My colleague Melissa Chanslor captured this sentiment in a recent post following a SXSW panel, noting that, similar to any form of content, your information needs to be solid and tell a story. This sentiment was echoed by the panelists at the Publicity Club session, which included design and interactive reps from the Huffington Post, CNNMoney, AP and Mashable. An infographic should not just be a visual representation of content in a press release – it needs to be something new or different that adds to the copy.

So what makes a great infographic? Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

• Is it a visual story? – Not every story renders well to visuals. The visual should further the story and bring new information to life. Strong, informative visuals are crucial to the understanding of complex stories, but a visual just for the sake of having one, doesn’t add value.
• Give it the “outsider check” – Could your grandmother or 10-year-old son understand this? Simple and clean infographics are best – give nuggets of information, rather than overloading it with data.
• Exclusivity – Something to factor into your outreach around an infographic – like any news story, the media prefers exclusivity. However, while two reporters being pitched the same news can differentiate their angles, infographics are more restrictive since they cannot easily be modified – making it even more crucial to have exclusive rights.
• Data quality, methodology, and source – Most media sources will want to fact check information so make sure to have your data handy. And of course, independent sources are preferred.
• Think big – Most outlets frown upon promotional content or infographics that have an agenda. A brand or company’s goal with infographics should be to be cited as the source. Consider broader industry issues, upcoming events, or timely news and think about how your data can add to that discussion.
• Consider the format– Will viewers most likely see this on a PC or mobile device? What about Pinterest? Not every format works well cross-platform. Think about your audience and test out your infographic to ensure its viewable on multiple sources.

Another consideration – many media outlets, including the ones represented at this panel, are starting to develop infographics internally. Why? For many, it’s to ensure quality data and consistent format.

This is likely to be a trend we’ll see increasingly more often with key publications. But that doesn’t mean the end of idea sharing. The panelists noted that they’re interested in ideas for infographics and partnering with companies on the development. Perhaps before the next time your company creates an infographic, think about what outlets you’d like to see it published in, and go to them first to see if there’s a way to work together on it so that both parties benefit.

Interested in learning more about infographic development or want to talk to someone about how your company can use them? Contact Text 100 Design Services for more information.

Ten Tips for Creating Dialogue in Your LinkedIn Group

LinkedIn has taken the position as one of the leading social platforms for B2B communications. With more than 150 million users, the platform is used almost exclusively for business contacts and business communication, which makes it a very powerful tool for B2B communications. In fact, t recent report from HubSpot says that LinkedIn is almost 300 percent more effective when it comes to generating leads, compared with Facebook and Twitter. One of the most powerful tools to create and drive a community within LinkedIn is LinkedIn Groups, where any LinkedIn user can create a group to discuss an issue, a product or company. Many companies want to encourage two-way discussion in their LinkedIn groups, but often find it challenging to create an ongoing dialogue. From my own experience of managing LinkedIn groups, I’d like to offer some advice on how to create useful dialogue in your LinkedIn group.

Three Ways Community Management is Evolving

Community management is not a new concept by any means – it’s a function that essentially began in the “old days” of online communication, when people connected primarily through forums and chat rooms. But the rise of social business has given life to the role in a whole new way. What used to be looked at as a role primarily for moderation of niche community forums, is now seen as a necessary function within any company that cares about evolving their business to meet the needs of the social customer.

How to Engage Journalists Through Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC]

To mark our sponsorship of Social Media World Forum this week, Text 100 carried out some research into the way journalists use social media. We interviewed 72 journalists about the way they use social media channels in their professional lives to research companies and communicate with PR executives. The top-line results of our survey are shown in this infographic, and you can download a full copy of the report with a more detailed look at the survey findings by clicking on this link.

Media Relations Advice from Reuters: PR 101 Still Key in the Digital Era

Communication is the heart of our job. As public relations professionals, we are responsible for communicating with and on behalf of our clients. However, are we certain that we’re always being heard? And even more importantly, are we being heard and interpreted in the right way? Last week I attended the webinar, “How Reuters Journalists Use Social Media to Uncover Today’s Stories” featuring Reuters’ Social Media Editor, Anthony De Rosa and Reuters’ Wealth Editor, Lauren Young. Both Anthony and Lauren discussed how they actively use social media channels to monitor for breaking news, find sources and find out what their competition is up to, but it was also a helpful reminder to remember thePR 101 basics.

