[From the January/February 2010 issue of IABC Communication World]

Strategic planning, storytelling and clear messages have always worked to point us forward.
They will do so in the digital era too.

Today’s digitally-driven information revolution is creating a new-world business matrix and model. Organizations large and small are finding they can simply bypass mainstream media to communicate their news, in their way, directly and effectively, to their publics. They can pick their media: Web sites, blogs, YouTube videos, and online sharing and social networking sites.

This communications tsunami is rolling our way and many of us are not sure what to do. We see the tide going out fast and far. But standing on the beach and waiting for it to roar back in is not an option.

So how do we get to high ground that’s well above the communications storm surge?

Let’s begin with the latest hot and sexy new trend in digital communications: social media. Today’s self-proclaimed disciples of social media preach about the need to get onboard the bandwagon, and wax rhapsodic about the features, functions and benefits of various technological bells and whistles.

But few possess the expertise to authentically exploit the medium by incorporating strategic planning or skillfully developed messages into this new communications juggernaut.

Even fewer extol the importance of telling an appealing story.

In communications, the tactical use of social media for social media’s sake can be terribly shallow and short-sighted.

This digital era is unquestionably the most exciting period of my career as a journalist and strategic communications advisor. But as an early adapter of online and blog technology, I believe it’s only going to work for us on a sustained basis when we stop long enough to embrace the core elements of effective strategic communications to drive any social media or online communications initiative.

Strategic planning, storytelling and clarity of messages have always worked like a beacon to point us forward. They will do so in the digital era, too.

Today’s online social media is just another in a long line of tactical communications delivery tools that stretches back to storytelling around the tribal fire, epic poems, parchment, books, postal mail, the fax machine and email. In fact, think back to when email first hit the big time. Pundits predicted world-shaking possibilities. Nobody predicted spam.

Brooke Gladstone of National Public Radio’s “On the Media” program says, “Journalists are taught to talk and write in human terms. Tell me a story.” We are all part of a storytelling culture in America. It’s been that way forever, and it’s no different in countries, cultures and communities around the world. We share infinite variety of stories about the human experience, and often the best stories are repeated over and over.

Even though an opportunity often missed by a PR industry seemingly obsessed with traditional press releases and predictable promotions, the use of storytelling cuts through competitive clutter far more effectively and with greater influence than anything else in an organization’s marketing or PR arsenal. It gets to the heart of what’s special about your organization and what you have to say.

My colleague Anne Bell at PBS NewsHour says it best: “A great story has legs that in today’s world can travel many miles per hour.” Consider how a great story can sprint the globe today in a nanosecond.

We are living in a communications world where new and not-so-new tools collide, merge and morph, all with the intent to better connect with audiences. To do that, we must use all these advanced technologies to do something ancient: tell stories that people want to hear and be motivated to share.

How do we make it work to break old habits, take advantage of new technologies, tell good stories and reach jaded audiences? How about relooking at the concept of an online newsroom?

Online Newsroom: No Longer Hiding in Plain Sight

In a demonstration of true counter-intuition, the typical online newsroom is usually the last place any self-respecting reporter or site visitor wants to go. Traffic numbers confirm it. It’s typically lifeless, dull, and more like the burial spot for press releases, speeches and legal-sounding statements than a relevant, active spot for timely, hot and meaningful news. Some newsrooms even require a journalist to fill out an online form and then wait for a response, which may take hours for approval … if ever. While it may be convenient for internal communications people, such a procedure can cause delay and frustration for a reporter on deadline.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

A lively online newsroom can be the perfect place for a smart company to strategically position its expertise and experience prominently online; to be clearly heard and stand out in all the right ways; and to manage the conversation around its image and reputation in timely and relevant ways.

The hard part is expressing a corporate voice above the noise of the marketplace, where often people much less qualified — but far more vocal — shout out their opinions into mainstream and online social media. The sheer speed, volume and rapid dissemination of information — right or wrong — can inundate communications and sway public opinion.

