Losing Control of the Public Health Brand

"Losing Control of the Public Health Brand: Cost & Consequences"
Charles Hayslett, Atlanta Hospital News and Healthcare Report

For more than a year, our firm has been managing an advocacy campaign aimed at rebuilding Georgia’s Public Health System. Called Partner Up! for Public Health, the campaign is funded by Healthcare Georgia Foundation, a philanthropic organization whose leaders had concluded that the state’s public health system was falling into a state of crisis.

The readers of this publication will understand that crisis better than most. Over the past decade, as the state’s population grew 20 percent, its public health budget fell from a high of $171.8 million in FY2003 to $148.4 in FY2010 (and these cuts began well before the economic downturn). Today, we spend about four cents per capita per day on public health – less than one-fourth of what Alabama’s spends – and we’re pretty much getting what we pay for.

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IABC Golden Flames Announces HG wins!!!

We know we are up for Bronze, Silver or Gold for these projects!!! Wish us luck!

AWARD TITLE: Partner Up! For Public Health logo

AWARD RECIPIENT(S): Healthcare Georgia Foundation / Hayslett Group

AWARD TITLE: revive285 Alternatives video

AWARD RECIPIENT(S): ARCADIS/GDOT/GRTA / Hayslett Group

AWARD TITLE: Open Heart Campaign

AWARD RECIPIENT(S): Southern Regional Health System / Hayslett Group

2010 Public Relations Society of America Phoenix Finalists!

Yay! We have won either first (Phoenix) or second (Certificate of Excellence) for the following projects:

Gwinnett Medical Center and Hayslett Group - The Heart Truth: An In-Depth Investigation (Event)

Healthcare Georgia Foundation and Hayslett Group - Partner Up! for Public Health Leadership Academies (Event Series)

ARCADIS/GDOT/GRTA/Hayslett Group - revive285 Alternatives video (YouTube video)

Arnall Golden Gregory and Hayslett Group - Interbasin Transfers: Whiskey is for drinking; Water is for fighting (Article)

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. and Hayslett Group - Safety 101: A Contractor's Perspective (Article)

https://www.prsageorgia.org/awards/phoenix-awards.cfm

HG goes BIG with Gwinnett Chamber Expo

Network, network, network. This age-old concept of basic face-to-face communication is resonating more than ever with businesses and organizations in terms of procuring new business leads and keeping active businesses afloat. After almost 16 years, Hayslett Group remains a believer in building lasting relationships through networking, exemplified by our participation in Gwinnett Chamber’s BIG Expo event, sponsored by our client, Gwinnett Medical Center. The event drew in a diverse mix of businesses and organizations, offering a range of services and goods. With approximately 7,000 attendees, from both the neighboring job fair and expo participants, Hayslett Group had the opportunity to scope out some of Gwinnett’s business offerings, showcase a number of our successful client campaigns, and build relationships with fellow Chamber members.

Events like the Expo, half networking event-half trade show, serve as a platform for businesses to share and discuss their achievements while also learning about current markets’ needs. They also create a relaxed setting in which to connect with individuals you may not come across on a daily basis (We met someone whose husband works for one of our clients- small world). At the close of the expo, with sore throats and tired legs, we emerged with a good number of businesses interested in our services, a few new friends and a newly energized spirit about how Hayslett Group can serve the Gwinnett market. This expo provided an exercise in what it takes to: remain marketable and relevant to a local community, engage potential clients, and reaffirm the value of the most basic tactic for making any business a success – networking.

Measuring Success in Social Media

Came upon this article as I was reading the CW Bulletin, a publication from the International Association of Business Communicators. With new media campaigns in full force, and everyone touting the value of how many friends or followers they have, I am happy to see someone else notice that it is quality not quantity that measures social media success. I also love the straightforward responses to this.

Measuring Success in Social Media: An interview with Katie Paine

Katie Paine is CEO and founder of Katie Paine and Partners, a marketing and PR measurement consultancy, and the author of the book Measuring Public Relationships. In an interview with Executive Editor Natasha Nicholson for the CW Radio podcast, she talked about how social media have changed marketing and PR, and offered tips on how communicators can measure their social media efforts.

NN: In your article for the November-December 2009 CW, you mention three mental earthquakes, or changes, that are taking place in marketing and PR because of social media. Could you explain more about what those are?

KP: Well, the first one is probably the one that everybody is probably most aware of, which is the redefinition of timeliness. I use the example of when there was a dust-up with the leading blogger Robert Scoble and Facebook. At the time Facebook was our client, and I was following it pretty carefully. A couple of hours after I started following it, Shel Israel, another very prominent blogger, said, “It’s been three hours, where’s Facebook?” And it suddenly occurred to me that three hours is a lifetime in social media. So our whole notion of what it is to be timely has to change.