Down to the wire for Facebook timeline? Tips for getting your cover photo ready

Down to the wire to migrate your brand’s Facebook page over to Timeline before the March 30th deadline? Still haven’t updated your own Facebook page to Timeline? Here are some tips and resources to help get your cover photo in good shape.

First Click Attribution: The more effective social media measurement model?

You’ve all likely seen the video from Socialnomics that states, “the ROI of social media is your business will still exist in 5 years.”  While those of us in the trenches get it, that’s not a response we can normally use in a business discussion. However during the annual Adobe Digital Summit in Salt Lake City last week, Adobe released a report on ROI of social media that will help marketers get a bit closer to answering the elusive question (full disclosure: Adobe is a Text 100 client). The report sheds insight on how social media ROI is traditionally calculated, and offers up additional methods to showcase the value of social media in a different light.

Journalists still value press releases and phone conversations more than social media channels

When we asked journalists to rate how useful they find social media channels, we also asked them to rate two more conventional information sources commonly used by journalists, corporate websites and the good old fashioned press release. The results surprised us – the participating journalists scored press releases higher than any other information source in terms of how useful they are for researching articles, closely followed by corporate websites. This shows us that while journalists increasingly turn to social channels for information, they still rely heavily on the more traditional tools.

Big Social Media and Digital Trends for 2012 – Part One

Five trends that are likely to shape social business adoption in 2012 and beyond.

New insights on Sina Weibo for the Enterprise

Following the popularity of its Weibo, or microblog (Chinese twitter), Sina introduced an enterprise version of Weibo last April, which was designed for corporations to better utilize it as a marketing tool with extra features such as a bulletin board, corporate videos and related linkages on display on the home page, detailed information on followers’ topic interests, and more. As the anniversary of the launch of enterprise Weibo approaches, Sina and CIC released a white paper to summarize the current situation and recent developments on how corporate entities are leveraging this platform. Below are some of the major takeaways from this white paper. (Note: the original white paper is only available in Chinese and can be found here.)

How to edit Wikipedia pages – a guide for PR execs

We all know Wikipedia is important. When your customers research a product or brand online, chances are its Wikipedia page will feature highly in the search results and is likely to influence their decision. Whether that page is specifically about your brand or more generally about a type of product, what people read there will inform their buying behavior. So, obviously it would be great if you could somehow control the information on those pages. First the good news; the whole point of Wikipedia is that anybody can edit the content of pages – it’s a crowd-sourced encyclopedia. Now the bad news; it’s against Wikipedia’s policies for people with a conflict of interest to edit pages.

Today’s social consumers are the most media-savvy generation in history. They want more from the companies that employ them, want to sell to them, have sold to them, or seek to recruit them. Social consumers want to speak with experts who can help them make informed choices or respond when they have problems.

A recent GlobalWebIndex report found that b-to-b decision makers, for example, were highly socially engaged and rated conversations with brands on social networks as more influential than webinars, sales presentations, conferences, or corporate entertainment. The more complex the decision, the greater the need to ask questions of experts in online communities.

The challenge for many businesses is how to manage this evolution from executive spokespeople to expert spokespeople. This requires changes to job descriptions, coaching, and administration – and is a long-term play. It also means empowering more people across a business to play public roles – counter to the centralized model that’s commonplace today.

At Text 100, we’re managing “Digital Academy” training for our clients. These programs help people from customer support, sales, marketing, human resources, and so on use social networking channels such as Twitter and LinkedIn to support their business goals. The resulting programs see these experts blogging on corporate websites, managing communities in company discussion forums, and acting as ambassadors in external earned media communities.

In time, we’ll see people from all business functions playing similar expanded roles in support of their own objectives. This is a logical next step for those companies that have developed owned media properties across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Based on our experience, it’s best to start with one business function, division, or product and build a program around someone with a greater aptitude for social media. Measure their success – learn from the things that didn’t go well – and evolve the campaign around them.

