Jay Gatsby, Invented Lives and Social Media

It's not a stretch that Jay Gatz, nee Gatsby, lived an invented life. From rather humble origins a stately pleasure palace he did decree, all the for the sake of the love of Daisy Buchanan. Historian Chris Mathews writes, "It's the classic story of the fresh start, the second chance." Fitzgerald, of course, famously wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives." Gatsby tried, of course. He most certainly tried. The fact that he ultimately failed was of course an accident, an accident which most certainly was not Gatsby's fault. No, he was not who he pretended to be. But in this age of social media and invented lives, who is, anyway?

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired," Fitzgerald wrote. In a later era Fitzgerald might have been writing about social media, the ever-consuming avocation in which we all invent ourselves and quite literally chase the facts and opinions of the persons and organizations we have come to trust. We invent ourselves and we pursue the knowledge and approval of others--in many ways, that's what social media is all about. Gatsby became (at least for a time) who he claimed to be, and the same can be said of those of us who rely on social media for our professional reputations.

"No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart,” Fitzgerald wrote in The Great Gatsby. But like Jay Gatsby, frauds and poseurs will ultimately be exposed through social media. We police social media ourselves, and we have no tolerance whatsoever for excessive self-promotion and outright misrepresentation. Remember that when creating content for social media.

"I was within and without," Fitzgerald wrote, "simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” Remember that when creating your content. And remember the Tom Buchanans lurking in the shadows of your words.

The Brothers Tsarnaev and Digital Age Journalism

By definition, a journal is an account of day to day events. It is also, more elegantly, a record of experiences, ideas and reflections. One of journalism's most elegant early practitioners, of course, was James Boswell (1740-1795), author of a book I didn't discover until long after I had left journalism myself: The Life of Samuel Johnson.

“It matters not how a man dies," Boswell wrote then, "but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.” 

Journalism documents our life and our passing, our trials and triumphs. It's certainly an account of day to events, a record of our shared experience. Journalism is not history--although we often want it to be--but it is a source for historians. Journalism is not literature, although it is sometimes literary in nature. Journalism sometimes fails, but often transcends. Increasingly, in this terrible age, journalism is the means by which we learn, grieve and understand.

Not yet two weeks after the attack in Boston, the criticism and second-guessing is underway. "There were real victims," writes Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia, "in the Boston bombings last week — the dead, the wounded, the grieving families, the terrorized communities — but there was substantial collateral damage done to news media credibility."

Mistakes were made, we all know that. Reporter error. Competitive pressure. Combine the terror that we all experienced with the pressures of live television and digital journalism, and perhaps mistakes were inevitable.

That doesn't excuse the mistakes, but it does highlight what can go wrong when the entire world is watching expectantly for not just information, but answers. The pressure for journalists to make a definitive statement--to tell us what we want to know--is immeasurable.

As news practitioners or news consumers, perhaps we can take from this experience this simple knowledge: standing in front of a camera on live television isn't journalism in its grandest sense. It's reportage. True journalism results from investigation and reflection. True journalism is written, not ad-libbed. Perhaps there were many among us who realized the difference last Wednesday evening when Scott Pelley opened the CBS Evening News with the simple statement, "They lost him." As events would quickly demonstrate, "they" found him. But for those of us with a background in news, it was obvious that after an entire day of off-the-cuff reportage, journalists and editors at one of the world's most trusted sources had begun to write about the events we all witnessed. And we all know that it's much easier to make mistakes while ad-libbing instead of writing.

About the author: Ed Lynch, President and Managing Partner of Emergent Communications, is a former reporter for WKYT, Lexington KY.

Does Urgency Come Before Craft in the Digital Age?

Within the Ernest Hemingway Collection at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston are forty-seven alternate endings of A Farewell to Arms. Most of these are collected in the 2012 edition of the novel, which The New York Times describes as "an artifact of a bygone craft, with handwritten notes and long passages crossed out, giving readers a sense of an author’s process."

Craft sometimes takes a backseat to urgency in the digital age. No matter what sort of content you produce, whether it be journalism, commentary or entertainment, the knowledge that your competitors are meeting the public's voracious appetite places you under incredible pressure. In this ultra-competitive environment, "publish or perish" takes on an entirely new meaning. No wonder first drafts are becoming a thing of the past; while you're polishing, others are publishing and dominating the landscape.

However, this also means that the editorial process is more important than ever before. Mistakes occur in this hurried atmosphere, and they're often disastrous. Running a small shop? Your credibility is at stake, so consider a safety net (or at least a process for review).

• Blogging or using a web publishing system? Write your article in a word processing app, which encourages you to slow down a bit and consider what you're writing. Somehow this makes the writing seem more permanent, which encourages revision and reflection.
• Print and proofread the hard copy. We all want to be digitally savvy and perform every single task on our computer or smart device, but we read physical media more closely and carefully. You'll spot more errors this way, both from a prose and copy editing perspective.
• Have a colleague take a look. The cliche about "another set of eyes" isn't such a cliche after all.
• Concerned about typos in boilerplate you must use? Cut and paste, use templates, or create macros.

