Archive for April, 2024

Fact Checking AI: A Must Do to Maintain Your Brand Value

Thursday, April 25th, 2024

A Conference Board survey, in collaboration with Ragan Communications, found that while almost 90% of marketing and communication professionals have used generative AI (GenAI) tools, their feelings about the usefulness of these tools are mixed—only about four out of ten expect GenAI to improve work quality and creativity—three in ten expect it to deteriorate outputs.

So I decided to do some further research and experimenting on my own. (more…)

A Study in Contrasts: Companies That Go the Distance, and Those That Don’t…

Wednesday, April 17th, 2024

Whatever happened to…

Over the past decade, we’ve seen a number of iconic brands simply disappear without a great deal of fanfare. On the other hand, we’ve seen the meteoric rise of new players that quickly captured the hearts, minds—and wallets—of consumers. But will they be able to sustain their gains? Only time will tell.

Here we take a look at some of the “losers,” and some of the “winners” and try to determine what it is that keeps a brand strong. (more…)

Should You Brand Your Small Business or Solo Practice? Of course—before someone else does…

Thursday, April 11th, 2024

I tend to be passionate about some odd things (I can tell by the way people look at me sometimes…) One of the things I’ve been passionate about for a number of years is effective branding. It’s an issue that I find that many people—even very smart business people and sometimes even extremely smart communication professionals, don’t really fully understand.

Recently I was asked to provide some insights for a small business audience about whether small businesses really need a brand (yes!!), and how they should do this. I jumped at the chance!

(more…)

For the Best Connections via Social Media Focus Your Profiles on People

Thursday, April 4th, 2024

Before I started Strategic Communications in 2008, I worked for some large organizations in the education, energy, and healthcare industries. These were the early days of internet and social media adoption and it was, at least initially, wildly uncharted space. When the American Medical Association issued guidance for physician use of social media, I was all for it. In my former role, even absent these guidelines, I would have worked hard to keep our providers from  independently using social media to communicate with patients.

But, my role has changed. And so has the social media and digital environment. Today, (more…)