No one said this is easy. But if companies are to meet the needs of social consumers, then having experts in online communities must become as commonplace as media interviews and press releases are today.

Editor’s note: This post originally appeared on the PR Week Insider blog.

Email was the spring board for so many other communication innovations that have been hugely beneficial in the evolution of business and the world in general. Think about it – after the emergence of email came blogging, then social sites, then Twitter and geo-location-based tools (the list goes on!) – all designed around communicating in a new and varied way. These new options provide myriad benefits that the physical world can’t – bringing global communities of people together around a common passion, globalization and democratization of information, real-time spread of significant world news and events, the concept of endorsement (i.e. retweeting a tweet), and even just teaching people how to drill down to short messages to get a point across quickly. And given the psychology behind real world interaction between humans, we can certainly expect the innovation in this space will only continue to evolve the way in which we communicate with one another.

While Mr. Tjan may argue that in-person conversations are a dying art, I’d propose that these technologies haven’t taught us to stop communicating, they’ve simply taught us to socialize in a whole new, and arguably more productive, manner. Certainly with the digital nature of our world, we should remember not to abandon the value of real, live conversation, but let’s not forget to appreciate the new and innovative communication and relationship building opportunities that do exist as a result of these technologies. Innovation and developments in this space will continue to grow, and new tools will emerge to mimic human behavior in a powerful way – not to replace it, but to enhance it. At the end of the day people are people and we’ll always value a live conversation, and now with geo-location software, chances are we’ll find a lot more people in the same location than we’d otherwise ever have been aware of.

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared on the Arthur W. Page Society’s blog, Page Turner. Aedhmar Hynes is a member of the Board of Trustees.

Kicking off the discussion, panelists noted that although the number of people watching video online is increasing, it is still a relatively small percentage compared to traditional TV numbers. Consistent viewership may be small, but they believe Web-based media is slowly becoming the preferred platform for viewers to consume content. During the past year, the industry has seen its first uptick on a small percentage of viewership switching to solely viewing programming via online platforms. This shift is lead primarily by viewers coming out of college, who are not quite in a full-time career yet, and not in a position to sign up for cable or premium channels. Although cable sales remain strong, the increasing trend of viewers seeking out premium services online is climbing. With this, the consumption of online video is forcing advertisers to change course. New broadcast and consumption models are giving viewers the power to frame how adverting dollars are spent, telling the industry where to invest and what social platforms attract and engage viewers.

In the beginning of 2011 alone, $18 billion was spent on advertising. Although advertising demand is still incredibly high, experts believe the model must shift as demographics become more defined and online video becomes easier to consume. As such, networks are looking for alternative ways to engage viewers across their own mobile and online properties with unique sponsorship opportunities for advertisers. One example of a new media campaign designed to engage viewers across different mediums comes from Old Navy’s music-focused campaign in 2010. Teaming up with Shazam, a leading mobile discovery company, the company launched the first ever taggable commercial, allowing viewers to identify custom-developed songs and, in some cases, receive special product perks via a mobile platform. Both Old Navy and Shazam saw strong campaign results, including a spike in the number of Shazam app downloads and increased brand recognition on social media channels. Building on that, in June Shazam launched its “Shazam for TV” platform with NBC Universal signing on as the launch partner. Shazam for TV works with networks to create “Shazamable” content that lets viewers uncover hidden content – not aired on TV scenes, or sneak peeks at upcoming episodes.

This type of new media campaign reflects the shift networks and cable companies are undergoing to re-adjust their promotions for TV programs by looking at social first to galvanize fan-communities by engaging in commentary posted online, not solely at the numbers of viewers tuning-in per week.  Recognizing that these new types of campaigns need to produce ROI, measurement company Nielsen launched its Online Campaign Ratings in Aug. 2011, designed to measure online branded ad campaigns similar to the way that ad campaigns are measured on television.  The service pulls data from Facebook to help advertisers craft a defined TV-style campaign metric that factors in reach, frequency, age and gender.

Although many in the industry believe availability to view network programs on-demand through online services is encroaching on sales, panelists believe there is room for both. It’s just up to the networks to continue to create additive experiences that will engage viewers across owned multi-platforms and take advertisers along for the ride. Whether viewers are watching programs online, or via traditional TV, experts see no reason for a divide, as the demand is strong enough that online viewing can complement traditional TV and advertisers can take advantage of this new model.

