator's bedside reading table if they are serious about introducing social media into their communication plans. It includes a fabulous chapter on transparency and business (hint: you want to photocopy it and give it to your CEO!)
Qualitative Communication Research Methods by Thomas Lindlof and Bryan Taylor.
Not just a book for academics, it's chock-full of great ideas on how to effectively and efficiently research your employees, customers, the marketplace and other stakeholders
The Twitter Book by Tim O'Reilly and Sarah Milstein.
A fabulous book that gives a clear, clean overview of what Twitter is and WHY you should be engaging with it. THEN it goes into depth with so many tips and ideas that they should have sold the book for twice the price!
Practical SEO Copywriting: a ‘must get’ book. My mate Glenn Murray has written a bottler of a new book on search engines and copywriting.
In a cunning twist of bizarre nomenclature, he’s titled it Practical SEO Copywriting. The cheeky little fox! It’s a DIY guide to writing online copy for both human readers AND for that 400kg gorilla we lovingly call ‘Google’.
The danger, Glenn quite rightly …err …writes is that focusing too much attention on all of the supposed SEO ‘tricks of the trade’ will make your copy all but unreadable by the human brain. You know, all that stuff bandied about by the so-called SEO (search engine optimisation) experts: keyword frequency, exact string versus individual words scattered across the page, page length, alt tags, header tags, and so on.
Not that this stuff isn’t important – it all is, and more besides – but Glenn argues persuasively that by far more important is the ability to write copy that people will actually want to read – and link to!