So, unless you really are writing a novel, there probably isn't time to create forty-seven alternate endings or drafts. But you must somehow build in some time for revision, or you certainly won't be a credible publisher for very long. 

What the Timing of Obama's Secret Service Appointment Teaches Us About Public Relations

There is a photograph of me, long since lost, with former Kentucky Attorney General Chris Gorman in the moments right before a news conference. I wish I still had it, as it's really quite funny: I'm so focused on the event and the last minute preparations that I look positively angry. That's how intense I was (am?), and it's a good example of the pressures involved in presenting your message to the media and the public. We expect our political and business leaders to appear relaxed in such settings, and the fact they usually are is indeed a testament to their presence, poise and confidence.

In comparison to my rather strained countenance, Attorney General Gorman did appear positively relaxed. Of course, I'd like to think it was because of his faith that I had done my job, prepared him well and eliminated all the risks, pitfalls and curve balls we could possibly think of. But he was quite good in front of the cameras; he was the elected official, after all, and the risks were his (not that there wouldn't have been...repercussions...if things didn't go well). Still, it was my job to quite literally think of everything. We had a small communications shop for a statewide office and literally everything rested on my shoulders: advance, speech-writing, news releases and all the rest. And in regard to risk? Eliminating risk is job one for a public relations professional, and the only way to eliminate risk to the greatest possible extent is by precise, thorough and relentless preparation.

As with so many areas of professional communications (even web-based communication), the elements to a successful media event aren't exactly state secrets. From Roosevelt to Reagan, there's a precedent and road map for crafting a winning message and delivering it with artistry, sincerity, elegance and success. It's all about execution: the ones who execute best, win. It's really that simple.

Still, it always helps to keep in mind the most important principles, a sort of checklist for success. Here are a few of the best.

1. For a news conference, create a list of anticipated questions and answers. There's really nothing quite like the gratification of hearing journalists ask the obscure or tricky questions you anticipated. And this is exactly what we're talking about in regard to eliminating risk. Not much fun to be surprised during a news conference.
   
2. Practice. It really does make perfect, doesn't it?
   
3. Pick an appropriate setting. A picture is worth a thousand words and all that. Sure, there are times when you want and need the official look of the briefing room or a distinguished and familiar setting. But the most memorable images come from the field. Remember Dukakis riding in a tank (ick!), or Reagan standing on the cliffs of Normandy? Setting does make a difference.
   
4. Select the time and day of the event carefully. There's really no such thing as a news cycle anymore, but conventional wisdom says to select (or try to select) a day when there's not as much competition. However, President Obama and his staff recently turned conventional wisdom upside down by announcing the appointment of the first female Secret Service director on the day of the marriage equality argument before the Supreme Court. This basically turned the entire day into a civil rights day. Brilliant public relations.
   
5. If you're fighting an uphill battle for attention, follow up on your advisory announcing the event with calls to editors and reporters. Play it low key, of course. You're simply ensuring they have the information they need in deciding whether to cover the event. And you can subtly make your pitch, of course.
    

This isn't rocket science, of course. "Some were secrets," Hemingway wrote, "and some were known by everyone and everyone has written about them and will doubtless write more." Basically, we all play by the same rules, but as President Obama demonstrated, sometimes there's great advantage in breaking the rules. Rules are made to be broken, but there is never a substitute for flawless execution.

Social Media Strategy for Publishers

It’s commonly accepted business wisdom these days that a social media presence is vital to growing an audience or customer base and ultimately increasing revenues. But social media strategy is not simply creating a Facebook page or Twitter account and posting or tweeting away without regularity or overall goals or direction. Anyone can do that, and many do. All posts are not created equal: some posts are indeed better than others. Here's some strategic advice for those in the publishing industry (although the basic principles, of course, work for all industries).

A printing press, not a primitive computer!

1. Plan your tweets and posts by creating an editorial calendar. Make note of holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, etc. (personal and those observed by society). Relate such posts to magazine content whenever possible, or simply show you care about subscribers, contributors, advertisers and similar groups. When you can’t build a theme by tying into social concerns, build personal goodwill, instead. Obviously, the more advance planning you do, the easier it is to come up with content—and not just any content, but content which advances your overall strategy. And you won’t have gaps in your postings, gaps in which your customers forget about your presence and turn to competitors for content. In social media, gaps are anathema. What if any publication decides not to publish a scheduled issue? People tend to forget. Same thing here.
   
2. Tweet and blog about the issues you truly care about, with a special emphasis on synergy between your interests and your business. For example, it makes perfect sense for a magazine to post about social issues. Not editorials, per se, but demonstrate common ground on the issues which all citizens care about. You are community leaders, and this is a perfect way to demonstrate that fact.
   
3. Post “advancers” of coming stories, and then post descriptive links to published articles (after all, what good is social media if we can’t drive traffic to the web site?)
   
4. A picture is worth a thousand words. And it doesn't necessarily need to be a picture which appears in the magazine, although that’s certainly ideal.
   
5. Don’t overdo it. Social media posts should be regular, but not so much they become viewed as “spam” or become lost in the Internet noise.
   
