[By Lisa Davis}

Earlier this week, the World Public Relations Forum 2016 (#WPRF2016) wrapped up in Toronto taking with it some 650 PR and communications practitioners from across Canada and abroad but leaving behind a wealth of professional development and practical content to motivate and inspire delegates for a long time to come.

Marketwired was fortunate to be there and we took advantage of the opportunity to meet up with some very interesting and engaging personalities to talk about the role of influencers in PR, the challenges and opportunities with social media, and why good relationship building is still one of the most important skills for any communicator to master.

Deirdre Breakenridge (@deirdrebreakenridge) joined us as our on-site digital correspondent and she not only shared her own insights, but she also spoke to a couple of PR thought-leaders about the challenges they face in meeting their day-to-day PR objectives, and how they keep in touch with their customers and other stakeholders.

You can check out the full interviews below just by clicking on WATCH VIDEO.  Enjoy them, and be sure to leave your comments — we’d love to know what you think, and what your own experiences are.

Deirdre talks with Ketchum’s Stephen Waddington (@wadds), Partner and Chief Engagement Officer, on the role of technology in building relationships with influencers:

Technology can do an awful lot to help us identify, understand and listen — it can do a lot of the legwork in planning and starting to build a relationship. But technology needs to hand off at that point and relationships need to be human. The process of building the relationship with an influencer – just like with a journalist – has to be a human process. >>> WATCH VIDEO

Kim Blanchette (@kmblnchtt), Vice President, Public Affairs, Alberta Energy Regulator and President of CPRS talks with Deirdre on what on what it means to be a “listening organization”:

Building relationships with influencers and key stakeholders has to come from a place of authenticity, and not sales and marketing. It’s also important to do more than just listen to what’s being said; it’s about taking the next step and responding to what you are hearing. >>>WATCH VIDEO

Deirdre Breakenridge explains why amplification is such an important result of influencer engagement:

When you share information, stories and content that is important to a particular influencer, and they share it with their own communities, there is a ripple effect of sharing and engagement that can open up a host of opportunities for PR to connect with new audiences. >>>WATCH VIDEO

Thanks for watching.

[By Jason Mollica]

Whether you are in public relations, marketing, advertising, or social media management (and even if you do all of those), it is important to understand just how valuable you are to your clients. Think about this for a moment. What do you think takes more time? Working to get a new client or fostering growth with a current one. It can be a tough question, however both take effort.

When you put forth a proposal for a potential new client, you are attempting to show value. When you develop a new marketing plan for a present client, you are showing your continued value. But, providing value shouldn’t be a fleeting thing. It’s something we as pros need to continue to do. No questions asked.

My public relations career started after I left the world of television and radio. I understood, though, that value in the media is really the same as a PR pro. Giving your clients (or audience) valuable insight and information can go a very long way to earning more trust and business.

Here are 5 ways you can provide value as a #PR pro
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How can we continue to provide value now and in the future? Here’s a few ways:

Be in contact with your clients: We are all communicators. If we aren’t talking with our clients, how can we truly understand their needs?  Schedule calls to share updates on progress and how happy they are (hopefully) with the services you provide.

Be a leader: If people see you and/or your business as a leader, they are much more likely to stay with you. They’ll have your confidence because the consensus confirms that they already have one of the best.

Act decisively: You were hired for your expertise; don’t waver when it comes to what is best for your client. Confidence should come across in your communications. Anticipate what questions your client may have and do the required research.

Value your client’s opinion: Clients are as much experts in their fields as you are in yours. Listen to their input because they have most likely worked with their own customers longer than you’ve been working with them. You also need to value what the customer says on social networks. Listening is an incredible valuable trait.

Be open and transparent: Be clear on what you expect, how you work, and what your client can expect. There should not be any “oh, I forgot” and “I thought you would have known.” Client loyalty can increase based on how mistakes are handled. Studies have shown that clients that are unhappy can be turned into champions if the mistake has been fixed, exceeding their expectations.

The bottom line with providing value is that it should not be something that is hard to do. We go into our work everyday with the attitude that we can make a difference. That difference is value to clients, new and old, and the greater audience. Show your value with pride and gain a hold of your business!

You start with a substantial piece of content – a webinar you’ve teamed up with influencers to create, an ebook you’ve worked long and hard on, an event you hosted and live tweeted or Blabbed about. Content pieces like these are your valuable owned content, and each piece takes a ton of work to create and to get distributed. To ensure you’re making the most of your efforts, and fully leveraging the bandwidth of a lean team or a lean budget, put the cornerstone and cobblestone content system to work.

