Pandemic Flu Communication Plan?

The current social dynamic is ripe for further discussion for small business owners regarding your internal  communications on this specific topic  about the H1N1 flu.  If you are a small business owner who is only relying on the CDC updates, other news media outlets, the television or the World Health Organization for your sole source of communications and information, then I encourage you to consider leading an internal pandemic communication planning session or two. 

Are you communicating regular useful information to your staff?   Small business owners need to be on notice: first, there are a few reasons why, the pandemic flu is unlike the regular seasonal flu, as the severity of the illness in the pandemic flu is higher, which increases the rate of fatality, and second, all age groups are at risk, including otherwise healthy adults under 40—in other words, the majority of your workforce may be significantly impacted.

Without an employee communication crisis plan or pandemic flu action plan in place your business operations could come to a literal halting stand still.   Whether the 2009 H1N1 Influenza A virus (Swine Flu) situation impacts larger numbers of the human population this fall and winter or not, your small business lessons learned today can help small business owners prepare for improved  internal and external communications tomorrow.

The entire U.S. public health ”structure” has been in over drive this season with keeping government leaders, health professionals and the public informed in trying to mitigate the potential spread of the disease, as well as misinformation and panic. 

However, many have found that their agencies or organizations are not adequately prepared to communicate and regularly.  They are learning that their crisis plans need updating in light of evolving larger organization successes and failures to adequately meet public information demands. What is your small business doing? What do you have in place to communicate with your employees and the customers you come in contact with? What is your external message to the public at large?     

You may wish to consider holding a strategic communication planning meeting to discuss some of the following discussion topics and planning suggestions.

• Examine what are other organizations are doing to keep the public informed about the current pandemic.
• What are the challenges and strategies for addressing large scale, fast moving and ongoing situations?
• How will you balance precautions while avoiding panic and over reaction?
• How will communicate quickly and correctly in a world dominated by tweets, social media, and blogs?
• Will you communicate across all channels or just email? How will you do it simultaniously?
• How will you collaborate between different agencies & organizations critical to an effective response at your level?
• How will you keep an information flow of updates if websites crash under the load & if IT restrictions slow your efforts?
• How will you watch and plan for rumors, misinformation and what willl be your course of action/response?
• How does this pandemic level 6 crisis differ from other types and what does it means for communication team as front line responders?
• If required or ordered, how do you plan to continue to work while maintaining social distance and communications with your staff virtually to maintain business operations? Have you communicated this to your employees and regularly with updates?

I would be interested to hear more from others about what plans small business owners have created or are creating?  And, if you have not created any internal employee pandemic communication plans, then will you be doing so and then move directly from planning to an implementation phase in the next 30 days? And, why or why not?

I am providing a basic overview from an article I read that is a tad dated, but it offers some additional reading on Pandemic employee communication planning suggestions. For real time reporting, I am providing a map tracking the H1N1 Flue cases noted in the World.  You may zoom into your local geographic area and click on the red diamond for your state to obtain a visual of the  number of H1N1 cases.

Integration in a Fragmented Media World

Like many, we all have our profiles set up in more than a few social networking sites. It could become a time consuming and complex task to keep up and in touch with all your friends and contacts from all these different networks. In my last post, I hinted at how fragmented communications has become. There are now tools that allow you to either post or connect across all the popular networks – Facebook, LinkedIn, Plaxo, GovLoop, Flickr, Friendster, Twitter, AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger,  just to name a few.

Are you a media, marketing, social marketing, public affairs or communications strategist looking for ways to streamline your external communications outreach and increase the depth of your Internet penetration? You can accomplish a more mature communications model that mirrors near ”continuous communications”  out to your target audiences.  And, you can do it across multiple online media channels. There are a few ways in which you can carry out this multi-tasking function.

You can either do it one by one with each individual channel with a single cut and peck-peck-peck method (no please don’t do that)  or you can do it simultaneously across all of your media channels posting from anywhere to everywhere.  

