Babsy's family is amongst the 40 million or so mostly poor black South Africans who, as the economy collapses and unemployment rockets, are increasingly forced to rely on a crumbling public health system. The government is clearly not interested in providing adequate health services for poor people.
At about 04h30 on the morning of Saturday 28 January, Babsy's two sons and nephew, aged between 21 and 27 years, had been travelling from Flagstaff to Bizana, when, at a place called Magusheni, they were involved in an accident and their vehicle overturned. All three young men were badly injured and sustained head injuries, a broken jaw, ribs and arm, a badly lacerated tongue, severe bruising and other cuts and abrasions.
They were in considerable pain and suffering from shock when taken by ambulance to the Casualty Department of Bizana's St Patrick's Hospital. Once in Casualty they sat on a wooden bench awaiting medical treatment where they waited and waited and waited….
Hospital staff apparently told Babsy's brother, who arrived at St Patrick's shortly after hearing about the accident, that he "must stay to watch the patients." It seemed hospital staff were too busy to keep an eye on the injured.
This Babsy's brother did, spending the night in the Casualty Department on the same wooden bench occupied by his brother's seriously injured sons and nephew. By then, more than 18 hours had elapsed since the three young men had arrived at Casualty, yet they had still not been examined by a doctor, nor had their wounds cleaned, nor had their broken bones x-rayed, nor been given anything for pain, nor indeed, received any medical attention or care whatsoever.
According to Wikipedia, St Patrick's Hospital is a provincial government-funded hospital in the Alfred Nzo District of the Eastern Cape. As of 2015 the hospital reportedly had 290 beds, 12 doctors, two clinical associates, two dentists, and numerous allied health professionals and nursing staff. It services a community of around 200 000 people and treats 20 – 30 trauma cases and 250 outpatients per day, as well as several hundred births every month. The hospital is listed as having emergency and outpatients departments; an operating theatre and CSSD services; paediatric and maternity wards; and is supposed to provide the Bizana community with surgical, medical, ophthalmology, pharmacy, ARV, trauma counseling, x-ray, physiotherapy, occupational health, termination of pregnancy and mortuary services. The hospital reportedly underwent a multi-million rand major upgrade sometime after 2008.
Babsy said hospital staff had then advised his brother that his injured relatives would have to wait to be transferred to Bedford Hospital at Mthatha before they could receive urgently needed medical treatment.
When, late on Sunday afternoon - more than 36 hours after the accident - Babsy's brother was told that the badly injured young men could not be transferred to Bedford Hospital before the following Wednesday, some five days after the accident, he called Babsy, (who lives and works in Durban) and asked him to come immediately.
When Babsy arrived at St Patrick's Hospital, he learned from his brother, who had remained on the wooden bench throughout the ordeal, that his sons' and nephew's wounds had only been cleaned once staff had heard he was on his way to the hospital.
Babsy verified all that St Patrick's staff had told his brother, particularly that the soonest his family members would likely receive medical attention would be in five days time after they had been moved to Mthatha's Bedford Hospital.
Babsy claimed Bedford was no better and that he was aware of seriously ill Bizana residents who had been sent to Bedford without having first been stabilized or examined by local doctors, only to be turned away on reaching Bedford and given another date on which they were told to return for treatment. A round trip from Bizana to Mthatha and back is over 450km.
Bedford Hospital is listed as having pretty much the same facilities as St Patrick's including x-ray, emergency, surgical and trauma counseling services. Justification for St Patrick's staff's insistence that the patients be moved to Mthatha therefore remains unclear.
Babsy assessed the pain and suffering his children had already experienced, their present condition and the likelihood of their obtaining proper (or any) medical treatment at Bedford; and decided it would be safer and quicker to drive to Prince Mshiyeni Hospital in Umlazi, Durban; an almost six-hour, excruciatingly painful journey for the young men. On reaching Prince Mshiyeni, Babsy was relieved when they finally received medical assistance.
Babsy's sons have since been discharged and he took them back to the Eastern Cape a week after their ordeal.
His nephew, however, who sustained head injuries, a broken arm and severely lacerated tongue, remains in hospital. Babsy is worried. He said, "his mind is not right, he seems confused." His nephew will undergo a psychiatric assessment.
Justifiably, Babsy is extremely angry over the way his family was treated and worried about potential long-term effects of the ordeal on his sons', and particularly his nephew's, recovery. He wanted to know, what if he - as was the case with most poor, rural people - had not had access to a car? He said it was utterly unacceptable that he had been forced to seek urgent medical treatment for his family in another province, hundreds of kilometres away.
And what if his sons and nephew had sustained more critical injuries? Or were elderly and frail? Would they still have been left for days, their wounds unwashed, waiting indefinitely on a hard wooden bench for medical treatment? Babsy thinks it likely. He claims he is aware of a number of local people whose broken bones have knit at strange angles, and who can no longer use their limbs after they failed to receive treatment at both St Patrick's and Bedford hospitals.
Babsy said he wished to bring to the notice of the media, the public, the government, and particularly the Department of Health, the appalling state of rural, Eastern Cape health facilities. He said it was clear that government did not really concern itself with providing proper health care for poor communities, particularly those in the Eastern Cape. He suggested that more people should speak out about their experiences at government health facilities, instead of suffering in silence.
Babsy's family is amongst the 40 million or so, mostly poor, black South Africans, who, as our economy collapses and unemployment rockets, are increasingly forced to rely on a crumbling public health system – a government department that (according to the DoH website) tendered over R38 billion for its 2016/17 annual budget, and against which, by 2015, an excess of R25 billion was reportedly outstanding in claims for medical malpractice and negligence.
Babsy wishes to thank the doctors and staff of Prince Mshiyeni Hospital for their help, kindness and excellent medical care provided to his family members.


