Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

When debate around sheryl sandberg's 'lean in' took a negative turn, agency sparks and honey urged client to scrap key theme of upcoming effort.

When Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's modern feminist manifesto "Lean In" ignited negativity, Hyatt was forced to pull the plug on a main element of its content marketing strategy, months in the works. The quick decision was based on numbers as much as gut instinct. Hyatt's agency Sparks and Honey was monitoring digital discussions surrounding a theme the young Omnicom shop had determined was a good one for the hotel chain to hook to its brand: "women having it all."

"They called me up to say it's getting a little bit dark in that space," said Dan Moriarty, director of digital strategy for Hyatt, who said the firm originally intended to include the concept of women having it all as one of the trends around which it planned to build a campaign aimed at career-minded women.

When, about two days before the activation was planned to start, Sparks and Honey showed Hyatt it had tracked 80-some negative reactions to Sandberg's book, the partners decided to scrap the theme, despite three months of planning.

Instead, they replaced it with "travel hacks," or digital tools for making the most of travel. Other trends that Sparks and Honey had isolated as appropriate to align with Hyatt this spring were also relatively innocuous: among them yoga and meditation, getting a good night's sleep and maintaining rituals while traveling....

A one-size-fits-all content marketing strategy doesn't work. Read on to determine why location, size, and scope are critical to being effective in your unique market.

 

As marketers, we hear a lot about content marketing for all sized businesses. In the midst of the tips and how-to guides from industry experts, there’s a lot of white noise. A sound content marketing strategy is integral to a company’s online success, but a one-size-fits-all approach to content simply doesn’t fly. When it comes to content marketing, there are three major components to consider:

- Location: Do you own a brick and mortar business? Do you operate exclusively online? What if your business is a hybrid of both?

- Size: How many employees does your company have? Seven? Seven hundred? Is it just you?

- Scope: Who’s your business trying to reach? Do you consider yourself B2B? B2C? What exactly does your business do?...

The rapid growth of the social media in the recent past made it an indispensable tool in the hands of marketing managers around the world. Social media improves the opportunities to connect with your customers and facilitates two way communication between you and your customers. Social media strategy when properly implemented can boost both your internal and external brand. Below are some of the benefits of social media for your brands...

I must have heard the words "we need to create a strategic plan" at least an order of magnitude more times than I have heard "we need to create a strategy."

 

This is because most people see strategy as an exercise in producing a planning document. In this conception, strategy is manifested as a long list of initiatives with timeframes associated and resources assigned. Somewhat intriguingly, at least to me, the initiatives are themselves often called "strategies." That is, each different initiative is a strategy and the plan is an organized list of the strategies.

 

But how does a strategic plan of this sort differ from a budget? Many people with whom I work find it hard to distinguish between the two and wonder why a company needs to have both. And I think they are right to wonder. The vast majority of strategic plans that I have seen over 30 years of working in the strategy realm are simply budgets with lots of explanatory words attached....