The cornerstone & cobblestone philosophy:

The theory (first discussed by Tom Martin) goes that cornerstones are your foundational content pieces – a multimedia news release, a whitepaper, an ebook etc., These are the cost- and time-intensive efforts that can’t be produced frequently. Cornerstones are, by nature, not quickly consumed, so there’s less need for frequency.

Cobblestones are “chunks” of the cornerstone piece, made into their own standalone content pieces in a variety of formats. They incorporate data and stories from the cornerstone efforts, but are much easier to consume. Cobblestone pieces might be a short video or image from your press release, or a blog post incorporating quotes, etc. Creating and distributing cobblestones from the cornerstone efforts is a smart, sustainable content strategy.

7 ways To make the most of cobblestones:  

Make it interactive:  Host a Twitter chat around the topic and invite your audience to participate and add their two cents. Create a Storify roundup for your blog and recognize your participants.

Make it evergreen: Evergreen content has a longer lifespan because it’s not timely or responsive. This type of content is suitable for your vertical market and reflects your company’s point of view — you can post it, and repost it, at any time.

Make the Most of Your #ContentMarketing Efforts: 7 Tips
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Post at appropriate times: Many organizations post to their social media sites and blogs only during work hours. But studies by TrackMaven show that most people are most active on social after work hours and on weekends. Post when your audience is already engaged.

Use channel-focused messaging:Posting the same update to all social media networks simultaneously is often less effective than crafting custom posts for each social media site (think: human, not automated). Consider the audience you’re reaching on each network and “speak” to those specific individuals with each post.

Give it a boost: Boost the most engaging cobblestone on your Facebook page. This small paid effort costs little, and can have a resonant effect on your page reach.

Create roundups: Repackage all your cobblestones — and any other related, relevant content you may have –into a roundup that may serve as a how-to guide.

Get it into the hands of your influencers: Influencers are the key players that can help spread your content to the right audiences. By partnering with them and gaining access to their audience and networks, you can accelerate the speed at which your content is amplified and reach a larger audience than you could on your own. This key tip will support your strategy at any point in the game.

How can you get your content into the hands of the right influencers? Download our tip sheet, How Influencers and Content Marketing Can Build Your Brand and Grow Your Business.

[By Jason Mollica]

Do a Google search on blaming social media and you’ll find nearly one million results. They range from social media being blamed for your bad mood to the 2011 London Riots being blamed on social nets. Social media is an easy punching bag because many still view it as the new kid on the block.

Social networks have taken the world by storm. First, it was a fad; then it was emergent and, finally, mainstream. Many people and organizations are on board with using social. While it is widely hailed as helping to transform the way we communicate, social communication has become somewhat of a target or crutch when someone needs to place blame.

Blaming social media is always #BadPR
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Earlier this year, Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver blamed social networks for his struggling team not being able to compete. Sarver said:

“I’m not sure if it’s the technology or the instant gratification of being online. But the other thing is, I’m not a fan of social media. I tell my kids it’s like Fantasy Land. The only things people put online are good things that happen to them, or things they make up. And it creates unrealistic expectations.”

While this isn’t the most egregious violation of blaming social media, it is an example of the lengths people will go to place blame on social media for their own mistakes. Sarver blaming social for his team’s issues is akin to me blaming my kids for not making dinner when I said I would in the first place.

Social media has become the punching bag for those who don’t really understand how powerful social is today. In this day and age, you need to fully grasp that your words and actions are magnified by social. Something that used to be a benign comment can be overblown very quickly. It’s not all social media’s fault; be responsible for what YOU do and say. Here’s how.

Don’t use social as a crutch. “I didn’t mean to post that,” “If I didn’t have a Twitter account, I wouldn’t do things like this,” or “Social media didn’t get my sarcasm,” are crutches that you need to throw away. They are excuses. You and you alone have the power to control your actions and virtual words. Period.

Understand what social can do for you. Social media is responsible for something of the biggest news events becoming bigger. Remember U.S. Airways Flight 1549? What about the raid on Osama Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound that netted the Al Qaeda leader? These are examples of how social has changed news reporting, gathering and dissemination. It’s also become the place where brands make major announcements. With great power comes great responsibility. Social media is a great responsibility.

