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How to Better Keep Track of the News Important to You

August 9, 2019 By Paul McNally 1 Comment


For decades, people have used news monitoring to track issues that affect them, their business, their association, or their cause. In the past, this was done with a process called “clipping” which was scanning local and national newspapers for stories related to these categories and cutting them out to keep a tab on issues at hand.  This form of news scanning was an essential practice in nearly every aspect of life, from politics to business to advocacy. It allowed one to keep up with new developments in a campaign, on an issue, with a market, or with a competitor. In today’s online world, this process still exists; it has simply gone to the online world and covers a much larger scale. This can be overwhelming, and it can seem impossible to keep up to date with the 24/7 news cycle and nearly immediate news updates. There are many tools and strategies you can use to help make this process easier while increasing effectiveness.

Google Alerts

Google is a search engine that grants people quick access to information. It can be quite time consuming to search each term or phrase that relates to your issue and try to sift through countless stories and websites trying to find the most recent developments. This is where Google Alerts can be used to help save time and increase the efficiency of your news scanning.

Google Alerts is a free-to-use service in which you can add all of your key terms and phrases to a list and Google will send you email alerts whenever a news story or update is released that relates to that term or phrase. You can schedule a set time that all of your alerts come into your email. You can choose morning, afternoon, or evening or even multiple times throughout the day, if you have an issue that needs constant monitoring.

It is also good practice to add a Google Alert for your name. Doing this will allow you to be alerted anytime your name appears in a story or somewhere online. Also, if you own a business or brand, you should have an alert set up for these as well for the same reasons.

Feedly

Feedly is a news aggregator application for your web browser that allows you to bookmark and organize all of the websites you regularly check for updates. You can categorize these based on your needs so you can keep track of different sites for different topics. The feed allows you to scan RSS feeds, news and updates from your tracked sites by date and popularity all in one place. Having all of your news sources together saves you the time of having to go to each site separately looking for updates.

Feedly is a free-to-use platform which includes most of its features, but also has a paid pro option that will allow you to incorporate your Google Alerts into your Feedly feed as well as give you access to unlimited feeds, sources, and premium customer service.

Following Social Media

Much important news is shared these days through social media. A good practice to have is to make sure you follow your news sources on social media platforms such as Twitter and activate notifications for any that you need to track closely. This way, when something new is posted or updated you can be in the loop. Sometimes news and updates will be posted to social media before they are released on news sites; this way, you can keep on top of important issues that affect you and your business or association.

Following specific hashtags is also a great way to keep up on trending news related to your cause or industry. You should do research and find if there are any highly-used hashtags that fit to your needs and follow them as they tend to lead you to updates and news quickly as well. Though social media can get quite noisy at times, it is still a great source of updates for news, causes, and events if you can develop a system for aggregating the news important to you through notifications and hashtags.

Stay in the Loop

There are many options for staying on top of news related to your specific needs. In today’s world of quick, shortened news cycles and instant 24/7 news updates, it can seem impossible to keep up with everything at once, but these tools help make it easier and less stressful. Of course, there is nothing wrong with reading the local newspapers or doing Google searches for news updates. These suggestions are simple tools that will make monitoring news much more productive while giving a broad scope of resources all at once in an organized way. Keeping on top of things is essential for many businesses, causes, and just day to day life, and with these tools, you’re all set.

Need More Help?

For more information, visit us at www.arc3communications.com or contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We look forward to working with you to acheive all of your content, digital, and advocacy goals.

Filed Under: Business Advocacy, Campaigns and Elections, Content Marketing, News, Public Affairs, Strategic Communications Planning, Uncategorized

Arc 3 Featured in Ignite HQ Publication 

July 23, 2019 By Paul McNally Leave a Comment

Arc 3 Communications was recently featured in IgniteHQ’s monthly newsletter. The feature highlights our founder, Patrick Burns, and how he has built an innovative agency that embraces content, digital and advocacy together. Read more about Arc 3 Communications’ focus, customers, and growth here.

 

Filed Under: Content Marketing, News, Uncategorized Tagged With: Arc 3 Communications, Content Marketing

Congrats to Our Founder

July 12, 2019 By Paul McNally Leave a Comment


Congratulations to our founder, Patrick Burns and his wife Mary on the recent birth of their fifth child, Michael McAlister Burns.

Michael is a beautiful healthy baby boy weighing in at 9 lbs. 8 ounces and 20 inches long.

We are so happy for the Burns’ family on their new addition!

Filed Under: News, Uncategorized

Content Marketing Internship – Fall 2019

June 21, 2019 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Arc 3 Communications, an Atlanta area-based agency specializing in content, digital and advocacy is seeking an intern in the area of content marketing.

Arc 3 is looking for an intern that would like to further their experience in content marketing in the trade association, public affairs and government space. Desired skills include knowledge of content creation, social media management and analytics tools, as well as strong writing skills. Knowledge of design tools such as Photoshop, Canva and Google Drawings is a plus. Internship would be part-time or full time; virtually or at our office.

Applicants must be a current college undergraduate or graduate student. Academic credit can be arranged for internship.

