After a brief hiatus, Friday Favorite Words are back! Before you head out for a night on the town this weekend, be sure to study up on our latest batch of words to impress your friends:
Fringe – something that is marginal
Diaspora – a dispersion of people from their homeland
Equipoise – equally balanced
Sangfroid – calmness, composure
Ballyhoo – clamor or outcry
Our stash of Favorite Words is dwindling, so please submit yours in the Comments section below and we’ll include them in a future post.
Have a great weekend!
@annmelinger
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As internal communicators struggle to find new ways to connect and engage employees, they will continue to see solutions from social media.
Slowly but surely, companies are realizing that their employees are using social media both in and out of the workplace. I’m encouraged to see that more and more companies have begun harnessing the power of social media to connect and engage people internally.
For example, Sprint’s intranet – Sprint Space – includes more than 1,300 employee blogs. Employee-generated content from these blogs is displayed on the Intranet landing page, meaning employees are driving the internal conversation rather than the other way around. Healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente is using social media to help its 160,000 employees connect and collaborate with one another through blogs, online communities and wikis. The company also built ... Read more »
In 2007, press releases represented a $2.2 billion market.
I recently came across an astounding statistic – in 2007, press releases represented a $2.2 billion market. And that figure only covers the cost of distributing press releases through services such as PR Newswire. It doesn’t include the cost of writing and pitching services, which, with standard agency fees, could easily surpass that amount.
But in this age of social media, why is the PR industry continuing to rely on such a seemingly dated channel to distribute information? Bloggers and online journalists have asked us to reconsider the way we reach out to them. Bloggers want unique, targeted information that’s relevant and interesting to their readers, and press releases, which are ... Read more »
A successful social media strategy requires the involvement of a number of departments beyond PR and marketing.
As more and more companies are entering the Twitterverse and launching Facebook pages, one question keeps coming up – who should “own” a company’s social media efforts? A recent report from PRSA, iPressroom and Korn/Ferry International found that PR leads social media for 51 percent of organizations, with Marketing trailing behind at 40.5 percent. (Note: You need a subscription to PRWeek to read the full article, but can view an excerpt here).
The report has sparked a good amount of conversation, and most of the blog posts I’ve seen make the case for PR owning social media, including this one, where the author points out that most social media activities revolve ... Read more »
“My boarding pass has a huge headline saying ‘Continental.’ The flight attendant said, ‘Thank you for flying Continental.’” – Passenger on Continental flight 2816
Earlier this week, 50 passengers were stranded overnight on a Continental Airlines flight bound for Minneapolis. Due to severe storms, the flight was diverted to Rochester, Minnesota – just 80 miles from Minneapolis. Then, for reasons that remain unclear, passengers were forced to stay on the grounded plane for six hours. They were not allowed to leave the plane and enter the terminal, much less take a bus to their final destination. I shudder to think what it must have been like – trapped on a small ... Read more »
Brilliant Ink got a nice shout-out last week from friend and colleague Dave Galanis on the Pebble Creek Partners blog. Thanks, Dave!
The blog post referenced a topic I tweeted about a few weeks ago – how to write an effective corporate memo. It’s surprising that companies still use this seemingly old-school tactic, but the fact is, many still do. If you’re tasked with writing a corporate memo, take a look at this article from the Ragan blog for some great pointers. And, keep the basics in mind – use clear, simple language, avoid jargon and always keep your desired outcome in mind.
What are your tips for writing a great corporate ... Read more »
Happy Friday! Hope you enjoy our latest and greatest Favorite Words:
Arcane – known or understood by only a few
Sanctimonious – hypocritically religious or devout
Assimilate – to become absorbed into the culture or behaviors of a group
Galvanize – to stimulate into sudden activity
Slog – a long, tiring walk, or laborious work
Thanks everyone for submitting your favorite words – please keep ‘em coming and we’ll keep on sharing! Add yours to the Comments below and we’ll feature them in a future post.
Have a great weekend!
@lizkelly
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Anyone who reads the Brilliant Ink blog knows we’re big fans of Twitter. For us, Twitter is more than a way to stay connected to friends and colleagues – it’s a resource that helps us track industry news, understand trends and build relationships. So for today’s edition of “A few of our favorite things,” I’d like to share a few of my favorite people and organizations to follow on Twitter:
Nieman Lab – Updates from the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University explore the future of news.
Kevin Dugan – One of the marketing geeks (his label, not mine) behind The Bad Pitch Blog uses Twitter to share his musings about the ...
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