To have a meaningful conversation online, a company needs to do the following:

• Articulate clear points of view on the things that it cares about the most.
• Identify its own compelling voices of experts and champions — in and outside the organization — to tell compelling stories to advance its case and strengthen its market position.
• Create ever-evolving public platforms and forums where it can consistently and frequently showcase its views, along with other respected industry experts and thought leaders.
• Support and complement the organization’s overarching strategic initiatives.
• Create a forum for openly sharing comments, generating a conversation and listening.

It’s a bold step for any organization to cast aside old tactics, like press releases, to get attention. That’s why it’s essential for a company to take charge of telling its own stories with appeal and credibility to its audiences. For starters, a company or organization must avoid the compulsion to sell or promote, because it no longer works in the online environment.

For example, the Los Angeles Kings hockey club didn’t believe it was getting enough coverage in the dwindling local mainstream newspapers. As a result, the team’s owner decided to launch an online news blog, LAKingsInsider.com, and hired a seasoned sports reporter, Rich Hammond, to write stories. The spotlight of attention quickly shifted to the Kings when both The New York Times and National Public Radio did stories about this new approach to making news in the digital era.

A company must also realize that its “Googleability,” and the news that appears about it on page one of any search engine, will help drive its perceived believability.

That’s one of the reasons why the team at News Group Net LLC (of which I am owner), developed a groundbreaking online newsroom for the Imperial Sugar Company (ISC). The goal: focus on delivering legitimate and timely news about the company and the global sugar industry.

Case in point: When an explosion and resulting fires temporarily closed Imperial Sugar Company’s large sugar refinery at Port Wentworth, Georgia, in February 2008, many news stories and images of the incident appeared in mainstream and online media, including at Google and other search engines. Those reports about fire, death and tragedy continued to show up on the first pages of search engines for months, even though much of the information was sorely outdated.

The online newsroom went online in June 2009, and delivered the latest news about Imperial Sugar Company rebuilding its refinery, resumption of sugar production, business expansion and other relevant stories about business and community involvement. By positioning Imperial Sugar Company as an authoritative voice in the sugar industry, the Google headlines gradually moved from disaster-related stories to more positive news about employees, products, customers, business partners and industry analysts.

It took a few months, but the result is the most popular online site in the sugar industry and has dramatically improved the company’s image and reputation with employees, investors and the marketplace.

It worked … and continues to works today … because the stories are what people want to read and to share.

Incidentally, both LAKingsInsider.com and ISCNewsroom.com are online newsrooms built on blog-turned-news-delivery technology … just like the news sites of NYTimes.com, WSJ.com and PEOPLE.com.

It’s About the Bedrock of Strategic Communications

So, let me pull this together … Storytelling conveys personality that everyone can identify with, and it can lead to transformational leadership that energizes all levels and corners of an organization. Used in the online environment, storytelling can reflect passion, uniqueness and immediateness.

The discipline of storytelling used with a dynamic, interactive online newsroom can energize (or reenergize) any business or organization. It becomes woven into the fabric, stimulates excitement and understanding of vision, builds consensus of purpose, and triggers sharing far and wide.

In today’s online world, the influence and payoff of good corporate storytelling can be staggeringly powerful.

One great, timely story on an active and credible corporate newsroom smoothly cuts across all boundaries to achieve a common purpose in an organization’s daily conversations:

• Shareholder/financial communications
• Internal communications
• Web sites, blogs, social media
• Media relations and external relations
• Government and regulator relations
• New business development

People like to share good news, so give them a story that they will get excited about and tell someone else. Increased media coverage, enhanced word of mouth and greater awareness all build exponentially from a great story that is carried by many legs.

Stories are the bedrock of interaction, building blocks of knowledge, the foundation of memory and learning. Stories connect us with our humanness and link past, present and future by teaching us to anticipate the possible consequences of our actions. Stories help define what is authentically special about something or someone.

Propelled by today’s engaging digital communications tools, a good story will be carried — credibly and influentially — by many voices and travel many, many miles.

Making News in the Digital Era

Making News in the Digital Era takes an in-depth and realistic look at trends in the worlds of media – traditional and online – and the practice of communications. The trick was to write a book that would be timely and relevant, not only when it was published but into the future, despite a fast-changing online world.

