"Week of..." Social media - Making life easier

A few months ago I looped a new person in on my weekly Monday "Week of..." email summarizing the social media posts that were planned for the week.

She sent back a message saying that she loved it, and I sent this reply:

Greetings!

The weekly social media calendar has a quick backstory. Several years ago while I was on a cruise with friends. Every day we would return to our cabins after a full day of sightseeing and every day we'd find placed on each perfectly made bed a piece of paper. On it was listed everything we needed to know for that evening and the next day – no opening calendars or brochures or searching for printouts or looking online for schedules. 

A crisp white piece of paper hand delivered to each person with the next day’s to-do-list and activities—it was memorable and I remember wishing someone would do that for me after the cruise, every day, all the time.

 Members of the team took turns creating posts and I could send an initial link to the spreadsheet and hope everyone checked it but I'd spent too many days waiting as the hours before the "go live" time shrank. Sometimes I'd send a gentle reminder when my internal clock alerted me that time to create and approve the post was near and often received a note back, "Thank you for the reminder!"

The "Week of" summary contains the schedule for two social media accounts, and if every member of the team looks it up several times during the week, spending two minutes each, it would add up to over 36 hours for the year -- a full workweek.

And as Thanksgiving nears, I will probably create an online spreadsheet for the socially distanced potluck. When did life's simple pleasures become reduced to spreadsheets and often dehumanizing keystrokes?

Our new social media team member's email was a lovely moment in a busy work day. I hadn't thought about the cruise and the upcoming schedule personally delivered so simply and beautifully.

Even if social media calendar reminders were automatically generated, I'd still want to send a quick, personalized "hello" to the team.

Dizzying!  Empathy for content creators

I've read a few marketing, social media and communication job descriptions recently for positions with companies whose products I love. 

Tonight as I decluttered my email inbox, I deleted content that originated from some of those companies and likely from those very positions. 

There were over 50,000 emails in my inbox and with a reality program on in the background, I began to delete email.

I declutter my email a few times a year, making a game out of identifying messages I won't read or need. Points are the number of emails that pop up when I search for names of publications, department and specialty stores, entertainment and travel companies -- with each search: 253 (delete); 57 (delete); 84 (delete). Then, empty trash.

Some companies send an email every day and even if the teaser is interesting I don't have time to read them.

If I were having lunch with the person who created these emails I don't think I would be able to tell them how few I am able to read. The lists of skills, requirements and expectations in their job descriptions are dizzying--someone is creating the thousands of messages I receive every day.

Perhaps a solution is to ask for more, and less.

Insist on more time to remember why the company's mission, require more time to create. Publish far less content that is so compelling that in the fraction a second I have to make the decision whether to scroll on by, I will read your message.

A prominent person once told me that when she received publications from the place I worked at the time she would look for my name. "I always read what you've written," she said, "even when I don't like the topic." I laughed and told her, "Sometimes I don't like the topic either, but I always try to make it interesting."

That would not have been possible following a pre-set formula. It is work. It takes time.

I have empathy for the creative, gifted individuals required to create content daily / multiple times a day based on what words or phrases that have been popular in the past with no time to consider the wonder in the story.

Marketing and the weekend: 48 hours | 2,880 min | 172,800 seconds

The weekend = 48 hours - 2,880 minutes -172,800 seconds

For people who work full-time Monday through Friday, the weekend's 172,800 seconds can seem to melt away more quickly than a favorite candy bar left in the car on summer's hottest day.

While corporate offices may be closed over the weekend, automated email marketing messages are sent to potential customers and video ads are scheduled and paid for 24/7.

Facebook's business page says, "On mobile, people prefer shorter video ads—we're talking 15 seconds or less. Shorter videos have higher completion rates, so you can successfully share your entire message."

During the weekend's 115,200 waking seconds I could binge-watch 7,680, 15-second ads. But how effective for each company would this be?

Yesterday I spent time deleting marketing emails from a couple of my personal accounts. As I searched for messages to delete I realized that many companies and organizations had sent email to me every day.

I'd said yes to receive the messages and I like many of the companies but as I searched for the various travel and media companies, department stores, shops and brands finding hundreds of emails from each, I regretted that I'd opted in.

While I continue to do business with most of the organizations that push messages to my in-box every day, as I scanned the subject lines "search" had found before deleting them I realized that none had tried to get to know me. "10 top ways to cook bacon?" I love cooking but I'm a vegetarian. "Father's Day sale." My father passed away a few years ago; I miss him!

I'm a foodie, I love to cook and bake and enjoy hearing from top food publications and media organization about trends and recipes but I will probably never cook shrimp, bacon, chicken or beef. If I want to research non-vegetarian recipes, the good energy comes from going to their website and searching.

