Overview: Communications Tactics

we built an Interactive News team from scratch... a tight-knit group of editors and newsroom developers ... creates tools and processes ... to disrupt a print-first workflow. Here’s a look at how we got there and what we learned along the way.... A newsroom developer is only a Slack message away...we have three content editors embedded in diffe…

An open app platform will let digital news publishers play with the big guys... Siri was also shown answering basic news and information questions while you watch... imagine uses for breaking news and other journalistic purposes. - Apple announces an app platform for Apple TV, potentially big for news outlets investing in video » Nieman Jour…

Apple TV isn’t the TV-killer ... but it does create a significant opportunity for digital publishers and video companies... a built-in App Store, which for the first time will enable third-party developers to build apps for the platform — an important milestone for Apple and potentially the future of video. - The new Apple TV is great for We…

Storytelling at its finest... should evoke a visceral reaction in its audience. There's something to be said about inviting that audience to participate in a story ...the options for how to do so are infinite... Here, we explore some great examples of interactive and crowd-sourced storytelling at its finest. - Crowd-sourced storytelling: How…

it’s been recommended over 6,500 times... the problem is this: the article is… crushingly insubstantial... there are dozens of similar pieces churning around Medium at any time: how to listicles, life-hack guides, autodidactic treatises on ‘personal growth’ etc etc... in the spirit of “if you can’t beat them join them”, here is my hastily co…

At Buffer, we create all the images for our blogposts and social media sharing without any outside design help. We rely on a handful of amazing tools and resources to get the job done, and I’ll be happy to share with you the ones we use and the extras that we’ve found helpful or interesting. - 23 Tools and Resources to Create Images for Social …

In this class, we uncover the narrative structures and strategies used by social change practitioners and entrepreneurs for building community and inspiring action... a workshop for makers and social entrepreneurs ... storytelling to transform themselves, their teams, and their broader communities. - Transformative Storytelling — Foossa Files …

- How They Did It: Part II — Medium

A bunch of useful tools for telling stories, with examples. - How They Did It — Part I — Medium

Easily assemble a variety of content types - videos, slides, PDF, webpages... - as an elegant and interactive reading experience that you share with your audience. We call it a “tute”

nothing about Federman’s job responsibilities at Fortune are traditional for a Time Inc. employee. He works closely with colleagues in editorial, public relations and marketing. He mines analytics for data about the best times to post stories and what’s connecting with readers. He identifies trending stories and occasionally writes one ... helps d…

This software is a clever mix between Sketch, Keynote, Flash and After Effect (plus some bonus features specifically for interactive prototypes)... Easily creating tap transitions from one screen to another is, to me, the core of the software. - Principle : the prototyping tool you’ve got to try — STARTUPS + WANDERLUST + LIFE HACKING — Medium

Here’s the trick I figured out to send a ton of personal emails automatically. - How to Send a Ton of Personal-Looking Emails Automatically — STARTUPS + WANDERLUST + LIFE HACKING — Medium

Readers aren't the only ones who want quick and easy access to information. You, the infographic creator, are also short on time. You need simple, quick ways to create beautiful infographics. Forget about Photoshop and other time-consuming image-creation methods. These tools make creating infographics simpler than ever: - 20 tools to help yo…

"... the “picture superiority effect,” whereby concepts presented with visuals or pictures are better learned and more easily and frequently recalled ... including an image with your social media posts delivers 180 percent more engagement or 150 percent more retweets,,, adding a visual element increases retention of the content to 65 percent" …

only when people are tempted to write gushing praise about a product they secretly despise that I think you have thrown away everything that you supposedly stand for... quite depressing to think that after all these years, we are still trying to put a price tag on everything that moves.,, However, there is something quite refreshing and excitin…

Masterclass time. From the Google Blog:  we’ve taken the Google logo and branding, which were originally built for a single desktop browser page, and updated them for a world of seamless computing across an endless number of devices and different kinds of inputs (such as tap, type and talk).

I'm launching a enewsletter to ensure I absorb something from the social media firehose.

Our interactive graphic offers a real-time snapshot of the race, using media attention to track the fortunes of the presidential hopefuls... explore the graphic and view a running picture of how the candidates are faring on television during the election season, or drill into the numbers by network using the explorer dashboard. - Media Cover…

The future of the web is "push-based", meaning the web will be coming to us.... the web will disappear into the background much like our electricity or water supply.. content, products and services will find you, rather than you having to find them... What people really want is to tune into information rather than having to work to get informat…

You really have two types of people you can leverage to aid your target marketing and social strategy efforts: - Influencers: Popular, well-respected, quasi-celebrities in your industry/space that share and engage in relevant content, and have a large audience and an engaged following. - Advocates: Vocal evangelists who are already a big fan o…

"Innovation is exploding in every direction. With all of these “smart” things — smart cars, smart phones, smart watches, smart glasses — it’s a designer’s job to figure out the best way to deliver content in such a vastly connected world. The projects you’re working on at this very moment will be interacted with on devices that didn’t exist wh…

The New York Times has caught the newsletter fever.... a total of 33.... Whereas its past newsletters tended to be extensions of its newspaper sections, its newer launches like Booming, NYT Living and Well encompass broader themes... The Times also is going in the niche direction, too... E-newsletters have had a resurgence in popularity lately …

We collected a trove of interesting and actionable headline formulas from some of the best sources for headline writing, and we’ve tossed in a few of our favorite Buffer headline formulas, too. - 30+ Ultimate Headline Formulas for Tweets, Posts, and Emails — Social Media Tips — Medium

Job Stories are great because it makes you think about motivation and context and de-emphasizes adding any particular implementation. Often, because people are so focused on the who and how, they totally miss the why. When you start to understand the why, your mind is then open to think of creative and original ways to solve the problem. - Repl…

... or any election, opinion poll ... "Google has amassed far more power to control elections and ... a wide variety of opinions and beliefs... easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some demographic groups—with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated.. In the United …

Interesting approach to using Pinterest to curate interesting content: "Virtual Reality (and its cousin, Augmented Reality) are going to be big deals in PR and organizational communication. I'm curating articles here about the trend and the uses to which communicators can put these fast-growing technologies." - (1) Virtual and Augmented Real…

what are the characteristics of videos that engage consumers?... Depending on the expert, success is thought more likely if a video is humorous, shocking, dramatic, topical, warm, arousing, angry, scary, socially beneficial, cute, violent, sexy, uplifting, intriguing, quirky, interesting, authoritative, tear-jerking, educational, controversial…

A tl;dr version of “From One Spokesperson To Millions” the brilliant 45-minute longread by @jessedee on taking one of the most successful campaigns of all time - Paul Hogan’s 1980s Tourism Australia campaign - and updating it for the age of user-generated content. Some key quotes:

my colleagues and I have created a site entitled, “How To Pitch Me” that aims to help those who strive to pitch reporters in today’s tech landscape.... While reading these various submissions, I have noticed that there are certain tips that repeatedly come up... Here are the top ten pointers... [and finally] ... many writers we asked, includin…