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This post with my 5 beauty must-haves for game day is part of a sponsored post written by me for SheSpeaks/P&G.
1. A good toothbrush and toothpaste. Part of the fun of hosting a game day party is to cheer on your team. I'm always paranoid about bad breath so one of the last things I do right before guests come over is to brush my teeth. While it took forever for me to jump on the electric toothbrush bandwagon, my mouth feels SO much cleaner when using one, like the Oral B Vitality that even has a two-minute timer so you know you're brushing your teeth long enough. Crest Prohealth Advanced Toothpaste is also pretty awesome to use as it helps your gums be healthier and protects your enamel starting from day one of using it.
2. Easy makeup favorites. I've never been the type to wear a lot of makeup, even before I started working from home. But, I do like to make a good first impression and put forth a bit more effort when having guests over. So, I use some of my quick and easy makeup favorites like a tinted lip gloss and COVERGIRL LashBlast Mascara. Hopefully, you won't have to cry over your team losing, but it comes in waterproof just in case you do.
3. A good razor. This season the weather has been totally unpredictable. One day it's in the 60s and 2 days later we're getting a half foot of snow and it's so cold at night I'm worrying about the pipes freezing. Crazy. Since it's mostly been a warmer season, though, I have been wearing a lot of sleeveless shirts indoors. I prefer smooth skin so I shave quite often and would honestly be rather mortified to be throwing my arms up in the air during the game with hairy pits for everyone to see, so I always have a good razor on hand. Yes, I am a woman and, yes, that is a men's razor. I honestly find they work better than women's razors and usually they're a few bucks cheaper, too.
4. Flake-free shampoo. It's winter which means the air is drier and many of us have to deal with dry, itchy, flaking scalp. It's not something I like admitting, but it's something I deal with myself. I'm totally cool with it snowing inside, but not on my clothes and guests as I'm cheering my team on. Ick. So, I have to use a shampoo that gets rid of the irritation and flakes, ala Head & Shoulders.
5. Game Day gear. Okay, so I'll admit I'm not a seriously serious sports fan. I'm honestly there for the food and commercials. But, it's still fun to pick a team to cheer on and get into the spirit of the game by wearing some of your favorite game day gear like jerseys and hats, and maybe even some face makeup. I have to admit that I am bit more excited this year since I'm originally from North Carolina and the Panthers will be playing!
Check out some other awesome P&G products to use for your game day traditions available at Walmart.