Have you noticed your consumption of video shift recently or seen a new ad campaign that seems to incorporate all the social platforms you follow? What type of offer would it take to entice you to Shazam a commercial?

When the secret was revealed to the bloggers, reaction was opposite of what the ConAgra/Ketchum team was hoping for. In fact, many bloggers felt as though they had been slapped in the face and took to the web and voiced their disgust over being tricked to eat frozen meals filled with preservatives and loads of calories – which many attendees strive to avoid daily. ConAgra and Ketchum eventually ended up cancelling any remaining “dinners” and quickly started apologizing for the switcheroo and for leaving a bad taste in anyone’s mouth (pun intended).

So why did such an elaborate stunt, designed to generate positive and “surprising” coverage, backfire? Both Ketchum and ConAgra seemed to forget two critical points about food bloggers (and bloggers in general):

1. Bloggers are passionate about the topics they cover (especially Foodies). Why else would they be blogging about it? Most bloggers start writing because they feel strongly about a particular subject – especially when it comes to food. People who are passionate about food – a.k.a “Foodies” – have an intimate relationship with the things they eat. They want to know who prepared it, where it came from (local vs. imported) and really pay attention to ingredients in their meals. So it’s only expected that then trying to fool food bloggers, who pride themselves on being foodies, into enjoying a frozen meal simply, it’s just not going to fly.
2. Bloggers are just as influential as a journalist at a major publication and expect the truth. We live in a digital age where everyone is connected to the internet, Googling everything in sight and most likely following at least a handful of blogs about topics they are passionate about. Bloggers know their audience just like every other journalist and their audience expects the truth – sometimes even more so from a blogger than from mainstream media. As a PR professional, you cannot take a blogger for granted just because they don’t work at the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. Bloggers are journalists and can potentially be more influential to your key demographic than other sources. Why else would we want bloggers at our events and covering our news?

As PR professionals we rely on relationships to do our jobs. From my perspective, the best way to build a relationship and gain trust is to be transparent – whether you’re working with a blogger, mainstream journalist or your neighborhood dog walker. ConAgra and Ketchum lost touch with this and probably burned some relationships along the way. What this situation really boils down to is this – no one wants to be fooled when they’re looking for a surprise. Especially when you’re hungry.

Take a look at our in-depth conversation below.

While technology means that it is easier than ever to work remotely, it also makes it extremely hard to switch off. Today, many of us no longer look at work and life as two disparate blocks which we balance on a scale.  For many of us it’s become a blend of both. It is a challenge to blend without letting work seemingly take over a bigger share and leaving you feeling stressed and unfulfilled.

Different people have different work styles and principles.  Some are perfectly comfortable blending work and family time, while others find taking calls or answering emails from home a strain.  Rather than trying to find a “right” way to manage work and life balance, focus on your own personal values and how you can feel in control.

A search on Wikipedia yielded the snippet that in anthropology, a definition of happiness is to have as little separation as possible “between your work and your play.” So to achieve happiness, perhaps it’s not so much of separating work and life but more about harmoniously blending the two – in the ratio that best suits each individual at each stage of their lives.

In his book Managing Work Life Balance, the author David Clutterback defines work life balance as “being aware of different demands on time and energy, having the ability to make choices in the allocation of time and energy, knowing what values to apply to choices and making choices.”

We all have a choice. We want to work for a company that promotes balance and allows for flexibility in choosing how we wish to achieve this balance. Our lives and priorities are all different and everyone needs different things in terms of how to integrate the various pieces.  In other words, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all work-life blending policy.

Having a child changes your priorities, so does committing to a wellness regime or a personal improvement plan.  When I had my first child two years ago, I was honest with myself and realised that work was important to me and I didn’t really want to cut back. I wanted to do it all – be super mum, continue working at the pace I had before and still have time for myself. I struggled at first and then did the following which helped me come to terms with what I wanted:

• Find out about and take advantage of work/life policies that are a fit for you

Don’t to be afraid to ask about possibilities and precedents.  For example at Text 100, we can work from home on preset days or just when the need arises (e.g. when the pest control man is coming over or you have to be home to receive a delivery), explore flexible work week options or even maximise holiday time by working out of other offices in the country we are visiting.

