Category: Writing

https://wordtothewise.com/2020/03/happy-st-patricks-day/

It’s a near silent St. Paddy’s day here in Ireland. We took a walk along the canal and took in the silence. On the way back, our neighbour’s kids had decorated their front window and I had to take a picture.

Things are weird. Be kind to yourself and to others. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Don’t send that email to your entire database.

https://wordtothewise.com/2020/03/happy-st-patricks-day/

It’s a near silent St. Paddy’s day here in Ireland. We took a walk along the canal and took in the silence. On the way back, our neighbour’s kids had decorated their front window and I had to take a picture.

Things are weird. Be kind to yourself and to others. Wash your hands. Don’t touch your face. Don’t send that email to your entire database.

https://www.rohitbhargava.com/2020/03/5-reasons-virtual-meetings-suck-and-5-ways-to-fix-them.html

With the concerns about a global health pandemic, the necessity of shifting more events and meetings to be virtual is on everyone’s mind. There’s only one problem: most of us have spent too much time in virtual meetings that are a waste of time.

I should know, I’ve probably spoken or participated in well over a hundred over the past years – both as a virtual keynote speaker and a remote workshop leader.

Some of them have sucked.

But I don’t believe that virtual meetings or presentations need to be bad. The real problem is that no one seems to know how to run them well.

Thanks to concerns about the coronavirus, we seem to be headed into a season where more events will happen virtually. So we should all have an interest in making them better. To start, let’s consider five of the most common reasons that virtual meetings go awry …

Problem #1 – Increased distractions.

Presenting the same thing you might have done in person in the same way doesn’t work in a virtual session. There are too many distractions and other things people may be doing at the same time.

Problem #2 – Lack of audience.

The entire idea of a laugh track for television sitcoms was created because the lack of an audience made creators worry that people wouldn’t know when to laugh. In a live meeting, we can look to the people around us for a cue as to how we might react. A virtual setting lacks this and so we feel isolated in our reactions and it’s harder to engage.

Problem #3 – Intrusive malfunctioning tech.

If you have ever started a conference call with ten minutes of participants asking if you can hear them, you’ve already experienced this. The fact is, much of the technology used for virtual sessions creates a lot of friction. People have to download something, microphones don’t work and Internet connections fail.

Problem #4 – No accountability.

When you are sitting in a live meeting or you show up late, there is a reputational and social cost to being tardy or being on your phone or checking out. Everyone else can see what you’re doing. In a virtual session, there isn’t any social pressure to keep you engaged or to prevent you from multitasking.

Problem #5 – One-way interaction.

Too often in virtual meetings one side has a camera on and is delivering content while the other is silently and invisibly listening. This creates an unbalanced meeting because one side has no insight into how the other side is reacting.

So, how do we fix these issues?

It’s easy to think that these are all thing that will always be the case with virtual meetings. After all, it’s not reasonable to “lock the doors” of a virtual session or force everyone to be on video to hold them accountable, right? And you certainly can’t wish away technical issues just by hoping they don’t happen.

Yet despite the difficulties these problems create, there are some techniques I have seen and used myself to help make virtual meetings and presentations a LOT better than they might otherwise be. Here are a few suggestions:

Solution #1 – Make virtual tech an advantage.

If you know everyone who is participating in your meeting will be on their computer during the session, a lot of possibilities open up. You can have them all visit a landing page directly to enter information. You can host and integrate a live poll. You can even tailor your content based on immediate responses you get. Virtual meetings can enable faster real time engagement if you can bake the interaction into the session.

Solution #2 – Use multiple mediums/styles.

While people may be able to sit through an hour long meeting or a 45 minute keynote, the rules are different for virtual sessions. In a world where people are used to 90 second YouTube videos, keeping their attention is more demanding. Sometimes, I will integrate videos more frequently into virtual sessions, or use interactive exercises asking participants to draw a picture or answer a question. These allow for a mental break and help audiences stay engaged for longer because you are mixing up the content.

Solution #3 – Reduce the friction.

Often the technology platform for a session is selected based on what is the approved platform for a particular organization or what presenters are most comfortable using. Both are not great ways to choose technology. Instead, consider what tech would be easiest and fastest for your audience to get working. Who has the best live support to help people with issues? What tool doesn’t require downloading? Considering the friction of the tech tools for your audience first can help prevent tech issues later.

Solution #4 – Expect distractions and reiterate often.

In a virtual environment, repetition becomes much more important in order for ideas to stick. When you are presenting virtually with slides, for example, you may need to insert more summary slides or add more “bottom line” style reminders to reiterate your main points. Just because your audience may have been distracted or multitasking doesn’t mean they are bad people or didn’t really want to hear your message. Being more patient and proactive by changing your presentation style slightly can make a big difference in what your audience retains afterwards.