Know your role. The more you understand how social works, the better off you will be when using it. If I post something and someone takes it the wrong way, that’s on me. I didn’t explain it well enough in 140 characters, or clearly in a Facebook post. Just because you don’t have a blue-stamped check mark next to your name on Twitter, or have a million followers on Facebook and Instagram, does not mean you aren’t being listened to closely. Your role in social media is a big one, whether you believe it or not. Appreciate what social is and what it has become.

Facebook is over a decade old; Twitter is ten years old. That’s still very young. However, social media has come a long way in that time. You need to understand that before you go placing blame on a social network for your words. Be better with social and you’ll appreciate the benefits.

It’s common sense to use Google searches and Twitter searches to find people who are already interested in your industry or in your target demographic. But if you want to go above and beyond in your influencer marketing efforts and find niche influencers who could really connect with you, dig deeper.

Why “go niche” in your searching efforts? While it can be incredibly beneficial to get a mention from a celebrity or someone who has a large following, customers are actually most influenced by what their friends and family do and like, followed by people they can relate to, or consider like them — their friends-of-friends network, and people with similar demographics. These are the people they trust, and the people who tend to have a greater influence.

Beyond the first tier

People talking about your brand and your competitors’ brands are your “first tier” of influencers, but savvy marketers are looking outside those areas. For example, marketers at an interior decor company also check out fashion blogs, DIY blogs and construction blogs looking for interesting overlaps. People who are creating unique, personal content and demonstrating passion for their projects (and most niche bloggers are), are more likely to resonate with someone who is searching through these blogs looking for pointers.

Digging Deeper: Leveraging the Power of Niche #Influencers
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“Lower ranked” influencers, or tier 2 influencers, can be very effective for any campaign, and it’s often easier to engage with them. If your product or service aligns with their content, a niche influencer will likely be glad you reached out. These kinds of influencers can help you discover rich sub-communities and can also allow rapid scaling of influencer marketing.

Determining the “influence” of niche influencers

There are many free tools available that you can use to determine who has the biggest, broadest reach across social networks, but keep in mind that the size of someone’s network doesn’t necessarily correlate to the extent of his or her influence. A large following that isn’t very engaged won’t be greatly affected by an influencer’s recommendation, let alone take action on it.

You want to uncover the relevant people leading conversations and shaping opinions about your company or brand, even if those influencers are leading smaller social groups. Marketers are naturally interested in bringing big-name influencers in their industry into their network, but it’s a smart strategy to also target up-and-comers, who are often the first to mention something new and start trends. Once you identify these up-and-comers, you’ll see who else wields influence in this space and who you might want to add to your network.

Start where you are

Begin by looking to your current network. By examining this circle, you have the opportunity to identify and get closer to important individuals who are already engaged, and pay attention to what they do. You can study their interests, see how they share and who they share with, learn what content they prefer and observe how they engage in the community, giving you much deeper insights.

In addition, learning about their critical concerns, pain points, and how they engage in conversation will help you cultivate stronger relationships with those who are closest to you. You have the opportunity to move them from liking and following you to engagement with much more impact. This focus on quality over quantity with people you know helps you earn the group’s trust. That’s when they open up their networks to you and are willing to share about you and your products.

Digging deep when searching for key influencers is only one way to increase the effectiveness of your campaigns. For more, access our free tip sheet, 6 Best Practices For Influencer Marketing.

[By Karen Geier]

When you think of content marketing today, the traditional way you see it in the marketplace is as a blog post, white paper, video, or some other piece of easily sharable digital content that can help you make your purchasing decisions.

However, some brands are looking at methods to capture the things that appeal to frequent users of social media in a way that grabs their interest and makes the content the center of the story, with the brand name tagging along. These brands are winning with markets that are hard to target by traditional means.

Recently, Hamburger Helper enlisted the help of some producers to create a 5 track mix tape that they distributed on April 1st. While other companies were still trying to find ways to “fool” or “Rickroll” their fans, Hamburger Helper looked for a way to steal the spotlight with actual, not manufactured, surprise.

And they won the day doing it.

Why should you look to replicating a mix tape about eating minced meat? The answer is in how the world shares content.

When most brands invest in social media, they make the same mistakes often. They think of their Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram as an extension of their very dry, very corporate website, or they view it like a magical chute they drop very boring, heavily branded things down, and consider the job done.

What #ContentMarketers Can Learn from Hamburger Helper’s Viral Mix Tape #WatchTheStove
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The rules of social media readily disprove these methods. If you’re not starting a conversation with something actually worthwhile talking about, then you’ve failed at creating a real social media campaign. You can’t win at social by making antiseptic brand-first tweets or Facebook updates. Just like people recoil from flyers and brand solicitation on street corners, they recoil from brands who think the way to speak to fans is to put up a poll about which flavored toothpaste they prefer.