• Communicate

Talking to your managers openly can solve the problems that cause stress and may be the best way to reduce work-life conflict.  Talking about your situation and seeking solutions to challenges may yield unexpected results.  An example would be removing roadblocks to you embarking on a wellness programme – not scheduling meetings on the mornings you have a personal training session and coming in a bit later on those days. Not every problem is solvable, but many may be resolved in you actively search for resolution.

• Take care of yourself

Make time to rest and reenergise.  Come up with an annual leave plan and discuss this early with you managers to set expectations.  Agree with yourself what the boundaries will while you are on holiday.  It could be a no laptop, no email policy or if you are like me – emails for 30 minutes a day and only replying to the absolutely super urgent stuff that no one else can decide on (which you will soon realise is not many things at all!).

• Moderate Expectations

I find that hard black and white lines in my working and personal life don’t really work and often lead to unnecessary stress and the need to justify to family and myself when I cross the virtual boundary.  Be fair to yourself – the line with shift.  Also, whether you want time off, shorter work hours or greater flexibility, it’s important to be realistic in what you expect to be able to achieve in your job and the commensurate returns or rewards. Oftentimes, you may have to compromise somewhere.

I like the word blend as it suggests greater flexibility and is more dynamic.   In agency life and indeed in many careers, a strict 9am to 6pm work regime is near impossible to stick to.  As such, blending is important to achieve a balance that we can live with. It’s also key to accept that every day is going to be different – there will be busy times where we can barely breathe and others where we have the luxury of time. The point is to take advantage of the less hectic periods to work in some flexibility and squeeze in some additional ‘me’ time.

Photo credit: flickr user w00dy.

Photo credit: Ian Spanier, courtesy of MTV.com

On December 3^rd, 2009 MTV introduced the world to a new reality sensation, the Jersey Shore. For better or worse, Snooki, The Situation, J-WOWW, DJ Pauly D, Angelina, Ronnie, Sammi and Vinny entered homes across America and within weeks got us hooked on their dirty, somewhat raunchy, hilarious and always inappropriate antics. Almost two years later, #Jersdays (as coined by Snooki) is still going strong and the Season 4 premiere broke both ratings records (bringing in 8.8 million viewers, up from the 8.5 million that tuned in for the season three premiere) and social media records for tweets captured in a one-day period of a TV series. According to SocialGuide, more than 190,892 unique viewers chimed in with comments – totaling close to 300,000 comments about the Shore cast as they headed oversees to revisit their Italian roots for the season.

Building on the social success of the show, MTV recently launched WatchWith app for iPhone, a co-viewing second screen experience that delivers content to fans connecting them with the stars of their favorite MTV shows – including the socially savvy #GTL cast, and curating the social conversation on Twitter and Facebook.  The app, which is free using iTunes, displays content as a stream and gives preference to the user’s friends and followers, showing their comments at the top. Unlike other second screen experiences that serve as a supplement to real-time TV, WatchWith also functions as a “social DVR.” Viewers can follow the steady stream of content associated with the episode whether they are tuning in as it happens or catching up on a rerun.

In an interview regarding the app with DIGIDAY daily editor, Mike Shields, MTV GM of Digital, Kristin Franks said, “Our viewers are true digital natives. We started early on Twitter in 2007. We’re on Tumblr. We have to tap into the social nature of our shows. And we’re constantly trying to create incremental experiences. With WatchWith, we asked ourselves, ‘how do we capture our great story arcs to serve as tentpoles that extend across platforms?”

But the Jersey Shore influence doesn’t stop with record-breaking social stats and co-viewing iPhone apps. The fist-pumping crew continued to show us just how powerful they are when what appeared to be a bizarre publicity stunt by Abercrombie & Fitch last week totally backfired. The clothing retailer released a statement offering a substantial payment to Mike Sorrentino AKA “The Situation” and the rest of the cast to stop wearing the A&F brand on-air. An Abercrombie & Fitch spokesperson said in a statement:  “We are deeply concerned that Mr. Sorrentino’s association with our brand could cause significant damage to our image. We understand that the show is for entertainment purposes, but believe this association is contrary to the aspirational nature of our brand, and may be distressing to many of our fans. We have also extended this offer to other members of the cast, and are urgently waiting a response.” Unfortunately for Abercrombie, according to CNN its stock fell nearly 10 percent at one point the day after making the statement and finished nearly 8 percent lower for the day.

