reality

An Open Letter to Media Publishers and other Business Leaders

Dear Publishers and business leaders,

Your business is dying. You know it. Your readers know it. So what are you doing about it?

The belief that the Internet was the death knell of print – and maybe even cable news – was a bit of an exaggeration although your revenue statements clearly show it’s had a major impact.

I’ve seen attempts to move content online via tiered, paid subscription models, which clearly isn’t working to reverse your financial fortunes. I’m thinking you’re all sending Apple Christmas baskets to thank them for the iPad, which – for a time anyway – has enabled the sale of content via Tablet magazines. Still, adoption for paid digital magazines on tablets is a far cry from the heydays of the print publishing industry.

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How a City let Big Media Tell its Story: Lessons learned from #Memflood

Memphis in all the big media headlines this week took our community by surprise reporting the historic flood of 2011 and showing the absolute worst pictures and images of a flood that has impacted just 1% of our City. Now I will say right here that this post is not meant to be insensitve to those who are affected.  I am writing this from a public relations perspective and from my own personal observations and experience dealing with media and crisis management.  I think we (our whole community) underestimated the power of the national media and their ability to portray things differently than they happened. 

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B2B Storytelling Case Study: Some Ideas Take Off In Unexpected Ways

I’m in the idea business. As a senior creative director and partner at a B2B marketing agency, I work at creative ideation and storytelling as it relates to branding and content marketing.

Every once in a while, when I have a really wild idea I think may have no chance of flying, I’m reminded of a story I was once told. It’s one of my favorites and I hope you enjoy it.

Barbershop-to-Biplanes: A tall tale turns out to be a true story

I don’t remember his name, but I will never forget him. One summer during a break from college, I was working as a physical therapy assistant at a rehab facility when I met this interesting old guy with a great story. He was a patient recovering from a stroke, and he told me the tale while I was helping him exercise one day.

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In Real Life & Social Media Perception is Reality!

I have the great privilege of working with many different people inside a variety of diverse organizations. In doing such work, it has become clear to me that these organizations and the people that work there- share one thing in common. Perception is Reality.

You see… whatever their PERCEPTION of something is– IS their REALITY of something.

What does this mean? Are you lost?

Ok—here goes…

Whatever a person “perceives” to be true in the world around them (their perception) is completely true to them (their reality).

All people take in information and then make decisions about the information in different ways. So no matter how a person goes about the process of making a decision– the end result is the same! So think about it from a marketing point of view… the other person now has a “perception” of you in their mind and this perception is their reality.

So the learning lesson we must ponder as we communicate with OR market to others is this:

It is not what “we say we are all about” but it is what “others say we are about.”

Do others perceive you the way you hope that they do? This is a question we MUST all ask ourselves.

The best marketing and communications individuals are those that are able to purposefully and intentionally make the “perception they seek” closely match how they are ultimately perceived by others.

Do you ever think about how you/your organization seeks to be perceived and whether or not this is the reality of how others actually perceive it? Do you realize that the superb new tools available to all of us through Social Media—give us a great way to impact how we market ourselves and control perception and reality?

How do you perceive this post? I hope it matches the reality I was seeking to achieve.

Ryan T. Sauers