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Content Marketing vs. Brand Journalism: the Outcomes Define Differences
November 24, 2014 Sarah Skerik4 Comments
Today's fragmented media landscape and information-loaded digital world offers brands new opportunities to communicate directly with their audiences; building visibility, affinity and even search traction along the way. However, success in the uppermost reaches of the funnel requires organizations to put corporate agenda in the back seat, and instead adopt a more journalistic approach to crafting and publishing their stories.
Enter brand journalism.
Not to be confused with content marketing, brand journalism is an upper funnel tactics that delivers more than 'awareness." Telling the brand's stories in a compelling, audience-focused way can create affinity, earn media, build brand credibility and (when coupled with search and social strategies) deliver long-lasting online visibility.
The differences between brand journalism and content marketing
There are distinct and important differences between brand journalism and content marketing, and they're best expressed not in terms of content output but in terms of intended outcomes. I think we all agree that content marketing and brand journalism both have deliver information that is useful and interesting to audiences. So let's look at the intended goals of brand journalism and content marketing, respectively. I'll take a stab, and I welcome anyone else's additions.
Starbucks' newsroom is loaded with brand stories that masterfully create affinity and position the brand.
Brand journalism goal: Finding and telling brand stories in order to convey a comprehensive image of the brand and build brand awareness and affinity.
Case in point: The story on the Starbucks newsroom about the art on a holiday mug is an example of telling the story of an employee's journey within the company. Is this story selling coffee? No. It's conveying specific information about the brand image. I wouldn't call this content marketing. To me, this is brand journalism.
Content marketing goal: Influence audience behavior by publishing useful content that supports the customer journey, encourages loyalty and enables amplifications.
Case in point: Marcus Sheridan, the "pool guy" who has presented at Content Marketing World several times, showed how great content that speaks directly to buyer interests can fuel sales, describing content as "a sales tool." (Related: CMW interview w/ Sheridan)
"Marketing is the enemy of brand journalism," noted Ragan Communications CEO Mark Ragan, speaking at the company's Brand Journalism for Corporate Communicators workshop in Chicago earlier in November. "Brands need to master telling their stories indirectly. It's about the brand, but the focus is always about the audience."
Brand journalism couples the brand perspective with a journalistic approach, telling stories to create utility for the audience and context for the brand. Many stories published within brand journalism programs make no reference to the brand doing the publishing. Nonetheless, the brand's expertise is on display when a story provides an insider's look at an industry that a legitimate media outlet could have produced.
Content needs to be designed and deployed with deliberate and measurable goals in mind. If Starbucks was publishing a bunch of employee stories and expecting to see a corresponding lift in store traffic, they would probably be disappointed – and the content budget might suffer in the future as a result.
Content marketing and brand journalism are not mutually exclusive. They can (and should!) exist together – and furthermore, they should be aligned, in order to position the brand and acquire audience likely to value (and act upon) the other content the brand publishes. Integration of brand content across multiple communications channels is a crucial component of driving content discovery.
Sam Huston of iProspect said it well in a blog post earlier this year: "I want to believe that great creative will always find it's way, but it's difficult in today's congested and segmented marketplace. Brands are realizing that even the best content can fail to convert consumers and deliver on business objectives. The way of the future, and the game-changer for brands, is in the strategic amplification of a campaign via holistic digital performance marketing."
The intended outcomes underscore the important difference between brand journalism and content marketing, and their relationships to the company's overall strategy – are details marketing teams need to pay attention to. Failing to do so can stymie a brand's content programs, rendering them un-measurable.
We know that measurement and gauging ROI continues to be a challenge for content marketers. I believe that a primary cause of measurement-related problems stems from content that is published with no clear goal in mind.
Benefits of a brand journalism program
The most profound benefit brands derive from a strong and focused brand journalism strategy is the development of a relevant and engaged audience. Twenty years ago, the only way to reach broad audiences was through advertising or a mention in a news story. Today, brands communicate directly with their core constituents, and the audiences they build become important assets. Additionally, branded content creates important context for more targeted and actionable brand messages, developing affinity very early in the buyers' journey.
On a more tactical level, the stories the organization publishes as part of a brand journalism program deliver other important benefits to the enterprise, including:
Internal communications:Stories provide a big picture that data doesn't, lending important context to brand messaging. Additionally, stories are memorable. Taken together, these two factors help employees more fully understand and participate in the company's strategy.
Sales enablement: Brand storytelling can also be an important sales and customer service training tool, delivering memorable content that is ideally packaged for relay to customers and prospects.
Media relations:PR pros who believe that media won't cover a story that the company develops are missing the point, Ragan noted. Story-driven pitches can help journalists grasp nuance and see different potential story angles. Bonus: Artful keyword use can generate valuable implied links that bolster search results when the stories run on key media sites.
Crisis communications:An organization that has developed an internal news desk function is at a distinct advantage when faced with a crisis, having honed storytelling skills, streamlined publishing process and – most crucially – built an audience. "Don't get scooped by your own crisis," Ragan advised. "If you have a crisis, you should cover it first."
Storytelling is the flavor of the day in marketing circles, for several reasons. As mentioned previously, stories are sticky. They linger in memories and influence behavior. Brand stories also help put human faces on company messages, increasing likability and brand affinity. These factors can trigger additional amplification, as people tend to share content they like with their social networks. Taking the time to build the brand journalism practice within an organization's communications teams is no small effort, however, the benefits to the enterprise in terms of lead flow, audience building and search visibility more than offset the investment.
Author Sarah Skerik is a content marketing & social media strategist, specializing in integrated digital marketing and upper funnel optimization. Follow her on Twitter at@sarahskerik or connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sarahskerik
Content, Storytellingbrand journalism, content marketing
How to Reach Wider Audiences with Infographics
November 14, 2014 November 14, 2014 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Infographics are popular for good reason. Done well, they simplify complex data sets or processes, turning heavy information into inviting content that swiftly arrests reader attention, builds interest and builds qualified engagement.
Additionally, because they are visuals by their very definition, infographics are more likely to be shared on social networks than plain text messages, and additionally carry extra weight with the algorithms that dictate what we see on search engines and social networks.
In many cases, infographics often represent important strategic messages, such as a visual map of a new service, a guide to a process or a primary expression of an expensive, high-value piece of underlying content, such as a study or white paper.
Infographics are important and effective, but many brands underuse these assets, failing to distribute them much beyond the company blog and a few Tweets. Here are some ideas for generating more traction with high-value visual content.
Earn some media: Loop the PR team into the production of the infographic. Especially if the infographic summarizes data of some sort, chances are good there's an underlying story in which industry media would find interesting. Pitch the story (and accompanying visual) to a relevant publication or web site as an exclusive, before you publish.
Have your designer create snippets of the most compelling facts from the primary image, and format them with social sharing in mind. Each will communicate a discrete and focused message, creating a distributed portal back to the primary content piece. (This example from CipherPoint illustrates one key, compelling fact, grabbing attention.)
Create a slide deck comprising the various elements of the infographic, and offering more detail when appropriate. Post it to SlideShare. Embed either a lead capture form or (at the very least) a clickable link to more information. SlideShare has its own discrete audience, and the decks have extra utility on your blog and amongst your sales team.
Animate it. Turning an infographic into a sweet animated video is a popular trend and can be done a much lower cost than video productions requiring camera crews and significant editing. Video is among the stickiest and effective content, due in no small part that the site we all use to host video – YouTube – also happens to be the second largest search engine behind its parent company Google. (See this collection on Vimeo.)