6. Retweet or repost information from persons and organizations you trust. It builds goodwill, and as they say, what goes around comes around. What we’re doing isn’t called “social networking” for nothing.
   
7. As publishers, this will not come as a surprise: Be clear, concise and understandable. Write for your audience, one of the common sense tactics which never fails.
   
8. Don’t forget that with Twitter, there is a 140 character limit. Don’t consider it a hindrance; consider it a challenge and a means to be precise. Pay as much attention to crafting the tweet as you do the article or content itself (after all, it must stand out in the constant noise of the Internet).
   
9. Never forget that your target audience is likely catching up on social media even until the late hours. As you plan your social media calendar, don't hesitate to post important updates after normal office hours. Your customers are paying attention, and so should you. Unless they lack Internet access at home, people don’t merely use the web from 9 to 5.
   
10. Learn from the prominent players in your field. There are best practices out there; identify and use them. Study The New York Times, for example. Or whatever your favorite publications might be.
    
11. For Twitter, use hashtags to broaden your audience and join popular conversations (make sure your tweets are relevant to the hashtag, though). For an explanation of hashtags, Google the term or contact us to discuss the concept.

Put these principles into practice and see immediate improvements in your social media efforts, not to mention a larger audience and greater return on your investment. In summary, our goal is to drive content to the web site, and send even more hard copies flying off the shelves. Social media is the way to do it.

What Sarah Said (About Web Design)

I must be the only web designer, social media strategist and programmer who can find inspiration for a blog post in a song by Ben Gibbard and Death Cab For Cutie. At the very least, if you're into music, I might have caught your attention with that post title. Truthfully, though, I can't say that the mythical Sarah had some true insights about effective design (the song is rather dour and melancholy, after all), but it's the sort of title that certainly grabs one's attention, isn't it? So, if Sarah was indeed somewhat of a web expert, what would she say, exactly?

Effective web design begins with listening, truly listening, to your client.

Without question, Sarah would say to listen to your client. That's first, foremost and non-negotiable. Probably the worst thing you could possibly do is present a client with preconceived concepts and ideas, ultimately designing and building a site which presents your strengths and meets your sense of style without taking into consideration the needs and corporate image of your client. Think about it: would you want to do business with someone intent on literally forcing their own ideas down your throat? I think not. We're hired for our vision and expertise, of course, but the true visionaries and professionals among us listen first and design later. Seriously: could we truly succeed and serve our clients any other way? After all, it's their company and their image. It's their future and their reputation on the line. And it's our job to refine and present that image in a memorable way, helping them to attract new clients and new customers along the way. Otherwise, you can forget about truly helping your client win new business. And you can forget about positive referrals and new clients of your own.

So, be sure to call upon your own expertise and experience. But never forget to listen, for listening to your client is perhaps the greatest skill you can ever have. It's the key to mutual success, and it's the key to longevity in this ever changing and highly competitive business. Pay attention, ask questions, make notes and prepare for the success which will come your way.

How to Improve Your Search Rankings

For small businesses in particular, effective Search Engine Optimization is often overlooked in the rush to build an attractive, user-friendly web site with truly useful content for potential clients and customers. Effective web design contains so many elements and tasks that it's difficult for a single professional to keep track of them all, let alone devote sufficient time to maximize each element of an effective site (that's why we have specialists and web development teams). If it was this easy to build a cutting edge web site and get noticed, anyone could be an expert web-based marketer and designer. We'd all get rich overnight, right?

Unfortunately, a little knowledge and a few buzzwords does not make one an expert. And don't even consider entrusting your web efforts to those cookie cutter companies which advertise their formula for success on television. It doesn't require an advanced degree to intuit that their shtick is a "one size fits all" approach, when what you really need is a custom effort based on knowledge of your company and your goals (do business with someone who values you as a client, not a customer). To put it simply, a web site is not a commodity; it's representative of your company's unique niche and products. And no matter who you do business with, you need someone to understand that basic law and design your site and social marketing plans accordingly.

So, here's a brief primer to give yourself a fighting chance to win prominent search rankings. SEO is a moving target, of course, with Google in particular locked in an unending battle against unethical marketers determined to take advantage of loopholes and exploit knowledge of the latest algorithms. 



However, even in the ever-changing landscape of SEO there are practices which are never deprecated or out of style. Here are some brief principles which never fail:

• Use important keywords in your web site copy. Be judicious or the search engines will penalize you for "keyword stuffing," but be sure to include the terms you want your customers and clients to search for.
• Research the keywords you want to use. Besides generating ideas and alternative words, it also gives you an idea of how competitive certain  keywords are--and that's something you absolutely need to know.
• If you can arrange it, attract links from web sites with search engine credibility. This makes your site seem more important to the search engines, increasing your rankings, and is most likely achieved by offering valuable content (as in blog posts) which will be re-tweeted and linked to from other sites.

There's no substitute for good writing, of course. Create value for your visitors by writing valuable content, and never forget about keywords and links to your site. Keep this in mind and you'll be well on your way to increased traffic, more customers and greater revenue.