There are examples of what’s working best and what no longer is effective as we share ideas and try to build awareness in the evolving online environment. It strives to make sense of the merging online and traditional media with practical ways to communicate effectively … for a company or individual.

In all candor, the more I learned about new online services, methods and trends, the more questions were raised. It’s become a blizzard of new ideas, some cool and alluring yet ineffective and some that merit attention. At the core … more than ever before … I found that without the skills to clearly communicate ideas, anyone is easily lost in cyberspace, just making noise.

Here’s a summary of what I’m talking about:

• The interactivity of Web 2.0 has opened-up exciting opportunities for companies and organizations to share their stories more incisively and effectively.
• The quality and substance of what you have to say matters most of all.
• The best examples of communications in the digital era are Cisco, Apple, Zappos, Soul Pancake and Starbucks, to name a few.
• The worst are Dell, Nikon, Microsoft and Ford, to name a few.
• There is no such thing as an expert in the world of online social media or online communications … because the space is too complex, too fluid and too expansive.
• Social media is nothing more than a delivery tactic or tool. Strategic planning on ways to utilize social media for an organization is far more important.
• The traditional PR agency model is broken and dysfunctional. Most agencies today are only selling hours when clients want results. Despite today’s emphasis for online communications, most agencies have most of their resources still focused on old-school methods that no longer work.
• Press releases are the least effective form of getting attention and making news.
• Having the most followers on Twitter does not a social media expert make.
• Ketchum PR, in my opinion, is still clueless over the now-famous social media crisis its Twitter-FedEx fiasco caused. The whole story is in the book.

I will be writing more … in coming days.

• How would the agency define Web 3.0? (One answer is emphasis on wireless devices, constant interactivity and social media where users publish and share content. A better answer is tomorrow’s style of online and wireless communications where we are only limited by our own imagination.)
• Ask who in agency leadership is active on Twitter, and are they engaging in conversations or just promoting/selling the agency? Get on Twitter, yourself, and check them out.
• Visit their blogs. Are they one-way sales promotions or are they engaging people in conversations and listening?
• Visit their YouTube, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Are they sharing good information, and are they reaching out to authentically connect?
• As thought-leaders, what books or articles have agency leaders written, especially on today’s seismic shifts in communications? (This helps to cull out the talkers from the doers.)

Notice how most of the questions center around whether agencies, themselves, are engaging in the digital revolution. Anyone can create a blog today. A blog is no longer unique. You don’t need an agency to send out a press release into oblivion through a costly blast e-mail spam service. Just hire an intern.

What is really important is top-level strategic thinking focused on how technology is used to carry forward messages, image and reputation in order to successfully connect with audiences in this new world of communications. Such expertise can be found … when you brush aside all the snake oil.

One legendary example is Steve Jobs of Apple … regarded as one of today’s best corporate storytellers, and a master at capturing the media’s attention.

As I wrote in my free ebook – Media Savvy in the Internet Era – Jobs communicates clearly and masterfully on an individual basis with reporters, whether a roomful or individually. Jobs’ persuasiveness stems from his personal certainty in his beliefs. When he speaks of an Apple product, for example, you begin to believe that it is the greatest device ever created because Steve Jobs believes it is so. His transparency may seem like a crippling liability, but it is actually a strength.

When Jobs speaks, he doesn’t talk about his company. He shares his passion over how a
MacBook will help unleash your personal creativity or how an iPhone will put your office in the palm of your hand, and help to bring the world closer together. And, all that makes news. What Jobs says is meaningful, and is repeated by his broad audiences, over and over.

Consider the power of storytelling in your own organization … it gets everyone on the same page, pointed in the same direction, energized with a story to share … with someone else:

• Shareholder/financial communications
• Internal communications
• Web sites, blogs, social media
• Media relations and external relations
• Government and regulator relations
• New business development

The list could go on but you get the point – with storytelling, you are building enthusiasm at all levels within an organization and outwardly to everyone touched by your organization. It is because people like to share good news.

