Help!: Case Studies in Health Communication

Public affairs and public relations practitioners, I need your help! I'm increasingly interested in health care communications. When I worked for the American Cancer Society, I was always so eager to communicate the new trends in research and try to understand how the information impacted the public and legislation. We are on the cutting edge of new biomedical technologies and exciting breakthroughs in research. I just want to be a part of communicating that message, amid the debates and excitement.

So, health PR professionals, where do you go for the best practices of your industry? Who do you look to in order to get best information about how to accurately get out your message? I'd love to know!

Love Changes Everything: Starbucks' LOVE Project

Chances are, you live by a Starbucks. If you're anything like me, you pass 3 coffee locations on the way to work, and they probably have a green logo. Starbucks is a household name for those of us who love to consume "legally addictive stimulants" (a.k.a. a grande, triple shot, non-fat, sugar-free, vanilla latte).

Their stature as one of the premier coffeehouses allows them to take a socially responsible stand like no other. Starbucks publishes a yearly global responsibility report and has done so longer than many companies have thought of ways to give back on a larger scale. When Starbucks joined forces with (Product) RED in Oct. 2008, it seems that buzz has continued to grow about their contributions to the community.

Then, the company started talking about LOVE. Starbucks isn't a stranger to creating music, as they do so through their Hear Music initiative. But, instead of selling albums of award-winning singers and songwriters for their own profit, they sold a CD to donate proceeds to (Product) RED and The Global Fund. And they invited their customers to join in the effort.

Coinciding with World Aids Day this year, Starbucks asked their loyal customers to help fight AIDS with their voices. People were encouraged to sing the Beatles' hit song "All You Need is Love" and join the song around the world. They tweeted about the effort beforehand and publicized through their Facebook page. Followers could also track the map of all the other LOVE entries.

Alright , PR practitioners, I have to ask the question: Is this marketing or PR? The lines right now in the industry are becoming so blurred. On the subject of Starbucks and (Product) RED, how successful was the LOVE campaign? Were you aware of the initiative or did you pass it by during your morning tall americano run?

Information vs. Understanding: A PR practitioner's blessing or curse

With the recent announcement of later breast cancer screenings and subsequent media discussion, one question keeps coming to mind: How much of the correct information does the American public understand about health care? Like any complex issue, it is difficult for public affairs officials and journalists alike to boil down the necessary info into bite-sized chunks.

Health, much like finance or other economic issues, is a topic that requires skilled communicators to synthesize, analyze, and concisely convey the right facts. Much to the chagrin of scientists, the American public doesn't quite understand what their research concludes. It is even difficult for government officials to understand how Americans feel about changes in health care policy. In two recent polls by The Washington Post and AP, headlines declared "widespread support" when results showed a slightly larger percentage opposed the plan.

So the questions remain: Do Americans clearly comprehend what is happening with health care policy? If not, what needs to change to the presentation of information so that it can be understood? (when social media is changing the face of news into 140 character segments, that isn't a difficult concept to grasp). Or, can our elected officials correctly interpret our feelings on the issue?

Listening to the debate this week about breast cancer screenings, I was caught in the frenzy of trying to reconcile the new recommendations with the long-standing medical guideline. On one hand, researchers simply presented their argument in a very factual manner. If you want a thorough account of the guidelines' history, you can check out this Washington Post article.

On the other hand, I saw reputable organizations such as the American Cancer Society stick to their guns and continue to recommend mammograms starting at age 40. (Full disclosure: I worked for the American Cancer Society).

This tug-of-war confused many women and practitioners about the right course of action. The media's reaction, in my opinion, was to humanize the issue in their coverage. (Caveat: I've worked with many breast cancer survivors in my time at the American Cancer Society and I feel their story needs to be told). Watching the morning news television shows was interesting because it was as if mainstream media needed a way to fully comprehend the HUGE debate that ensued. Many broadcasts had the "Survivor's reaction" package following the guideline issue.