So, tonight, I want to mention a few tools which I personally like using, from an external communications perspective.   These do not require any IT investment except your time in learning how to use them. Really, it’s quiet simple.  They all are free.  Yep, no cost. Nada. I am sure there are similar tools out there and others are sprouting up through the Internet perma-frost even as I am typing this up (copycats, are a nice complement in adding to an already good thing).

I also personally believe these tools can help with more consistency in an organizations external messaging and driving increased awareness in a tough and highly competitive economy. 

The first tool I mention is for pushing/micro-blogging your messages out simultaneously. The second is for shortening your URL links (and making them trackable)  to save space  pointing people where you want to drive your target audience in a 140 character world. And, finally, the third  tool is for generally zooming down to a geographic area and ”listening” to the buzz on the street, real-time. Remember, we have to listen to know what to say in order to resonate with our target audiences ( this is just one tool).

1) Ping.fm. Often it’s the (seemingly) simple applications that turn out to be the most powerful, and the most popular. Simplicity is beautiful.  Ping.fm is a service that allows you to easily update a host of social networking and social media profiles all at once, seeks to resolve the headache of needing to log into multiple accounts to send the same message to different groups of friends and contacts all over the Internet. Ping.fm also has a decent help Wiki for more information. 

Additionally, I like the fact that I can Ping right from my browser toolbar so simply that it makes my just giddy.  While for some, Ping.fm may just be a nice little time-saving utility, for social media and communication professionals, this service may well be THE killer app of our time.   Over the last few years communication patterns have shifted primarily from face-to-face communication to more online communication in email, IM, and other tools.    As more collaboration is being done remotely through technology, there are relatively fewer opportunities for face to face informal conversations. In addition to time constraints or human resource limitations at work due to employee downsizing, drilled down efficiencies can be useful.    To learn a bit more about Ping.fm read what’s on Wikipedia for some general information.

2) I am sure many of you have heard of or used Tinyurl.com. I believe it has the longest shelf life and was the first, dating back to about 2001/2002.  URL shortening is a technique where an individual can  make a web page available under a very short URL  in addition to the original address.   Since the launch of Tinyurl.com about 100 or similar sorts of URL shorteners have been born.  As of Spring 2009, Bit.ly over took Tinyurl’s usage on Twitter.   So I think it is safe to say, it has leading edge staying power.  I personally like Bit.ly because it also allows me to quasi track the results of  my link click through rates in real-time. It has some other good features as well. I came across an article that talks about some of the others, of course each one has its pros anc cons.  For example, tr.im is another one which uses your Twitter account as your login, making it a sure-fire hit if it keeps up the rest of its services as well.  A great one to try, it might surprise you.  And then you have U.nu which creates the smallest URLs of any shortener, with only about 8 characters for each new URL  created(not including the “http://”).  That’s mighty tiny.  The point is, that you have some choices with regards to shortening your long Webpage URLs for all your external communications so you can drive people exactly where you want them to go with a compelling message and then track that link’s click results.   Anyone still hand typing paper press releases anymore and faxing them?  Really, you can do it all with in the blink or wink of an eye, well almost. Now, that’s affordable and near continuous communications.

3)  Visual Trends Map on Twitter topics being discussed or micro-blogged about in real-time. You really can get a pulse of what’s hot and what’s being talked about in specific geographic areas. Just incredible. And, then you can formulate and message and respond using the tools mentioned.

If one thing communications has taught me is that it is a constantly evolving medium. Never static, either in the evolution of the language we use or the medium in which we communicate through.  We started with fire and smoke signals, sticks drawing in the dirt, painting on cave walls, pen and ink, the Gutenberg Press, newspapers,  the telegraph, the LinoType, telephone, Radio, TV, Internet, Cellphones and so on to name just a few media landmarks (not necessarily in exact chrono order). 

Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type in 1452, was deemed ”the most influential man of the millennium.” The first book printed in the colonies was in 1640. The first publisher was Lipincott.   And, Thomas Jefferson was a radical for his defense of Free Speech.  That old press release written in AP style? And, Ivy Lee, a PR genius.  It was created to fit into the evolution of communication by using a new tool with the advent of electronic transmissions across telegraph wires, dating back to the early 1900′s.  And, YES indeedy here we are in 2009  and we are still formatting our press releases the very same way we did 103 years ago.  Why?  Much has changed. Some things have not.