Rules of Winning with Unusual Content

You want to make sure that your content does not actively work against your brand, obviously. Aside from this cardinal rule, look to leverage these guidelines:

1. Look at what types of content are being shared and which memes seem to be circulating among people in the group you’re looking to reach. This is not a universal thing. Online, people tend to “clump” by interest, but often by investigating interests, you can find more traditional demographic markers.

2. Think about what grabs the attention of the group that you’re trying to target and look for a thread back to your brand. This does not mean that because your followers are into Monday Night Football, you have to draw a strong connection between your brand and football, but you have to find a way for your brand to participate in that conversation in the way a human from that group naturally would.

3. Look for a way to enter the conversation naturally. Hamburger Helper didn’t really advertise or force the mixtape on people. They relied on the natural sharing activity that happens online from confusing the people they were targeting, which led directly to the content being shared.

4. Don’t lead with the brand. Most people are put off by what they deem cheesy attempts by brands to “participate” in conversations online. The tracks on the Hamburger Helper soundtrack all pertained to cooking, and there was a visual branding tag, but the focus was not HAMBURGER HELPER PRESENTS A HAMBURGER HELPER PRODUCTION. This distinction is so important. You can’t fake authenticity.

5. Create content that surprises and delights. There’s nothing better for sharing online than something that confuses or surprises people. Remember, the internet was once captivated by a photo of a dress because of how it surprised them about their responses.

6. Find where people are naturally the genesis of viral sharing and see if you can reach them in an organic way: If you’re not advertising your social media campaign, how do people find it? Grassroots methods. You have to find influential Redditors, bloggers, and social media sharers to share your work with, and when you do, you have to speak to them person-to-person.

Creating weird, highly sharable content is not easy, but the payoff could be huge for your brand, by gaining trust of hard-to-impress people online, and also garnering free media for your brand. It’s important to not start with how a product can be branded, but rather how you can surprise or delight people online in a way they will turn around and share.

It’s important to know that the most trusted people online generally shy away from branded content unless that branded content gives them something that other content doesn’t. Even if the thing your brand gives the community is laughs and surprise, that’s enough for people to readily share your content, and you could then achieve viral success.

Writing a quality news release takes time. Coming up with a compelling angle, crafting a punchy headline, tightening up each sentence, formatting, editing, and making fixes is no quick or simple task. Taking the time to firm up quality copy will certainly help to make the most of your time and budget, but if you don’t back up your news release with a plan to get the views it needs, it won’t earn maximum results.

As you write, incorporate a few tactics to make sure your news release is as shareworthy as it is well-written. Here are 3 steps to crafting a share-worthy news release.

1. Get it into the right hands

Knowing your audience is the first step in writing content with the capacity to engage. When you zero in on your audience, you can tailor your angle to meet their specific interests or pain points, and you can target your distribution by an industry-specific and/or location-specific newsline.

2. Write something newsworthy 

Above all else, a news release must be newsworthy. This is not only part of most newswire’s editorial guidelines; it is the most critical element in writing shareable content. How can you tell what you’re writing about it newsworthy? Ask yourself these questions:

• Is the content new?
• Does it matter to people outside of your company?
• Is it likely to get noticed?
• Would you read about it in the paper or online?
• Would you tell a friend about it?
• Would it work better as a different kind of communication?

If you can’t answer “yes” to the first five questions and “no” to the last, then you may want to revise your news release. You’re writing a story, not copy. Make sure what you’re sharing is informative and valuable! For examples of newsworthy business news you can share in your news release, access our tip sheet, Revenue Generating News Releases.

What Makes a #Newsrelease Share-Worthy? 3 Key Pointers
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3. Go above and beyond text 

Adding video, eye-catching photos, colorful illustrations, infographics – creative visual content that can easily be shared in 140 characters or less – is a key element of your release if you want it to instill in readers motivation to share. Media outlets are already publishing articles with visuals, and blogging and tweeting with multimedia. Make it easy for them to notice, and pick up your story.

What next?

After you’ve written a share-worthy release, send it to targeted audiences through a newswire service and publish it on your social channels to ensure you reach a broad range of media outlets, and bloggers and journalists who seek news on social. Sharing your news releases on social media generates more visibility and makes it “stickier.” You’ll move away from simply distributing messages to becoming part of the conversation.