Solution #5 – Focus on the follow up.

Perhaps even more than in-person meetings, the follow up from a virtual session becomes much more important. If you have recorded the session and promised to share it, make that happen quickly. If there are downloadable materials make them easy to find and get. The moment right after a virtual session is a critical one for engagement and a time when your audience may be most receptive to anything you can share. So plan the follow up and do it quickly.

Is the future about virtual events?

I have never been someone who believed that virtual events could replace in person events. There is something magical about getting the right people in the room to make connections and a serendipity that happens face to face which is impossible to recreate virtually (yet!). I hope that live events never get replaced.

I do, however, believe that a virtual presentation can be highly effective and in many cases preferable – for example if you have a widely distributed group that can’t be in the same place at once, or a global health scare that makes travel riskier. Hopefully this list helps you transform your next virtual meeting or presentation into one that doesn’t suck and really does engage your audience.

We all need to find more ways to make our virtual meetings better. For the near future, it’s at least pretty clear we can expect to have more of them.

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-analyze-instagram-marketing/

Do you know how well your Instagram marketing is really performing? Your Instagram business profile provides you access to valuable metrics that can help you understand what’s working. In this article, you’ll discover five ways to analyze the performance of your Instagram business profile. Why Instagram Business Profile Insights Matter Instagram is a powerful tool […]

The post 5 Ways to Analyze Your Instagram Marketing appeared first on Social Media Marketing | Social Media Examiner.

https://econsultancy.com/a-day-in-the-life-of-lindsay-turner-ceo-spark-foundry/

Lindsay Turner is CEO of media agency Spark Foundry, part of Publicis. We caught up with her to ask about her typical day, and the demands on her time and skillset.

Please describe your job: What do you do?

I’m the agency CEO. It is a very wide reaching role from working with clients, to setting agency strategy, to overseeing the money flow, to building an agency culture. It is 100 miles an hour and I get to work with some amazing people!

Whereabouts do you sit within the organisation? Who do you report to?

Spark Foundry is part of the broader Publicis Media family, we are one of five media agencies within Publicis Media. We are lucky that we are all under one roof in the iconic Television Centre in White City. I report to Sue Frogley, CEO of Publicis Media UK.

What kind of skills do you need to be effective in your role?

Put simply you need skills in three main areas; people, commercial and strategic skills. You will naturally have a bias towards the skills you are good at and the ones you enjoy but it is important to be able to cover all of these areas.

Tell us about a typical working day…

I leave my house at 7.30am which is when my working day begins. I use my commute to catch up on emails and prepare for meetings I may have that day.

I arrive in the office around 9am and head straight to get a coffee from Television Centre’s Café Marcel. Then the day really gets going. I spend most of my day in meetings which are always extremely varied. I love speaking with clients as well as media owners, strong and straight-talking relationships with both are vital for any agency’s success. I also get stuck into discussions on operational areas from structure or resource to a brainstorm on a new business pitch.

My day tends to finish about 6.30pm when I will get back on the train to Hertfordshire and finish up emails on route home. I flop onto the sofa about 8pm with a glass of wine.

What do you love about your job? What sucks?

I really like the people that you get to work with. We have smart, fun and curious people working at Spark Foundry and that’s always a joy. I wouldn’t say anything outright ‘sucks’, there can be ‘challenges’ as the industry has never been tougher and more complex but my overriding feeling is that this is an exciting and interesting time to be a CEO in media.

What kind of goals do you have? What are the most useful metrics and KPIs for measuring success?

The biggest goal is always growth; helping our clients grow their business, ensuring that our agency grows and that our people grow and develop too. We regularly track client sentiment, alongside how happy our people are and of course, keep a close eye on revenue. If you don’t like data then this probably isn’t for you.

What are your favourite tools to help you to get the job done?

My mobile phone first and foremost! Followed by some brilliant Publicis proprietary tools that allow us to have a market leading view on campaign effectiveness. I always want to understand how our campaigns are delivering business results for our clients.

How did you end up at Spark Foundry, and where might you go from here?

I started at the agency back in 2010 (before it became Spark Foundry), I was attracted by the independence of the business. I still am! Spark Foundry has the independent agency spirit but backed by the might and muscle of Publicis, giving us the best of both worlds. As to the future, as long as I’m spending time thinking about brilliant solutions for brands’ marketing challenges, then I’m happy.

Do you have any advice for anybody who wants to work in your field?

Be tenacious. Media is an amazing industry where you will have to work hard but you will also have a lot of fun.

Read Econsultancy’s Top 100 Digital Agencies report.

The post A day in the life of… Lindsay Turner, CEO, Spark Foundry appeared first on Econsultancy.