The other thing is that our whole definition of success has to change because for too long communication was really focused on gaining eyeballs. That it’s somehow communication’s role to reach media or some other interim thing that eventually reached the customer. It was all about if I reach this, I can reach this many potential eyeballs.

We have to redefine our measure of success. Because it used to be that big numbers were better. So a million “eyeballs” in The New York Times or a million “eyeballs” per month on nytimes.com doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is how many people actually do something. So it’s not how many eyeballs but what the people who own those eyeballs are actually doing with the stuff you are sending. Are they clicking? Are they engaging, responding or retweeting? Are they signing up? Are they giving you an e-mail address? Are they actually interacting with your brand? That’s what matters. And it’s going to be very small numbers.

I use the example that in the olden days, Walmart would have counted success by reaching 11 million people or 11 million moms. Now they credit 11 moms who got a whole bunch of people to get engaged with their product. They literally said, “one of the reasons we made our profit numbers in quarter one of this year [2009] was because of those 11 moms.” Eleven. Not 11 million, but just 11. That’s all it took, because those moms became engaged with the brand, passed on the information and literally contributed to sales.

NN: How do you think communicators are reacting to these changes? Do you think they are in tune and able to be nimble?

KP: I actually think that this is going to be one of those big times where you see people being nimble and getting a huge jump on the competition. As with any company or organization in down times or times of a recession, those companies that continue to invest in marketing, continue to invest in communication, tend to leapfrog the competition, if the competition is retrenching and retreating and cutting their communication budget. Really what’s happening now—never mind the recession—is a great opportunity.

Probably about 40 percent of people out there are really embracing social media and getting into it, understanding it and really learning how to take advantage of this whole new crazy social media world. And then there’s the other side of the coin, which is, “I can’t deal with it, it’s too scary; the lawyers won’t let me, it can’t be measured”—excuses, excuses, excuses. And those people doing that aren’t going to be around for very long.

NN: It’s that last question about measurement that keeps coming up probably from that last 60 percent—the question of, “Well, how do you measure it?” If a company is doing well, how can you point to its social media presence as part of that success?

KP: It’s not very complicated. It’s the same kind of measurement we’ve had all along. There are three basic tools you use.

One is content analysis. So you analyze what is being said about you, you analyze the conversation and you find out: Are they positioning you the way you want to be positioned? Are they communicating your key messages? Are they communicating the thoughts of your thought leaders? Are they getting your brand premises, your brand promises, characteristics and attributes? Are those things being talked about?

Or are they talking about the competition? Are they basically bashing you? There are lots of different ways to hurt your brand in social media. And what you want to know is: Are they? So there’s basic content analysis. We’ve been doing it on traditional media for decades now, and yes it’s a little more complicated now because there’s a little bit more variety. It’s not like five different article types or 27 different types of conversations. It’s not as easy to say simply that there’s a reporter and a publication because there’s now actually a blogger, the blog itself and commenters. So now it’s a little more complicated, but basically [it’s] the same principle—you develop a set of parameters you want to track, and you track them, and you have people coding them. That is all one way of saying yes, my share of favorable positioning is 20 percent better than it was at last year this time. That’s success.

The second method that we’ve had all along is surveys. Granted, the surveys are now being done electronically, but if you want to know whether you are improving your relationships with your customers, or improving your reputation, or the awareness of your product, or your brand preference or any of those things, you can still do that. You can basically do a study, institute some social media stuff and do another study and see whether things have changed. That’s the same way we’ve been measuring awareness, preference, reputation and relationships for decades.

The big difference, and this is probably the biggest difference between old measurement and new measurement, is now we have very sophisticated web analytics. Whether you pay for something like Omniture or you use Google Analytics, you have far more sophisticated things. So when Southwest does something on its blog, it goes into its tracking system, which goes into its CRM system, which says yes in fact that blog is responsible for X number of ticket sales. If you don’t have a system like that, you can still look at your Google Analytics and say, “Yes, in fact my traffic is up 20 percent since I did XYZ on Twitter. From my Facebook page, I am getting 37 percent more downloads of my white papers.” Google Analytics, web analytics is not a new thing. It hasn’t been used very broadly in communication, but it is the third leg of the measurement toolkit that you have to measure your results. It’s not really hard at all. I think a lot of this “can’t be measured” stuff is just a bad excuse.