Don’t stop there! Know that your share-worthy news release is a catalyst. It may prompt questions or comments on social media, and you have the opportunity to engage and offer value. True engagement is a 2-way street. Be alert to opportunities to help facilitate the engagement you want, and you’ll be sure to make the most of your news release.

[By Jason Mollica]

When it comes to strategy, public relations pros often get asked where should we be driving “eyes.” Should it be the brand’s popular Facebook page or YouTube channel? Should it be the Twitter account for a spokesperson or communications pro? While all of these channels are terrific, a brand or company website is still the place where you should be sending people.

There are going to be plenty of pros that believe a Facebook page replaces the website. Sure, the cost of a Facebook page is far cheaper than the cost of developing and hosting a website. However, having a website and a Facebook business page, in addition to other social channels, gives prospects and customers an opportunity to find your business and interact in a variety of different ways. Your Facebook page can play to the strengths of that network, while your website can play to the strengths of whatever environment it is in.

Are Websites Still Where Your #PR Focus Should Be?
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Social networks, while a great addition to the marketing mix, are just that: additions. They are things that help enhance your brand. They are not the place you should be having new and returning eyes go to.  If your social channels are easily reached from your brand website, then you’ll have a seamless avenue for people to reach your voice.

Remember that brands could be considered fragmented in today’s world. They maintain many channels. Each of those channels is set up for engaging with the consumer at various stages in the purchase, loyalty or advocacy cycle.

A great website feeds and refreshes your social channels. It is the anchor for a brand and sets the tone and standard for the brand’s attitude about feedback, expression and service. It is, essentially, the initial “touch point” for a customer or potential investor. A great website also smartly syndicates, re-circulates and curates social content. A blog is a perfect example of how you can drive people to your website. But, you also use your social channels to help drive them there.

Another way your website should be the hub is when you are doing advertising. Sure, it’s great to see that Facebook logo or Twitter bird, but you can’t always share your long Facebook page name on an ad or even website banner. You can, though, use your brand’s website, which is very shareable.

So, don’t ask “why” your PR focus should be on the website. It should be “why not?”

[By Aaron Broverman]

Last year, Serial – a serialized whodunnit chronicling the arrest and conviction of Adnan Syed for the murder of high school classmate Hae Min Lee in 1999 – became the fastest podcast ever to reach five million downloads and solidified its reputation as “podcasting’s first beakout hit.”

While listenership of podcasts is still small, that audience gets increasingly larger each year. In its 2015 study, Edison Research showed that podcast consumption grew from 11% of the U.S. population in 2006 to 33% in 2015 — a current total of 155 million Americans. Not only do audiences grow, but the number of shows available do too. Canadaland, Radio Lab, This American Life and The Joe Rogan Experience are just some of the podcasts that routinely appear on iTunes’ “Top 10 Downloads” list each month and they each boast their own rabid, weekly following.

More than the size of their audiences, or even the amount of people who have even heard of a podcast, that following is why podcasts have become a viable promotional platform for any product or service.

“You’re reaching a passionate audience,” says Martin Waxman, president of Martin Waxman Communications, a strategic communications consultancy firm and the co-host of the Inside PR podcast with Gini Dietrich and Joseph Thornley.

“There’s an affinity that takes place when people are listening to you with their ear buds and if they can trust you and know that you truly believe in the sponsor or the advertiser, that’s a great situation because there’s a relationship with the podcaster and the listener that you don’t get with a banner advertisement,” says Donna Papacosta, Principal at Trafalgar Communications and the co-author of The Business of Podcasting with Steve Lubetkin.

So if you’d like to take advantage of what Papacosta calls, “the intimacy of the ear buds” and reach a podcast’s often highly targeted and highly engaged audience, what should you keep in mind?

Take advantage of “the intimacy of the earbuds” – start your #Podcast now.
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Podcasts Can Help Advertisers Reach Niche Audiences

Most of the leading podcasts these days rely on the same group of advertisers. NatureBox, MeUndies and SquareSpace are just some of the usual suspects and according to Papacosta, most of these traditional advertisers require at least 5,000 downloads a month before they’ll even agree to pay for an ad. But the size of the audience is hardly what makes advertising unique on podcast, it’s the specificity of the audience you can reach.

“If you had a podcast on neurosurgery, you probably wouldn’t have a lot of listeners, but you would have a truly niche group listening and if you were an advertiser who wanted to reach neurosurgeons, you would want to advertise on that podcast,” says Papacosta.

