CDC Conference on Communications
What an absolute thrill to be an opening speaker at the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing and Media today in Atlanta. Terrific conference and outstanding group of professionals.
Glen Nowak, CDC Director of Media Communications
What’s more was the pleasure to share a forum with Glen Nowak, the CDC’s very impressive Director of Media, to field questions from the audience..
I spoke about creating influence in the digital era and listed six points:
- Cast off old bad habits, like having that trivial “about” boilerplate on news releases, blasting out emails of press releases to everyone and their uncle and avoiding interaction with the media.
- The practice of online brand journalism to create distinction for a company or organization is journalism, not PR or marketing.
Sharpen your focus to achieve more impact. Your audience is not everyone in the world but those people who really care and benefit from products and services.- Deliver constant updates, develop trust and always be transparent online.
- Brand journalism online requires news style writing, storytelling, photos and HD video b-roll.
- Drive traffic to your news relentlessly. It’s a team effort involving everyone in an organization.
My thanks to Atlanta-based photographer Edward Zeltser for sharing images he took during the conference.
I promised a lot of people that I would make my presentation available online promptly … so here it is. It’s a 4MB PDF – Click here to download.
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- Crisis Communications: It’s Online
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- Essential Elements of Brand Journalism
- Defining Corporate Journalism
Category: Brand Journalism, Featured
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Sorry I couldn’t hear your presentation at #hcmm10, but thanks for posting online. So, are you saying that outreach should no longer focus on mainstream media but on influencers – including social media (bloggers, Twitter, etc.) to drive news? With legacy media still shedding staff like trees their leaves in November, and so many former reporters freelancing, where does the media relations strategy fit into an overall social marketing campaign these days, if anywhere? How do you convince clients of this shift – and encourage them to join in the conversation as it is now being waged, in multiple directions – as opposed to “informing” the public what they want the “general public” to know?