Reprinted from IABC’s CW Bulletin: http://www.iabc.com/cwb/archive/2010/0810/Paine.htm

IABC July 2010 Member Spotlight

(Reprinted from the original e-newsletter)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

-excerpt from poem “IF” by Rudyard Kipling,1899

This poem written over 100 years ago is one of the most popular in history, particularly among British. Rudyard Kipling’s reflections of stoicism links ethics to logic to maintain positive and even keeled emotions. In communications, we are often challenged with ethical decisions as we have seen during the recent oil spill in the Gulf. Expert communication practitioners have to rely on clear and unbiased thinking to tackle complex issues of today. It is even more challenging to maintain a superior skill set when an industry has undergone radical transitions. Lucrative audiences moving from traditional venues to online has forever changed the way target groups are reached. Read how one IABC/Atlanta member has survived the changing landscape in his career over the years, adjusting his skills and attitude along the way. He went from rejecting industry awards to embracing them and evolving from the comforts of traditional media to employing new media and social media tools.

Name: Charles Hayslett
Title: CEO
Company: Hayslett Group

When did you join IABC/Atlanta: Active in 1980

“Why I Joined IABC”
My first recollection of being involved with IABC goes back to 1980. I had left the old Atlanta Journal to join Cohn & Wolfe, which was then the largest PR firm in Atlanta. One of my clients was Georgia-Pacific, which was moving its headquarters from Portland, Oregon, to Atlanta. My primary client contact at GP was a fellow named Bill Lovett. Bill was heavily involved in IABC and pulled me into it. Some years later I managed the employee communications organization at BellSouth, and members of my staff and I were involved with IABC during that period as well. When we hung out our firm’s shingle in 1994, a great deal of our early work was internal and organizational communications, and we were involved with IABC pretty much from day one.

I joined IABC for all the usual reasons, networking, an opportunity to get to know colleagues in the business, access to educational opportunities and resources. The truth is, I feel a little funny being interviewed for this because I’ve never been as visible a member as I could be. That said, I value the organization, and we’ve been happy to support it over the years. I can say without hesitation that we’ve gotten good value from our involvement. We’ve developed a number of long-term business relationships with other IABC members, and I know it’s guided the professional development of a number of our team members.

“My Volunteer Roles”
Probably the hardest thing IABC ever made me do was put on a tux and let them take my picture for a Golden Flames promotion. I also served as a guinea pig for one of the first podcasts IABC ever did. I have no idea if anybody heard it, but I did it! I’ve also made presentations to the UGA student chapter and on crisis communication for a monthly programming luncheon. Probably the most important thing I’ve done is encourage firm members to be active in IABC. Over the years we’ve had a good number of folks who have been very active with the Atlanta chapter in various ways, including serving as board members and even a couple of presidents – Johanna Blood and Thad Slaton. Overall, Hayslett Group has supported IABC/Atlanta for over a decade with sponsorships, services and members who want to make a difference.

“My IABC Experience”
I’ve already alluded to some of the benefits – networking opportunities, professional development, business relationships with other members. One benefit beyond that is I think our involvement in IABC has helped raise our firm’s profile within the communications industry in Atlanta. It has absolutely contributed positively to the development of our brand among our colleagues and peers in the business. That’s one important benefit. Another has to do with the awards process. To tell you the truth, I used to be one of those people who looked down their nose at industry awards. I wasn’t sure they were worth the investment of time and energy. But I’ve done a complete 180 on that. I can tell you from experience that prospective clients gain a certain confidence from knowing that you’ve been recognized by your peers for the top media relations program or Web site or speech or whatever in a given year. I’m very proud of the fact that in over 15 years in business we’ve won more than 100 awards, including about 50 from IABC. We display them proudly throughout our offices, and they’re among the first things clients and prospects see when they come through the doors.

And finally, what could be more beneficial than an organization that has helped groom, educate, engage and excite my staff members? IABC has provided them with opportunities to try and master new skills, practice management and leadership techniques, and work on projects they might not have had access to in our daily work at HG. IABC/Atlanta has helped make them stronger employees and confident individuals.

“The IABC & Industry Future Outlook”
I think it’s difficult to overstate the importance of the whole bubbling stewpot of new media and social media. I think people who know me will tell you that I’ve always been out on the bleeding edge when it comes to using evolving technology in our business. When we opened for business in 1994, we were determined to make top-end computing and communications technologies a strategic advantage for us, and we did. I think that commitment to understanding and using state-of-the-art technology, whether hardware or software or web-based, has been a part of our culture all along.

But I’ll have to confess that with the rise of Facebook and Twitter and other social media, I had a bit of an old guy moment. I wasn’t sure I got it. I had to make myself join Facebook so that I could learn my way into it and understand how it worked and why it was important. I’ve done that on Facebook and Twitter and with some other sites, but this whole field is evolving so rapidly that it’s very difficult to keep up and know what’s important and what’s not. As a firm, I think we’ve done a good job of institutionalizing that knowledge, particularly with our younger staff members, but it’s pretty clear that that whole field holds huge opportunities and challenges for our industry. I think IABC has played a great role over the past few years in separating the wheat from the chaff and helping its members understand and focus on the right tools within this emerging area of communications.