With all of the messages billowing about this issue, I can't stop thinking of how, as a public affairs professional, to take the issue and boil it down to three key talking points. So, I will leave the conundrum to you: What three talking points would you create about the debate on the breast cancer screenings? Taking it up one more level, what would your talking points be for the health care insurance discussions?

Bloomberg buys BusinessWeek - reports on Twitter

As of 6:58pm EST tonight, I saw the following on my Twitter feed from Steve Rubel:

RT @davidburn: RT @JohnAByrne - BW's Tom Lowry is reporting that Bloomberg has reached a deal to buy BusinessWeek. http://is.gd/4i7hl.

I was so intrigued that I found out this news via Twitter from the company's insiders before I'm hearing it from a vetted, editorial news outlet. Is this how you filter your news? Is this the future of breaking news?

"Monitor the trends, not necessarily the technology"

As a member of the Public Relations Society of America's National Capitol Chapter, I love taking advantage of any networking opportunity. The public relations professionals one can meet in Washington, DC are phenomenal. I decided to attend a joint networking luncheon with PRSA and IAPC a few weeks ago. While I looked for opportunities to meet new people, I was fortunate to have the chance to meet Steve Rubel, Senior Vice President and Director of Insights for Edelman Digital.

I followed Rubel's Twitter feed for a while and I'm always investigating the new trends with public relations. Edelman is at the forefront of social media for their clients through Edelman Digital, an endeavor that gives their clients the best new avenues to disseminate their messages. Rubel's job is to truly be a curator for new ideas. He endlessly reseraches the cutting-edge ways to connect to audiences. At the time of the luncheon, he previewed Google Wave (and I'm still incredibly jealous).

Rubel provided many best practices, and I will hopefully write a post soon to explain all of these nuggets of wisdom. However, there were two pieces of advice that stood out in my mind. First, he said that public relations professionals need to switch their thinking from a "campaign driven" mindset to an "always on" mentality. Campaigns are finite. They have a beginning, middle, and end, much like a novel. With a 24-hour news cycle and the interconnectivity of social media, Rubel believes that the days of a finite campaign will be obsolete.

The other point that struck a cord was to "monitor the trends, not necessarily the technology." I feel that public relations, in an attempt to harness these new tools, easily relegate social media to the checklist of public relations campaigns to-do. Do we have a Facebook cause page? Check. Twitter account to broadcast our information? Check.

The true reason to have these tools is to promote communication among your audience. I also applauded his point that Twitter is a great tool for customer service. Take Comcast for example; they have @ComcastSteve and @ComcastBonnie along with a few other employees specifically stationed at their computers to provide immediate advice. Best Buy recently taught their employees how to use Twitter and allow them to tweet with their specific hashtag. Then, @BestBuy aggregates all the tweets from employees and displays the best ones. After simply walking through a Best Buy a few weekends ago, I saw 4 or 5 people use the service, and when asked, liked that they could get their answers on a wider scale.

So, fellow social media public relations junkies, what do you think? Does public relations focus more on trends than technology, or vice versa? What are the newest trends that we should be watching for? My eyes are peeled.

Welcome back!

With summer officially winding down and the days getting shorter again, it is that time for me to really refresh my blog and online presence. It has been a long summer, between getting my wisdom teeth out, the many happenings in DC, and two very quick vacations to Orlando, FL and Seattle, WA (within a week of each other). After the break, I knew I needed to crack the whip, and here is my contribution to the public relations community about thoughts on our industry.

For those of you who don't know me, welcome to the blog! I’m a Midwesterner, practically born and raised near a wheat field, turned Southerner who is now transitioning to life on the East Coast. In the midst of learning public transportation and how to live in the “big city,” I am also a public relations professional trying to figure it all out. I love what I'm learning along the way.