It took less than 15 seconds to find hundreds of emails each company had sent and begin selecting "delete forever."

This is a topic I'm enjoying, so tune in for more in the coming weeks.

For an achiever, there's no such thing as an overachiever

One of my top personality traits is achiever. According to the Strengthsfinder theory, for achievers, every day starts out at zero, including weekends and holidays. After working for about 16 days straight (not working Memorial Day and last Saturday), I enjoyed taking this past Wednesday through Friday off. 

For an achiever this meant taking the car for repairs and an oil change, and sorting through paperwork and laundry that had grown at home over the past three weeks.

A few fun things reminded me about what is renewing and wonderful about life: completing a four-mile hike followed by the deliciousness of a drink of water, eating out with friends and taking time to connect with people I met as I ran errands. 

One of my favorite things to do is to walk up to a checkout and think: "I've never met this person before, but before I leave I'm going to make them laugh." This is fun for me because customers are rushing, multitasking or late to another appointment, in the same mindset as I used to be when I worked for a temp agency and was rushing to secretarial jobs in downtown LA during college. Right away a twinkle in the eye, making eye contact changes the dynamics in the brief meeting over the cash register. In future posts I'll write about times I've made someone laugh. When I've been determined to make it happen, I can't remember a time it hasn't worked.

The most important thing I remembered over this long weekend is advice for achievers I once came across: achievers must schedule in casual time just as diligently as they schedule work, or work will be all they accomplish.

For achievers, there's no such thing as an overachiever, and planning for work life balance can create a full life.

A formal storytelling device to help defeat content overload

An essay in today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch highlights the challenges viewers faced as they chose what to watch from the cable and TV shows that were broadcast Sunday night. The author, TV critic Gail Pennington, suggests that to consume the top 19 shows would've required placing a DVR in every room and it would've taken a week to watch them all.

During screenplay analysis class, I remember the large auditorium-style classroom at USC filled with directing and screenwriting students. Every week we watched an award-winning movie and studied its structure. When students signed in at the beginning of class and didn't return after break, the instructor asked us to sign in after we returned from break; he eventually required sign-ins at the end of the class, too. 

It was a master's level course and at first I admired the students for the knowledge they must possess about structure of feature length films that allowed them to skip class.

Though I'd completed the master of professional writing at USC and had studied screenwriting and storytelling with incredible mentors, I kept taking courses. I wanted to feel confident writing screenplays and fiction outside of USC's safe cocoon.

The final test for the advanced screenplay analysis course was open book/open note, and it took me over eight hours to complete. 

While at the beginning of the semester I'd been convinced many in the class knew much more than I did after completing the final I wondered -- if those students had stayed in class listening to each lecture would they have become paralyzed when they realized how much there is to know?

I was recently inspired by an article, "Is 'Conflict' a New Marketing Tool" that was published Feb. 23 at Knowledge@Wharton. The article contains examples about how the structure of conflict in feature films has been used as a tool in news, politics, sports and marketing to create content that breaks through immense mountains of content, defeating competitors and being discovered by overworked, over scheduled and exhausted potential audiences.

I've used one of the tools I use I learned about in advanced screenplay analysis class -- Want vs. Need --  in many writing projects. Want vs. Need was also included on the Advanced Screenwriting final test.

Because want is a universally understood concept, including it in a story, ad or marketing message is intriguing and compelling. Many know what it's like to want a dream job, to be accepted or to escape from debt.

What the protagonist wants is often different from what they need to become fulfilled -- what they truly need. During their journey to get what they want they become more and more self-aware and when they eventually get what they need they are ready to accept and appreciate it.

I used this storytelling device as I wrote an annual report feature story a few years ago. A husband and father wanted to divorce his wife. She had become hooked on prescription pain medication and was unable to care for herself  or her children. I interviewed the couple and I remember him telling me how he had dropped her off at a mental health facility so she would become well enough that he could divorce her. It was his goal -- the thing he wanted.

However, he was asked to participate in therapy too. Then the powerful part of the story began to develop. As her treatment progressed and as she healed he also began to change, slowly understanding and loving her again. At the end of the story he received what he needed -- falling in love with his wife and choosing to stay married -- instead of what he had wanted -- for his wife to become well enough so that he could leave her.

Instead of a product or service fulfilling a want, showing the importance of a service or product using "Want vs. need" is a powerful screenwriting/storytelling device that can be used to develop memorable content.

A gloomy Monday -- and a soul-crushing task defeated

It was a Monday morning. Spring was more than a month away, and a major rainstorm was predicted later in the week.

The PR team had just received good news about our office reorganization -- we'd been given the go-ahead to meet with leaders of the new areas we will be working with.

For months we'd worked with consultants, refining our focus and reorganizing the department. In our new beats, each editor will work with a school and clinical/outreach entities.