Use the infographic to attract audiences to related, higher-value owned content, such as a downloadable survey or white paper. Distribute the infographic in a press release that discusses key findings or data, and links to the related media in the call to action. (Here's a good example from a company called CloudPhysics, which coupled a newsy press release with an infographic to promote a study.)
Be sure to use the image to illustrate blog posts, press releases and any other messaging you distribute to promote related content, such as webinar invites, or promotions of white papers or study results. The data are unequivocal – content with visuals generates better results. However, the majority of news releases are text only. Visuals give your messages a real leg up in the competition for audience attention.
One infographic can deliver a spectacular amount of long lasting value for the brand, and even more importantly, multiple opportunities for the organization to reach and engage audiences. However, to deliver capitalize on the power of this important type visual content, you have to have multi-channel distribution strategy for your brand's infographics.
Author Sarah Skerik is a B2B marketing and PR pro, specializing in integrating public relations, social media and content marketing to reach qualified audiences and deliver measureable results. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahskerik or connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sarahskerik
Content, Visual PRinfographics, social media
The 3 Crucial Questions You Should Ask Your Sales Team to Improve Marketing Results
November 4, 2014 November 7, 2014 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Image courtesy of Flickr user ** RCB **
Marketers love to A/B test web treatments, tweaking the phrasing of a message or position of a button to improve campaign results. But do we really know what content moves the sale forward when our sales team are in front of prospects?
When it comes to determining which messages are most effective in really meeting objectives and moving specific needles, the company's sales team can play an instrumental role. A new report from Aberdeen's Peter Ostrow bears this out, finding that top performing sales organizations exhibit strong collaboration between sales and marketing. (Report Link)
According to Ostrow's research, the collaboration runs deep, exceeding the usual discussions between sales and marking, such as what exactly constitutes a lead and how quickly sales will follow up. Best in class organizations exhibit strong integration from the very top, in terms of shared goals, and that alignment trickles down through the sales and marketing organizations, providing powerful incentive for the the two teams to work toward the same goals. In practice, this integration is expressed a number of ways, and 360 degee feedback on messaging and content is one.
Image via Business2Community
If a divide between marketing and sales exists at your organization, an good place to start collaborating is on the messaging marketing is developing. It's easy to get started and pays enormous dividends in campaign effectiveness and goodwill with sales.
At the outset of a campaign or project – and any time the organization is performing persona research on an existing customer base – marketing should turn first to sales for a deep dive into the customer mindset. The information gleaned will be a rich source of intel and useful in informing message development.
Mining the sales team for marketplace intelligence
Surveying your sales team can reveal at a glance the marketplace challenges customers are facing, the messaging and materials sales finds most useful and most importantly – the gaps that exist between market conditions and the company value proposition.
3 crucial questions to ask your sales team:
What questions do prospects ask for which you don't have a good answer? The answers to this question will reveal holes in either the brand's value proposition or your sales enablement tools.
What questions do you hear over and over again? Questions that recur in the marketplace should be red flags for marketing – they indicate a gap in marketplace perception or understanding or sales knowledge (or both.)
What curveballs do customers throw at you? The curveball questions are generally fewer and further between, but they can be an important indicator of early shifts in market needs or sentiment.
A mix of in-person interviews and short, quick-to-complete surveys can deliver insights for the marketing team. If your brand organizes sales teams by vertical market or customer segment, conduct discrete surveys among each group to develop the clearest picture of the market.
Field sales feedback: the ultimate testing tool
Using the insights gleaned from sales is just one advantage marketing can gain from collaborating with field sales. However, don't stop there. As messaging is developed, test it with your sales teams.
Expose them to the messaging and have key players weigh in on the sales enablement tools. Deploy messaging on a limited basis and collect feedback from the teams involved.
One of my favorite tactics is to road-test concepts directly with clients when invited to present to client groups (something I did regularly.) I've given major event presentations dry runs with clients and used their reactions to gauge the stickiness of key messages within. This direct exposure has enabled me to determine which messages and concepts were sticky, and which needed additional work.
At the outset, these hands-on and high-touch methods can seem inefficient, and obviously, because the sample size is small one should not overlook the data sets available to us in our analytics and automation platforms. However, for developing those 'last mile' messages that make the difference when the sales team is in front of the client, feedback from the front line teams is crucial.
This sort of feedback and alignment is not abdication of marketing turf. While there are certainly times when the organization will want to limit exposure to messaging, there are plenty of more routine communications and campaigns that can benefit from these exercises. Overall message performance will improve – even for digital campaigns – when the organization closes loops and fills the information gaps that stall sales and leak leads.
Author Sarah Skerik has decades of B2B marketing & sales experience, with emphasis on content marketing strategy integrated with social media, demand gen and public relations. Follow her on Twitter at @sarahskerik and connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/sarahskerik
Contentsales enablement
Marketers: Your Most Important Audience is Sales
October 29, 2014 November 2, 2014 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Peer-generated social content is on par with editorial content and vendor content. The content brands create needs to have utility in order to support sales and resonate on social channels. Via Marketing Profs.
If you Google the terms "content marketing and sales," you'll find scores of white papers, articles and blog posts attesting to the value of content marketing as a lead generation engine that fuels sales.
No argument there. Content is the layer that drives demand gen in the marketing stack.
But precious little attention is paid to what is arguably the marketing department's most important audience, namely, the company's sales team. The sales team is one of the primary brand voices, and if they're not singing from the same page as marketing, the result will be a fractured marketplace image, and real difficulty in overcoming perceptions the brand is eager to change.
The sales team can also be powerful advocates and partners for marketing. The historical conflict and finger pointing that exist between marketing and sales makes no sense. Buyers today are making decisions without vendor input, against timeframes they dictate. This calls for an agile approach to sales enablement and responsive marketing plans with flexible frameworks. This means listening to the sales team and the marketplace, and having the resource and flexibility to swiftly adjust messaging and capitalize upon emerging opportunities.
The changes in the buyer decision journey have also altered the mechanics of selling. We've all seen the studies about B2B buyer habits, which focus on online research and sidestep traditional sales channels until the decision is almost made. We also know that B2B buyers rely heavily on their social networks for information about products and services they're considering.
These changes offer marketers more than a few opportunities to impact the company top line, but they require marketing teams to balance long-term planning and projects with real-time opportunity and sales team needs. However, as you'll see, providing strong marketing support to sales needn't diminish campaign planning or demand gen strategy. These elements are not mutually exclusive.
If you have credibility with your sales team, you'll have credibility with your audience.
To win, brands need to retool marketing outputs and ensure the content they publish has utility in the hands of the sales team as well as the marketing automation stack.
The content the sales team needs isn't the thirty-thousand foot thought leadership piece. They need content that bolsters the case with the customer. They need tactical advice, evidence, examples and proof. This sort of content is vitally important to the sales process, for a few reasons:
It opens doors and builds credibility for the brand. Useful content communicates a potent subtext to customers and prospects: it says "We understand you." It signals affinity, and it builds trust quickly.
As a leave-behind or follow-up piece, evidential content provides a powerful, visible and memorable reinforcement of the message the sales person is conveying. If you've been in sales, you know how hard it is to get messages – or even concepts conveyed in in-person conversations – to stick with your customers.