Your organization’s lead news ‘graph of 21 words or less in a 350 word press release should be considered a historical dinosaur (forgive me, being a PR professional, I should know better than to even whisper such).   It begs a few content related communication and distribution upgrades.  No, an extreme makeover.

Is that press release formatted for continuous instant consumption to fit in a 140 character Tweet?  Is it formatted for today’s “telegraph wire” in 2009? And, is that press release just sitting on your Website with a hyperlink to it sitting there percolating on your server going no where, with scads and scads of other press releases from years and years and years  ago?

There are, of course, still some resonating repeating themes from the original press release objective.  And, I encourage you to read the article to see if you can pick out a few?  I will wait, go check that link right there just above this line.

Open, transparent communication?  Hmmmm.   As this post draws to a close highlighting three useful online tools,  it leads me to yet another area for exploration.  Web 2.o enabled social media press rooms and social media press releases, can they still accomplish the Who, What, When, Where and Why in an inverted pyramid format?    Should we?   We we are to achieve open and transparent communications, we may well need to recraft out media relations is formatted, tactically accomplished and transmitted.  

Stay tuned for more.  Are you ready? Are your Website media “rooms” Web 2.0 enabled? Are  your press releases Web 2.0 enabled?

Have we come full circle?  Are we not still saying and wanting the very same things today that were echoed in 1906?  

What is your idea of the best Social Media Press Release for a main stream best practice?  There are some samples out there already floating around and being test driven, talked about and even used.  What do you think? 

Well, until Web 2.0 enabled press releases become mainstream, I hope you will see the potential value at least in the three tools I mentioned tonight to help with some of your organization’s external communication efforts. We may not be able to physically integrate all the media channels, but we can closer to streamlining our external communication efforts using these tools.

Have a good day everyone!

Alice M. Fisher

If you would like strategic advisement or help please contact me via email at alicemfisher58@yahoo.com                       Follow @Unlimitedpr  Twitter                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Resume & Profile: http://bit.ly/3kuiuV

Media Landscape Part II

(Bio) Well, yesterday  I wrote about the fact that PEW’s 2009 State of the Media Report findings indicated that in the U.S. only about 34% of the population is reading newspapers (personally, I think that is a bit high) and of that number, the readership population is predominantly an older generation, with a few younger audiences  scattered throughout.  Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23% in the last two years. Some papers are in bankruptcy, and others have lost three-quarters of their value.

By recent calculations, nearly one out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone, and 2009? Well, that remains to be seen.

And, today, I read AP news and a few others want to charge money for online news content.  ”AP, News Corp bosses tell search engines and bloggers that it is time to pay up” Would you pay for online news?  I am not as versed on the international media landscape, but I am sure changes are being felt or noticed overseas as well. I did find a traditional media landscape for Europe for anyone who wants to dig into that area a bit deeper.  But, I digress.

OK, so, does AP and the top News Corp bosses sound a bit panicked here? are they mad?  Is this an attempt to recover from their own dismal landslide in revenues, as previously noted in the Pew 2009 State of the Media Report? I welcome opinions.

Long story short, print media, i.e. newspapers are struggling.  And, if you are unaware of the social media landscape, then developing your strategic public affairs or media relations plan for your organization could render results less than spectacular- you could be in a print newspaper black hole and not even know it.  But, who is reading print these days anyway?  As I mentioned in my previous blog, only about 34% of the people are doing so. And, what predominant age group? 65+ years old. Is this the circle of influencers or your target audience that you want to reach?  I beg, please dig deeper.

When I stumble across companies jumping into the waters of social media unaware “because everyone is doing it or  because it’s the hottest thing out there”, or because public relations agencies are pushing social media practices as a “must have” for their clients as part of their new tool box of capabilities-I become just a little nervous.  But, contrary to what many may say, social media is not a silver bullet, nor is it ideal for every company. It’s a strategy that should be carefully and strategically researched and considered and its subsequent tools which are designed to take companies to where their target audiences are already conversing.