One big benefit that will deliver immediate value and distinction to any business organization is that storytelling helps an organization to get out of the old, inward-looking and bad habit of talking “about” itself.  Here is the truth, even though it’s a bitter pill to accept – no one cares about you. The people who are interested in your organization don’t care about your organization or business (despite all the boring boilerplate on your press releases); they only want to know how your organization or company will benefit them … how your products or services will enrich their lives or make life easier … for them.

Remember … people like to share good news, so give them a story that they will get excited about … and share. Increased media coverage, enhanced word-of-mouth, greater awareness … it all builds exponentially from a great story that is carried by many legs.

Techniques for organizational storytelling, and many more elements of contemporary communications leadership are detailed in my new book, “The Media Savvy Leader: Visibility, Influence, and Results in a Competitive World.”

“Journalists are taught to talk and write in human terms. Tell me a story.”

We are all part of a storytelling culture in America. It’s been that way forever, and it’s no different in countries, cultures and communities around the world. We share stories … an infinite variety of stories … about the human experience, and often, the best stories are repeated over and over.

Stories are the bedrock of interaction, building blocks of knowledge, the foundation of memory and learning. Stories connect us with our humanness, and link past, present, and future by teaching us to anticipate the possible consequences of our actions. Stories help to define what is authentically special about something or someone.

Yet, the power of storytelling is too often overlooked or dismissed as companies, not-for-profits, associations, and other organizations strive to get attention. They embrace, instead, a copycat style of communications – press releases, statements, promotions, marketing tactics, and run-of-the-mill advertising – in an attempt to promote, sell or push publicity. And … it does not work, especially in today’s online world.

We are not living in a time when promoting, selling and pushing publicity works as it might have in the past.

Let me share an example of storytelling. High school students in Pomona, California – a town hard-hit by the economic downturn – worked with their teacher to create a video, called “Is Anyone Listening?” In it, they shared stories of how each of their lives were impacted by home foreclosures and layoffs. They told of how their families were suffering, and how they were going hungry.

They put the video on YouTube, and a local newspaper picked up the story. Then, John Larson of KCET Television – the PBS station in Los Angeles – reported the story. His story was a magnificent example of journalistic storytelling. Then, the national PBS news program, NewsHour, aired Larson’s story. President Obama heard about the plight of the students, and personally visited with them last week, pledging that he, the President of the United States, was listening.

The students in Pomona captured enormous worldwide attention by sharing their story.

How can this apply to you? Any company or organization … any small business or individual consultant … has a distinctive story. Find it. Share it. Discuss it. Build upon it. Get your story repeated by others, over and over.

Remember … storytelling has been the bedrock of interactive communications for at least a gazillion years before the Internet came along. Things like blogs, Twitter and the sort are merely delivery tactics. Strategic communications leadership begins with learning the craft of storytelling.

Storytelling and many more elements of contemporary communications leadership are detailed in my new book, “The Media Savvy Leader: Visibility, Influence, and Results in a Competitive World.”

In business and everyday living, we are awash in Top 10 steps to solve this or that. Top 10 things to make money … top 10 things to get attention … top 10 ways to look more beautiful … top 10 things to be recognized as a winner, etc. All just tactics. Nice smelling salve that doesn’t last.

People love tactics because they require little thought, seem fun, and are check lists of things to do that make us think we’ve accomplished something. It’s just a delusion.

Tactics without a carefully thought-through strategy almost certainly lead to unsatisfactory results, missteps or failure. Tactics lack cohesive purpose and focus. It’s like walking in circles, getting no where meaningful.

Yet, we are living in a culture where tactics are popular … because they are easy. Strategic purpose, on the other hand, requires imaginative ideas, intelligent process, organization … work. Strategies deliver desired results, and strategic planning is not rocket science. And, here’s the best part … developing strategies is fast and quite easy.

I will be writing about the value of strategic planning on this blog over the next few days, and will strive to connect it with timely issues. I would welcome your feedback.

So, we created the S-O-S approach to strategic planning, a way to keep it clear, easy, straight-forward, and, most of all, actually fun. It’s a method for developing a plan that gets people excited and delivers meaningful results, and on-time. Jon called it, strategy planning, while-you-wait.