Tactical advice and customer examples educate your sales team as well as customers and prospects. I learned this shortly after I launched the company blog, when I started hearing "I'm learning so much from the blog!" from individual team members, over and over again. As soon as I realized that, I started treating the blog as a conversation between me and our widely-scattered sales team, keeping them firmly in mind with each post, and making utility for sales a primary goal. The content we published and promoted there became an important sales education tool.
Grist for social selling. The sales reps I worked with were increasingly active on social networks. I quickly learned that they were willing to share interesting and useful content we published widely with their audiences, and even more interestingly. They consumed the content quickly, incorporating the vernacular into their own social posts and conversations. By happy accident, I discovered how important a role the brand's social sellers can play in building a unified brand voice and story.
Creating content that empowers sales also builds the marketing team's credibility with sales. That trust is important capital, and the dividends are paid when the sales team trusts marketing's messaging and takes it willingly to the field.
The power of integrated marketing is undeniable, and it's efficient. Using events and content marketing to build runway for campaigns, and earned media to build credibility, awareness and search pull, and tying everything together from an analytics standpoint — these are sound ideas. The efficiencies that can be gained when the organization develops aligned messaging that has utility in the field, resonates on social networks, generates search engine pull and (yes) generates leads is undeniable.
However, these opportunities are overlooked when silos exist, or when marketing has a singular focus. As a result, the marketing team misses opportunities to deliver measurable impact right now, and the sales team ends up wasting time cobbling together its own materials. You can't let long term planning eat your short term opportunities.
How do we bust those silos? It starts with alignment at the top, specifically aligning marketing and sales goals and strategies. But there may be an easy and practical approach, which I'll explore next week: Intel & Integration.
Walking the Line Between Pitching & Storytelling
October 28, 2014 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
If you're treating press releases as dull communiques destined for deletion, you're missing an opportunity. Today's news releases traverse web sites and social networks, acting as digital ambassadors that introduce your brand to new audiences.
Press releases have evolved in content, utility, and format. The audience these messages reach has also changed significantly over the years. When I started working for PR Newswire 20 years ago, very few people have ever heard of the company. At that time, press releases were sent primarily to newsrooms, and didn't see the light of day otherwise. There were a handful of databases and start up online services, like America Online and CompuServe, which received our news release feed, but in the mid-90s, the online audience was extremely limited.
Related reading: Press Releases That Stand Out in the Digital Age
Fast-forward to today, and many people have heard of PR Newswire, even non-communicators. They see news releases online, on Yahoo and the thousands of other websites that syndicate them. More than once, I've seen PR Newswire content shared by my friends on Facebook and my peers on Twitter.
Influencing Buyer 2.0: Aligning PR to the Buyers Journey
October 21, 2014 October 28, 2014 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Buyers – businesses, consumers and governments — are changing their behaviors, driven by changes in the communications channels and technologies they use to research purchases and share information with peers, bringing new opportunities and challenges for public relations to the fore.
Earned media mentions hold particular sway with potential buyers, which means PR can deliver measurable top line business impact. To capitalize on this trend, however, PR professionals must improve and rethink the way they create and distribute their messages, designing them to support the purchase decision and aligning them with the buyers' journey.
Buyer 2.0: Informed and In Charge
Buyers are influenced more by their own research than they are by traditional sales pitches. By the time a buyer contacts a company, the buyer has already made many decisions, including the elimination of potential vendors. In fact, much of the buying cycle has already taken place.
Additionally, buyers seek…
3 Tips for Formatting Press Releases for Maximum Online Readership
May 31, 2013 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Summary: There are 3 important lessons for public relations professionals in crafting effective press releases and other digital messages to be gleaned from the Financial Times' launch this week of FastFT, a short-format news service.
The Financial Times this week launched FastFT, a nimble and ultra-short-form news service publishing extremely short (<250 word) stories. The reasoning behind the new service? While the 140 character limit on Twitter is a bit too confining, nonetheless, it's clear that readers prefer short snippets rather than long-form. The FT is adding the short-format service to their mix, in order to, according to an interview with FastFT's chief correspondent Megan Murphy that was published by PaidContent, "Create more portals and routes for readers to consume the publication's content."
The idea of using alternative content formats to create portals leading readers to other related content is an excellent idea.
For one thing, short…
Chicago Sun-Times Decision to Cut Photography Staff Signals Opportunity for Brands
May 31, 2013 May 31, 2013 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
In a move that is raising eyebrows amongst media-watchers, the Chicago Sun-Times today announced the layoff of its entire photography staff. While the fact that the economic outlook for many traditional news media outlets is grim is definitely not new news, this strikes me as being utterly the wrong move.
Almost all of the new developments in content sharing, digital media consumption and social media are centered around visuals. Entire social networks like Pinterest, Instagram and Vine are built on visual content. YouTube is the world's second-largest search engine. Facebook and Twitter have put digital content front and center for their users. The algorithms that search engines and social networks used to determine what we see all give visuals more weight.
These are just a few of the reasons why it is difficult to overstate the importance of visuals in today's information environment and communications arenas. Humans are visual animals, and if you want to attract a human audience, you need visual content, period.
But simply having a visual isn't enough. A bad visual will not generate good traffic or good engagement. To be effective, the visual must serve the audiences interest. Traditionally, news photography has set the standard for compelling imagery and visual storytelling, thought that may be going by the wayside now. According to reports today, the Sun-Times plans on asking reporters to "provide" pictures and videos to accompany the stories.
Journalistic sentiments aside, I smell an opportunity for PR, which was the topic of my post titled "Chicago Sun-Times Lays Off Photographers & Opens Door for Newsworthy Third Party Content" over on Beyond PR.
Content, Visual PRbrand journalism, content marketing
Confirmation: Social Authority does Influence Search Rankings
December 2, 2010 April 25, 2012 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
Thought Google Realtime has changed significantly (among other things, the deal with Twitter was not renewed) the influence of social interaction on the visibility of content is undeniable.
Earlier this week we published a post about communicating in real-time, in which we discussed how quickly search engines surface conversations in social networks, and, furthermore, how social relevance also contributes to overall visibility for messages in search engines.
Yesterday SEO guru Danny Sullivan was able to confirm with both Google and Bing that "human authority" authority is in fact considered by both engines as they index content. In a nutshell, writes Rand Fishkin on the SEOmoz blog, this means that links shared on Facebook and Twitter do in fact have a direct impact on search rankings.
Fishkin's post makes some educated guesses about what sort of metrics search engines are using to gauge social authority, including:
Diversity of the people you influence – more is better
Relevance of surrounding content to subject matter (probably an indicator of expertise)
Quality of friends/followers – whether or not you influence fellow…
PR in the Moment: Lessons from Real-Time Search Pros
November 29, 2010 April 25, 2012 Sarah SkerikLeave a comment
The conversation with iCrossing's Rob Garner that fueled this post really sparked my understanding of (and interest in) the real-time opportunities the accelerated and connected world of social networks presented to communicators. David Meerman Scott has since labeled a related opportunity "Newsjacking." PR Newswire is calling the concept (broadly) "Agile Engagement." However you describe it, the opportunities a heads-up, dialed-in communicator has these days are boundless. But you have to be paying attention.
Last week I listened into a webinar hosted by Search Marketing Now on the subject of real-time search, featuring Rob Garner of iCrossing. As is often the case with these things, I walked away bristling with new information, and some interesting insight for PR.
Real-time search ("RTS") is the immediate inclusion of information from social networks in search results. Like traditional search, RTS is based on crawler based algorithms – the search engines actively go out, find information on web sites, and index it. But there's a new twist. Search engines are also bringing in content from the human driven social layer. Google in particular is adept at integrating content from the social layer. This is real-time content – Tweets, comments and other interactions. And it's changing what search engine users see in their search results – which is driving change in human behaviors.
Sources of real-time content