The week was going to be busy,with hours of meetings, a signature event to cover that would last late into the night and working with more than 30 administrators on their web bios. I was also assisting with coverage and PR planing for an organization-wide, week-long event.

This post never would've happened if I'd needed to schedule one meeting. I would've created a brief email or called to explain the purpose for the meeting, proposed a time, waited for the response, rescheduling if needed.

The prospect of setting up a series of meetings with several administrators whose calendars are filled weeks in advance, however, was soul crushing. Should crushing and energy draining.

What would happen if I dropped by each office? I signed out on the office white board. I didn't call ahead--if it didn't go well after the first office I'd try email.

I walked across campus to the Center for Dental research. The administrative assistant was at her desk and I explained why I needed to meet with her boss. 

She opened his calendar and immediately gave me the first available appointment.

The Cancer Center administrative office is in the same building and when I stopped by the receptionist wasn't at her desk. She'd been called down the hall and as soon as she saw me, she greeted me. After a few minutes connecting and sharing my excitement about learning more about the Cancer Center, she set up the first available appointment. I left her office having learned the administrators' meeting style.

I'd begun to bond with very important people I'll be working with closely, professionals who understand the intricacies of their department.

As I erased my destination from the white board, I realized the significance of what had just happened.

The meetings were set up in less than an hour and calendar invites were in my email in-box before I returned to the office. If I'd taken the tech route/emailing or called, I'd still be requesting the meetings or waiting for responses or call-backs and the process would've continued into the week.

I later realized I'd experienced something I'd read about in Jonah Berger's book, Contagious. I'd picked up a copy of Contagious at an airport last year. It was written after people asked Berger for content from a course he taught at Wharton about why content goes viral. In the book, he talks about how people like to be "in the know." I'd taken time with them on a gloomy Monday morning sharing my excitement and getting to know them. Until they could meet with the dean or head of their department, they were in the know, anticipating sharing helpful news.

It had been an enlightening Monday morning, with a soul-crushing task defeated.

Public relations is like a TV series; Marketing is like a feature film

After completing the master of professional writing program at University of Southern California, I continued taking classes at USC. The university allows alumni to continue to take courses that interest them with permission of the department.

I looked for classes that would give me the confidence to be able to complete a screenplay on my own, without workshopping it in the safety of screenwriting courses. I was looking forward to taking some of the classes many students dreaded including structure of writing for the screen, and the business of writing. Writers want to write, I'd learned. I recently read a quote about how if we listen we begin to realize how much we don't know and that can be terrifying.

]I learned the answer to a question that had baffled me in a class that examined the structure of writing for the television series. The professor, Pamela Douglas who chairs the television track in the School of Cinematic Arts' screenwriting division, spoke about how feature films differ from television series.

She explained that characters in TV/cable shows truly are our friends. We look forward to spending time with them each week (or more recently for entire weekends as we binge watch their shows).

We know who they are, with their quirks and imperfections and as the storylines unfold we know them better than they know themselves. They don't change very much from week to week; character arcs occur over six or seven seasons.

As a feature film begins we meet a character who, while living through great conflict, becomes self-aware. We watch as the protagonist is transformed so definitively that even after being tested, will not and cannot become the person we were introduced to less than two hours earlier.

I've invited a friend to write a television pilot with me and as I shared what I'd learned with her, I realized that the structure of film vs. television writing is identical to marketing vs. public relations.

The team I work with has been meeting with consultants who are reorganizing our department. Over many months they interviewed leadership throughout the organization. Then they with the editor/writers to identify several dozens of areas and projects that have been divided into individual beats and assignments. As planning continues to take place, the consultants told us that we will need to show how our department added value to the organization.

The editors have been asked to estimate how much time the assignments will require.

I struggled with this until I realized that value PR departments bring to an organization is similar to the journey of the protagonist in a television series.

Here's an example: as I began writing about a new discovery a few years ago I became convinced that it would be life changing for tens of thousands of people. However, it was in its infancy. It existed as an idea within a department; research looked promising but completing and publishing research can take many years.

The marketing department would never invest time or resources on the new discovery--marketing is like a character in a feature film. Systems are ready; resources are assigned to make the public aware so they can access the product or service right away.

But the public relations team is there, patiently working with entire departments over many seasons, supporting real people as ideas are formed, new staff add additional possibilities. Through storytelling and news releases the story reaches individuals within the organization who will need to support it for its success. The PR team is there as research is completed and published and the product/service is green lighted.

At work we're at the end of a character arc that began several years ago. Systems are being put into place to handle the response. Only recently has the project become ready for the marketing team, and the feature film has begun.

This is just one of many ways public relations brings value to an organization but it is important enough that I will be including it in the report I'm working on that will be presented to the consultants next week.