This blog probably needs a few disclaimers. First, I cannot pretend that I know absolutely every facet of public relations. This is a space for me to process the changes in the industry and receive feedback from those who understand better than I do. I will be wrong at times, correct at other times, and completely baffled most of the time. I do want to encourage a conversation among public relations professionals so that we can all inspire each other to think outside the box. That said; do not take any of my opinions as the ultimate truth of public relations. Pretty please, let me keep my ego in check ☺

Second, I’m in the process of transitioning most of my material to this blog as a staging area for the bigger project: online portfolio renovation. Please keep checking back over the next several months to see progress, and forgive me that the old blog is no longer functioning (I only brought the most recent entries to this section ). Trust me, I will keep you in the loop. That is what the hundreds of social media channels are good for. If you would like some more great reads, you can check out my more personal blog: http://aelizzychick.blogspot.com Also, check out my Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr sites!

Last, but certainly not least, please comment! I firmly believe that public relations is all about encouraging conversation, engaging audiences, and forging connections among new people. I could spout out all of the jargon I learned in graduate school for building “two-way asymmetrical relationships” and “mutually beneficial partnerships,” but I feel that the best way to simply “foster goodwill among clients” is to chat about everything that is happening in our world.

Commercial Interruption: The American Idol Experience

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program to bring you breaking news: Amy tried out for the American Idol Experience. Yes folks, she stepped out of her comfort zone.

All kidding aside, I really did “try out” at Disney’s Hollywood Studios while on vacation with my parents and boyfriend. It was supposed to be a low-key day, but I was in voice coaching, auditions, and hair and makeup for most of the day. Let me tell you – the ultimate adrenaline rush! (So much better than Tower of Terror, although Aerosmith’s Rock and Roll Rollercoaster will always hold a special place in my heart).

The reason I bring it up on this blog is that it was a great way to engage thousands of people each day with the American Idol brand! After auditioning and in rehearsal for half a day, I saw the American Idol logo countless times. People come to the park just to audition for that show, mostly because they thought they would be able to be on the real American Idol. The plan: if you win the finale of all 5 shows, you win the “golden ticket” to the front of the line of an American Idol audition. For me, that was the best incentive.

They even had great public relations built in within the park and its own show. After I was selected for the 4pm show, they had me film a 90 second intro segment and run around the park, promoting American Idol. Each of the 5 shows held 1000 people in the auditorium and allowed them to be a part of the experience, by taping them beforehand or letting them vote. I was incredibly impressed with how savvy they were with clearly messaging a successful brand.

For those who are wondering, no, I didn’t make it to the finale. An off-pitch 15 year old beat me with Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” – not that I’m bitter at all. I mean, come on, Pat Benatar beats Train any day. But, for me, it was all about the experience.





Photos courtesy of Dave Kugler. You can find his work here and here

Social Media #Fail: Yogi Tea

Around the office, we are fans of Yogi Tea. Specifically, Yogi’s Breathe Deep tea. One week, we decided to do some research in how to ship this tea in bulk to our office. I had the chance to look around the Web site and I was impressed with their branding. Their message is clear and concise. Their Web site and logo is true to their mission. It is a textbook example of how to effectively market their material online.

Once we received our bulk tea order (and effectively saving our productivity and sanity), I tried to find Yogi Tea on various social media accounts. Maybe they are on Facebook? No luck. Twitter? Nope. What? With an amazing brand, quality products, and a well-conceived Web site and messaging, social media seemed to be a natural extension of their marketing and public relations.
So, Yogi Tea executives: if you would like a social media plan, I have a few ideas for you! For the rest of my readers, what are other companies whose social media strategies fall short?

You can following my Twitter hashtag #YogiTea for the Tea Time Sayings of the Day, taken from that day's Yogi tea bag tag. I must say, they are very insightful!

Proof Digital Study - Fortune 100 Companies use of Social Media

A scholar at heart, I’ve been waiting for a study like this. I’m incredibly proud that Proof Digital Media, a sister company of Burson-Marsteller, released this unique look at social media and how companies envision it’s purpose.
They studied the Fortune 100 companies and their use of social media accounts, specifically looking at Facebook, Twitter, and company blogs. Twitter was the highest used (54%) in reaching key audiences and stakeholders with the company, mostly with news updates and announcements. To no surprise of mine, Facebook was the least used (29%) for reaching consumers – a few comments on that one later. Blogs were second most used at 32%.