The S-O-S approach to strategic planning is detailed in my new book, The Media Savvy Leader, and it is the style I use today with clients.

In summary, it means Situation-Objectives-Strategies. Add to that the components of identifying audiences, developing messages that resonate favorably with those audiences, tactics that bring the strategies to life, a timeline, and a measurement matrix … and an S-O-S results in an action-packed business plan that can be developed in a few days, builds consensus, and delivers.

The key is to use common sense, plain language, and never getting wrapped-up in silly things that don’t matter, like whether something is a goal or an objective (because it’s all the same).

The financial damage came fast, and the fallout has cut deep … the private liberal arts college watched its endowment plummet and its fund-raising drop off sharply, as many of the school’s most reliable and deep-pocketed donors suffered heavy losses in the Bernard Madoff investment scandal.

The combination delivered a heavy blow that culminated in [the] stunning announcement that Brandeis would close its renowned Rose Art Museum and sell off the 6,000-piece collection. More radical steps are on the table: eliminating staff and faculty positions, expanding enrollment to boost tuition revenue, and overhauling the entire undergraduate curriculum to cut costs and attract prospective applicants.

The scope and speed of the turmoil buffeting the Waltham campus have left many students and faculty members reeling, with many questioning the administration’s decisions to deal with the financial crisis.

That last paragraph caught my attention – “the scope and speed of the turmoil.” I don’t know anyone who has not been stunned by the depth of the current economic crisis, fed by massive corruption and greed on Wall Street. I’m not surprised – as someone who consults on strategic communications issues in the not-for-profit, academic and corporate fields – about Brandeis getting caught unprepared in the area of crisis communications. I predict we will hear of many such crises on campuses across America. No university is immune.

What exacerbates bad news, such as that from Brandeis, is that the media landscape has changed. We get our news online, for the most part, and news today spreads around the world in a nanosecond. The way to control a crisis is being prepared, in advance, not after the fact.

Crisis communications preparedness rather than crisis communications management. The former is what all universities should be focusing on today because it will help to protect a university’s reputation tomorrow when and if bad news strikes.

Twitter users are being bombarded by malicious phishing messages enticing them to enter their @IDs so they can innocently be used to post more phony messages. I didn’t realize the magnitude of the problem until getting an email early today from David Meerman Scott, and reading his blog. Here’s an excerpt:

In my opinion, Twitter has not been communicating as well as it should be during this crisis. As I look at my friends feeds, nearly everyone is talking about this issue. Yet, Twitter has three feeble communications as of this writing.

1) Three tweets from the @twitter ID providing a bit of information.

2) A short post on the Twitter blog

3) A warning on the Twitter home page.

David also wrote about reading an interview with Biz Stone, head of Twitter, who turned down a $500 million offer to buy Twitter from Facebook. By a humorously cruel twist of fate, the interview appeared this past weekend, when the phishing problem began:

Stone’s interview seems a bit arrogant based on what was happening this weekend.

Many people rely on the Twitter service. Sure, it’s free and we get what we pay for. But if Biz Stone and his colleagues (and the VC firms backing the company) want a bigger payday than a half a billion, then they’ll need to manage this crisis better. Much better. Starting now.

I think Twitter should be doing more to inform users.

I’d suggest hourly updates on the Twitter blog. Maybe set up a new Twitter ID that can be the official place where people go. A YouTube video that you put on the Twitter homepage to inform people. Whatever. But you’ve got to do more than you’re doing.

The Design for Users blog has an excellent post on this subject called Communicate, Inform, Address Users When Things Go Wrong Online.

What do I believe Twitter should do to handle this crisis?

1. Seek the help and counsel of Twitter’s most frequent and skilled users, who also happen to be very smart people.
2. Openly and prominently warn Twitter users of the problem, and ask users to send solutions to a special email address (Twitter, the company, is currently very insular).
3. List what Twitter users can do to avoid phishing.
4. Publicly and opening admit the problem and list steps being taken to find a fix.
5. Not hire a big PR company because, chances are, they don’t know what Twitter is and will only make matters worse … in the interest of maximizing billable hours.
6. Humbly ask Facebook for help.