Brian Kramer

🎤🎸🤘🏻🚨 Latest from The Repute: "Crisis Comms Under the Microscope: Dave Grohl’s Approach" 🎤🎸🚨 In this edition, we take a real-time look at how rock legend Dave Grohl is handling the media fallout from his recent infidelity scandal. Using data-driven insights, we break down the New York Times' coverage of Grohl’s crisis communications strategy and analyze what worked—and what didn’t. https://bit.ly/3MIZy76 The analysis explores: - The effectiveness of proactively addressing scandals before they spiral - Why timing didn’t minimize media coverage as others have suggested - The nuanced balance between controlling the narrative and avoiding sensationalism Whether you’re dealing with a major PR issue or simply curious about how the media operates during high-profile scandals, this edition offers valuable lessons for managing your brand’s reputation. Read the full analysis and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear your thoughts! Have a great weekend everyone! Will Valentine Publisher, The Repute Founder and Principal, Valentine Advisors

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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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So many gems in this article from Allison Carter of Ragan Communications and PR Daily. I didn't contribute to this list, so am going to now: --> Throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks is not a PR strategy. It just creates a mess, is a waste of resources, and leaves a heap of sh*t that needs to be cleaned up. #publicrelations #PRStrategy #communications

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This is important for #communications pros and our subject matter experts to remember. An interview is a conversation not a rote question asked, prepared answer given. Using talking points rather than scripted answers is more effective for a SME and makes for a better interview. Unfortunately that path isn’t taken as often as it should be.

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Good article on the value of original quality content and risks of GenAI’s generics & distortions today when AI volume is everywhere online. The image simulation is cool example!

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Join our experts as they dive into PR Newswire's groundbreaking AI innovations. We'll explore: ✨ How AI is revolutionizing #PR & comms ✨ Our unique solution that leverages historical data to offer press release insights ✨ Findings from our State of the Press Release Report on how PR pros are embracing #AI Save your spot now and join us as we drive the AI conversation forward!

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Let's keep learning! So many lessons came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the importance of clear communication about what we know and what we DON'T know about emerging infections. I'm happy to be part of the Council for Quality Health Communication: a group working to improve the quality of health information and increase trust among the public. New article by founding members Ken Rabin and Scott C. Ratzan on H5N1 in MedPage Today.

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You learned a lot at that conference. Now you are going to: Email the speakers a congratulatory note and ask them a question Give a brief talk on the meeting's highlights to your office colleagues Write an update to clients Share the latest industry news with your networking group Plan to incorporate these new best practices in your work No, you didn't take any of those actions. You simply posted a photo of yourself with a speaker. What would anyone learn from that? Provide insights to those who did not attend the event and support their business growth. #conferences #contentmarketing

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Time once again for the CommsCollectiv Newsletter. If you are not fortunate enough to be on our distribution list, you can find a link in the comments. And please do subscribe -- articles this month include The Strategic Imperative of Source Transparency in AI-Generated Content and Unlocking the Power of AI-Driven Personalization. We also want to know if our avatars look like us...thoughts? Monica Talan, Eric Kraus, Charlene Wheeless, MA, MBA, ICF-ACC, Lisa Ryan #fractionalcommunications #corporatecommunications #generativeAI

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Demo'ing your technology can be an important part of your PR campaign. However, based on the current media landscape, they are very hard to secure if you are not Microsoft (for example). If you do land one with a journalist, the stakes are high to get it right. Based on my experience being involved with demos that have gone awry, here are two things you need to know before going into it.