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;

namespace AssetStudio
{
    public sealed class Font : NamedObject
    {
        public byte[] m_FontData;

        public Font(ObjectReader reader) : base(reader)
        {
            if ((version[0] == 5 && version[1] >= 5) || version[0] > 5)//5.5 and up
            {
                var m_LineSpacing = reader.ReadSingle();
                var m_DefaultMaterial = new PPtr<Material>(reader);
                var m_FontSize = reader.ReadSingle();
                var m_Texture = new PPtr<Texture>(reader);
                int m_AsciiStartOffset = reader.ReadInt32();
                var m_Tracking = reader.ReadSingle();
                var m_CharacterSpacing = reader.ReadInt32();
                var m_CharacterPadding = reader.ReadInt32();
                var m_ConvertCase = reader.ReadInt32();
                int m_CharacterRects_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                for (int i = 0; i < m_CharacterRects_size; i++)
                {
                    reader.Position += 44;//CharacterInfo data 41
                }
                int m_KerningValues_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                for (int i = 0; i < m_KerningValues_size; i++)
                {
                    reader.Position += 8;
                }
                var m_PixelScale = reader.ReadSingle();
                int m_FontData_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                if (m_FontData_size > 0)
                {
                    m_FontData = reader.ReadBytes(m_FontData_size);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                int m_AsciiStartOffset = reader.ReadInt32();

