*March 29, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. Marketers and communicators have been fixated on Ford Motor Company this week. The automaker found itself at the center of a controversy it didn't create as mock-up ads from its India agency circulated, depicting women bound and gagged in the back of a Ford vehicle. At the same time, BP was in the middle of its own dust-up because one of its communicators followed Wikipedia's own rules in an attempt to improve the accuracy of the oil giant's articl ...Continue Reading

*March 22, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. In my monthly column for IABC's Communication World, I wrote that much of the real-time marketing you see these days is nothing short of stunts and hype. /Real/ real-time marketing isn't just culture-jacking a hot meme. It's anticipating what will be happening and preparing carefully to cover it. Newsrooms are more than just reporters with their ears glued to police scanners, after all. If you jump into real-time marketing, do it in a strategic and ...Continue Reading

*March 15, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. Current client assignments are reinforcing something I have found to be true for decades: The farther an employee and his or her facility is from headquarters, the more disconnected they are from corporate messages and priorities. There are ways to address this, but it's also worth considering whether a manufacturing employee even needs to be current on all the corporate news, especially if they're out of the loop on their own local issues. I'll ha ...Continue Reading

*March 8, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. I spoke earlier this week at an internal communications best practice summit and was surprised at the number of attendees whose companies have not added any social components to their intranets. Some of the simplest social media objects -- like comments on stories, sharing tools and five-star ratings -- can make the intranet more compelling and engaging while establishing closer bonds and better knowledge-sharing among employees. I really thought th ...Continue Reading

*March 1, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. The big news this week was Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer's decision to end telecommuting for company employees. The decision produced a torrent of commentary, most of it negative, criticizing the decision as clueless in the current mobile era, where telecommuting has become far more practical from a technical standpoint. Although telecommuting is a potent option for organizations, I refuse to pile on, since I (no differently from all the critics) am not ...Continue Reading

*February 22, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. I spoke yesterday to an association of folks who work in the patient relations field. At their 2012 conference, they asked for a speaker on dealing with attacks on social media, so this year, they brought me in. I'm still amazed that the staff who deal directly with customers (in this case, patients of hospitals and medical practices) can't convince their leaders to embrace online complaints and establish processes for dealing with them. But tha ...Continue Reading

*February 15, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. The Ragan social media conference at Walt Disney World was a stellar event with a parade of great speakers. I want to throw out a special thanks to Sprint's Sara Folkerts for co-presenting with me on setting up programs to train and coordinate employee ambassador programs designed to encourage engaged staff to represent the company in their social communities. It's a topic that's bound to get more attention as companies come to realize that, whe ...Continue Reading

*February 8, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. This week's newsletter was prepared from a hotel room at Walt Disney World, site of Ragan Communications' annual social media conference, which has been terrific. I presented a pre-conference session on content marketing and co-presented with Sprint's Sara Folkerts on employee social media ambassador programs. If you're at a conference where I'm speaking, find me and introduce yourself! Items from the Holtz.com blog published during the last week ...Continue Reading

*February 1, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. Here it is: Possibly the only email newsletter you'll get this week with no reference to the Super Bowl. (Oh, wait. That just /was/ a Super Bowl reference, wasn't it?) Items from the Holtz.com blog published during the last week: Think you can keep a layoff secret? HMV proves otherwise British music retailer HMV is on the ropes, so it laid off 160 employees, including a social media planner who used her access to the company's official, verified ...Continue Reading

*January 25, 2013* Want to unsubscribe from this newsletter? Click here. Even with the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday here in the U.S., it has been a long week. And a lot has transpired in the worlds of PR, communication and social and digital media. Let's jump right into it. Items from the Holtz.com blog published during the last week: Political challenges to PR spending ask the wrong questions A pair of Los Angeles city councilman are challenging PR contracts worth $3.8 million awarded by the agency that manages Lo ...Continue Reading