While I’m not surprised that Twitter was most used, I am still unsure why companies feel the need to use Facebook Fan pages. I’ve used Facebook from its beginning (which would date me a little bit), and I never understood why it’s fan pages would be effective for companies and their products. I’m personally more eager to using fan pages for Corporate Social Responsibility projects, where consumers can engage with the brand and build trust in their efforts.

Another statistic that I thought was intriguing was that 67% of those Fortune 100 companies who used Twitter employed it as a customer service tool as well. I may be speaking for myself, but I am more apt to buy a product or invest in a service if I’ve had great customer service in a way that I can reach them. For example, take Comcast. I have referred @ComcastSteve and @ComcastBonnie to help many of my friends with their high-speed Internet problems. I think companies should make better use of Twitter in this capacity – only if they can devote a sufficient amount of time and remain transparent in their motives.

What do you think? Do these trends surprise you? Do the results translate well to the Fortune 500 market or other sectors?

Slideshow from Proof Digital Media and Burson-Marsteller:

B M Social Media Fortune 100

View more documents from guest338fbe.

@Mashable: What the #*#&^% is Social Media?!?!

For those who haven’t seen it yet, I would really like to share this presentation with you. As an avid user of social media, I often am asked how to really comprehend all that this term encompasses. At first, my basic answer is a fumble of words that generally synthesizes to an answer indicating that we’re still trying to figure it out. Now, my response is that Social Media is a new tool to engage audiences and keep the conversations going. Tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Friendster, and the newly released Gist are ways to keep track of the ever-changing trends in social media, allowing more users to connect.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

View more documents from Marta Kagan.

Marta Kagan produced “What the $%*& is Social Media” a year ago as a response to questioning of the impact of these online tools. With the trends changing so dramatically in a year, Kagan provided an update in this sequel. What I love about it is that it ultimately underscores the power of this medium and the potential to harness its energy for the next two minutes.

What it doesn’t address, however, is the future. I know that we are not prophets and have no real way of predicting what will happen. But the future of public relations also hangs in the balance. Many corporations, non-profit organizations, and even public relations firms are hiring social media strategist positions in an effort to bring these ideas to their clients. In my opinion, public relations professionals have done a good job of using social media tools to their advantage to further the mission of true public relations. But, how will that change in the next year? Five years? What are your thoughts?

Who Influences the Influencer? Response to Travis Murdock's blog

I’m a huge fan of Edelman’s reputation of public relations efforts. I follow Steve Rubel on Twitter (@steverubel) to gain insight on new tech trends and lifestreaming – a concept that I’m not sure I can grab ahold of. So, when Travis Murdock, Senior Account Supervisor at A&R Edelman, tagged Rubel in this blog post, I listened. I’m always intrigued by anything that the Edelman minds think up and this topic really intrigued me as a self-proclaimed Influencer.

For public relations professionals who are trying to get the biggest bang for their publicity buck, influencing the influencer is a great bet in broadcasting a clear consistent message. When looking at marketing ICFJ’s photo auction, I wanted to make sure we researched and reached people who would appreciate both fine art and classic photojournalism… and who had deep pockets to help out our cause.

Travis hits the target by listing some of the best ways to research your Influencers: Friendfeed, Twitter, RSS feeds, Facebook, and more. Searching through FriendFeed subscriptions, past Facebook activity, and Twitter hashtags are all beneficial, but it begs the question: doesn’t this slightly resemble stalking? I am an advocate for thorough research, but it seems that pulling their entire online history may be a bit invasive. On the other hand, if people put specific information out there with the understanding that it can be seen by everyone, then why shouldn’t we use it as research?

What are your thoughts? At what point does research become too in depth that it resembles stalking? What are some ways to research your Influencers’ activity on the Internet, other than what Travis suggests?

I’m all ears…

(Make sure you read Travis's entire blog post here: http://blog.travismurdock.com Great guy!)