Regardless of the A&F outcry, the cast of Jersey Shore remains on top both online and off. The new WatchWith app is just the next step getting the ins and outs with the cast of the show that America has fallen in love with (whether they want to admit it or not). While the cast of Jersey Shore sometimes causes us to turn away from our TV screens in disbelief, they have truly taken social media by storm and continue to pave the way for the future of reality TV.

Recently, there seems to be an emerging dialogue with clients and colleagues alike around the topic of soft data and internet transactional insights, informing strategy.

In Australia, this topic is on a regular news cycle as campaigners and journalists explore the issue. Most recently, our national newspaper online presented a rather negative view of the fact that our Australian politicians are using electoral roll data as well as soft data gleaned from tracking voter’s internet footprints.

What the piece failed to cover were the elements of transactional insights that inform anything from an election campaign, online advertising campaigns (repeat serving vs cookie tagging), through to developing health campaigns and community services such as Town and public transport planning.

Entities such as airlines, politicians, and even non-profits are increasingly using this data for finding new customers or targeting products to existing ones. Financial services companies such as banks and lenders are also using the same data mining services for marketing purposes and to make lending decisions.

Now, if you’re unsure of what I’m referring to in terms of ‘soft data’, or what data privacy actually means, here’s a crisp and clean TVC explaining (the negative) data footprints:

Privacy International – Data Trail from This is Real Art on Vimeo.

Sounds a bit scary, yes?

In what is perhaps a contrarian view, I’m actually quite excited about the possibilities of online business intelligence.

However, I’m not talking about using it for contextual advertising and lead generation for brands. We need to take this data upstream and utilise it in designing holistic digital and communications strategies based on insights gleaned from a person’s online transactions.

Rather it is the process of identifying the insight that leads to the solution for the brand.

One of the most successful and simple strategy development processes is visually represented by a personal brain-hero of mine, Mark Pollard.

The insight is where soft data and online behavioral patterns come in. Essentially vendors are now offering brands (and agencies) access to myriad of data tracked via online transactions.

Less than a decade ago, we used to rely on qualitative and quantitative data sourced from anything from a direct mail survey through to face-to-face focus groups of people in our targeted demographics. And for large-scale (or population-wide) data, the only source was from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) or Forrester.

These information sources were less targeted and not fluid enough to design behavioral insights to inform a robust strategy.

The key pillar to a communications strategy isn’t the tactics that are rolled out (for example a Facebook Brand Page is a tactic). The tactics are the easy (and sexy part).

As more and more social networking sites come online, the competition for registered (and active) users will escalate. Not only will social networks need to do more to procure new users and retain current ones, they will have to create new and innovative ways to monetise their websites.

Supplying content (digital footprints of preferences towards products, attitudes to Governments, behaviours, friendship networks, propensity to click on ads, areas of travel etc) created by a social network’s users to outside websites, advertisers, and affiliates for data mining purposes is a sure fire way to generate revenue for the foreseeable future.

And that’s where the opportunities lie for strategists. This intelligence is the deepest, and most honest insight you’re likely to come across when understanding what your strategy should (or could) be.

Let’s take this a bit more laterally; with the advent of geolocation services such as Foursquare and Facebook Places, we are acuminating copious amounts of previously inaccessible data on people’s travel patterns and location and population preferences. Wouldn’t this data be beneficial to a Town Planner, or even public transport and roads advisors, in future-proofing cities?

We need to move the dialogue on data mining (online transactional data analysis) from its immature ‘serve online banners depending on a user’s web preferences’ to a more sophisticated discussion. The debate (and execution) should be around the benefits and ethical parameters of designing strategies, policies, planning and funding decisions based on deep consumer insights gleaned from their own, online behaviour.