Archive for September, 2009

Five Survival Tips to Share

Friday, September 18th, 2009

This year has been challenging but it also offered many opportunities for professional growth. Below are five things that I learned in 2009 and wanted to share with you:

Take advantage of free stuff – Many companies, including BurrellesLuce, Listrak, and HubSpot offer wonderful webinars. If your schedule permits, sign up! I’ve learned how to use Facebook as a marketing tool, how to use press releases to drive social media, how to measure social media–and much more—all for free.

Make friends with Lynda – At www.lynda.com, you’ll find online training courses in a multitude of topics. I took the excellent “Twitter Essentials” course and I’m also planning to take the course on “Flickr Essentials.” The very reasonable fee is good for the entire month, meaning that you can view as many modules as you’d like in that time period.

Hooray for Hootsuite – Currently, I’m managing five Twitter accounts for clients and Hootsuite makes them remarkably easy to monitor. Each account is tabbed for quick access and, in my opinion, the white background is much easier to read than the black background on another popular platform.

Create rich content that begs to be shared – Whether you are tweeting, posting or blogging, make your content highly share-worthy. If you benefited from a PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare or a hashtag conversation such as #Journchat, pass along the link and others will do the same. Jeff Majka (@jmajka), says that content MUST be educational, engaging and entertaining (all three) for maximum share-ability.

Long live the news release – Some say the press release is becoming extinct, but isn’t the press release the foundation of a PR toolkit? Commenters to a recent article by Vanessa Horwell maintain that there’s always a place for a well-crafted NEWS release. Journalists, bloggers, tweeters and Web site editors still need compelling, jargon-free, consumer-friendly content that tells a story. So the trusty tool isn’t being tossed, just sharpened and honed for even better functionality.

Until next time,
Sara Hunt
Twitter ID: @sarahunt

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Change is Personal

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

When faced with change, we all react differently. It’s personal. The bottom line is about trust.  There are really only two questions that need to be answered—how will employees directly benefit from the change and do they trust the leaders? Answer these two questions and you’ll know exactly how hard the change process will be.

Many organizations are filled with analysts who approach change with logic and reason. Funny thing is that our minds don’t exactly work that way when faced with change. CIO magazine documented recent brain research that showcases just how our brains react when faced with change.

The most effective change management programs communicate both the logical reason for the change and the benefits of the change to employees. This doesn’t mean that  employees will immediately accept the change or even trust the initial benefits being touted. What it does mean is that they will quickly begin assessing the impact on them–personally. They will decide if they can trust the information. Every step in the change process will either build trust or create more doubts.

Managing change is not about controlling employee’s reactions. It’s about helping them get through the change so they can be productive. Doubts, anger, resentment—these are all things that take away from productivity and satisfaction. Change programs cannot remove the barriers to change. They can however, help the employee move through the process informed and thinking about how they can control their own success. Sometimes it takes months of support after the change for employees to really accept and process the change. Everyone’s change curve is different. It’s personal.

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