So, today I want to look at what that “new landscape” might look like with a bit more depth. Ultimately, our goal should be to prepare to advance from the basic direct one-way communication strategy, using those basic media tools of yesterday to a more aligned two-way continuous communications model/strategy where there is true engagement.  How, might you ask?

Before you start touting social media, please make sure your own site, your own news room, and press releases are Web 2.0 enabled. Are your own senior executives embracing and using the new media landscape?

Well, first off you need to know what the new media landscape looks like.  With a little research I came across a great little visual source which I just have to share which is a little farther below. After taking a look at it, I image you may be saying…”How can you achieve continuous communications across so many channels, simultaneously?  Believe me, there is a way to do this with a couple strategies. But, stay tuned, as I will get to that on my next blog post.  Now back to our landscape work.

Like I said, being aware of the media landscape is important.  The traditional media sources should not be completely ignored nor forgotten but part of your entire media mix.  Therefore, I am providing a couple of links to the top 100 US newspapers , the top 100 international newspapers, top radio stations by state and DMA as well as TV networks. We will now take into consideration the “other new” channels.

There is no question that social media is responsible for a dramatic shift in the relationship between those who produce news and those who consume it.  And, both traditional and new media are very fragmented.  But, consider it another step in the evolution of a more mature continuous communications model.  YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and blogs, to name just a few, are all incorporating innovative uses of the Internet.  Who are the top dogs (Websites) in the US?

News subscribers are no longer defined as simple recipients of news, getting information by only reading newspapers, watching television or listening to reports on the radio.  Today, consumers of news are also gatherers and distributors of news: they take part in creating it, capturing it, re shaping and disseminating it.

In fact, in a survey of 50 radio newsrooms in the top 50-markets, News Generation uncovered the impact that social media is having in the newsroom.  The survey found that nearly half of the newsrooms (45%) use Twitter and Facebook, to offer their technologically savvy audiences an extension to conventional radio to provide another broadcast platform.  But, there are so many other channels within the social media construct. Therefore, I would like to introduce the social media prism, a lense through which each petal represents a social media channel.

Source: Strategically, as a communications professional or agency professional, you should want to find yourself at the center of the prism – whether you’re observing, listening or participating. So, with this conversation landscape noted above, how does one manage all the channels?  How can you be “one with a channel” or even begin to strategize and garner results with this much fragmentation?  Does it make you dizzy just thinking about it?  But, to resonate, to be heard, to listen, to be in the mix, you do have to have some idea of what it all looks like and who is out there.

From my observations, there seems to be four main Web 2.o usages that have evolved.  And, the various topical usage tools and services displayed in this landscape are listed below.

1. Expressing tools allow users to express themselves, discuss and  their social life:

• Publication tools like blogs (Blogger, Typepad, WordPress), wikis (Wikipedia, Wetpaint, Wikia), microblogs (Twitter, Tumblr, Identica), citizen news (Digg, Newsvine, AgoraVox) and livecast (JustinTV, Ustream, BlogTV) ;
• Discussion tools like forums (phpBB, Phorum) and video forum (Seesmic), instant messengers (Y! Messenger, Live Messenger, Meebo, eBuddy), comments services (IntenseDebate, Cocomment, Disqus, BackType) and 3D chats (IMVU, Habbo, WeeWorld, vSide) ;
• Aggregation tools (Topix, FriendFeed, SocialThing, LifeSteam, Profilactic, Plurk…).

2. Sharing tools allow users to publish and share content:

• Content sharing for videos (YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimeo), pictures (FlickR, SmugMug, Picasa, Fotolog), music and playlists (Last.fm, iLike, Deezer), links (Delicious, Magnolia, Reddit) and documents (Slideshare, Scrib, Slideo) ;
• Product sharing with recommendations platforms (Crowdstorm, ThisNext, StyleHive), collaborative feedback platforms (FeedBack 2.0, UserVoice, GetSatisfaction) or swaping platforms (LibraryThing, Shelfari, SwapTree) ;
• Place sharing with tools based on local adresses (BrighKite, Loopt, Whrrl, Moximity), on events (Upcoming, Zvents, EventFul, Socializr) and on trips (TripWolf, TripSay, Driftr, Dopplr).