Amy Martin
amylizmartin@gmail.com
amart83@lsu.edu


Education:

Master of Mass Communication, Public Relations. May 2008. Louisiana State University, Manship School of Mass Communication.

Bachelor of Arts, Psychology. May 2004. Kansas State University.

Work History and Related Experiences:
Executive Assistant to the President, International Center for Journalists, Washington, DC
June 2008 - present
• Executive assistant with concurrent projects in development and communications.
• Created an innovative photojournalism fundraising campaign using targeted online publicity, events, and a silent auction that successfully raised $30,000 and increased ICFJ’s visibility among potential donors.
• Designed quarterly newsletters for the Board of Directors and Advisory Board.
• Developed and built an Intranet portal encompassing resources for the Board of Directors, saving over $1,000 for the organization by doing the development from scratch in-house.
• Produced press kit materials and facilitated a membership drive for the Global Forum for Media Development.
• Managed administrative duties such as scheduling, orchestrating international travel,corresponding with donors, and extensively researching potential development opportunities with domestic and international funders.

Publicity Intern, EMI CMG Label Group, Nashville, TN
May - Aug. 2007
• Initiated new media publicity campaign for American Idol contestant Mandisa to launch her new album, generating over 1 million online media impressions and 30,000 unique site visits in two weeks.
• Orchestrated artist development teams as lead publicity contact on four album releases in one month.
• Designed press kits for current artists and used them to restructure the label’s press website.
• Created strategic publicity and marketing plans for four leading artists using contemporary media technology and avenues for the artists to reach new audiences.

Graduate Assistant to the Dean, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA
Aug. 2006 - May 2008
• Served as a liaison for 35 graduate students and administered application processes for over 150 applicants.
• Taught three undergraduate class sessions on best practices from relevant corporate social responsibility campaigns.
• Developed advertisements and other communications pieces to recruit graduate students.
• Led an introductory graduate class for incoming students in thesis and course management.
• Initiated a student communication plan for 600 students and managed class communication via an internal website.
• Delivered multiple research presentations, most recently at the Association for Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication National Conference in August 2007.

Income Development Representative, American Cancer Society, Baton Rouge, LA
Mar. 2005 – July 2006
• Exceeded event fundraising goals for two Relay For Life events after Hurricane Katrina, with one Relay For Life as the ninth largest fundraiser in a six-state region.
• Directed the efforts of 50 volunteers to orchestrate over 6,000 participants in Relay For Life of Baton Rouge, raising over $205,000.
• Accomplished an overall fundraising goal of $575,000 while maintaining a budget of $55,000.
• Designed and implemented crisis communication plan and internal communications strategy during Hurricane Katrina.
• Networked to recruit and pitch corporate sponsorship proposals to a range of small and large corporations.
• Integrated a highly successful online fundraising component using ACS’s online database and Facebook.

Awards, Additional Skills and Qualifications:
• Outstanding Graduate Student of the Year Award, April 2008.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office (Access, Excel, Outlook/Entourage, PowerPoint, Word), Adobe Creative Suite (Acrobat, Dreamweaver, Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop), and RaisersEdge.
• Savvy on PC and Apple platforms.
• Experienced with multiple website content management systems and various revenue and task management databases.
• Strong planning and organizational skills with the ability to manage multiple high priority tasks simultaneously.
• Highly dedicated to commitments, motivated and efficient learner, great capacity for creativity and visionary planning, optimistic outlook to difficult situations.

Professional Memberships and Additional Experience:
• PRSA Accreditation in Public Relations in progress. Anticipated Feb. 2010.
• Public Relations Society of America Member, National Chapter. May 2009 – present.
• Indego Africa, Washington DC Board of Directors, Public Relations Committee. May 2008 -
present.
• Association of Educators in Journalism and Mass Communication Member. May 2007 - present.
• Freelance Writer, Editorial and Feature Stories. Jan. 2007 – May 2008.
City Social Magazine, Baton Rouge, LA, editor Janell O’Halloran.
Radiant Magazine Online, editor Corene Israel.

References and additional contact information available upon request
Website portfolio coming soon