Plus, podcast ads often come off as a much more genuine endorsement because of the trust that often exists between the host and their listeners. This harkens back to the early days of television when the hosts or the actors you were watching would pitch the product themselves.

“Often times it’s not a produced ad, but it’s the host relaying their own experience with the product or service in question. This is a really credible way of getting your message across to people because people assume that the podcaster believes in the product. As long as you’re transparent about it, I think it works,” says Waxman. “If it’s the right audience, the audience doesn’t need to be huge, especially it it’s a business-to-business audience.”

But to Attract Advertisers, Promotion is Key

When it comes to podcasts, advertisers don’t matter if no one is listening, no matter how niche the show’s topic is. Attracting advertisers at all hinges on building an audience.

“It takes time to build an audience,” says Papacosta. “Obviously, it also takes producing really great content and promoting it on social media and other ways. You might use traditional public relations as well.”

Though podcasts aren’t popular enough yet for PR firms to take them on as clients and regularly promote them to advertisers, that doesn’t mean traditional PR strategy can’t still be applied when hosts are promoting their own shows.

“It still comes down to who you’re trying to reach and what you’re trying to accomplish, just like any other form of communication. What is the type of content that would appeal to the audience that I want to reach? If you really understand your audience, you know what they want to listen to and you might even ask for feedback as your show progresses,” says Papacosta.

“Just like any other form of media, you really need to understand you audience, know the type of content that they want, deliver it and then be able to measure it in some way.”

Mechanisms for audience and download measurement include free services such as Podtrac and FeedBurner.

Waxman believes that if you are going to promote your podcast through the media, it’s better to target digital media channels as those readers are more likely to investigate a podcast than legacy media consumers.

“The digital version of a publication is probably your best bet because a reader can click on the link in the article, be taken to your podcast, hit ‘subscribe’ and it’s seamless. Whereas if someone were reading about something like that in a print publication, you have to remember the podcast, write it down – there’s a lot more steps.”

Of course, no matter the publication, Waxman says the same basic PR questions apply, What is the story? How is it relevant to that audience?

“Remember too that PR firms can also produce podcasts themselves because they’re all about storytelling and having a podcast of your own is a great way to build awareness of your business and the business of your clients by positioning you as thought leaders on your show topic,” says Waxman.

[By Jason Mollica]

Global PR teams are nothing new, but the challenges of a widely dispersed team are ongoing. International growth and team diversity can pose unique challenges, such as cultural and communication differences. But, working in multicultural teams can also offer many rewards and benefits.

Being exposed to different ideas and perspectives not only benefits workplace relationships, but it can also lead to improved productivity and business success.

Whether you have a public relations team working in one country or four, as a leader you are responsible for ensuring your team’s individual and group success. When team members are global, maintaining team focus and ensuring that everyone is working toward the same goals can be one of the greatest challenges.

How to manage a global #PR team with effectiveness
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There is a great TED talk by Roselinde Torres in which she stresses that to be a great leader in the 21^st century, you must focus on three key points.  One of those points is relying on a diverse network of people to gain ideas. An effective PR manager or leader will adapt to new cultural environments and avoid making assumptions about what behaviors mean.

For example, in the U.S. and Canada, an employee who says, “I can do this” likely means he/she is willing and able to do what you asked. In another country, however, the same statement may simply signal the employee wants to try, not that he/she is confident of success. Before drawing conclusions, you need to ask questions. Inquiring may yield greater insight into how the person truly feels about accomplishing the task.

Goal-setting by leaders, especially ones that are forward thinking, can be inspiring and drive employees to a higher level.  By creating a learning environment that fosters growth, it promotes a deeper understanding of the goals, mission, and vision, which is likely to foster greater alignment, identification, and strategic focus throughout an organization.

Good managers and leaders also look for opportunities for global teams to work together as often as possible. This allows employees to learn from each other while getting to know one other. Managing a global PR team comes with its own set of unique challenges, but finding ways to connect across borders and leveraging a diverse skill set can strengthen team cohesion, employee engagement and boost workforce productivity.

One of the great things about being able to lead a team, or teams, is the opportunity to help shape and guide individuals and groups to do the right thing.  You have to understand where you want to take your team, share the road map to get to that destination, and help them figure out their roles in getting there. To do so, you must provide clarity, candor, communications and focus. Without it, your global PR team will be scattered. Take the time to understand what your team members need to succeed – not just locally, but globally.