3. Networking tools allow users to search, connect and interact with each other’s:

• Search networks allowing users to find ex-classmates (Classmates, MyYearBook, Alumni) or persons (MyLife) ;
• Niche networks (Boompa, Dogster, PatientsLikeMe, Footbo) ;
• B2B networks (LinkedIn, Plaxo, Xing, Viadeo) ;
• Mobile networks (Groovr, MocoSpace, ItsMy, Zannel) ;
• Tools to build an online network (Ning, KickApps, CrowdVine, CollectiveX).

4. Playing services that now integrate strong social features:

• Casual games portals (Pogo, Cafe, Doof, Kongregate, PlayFirst, PopCap, BigFish, Prizee) ;
• Social games portals (Zynga, SGN, ThreeRings, PlayFish, CasualCafe, Farmtown,ChallengeGames) ;
• MMORPGs (World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, EVE Online, Lineage, Dofus, Runescape) ;
• MMOs (Drift City, Kart Rider, Maple Story, Audition, Combat Arms, Quake Live) ;
• Casual MMOs (Puzzle Pirates, Club Penguin, Neopets, Gaia Online, SmallWorlds, OurWorld).

But, for the communication professional, public affairs, media relations professional do you have to be on top and up to speed on all of them and have uptine # of channel masters working each one? I can hear someone saying in the background now, “I am going to have a media meltdown. How can I keep up?”

Is media still top down? Is it direct one-way communications any more?  Or, is it top down and bottom up simultaneously? Anyone have other thoughts on this evolving social media landscape?  Hurry, it will change yet again!

Next, we will look at how to distribute through and connect across multiple media channels after you have strategically performed your target audience research.

Have a good weekend everyone!

Sincerely, Alice M. Fisher

Seekng Old Friends? Military Buddies, Lost Loves? Family Members?

With the advent of so many search engines and social media tools it has become easier and easier to find people.  To reconnect.

You’ve got Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, Ning, Classmates and Intellus just to name a few.  And, of course there are a host of paid investigative, other social media, background search sites out there.  But, I believe having depth and longevity on the Internet also helps. 

There is one website that has been around since 1996. It may not have the latest and greatest bells and whistles but it does have a backend database  with longevity and a long standing Internet presence and history.  

This is important, especially if you are looking for maybe more specific hard to find topics areas of search. See below from some categories.

Adoptions	Messages from people looking for birth parents, adopted siblings or children
Former Spouse	Messages from people looking for an ex-husband or ex-wife
Friends	Messages from people looking for missing and long lost friends
Lost Loves	Messages from people looking for a lost love
Runaways	Messages from family members and loved ones to runaways and runaways to their family members and loved ones
Missing Persons	Messages from people looking for someone who has disappeared without explanation
Genealogy	Messages from people trying to find information about family history
Relatives	Messages from people looking for missing family members
Strangers	Messages from people looking for those they met briefly and didn’t get to say all they wanted to
Reunions	Messages from organizers of upcoming family, class and organization reunion
Veterans	Messages from Veterans looking for people they served with or met during their service
Community Registry	Messages posted by members about themselves for other members to view. If you are a PeopleSite member, log in to access this link.
Katrina Survivors	Messages looking for survivors of the Katrina Hurricane disaster

 Why pay when you can do some of it, no a great deal of it for free and on your own. To read more go to this link and visit www.peoplesite.com.  At best, it is another source for possibly finding someone you have lost contact with.

I would be interested to hear more about what you think and how this may be of use to you and others. Feel free to add other resources you know about or your lost or missing person story right here in the comment section.

Have you had a success story? Let us know if and how you found a long lost person. Here is a link to a few success stories from http://www.peoplesite.com/ss.asp

Good luck and check out PeopleSite.com

Tips For A Changing Media Landscape (Part I)

The press and traditional media landscape has and is changing rapidly.

I read a nice blog titled 10 Tips to Go from Nobody to Front Page News.

It was a great little read and provided an overview or a review of the basics.  I question, are these the right tips for a changing media landscape?  What is your opinion?