                if (version[0] <= 3)
                {
                    int m_FontCountX = reader.ReadInt32();
                    int m_FontCountY = reader.ReadInt32();
                }

                float m_Kerning = reader.ReadSingle();
                float m_LineSpacing = reader.ReadSingle();

                if (version[0] <= 3)
                {
                    int m_PerCharacterKerning_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                    for (int i = 0; i < m_PerCharacterKerning_size; i++)
                    {
                        int first = reader.ReadInt32();
                        float second = reader.ReadSingle();
                    }
                }
                else
                {
                    int m_CharacterSpacing = reader.ReadInt32();
                    int m_CharacterPadding = reader.ReadInt32();
                }

                int m_ConvertCase = reader.ReadInt32();
                var m_DefaultMaterial = new PPtr<Material>(reader);

                int m_CharacterRects_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                for (int i = 0; i < m_CharacterRects_size; i++)
                {
                    int index = reader.ReadInt32();
                    //Rectf uv
                    float uvx = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float uvy = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float uvwidth = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float uvheight = reader.ReadSingle();
                    //Rectf vert
                    float vertx = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float verty = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float vertwidth = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float vertheight = reader.ReadSingle();
                    float width = reader.ReadSingle();

                    if (version[0] >= 4)
                    {
                        var flipped = reader.ReadBoolean();
                        reader.AlignStream();
                    }
                }

                var m_Texture = new PPtr<Texture>(reader);

                int m_KerningValues_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                for (int i = 0; i < m_KerningValues_size; i++)
                {
                    int pairfirst = reader.ReadInt16();
                    int pairsecond = reader.ReadInt16();
                    float second = reader.ReadSingle();
                }

                if (version[0] <= 3)
                {
                    var m_GridFont = reader.ReadBoolean();
                    reader.AlignStream();
                }
                else { float m_PixelScale = reader.ReadSingle(); }

                int m_FontData_size = reader.ReadInt32();
                if (m_FontData_size > 0)
                {
                    m_FontData = reader.ReadBytes(m_FontData_size);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


text:
Moon So Ri
Moon So-ri(born July 2, 1974) is a South Korean actress, film director and screenwriter . She is best known for her acclaimed leading roles inOasis(2002) andA Good Lawyer's Wife(2003).
문소리
actor,model and actress and singer,film director,actress,screenwriterYears active,
Moon So Ri's Videos
Displaying 31 to 60 (of 286 Posts) << 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 >>
's Album
0:00:00 12 views
#IWonder
Travellers (Inst.)
A Lonely Guy
ⓒ 2012 ASK K-POP
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© 2012 - 2014 Askkpop Media, LLC