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Refreshing your old articles can be pretty cringey -- Why’d I write that? Choose that word? Say that thing? 🙈 🙈 🙈 But it’s worth it when you see results like: 3xs total page views in the 7 weeks post refresh vs. ALL 2023 PVs One of my early articles for the Carve Communications, Inc. website was Does Writing This Article Make Me a Thought Leader? It explored what makes a thought leader, elements of thought leadership, the steps it takes to achieve it, etc. It was a mid performer. I knew it had potential but I also knew it wasn’t really set up for success. Here’s what we did in April of this year to change that trajectory: 1. REFRESHED THE CONTENT – Doubled the size of the article based on learnings since the first publish date. I added a bunch of useful content like how to nurture your “earned secrets,” what metrics to track to understand if ideas are finding an audience, and updated examples of thought leadership work. 2. OPTIMIZED FOR SEO LEARNINGS – We leaned into what we'd learned over the 2 years since the article was published and into what we call “editorial SEO” – address an issue/solve a problem for your target audience or share a strong POV in writing first, and then see how you can organically weave in keywords. Versus the typical method of writing to pre-chosen keywords and fading into the sea of sameness. 3. ADDED INTERNAL LINKING – We have much more quality and interconnected content on the site now than we did then and could use this article to drive to others and vice versa (and signal to Google that this was a living, breathing site). 4. ADDED VISUAL ASSETS – We updated the hero image to match our new style since using Canva’s AI tool, and added memes, screenshots of charts and graphs, and infographics. 5. PROMOTED ACROSS OUR MEDIA ECOSYSTEM – We only had a semi-regularly updated website and Carve LinkedIn feed back then. Today, we are able to promote across well-developed brand and personal LinkedIn feeds, two newsletters, a much better performing site, and more. I got over the cringe pretty quickly. Refreshing old content is an always-on strategy. Nothing these days should be write once and move on. Read the updated article here https://lnkd.in/dfE55q3B SEO SIDE NOTE: We opted NOT to change the title even thought all SEO “rules” say we should have our primary keyword in there. The alternative was too boring. Looks like we made the right call. 💪🏽 💪🏽 💪🏽 #writing #content #contentmarketing #seo #strategy #thoughtleadership

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20+ years of writing and reviewing press releases has left me with a deep hatred of the words "iconic", "innovative", and especially "paradigm shifting"! This is a smart piece by Eleanor Hawkins. And I agree - as long as the time investment is kept to a minimum and all parties are aligned on the goals of a "press release", there's still a place for them in the comms toolkit as a way to memorialise a moment in time. One add though. With data hungry LLMs looking for more and more content to ingest, and given the shift among many publishers to block the use of their IP, will we see a resurgence in the impact of press releases as influencers of AI answer engines? I predict yes.

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If you think a comment of "no comment" will satisfy the content-hungry media or will protect your business (or personal) interests, think again. As I explained to Roy Edroso at Part B News, a "no comment" reply can come off as evasive, and readers/viewers may connect it to actual wrongdoing. So how do you respond to a media inquiry? You must have a plan if you want to convey your message – or that of your law firm’s – effectively. Check out the full article to see my recommendations. https://lnkd.in/egfWNKkv Highlights include: -what should be in a formal media policy -the best-case protocol for anyone on your team to engage with the press, and -how proactive engagement strategies can be adopted.

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If you don't subscribe, then you are missing out on great content! Eleanor Hawkins delivers every time! My BIG takeaway from the current installment has to do with this stat: "An MIT study found false news online reaches people about six times faster than the truth, yet 28% of businesses don't have a formal mis-disinformation response plan in place and 23% have no plan." At the very least, businesses need a single source of publicly-facing truth space online. I see so many businesses that do not have this space (and no, it is not your consumer-facing blog), so the stat is not shocking at all. This is a communication malpractice. Reach out and let's fix it.

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This. 💯 this. All day every day. I always ask for a seat at the table. Not because I’m nosy. Not because I want the tea. But because my role as chief communications officer / PIO / PR girl or whatever you want to call me is critical to the success of our institution. Sometimes our trained PR ears hear things (good and bad) during discussions that we can use to help tell our College’s story. We’re not going to run to the media with what we just heard nor are we going to send an all employee email (yes, I’ve been asked that /accused of those things before). But we will use our expertise to guide leadership, and be proactive and strategic in how we tell that story. PR and comms are not the bad guys. I promise. We want the same outcomes you do, so let us be part of those conversations and decisions. We all win in the end. #PR #PRLife #comms #communications

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Today's #MetricMonday is all about my LEAST favorite metric: impressions. Don't get me wrong, impressions are foundational to most #communications work, because what is a message worth if it's not seen or heard? But we've asked impressions to do far too much in measuring success. In truth, impressions simply indicate how many eyes were exposed to a message. A nice volume indicator, however, impressions don't tell us: 👉 If the audience paid attention to the message. 👉 How the audience received the message. 👉 If the message drove the intended call-to-action among the audience. Other data can answer those questions, which is why I always pair impression totals with other metrics in my analysis. Impressions are a great baseline metric, but you'll always need a qualifier to make it matter. SIDENOTE: Way back in my traditional PR days we'd use a multiplier to indicate how impressions in print would scale to real-world exposure. Because apparently if someone read a newspaper, they'd inevitably pass it to two other people to read the EXACT same clip. It was around that time that my distrust for impression totals began. Is that still a thing? I hope not.

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