The blog did not cover the realities of the changing news landscape, nor how we need to be aware of the lay of the land. We need to be very targeted in our outreach and know how to access a variety of media channels for greater Internet penetration and not just a single media placement in hardcopy newspapers.

1) Being aware of the Pew 2009/2001 State of the Media is a valuable read for anyone planning or needing to plan for strategic media outreach.

The average age/readership of newspaper consumption is way down. (I quote in part below from PEW) see directly below.

“Among readers of all ages, readership declined between 2007 and 2008. Young people in the age groups of 18 to 24, and 25 to 34 continue to have the lowest readership levels of daily newspapers.”

“Among readers 18 to 24 years of age, 31% say they read a newspaper yesterday, according to data from Scarborough Research. This represents a drop of two percentage points from the prior year. Those in the 25-to-34 age group do not demonstrate much better numbers. Readership of daily newspapers was down to 32%, also down two percentage points from 2007.”

“Those aged 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 also showed declines in readership in 2008. Readership of daily newspapers was down to 41% and 51%, respectively, among the age groups.”

“And, even the most faithful readers of newspapers, older people, or those ages 55 – to 64 and 65 and above have shown sharp drops in readership since 2000. In 2008, readership was down to 57% among 55-to-64-year-olds, a drop of nine percentage points since 2000. Those 65 and older showed an even greater drop.”

“Although 64% say they picked up a newspaper yesterday, this number has declined from 72% in 2000, an eight percentage point difference.”

The study, released in August, found that those who said they had read a newspaper yesterday 34%, compared to 40% two years earlier. Wow. Are we not even reading print anymore?

At best, only 34% are reading a newspaper?! Really? That low? And, predominantly 50 and older?

So, that tells me you need to know where the people are, how and what they are reading/viewing and target to very specific niches by doing your research in advance to create your media strategy.

2) Knowing how and where to reach traditional journalists, J-bloggers, hard print news distribution sources, e-news and commenting on virtualized news aggregate sites are all important tactics to the whole strategic element of nurturing a communications strategy.

Over all, the total number of daily newspapers continued to significantly decline. In 2007, the most recent year for which data are available, daily newspapers were down to 1,422 in that year from 1,437 in 2006. Of the total number of daily newspapers, evening papers continued to decline, while those in the morning continued a trend of growth. In 2007, the number of evening papers declined by 49. This compares with a drop of 31 evening papers from 2005 to 2006.

Although those newspaper numbers are changing with declining there is still value in getting earned or paid “Ink.”

Some of the players of the paid media distribution arena are PRNewswire, Businesswire, Cision, AP News, UPI, XpressPress, Reuters, VocusPR and each has their strengths in the distribution arena. There are others. And, there are sources you can use that are free.

There is more to the press release and pitch today than meets the eye. There are public relations software tools and resources including media research, media lists, press clipping services, media monitoring services and evaluation of media coverage.

But, more importantly, most companies, organizations, agencies and people are not building evolved news pages, evolved press releases or evolved media sites to accomodate and integrate the new media landscape across multiple channels.

Ask yourself, are you still writing and posting press releases the way they were developed in the early 1900′s, which were originally formatted for the telegraph wire for transmission? And, if your answer is ”because that’s the way it’s always been done?”  Then, I believe this single issue is ripe for greater discussion to evolve the press release format.

I suggest, learn how social media has challenged and changed traditional communication structures and prepare for that part of your entire integrated communication and news strategy.

Sound, informed media intelligence and media insight helps improve your communication performance, build your reputation and maximize the results of your integrated communication and marketing efforts.

I welcome questions and any additional comments.

When was the last time you read a newspaper cover to cover? Is it important to you? Why or Why not?

Please stay tuned, as my next blog on this topic will cover an overview of the communication landscape, according to the available channel choices, and how to link across multiple channels for continuous communications.

Most Sincerely,

Alice M. Fisher

UnlimitedPR.net

Unlimited PR provides services to advance small business
strategic branding through integrated marketing and
communications planning.  Unlimited PR advises and builds innovative niche E-MarCom strategies and tactics which slash branding, marketing, outreach and production costs by delivering measurable results using new media tools.