Generously hosted by Annie Bowman and Staff at Sunrise Home.
Don't forget to tell your customers in person and through your social media and emails about the Free Parking on Saturdays and Sundays! FREE WEEKEND PARKING is in the A Street and C Street Garages, thanks to the Parking Department's pilot program. Let's keep it going by getting good participation! Win-Win.
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Join our Downtown San Rafael Facebook page.
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the restaurant is full every night. Nice to the Kitchen Table within walking distance from my house.. can't wait to try it!
Sarah Jensen Claire Adams Danielle Dixon weren't we supposed to have a date?!
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For the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour blend, oat flour, quick-cooking oats, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. In a large bowl, cream together the softened coconut oil, granulated sugar and coconut sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the flour mixture in two additions, alternating with the pumpkin puree, stirring just until combined. Stir in the cranberries.
Place some old-fashioned oats in a small bowl. Using a 1 3/4-inch ice-cream scoop, scoop up cookie dough and drop it into the bowl. Roll the dough in the oats to coat. Place the dough on a prepared baking sheet and repeat with the remaining cookie dough. Bake until the cookies are golden, about 25 minutes. Let cool on the baking sheet set over a wire rack.


When I was an expat in Cincinnati 11 years ago, I met this weird family. They were homeschooling. I mean, would their kids even get a decent job if they didn't learn from a school? And how would they get accepted in university? And gasp! How will their kids socialize? I thought this family was not only weird. They were cray cray.
Fast forward to 2013, I started my homeschooling journey. Yep. I joined the club of weird, unsocialized homeschoolers. It was, of course, a difficult decision since I was bringing in 2/3 of the household income. But at that point, it was only the financial aspect that was holding us back. The more I read about homeschooling, the more I found no reason to keep my child in a brick-and-mortar school. The more I immersed myself in Theology of the Body, the more I felt the urgency of homeschooling. But it was Canada's Bill 13 that finally made us jump. If you live in North America and follow real news, then you are probably aware of a) the growing hostility towards the Christian faith and b) the destructive attempt of the left to usurp parental authority. Bill 13 was just the beginning; we are spiraling downwards with Bill 89 and Bill C-16.
Now, this blog post may not convince you to homeschool. Blogs and research wouldn't have moved me if I hadn't seen the fruits of homeschooling in other families with my own eyes. That weird family I was talking about? I want my kids to be like their kids in a lot of ways. Are there bad homeschoolers and good public schoolers? I bet ya. But why compare the best of one to the worst of another?
If you are a faithful Catholic and you want your kids to love the faith, you might want to consider how homeschooling helps (A LOT) with that. Now, homeschooling is NOT a guarantee that your kids will NOT turn away from the faith. There are other circumstances that play a role in your child's faith formation or lack thereof. Having said this, I do believe that it is the parents who are given the grace, by virtue of their sacramental marriage, to raise their children to become faithful Catholics. No other school or youth group can carry this crucial responsibility for you.
1. When I was working, my kids were spending 30 hours of their prime and most productive time, each week, in school. I was spending 25 hours with them and this included the rushed mornings and post dinner preparations for bed — clearly not the most quality of times. Weekends were for errands and catching up with them. How can we influence our kids if time is not on our side? Jesus had to spend all day with his (adult) disciples and still, they were confused about who he was (save Peter). Why would I expect that anything less will give me time to be a positive influence on my children?
2. Books. If there's anything I regret about not being homeschooled, it was that I didn't have the time to read the classics in a leisurely way. There are things that only good stories can teach our children. There is just no substitute. That's why Jesus spoke to the people in parables. If I have to prepare my child for a standardized test day in and out, how can we make time for books that teach virtue and courage? In our public schools here, they don't teach the classics anymore. It's no wonder critical thinking is on the decline.
3. I can prioritize teaching the faith to my kids. I can talk about sensitive issues with them. We can live the faith from breakfast to dinner. Now, try going to your public school and see how they handle the topic of gender identity and abortion, and then tell them what the Catholic Church actually teaches. Good luck.
4. If for any reason the morning is stressful and I've been horribly grumpy, I don't have to wait for my daughter to come home from school before I could say sorry and have a heart-to-heart talk. Hugs can readily be given and received. This has made huge difference in my relationship with my daughter. We can hit pause during the day and talk about things that really matter.
5. People say that kids need to be in school so that they can "shine" a light there and bring Jesus to other kids. How could they do that if they are not equipped and trained? You don't expose a seedling to a harsh environment until you have nourished them and made sure they've taken root. Deep roots. Recall that Jesus had to spend three years with his disciples before he told them to "Go out to all the nations and spread the good news." And these were adult men: men who, after all those miracles and teaching, abandoned Jesus (except for John the Beloved) during His most distressing hour.
6. They have time for interest-based learning. Google it.
7. With homeschooling, you can allow boys to be boys.
I'm sure you can find more sophisticated and more academic-related reasons via the internet. You can even read about socialization issues, if you are so inclined. Or, you can read this: We can't save the public school system. We can only save our children from it.
Lastly, let me leave you with these verses. They have opened my heart to homeschooling and carried me through moments of doubt.
If the kingdom of heaven belongs to my little ones, what could be more important than pursuing and seeking their hearts first?
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