We are a startup with a bold vision. If you are looking to gain professional experience in politics and public affairs while learning content marketing strategies, please contact our Founder, Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com 

Filed Under: Content Marketing, News, Uncategorized

10 Great Tips for a Successful Email Newsletter

June 7, 2019 By Paul McNally Leave a Comment

When it comes to crafting a successful email newsletter, there are many things to consider. At times, these considerations can be overwhelming, resulting in inconsistency in newsletter delivery and quality. Here are 10 tips to keep in mind that can help make for a successful email newsletter every time.

  1. Choosing your Email Template

The first step in creating an eye-catching, accessible, and successful newsletter is choosing an appropriate and most importantly, mobile friendly, newsletter template. You may be surprised to know that 51% of recipients unsubscribe from email newsletters that aren’t visually appealing (optinmonster.com). This means you can lose over half of your audience by having an unappealing template. Companies like Mailchimp allow you to easily create simple and effective email templates or choose from pre-made designs that are already optimized for mobile devices. Make sure to keep your audience and purpose in mind when creating or choosing your template; gear your design towards what will perform best with them.

  1. Create Engaging and Strong Content

After you have chosen your template design, you will need quality content to fill your newsletter for your readers. This content can be organized by predetermined newsletter subjects, such as having each newsletter cover a specific topic or content area, or just have each newsletter contain specific content types as press releases, event recaps, and thought leadership articles. You will want to develop organizational strategies and decide what works best for your purposes, but always make sure you have top-quality content. If readers aren’t interested, they will not engage and even worse may unsubscribe to future newsletters.

  1. Grow your Mailing List

If you are considering a newsletter, chances are you have a mailing list ready to send to. Whether you have a list already or plan on building one from scratch, you should always be willing to grow it further by gaining new subscribers. This can be done by implementing a newsletter sign-up form on your website. This can be a pop-up that greets visitors to your website or a form implanted on your homepage somewhere visible and easily accessible. Again, this form should be mobile friendly. You can also link people to your newsletter subscription through social media or physical email sign-up forms.

  1. Segmenting your Mailing List

Having an extensive mailing list could also mean you have readers that are interested in different policy issues, products and services, or information. You can design multiple newsletters that are geared towards these differing interests and can be sent to the subscribers who want to see it most. There are many tools to track reader patterns and activities (buying trends, demographics, etc.) so you can make sure the content these audiences are receiving is tailored to their interests and increases the chance they will want to remain engaged with your newsletters.

  1. Eye-catching Subject Lines

When potential readers are going through their emails, they are usually scanning subject lines to determine which emails to open and read. If your subject line lacks creativity and relevancy, it is likely to be skimmed over without a second glance. It is suggested that subject lines be no more than five words and use catchy and energetic words. Taking time to run your subject lines through programs such as CoSchedule’s Email Subject Line Tester can help gauge how your subject line will do with your audience. Take time with your subject line, it will help drive open and click-through-rates!

  1. Mobile Friendly is Key

It may sound like a broken record, but in today’s mobile-driven world, it is of utmost importance that all of your newsletter content is geared toward mobile devices. More than 75 percent of people check email on their smartphones and mobile devices. If your newsletter is not optimized for mobile viewing, many of your readers won’t bother with it and could become frustrated and unsubscribe. Luckily, most templates offered on email newsletter platforms are mobile-friendly, but it is always a good idea to double check.

  1. Not Just Promotion, but Engagement

Your email newsletter should be more than self-promotion and advertising, it needs to help form a relationship with your audience. This is where the strong content comes into play in providing helpful and thoughtful information that communicates with the reader. One trick to building a strong bond with your readers is to send newsletters frequently as opposed to every once in a while. Weekly or monthly newsletters, as opposed to quarterly or bi-annual newsletters, help remind your audience why they subscribed and that you are interested in keeping the relationship going.

  1. Social Media Integration

If you have social media that you use to share relevant content or organization updates, integrate those platforms into your newsletter. Having links to your various social media accounts will help you gain followers there as well. Also, make sure to have your contact information and a link to your homepage for readers who may have questions or want to get in contact with you right away. This also adds to the relationship building by allowing your readers to keep track of the content and announcements you may release between newsletters.

  1. Create a Catchy Call to Action

Whereas your email newsletter shouldn’t just be self-promoting advertising, you do want your readers to take action of some sort. Whether it be going to your website, following you on social, taking part in a trial, becoming a paying member, or partaking in a survey you will want to have a call to action (CTA). Also, this CTA needs to be eye-catching and easy to engage with so readers will take the necessary steps. This usually takes the form of a button or link towards the end of your newsletter that stands out. If you have engaging content and have formed that relationship, readers are more likely to take action.

  1. Always Perform Test Runs

When your newsletter is looking finished and ready to go, there is one last thing you need to do before sending it out to your subscriber list; send a test. This will help you make sure there are no broken links, optimization issues, or any other problems. This will also allow you to see it from the reader’s perspective. You could easily do this by having a list of people on your team to send a test email to. It is usually better to send a test to more people than just yourself, this way, you get multiple sets of eyes to catch anything that you may overlook. Sending a test also includes sending your newsletter to specific subscribers to test things like send times, subject lines, and content success so you can see what works and what may need changing. In reviewing the test, don’t forget to review the email newsletter on your mobile device.

 

For more information on email newsletters and to find out how we can help you with your marketing campaigns, visit us at www.arc3communications.comor contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We look forward to working with you and building successful email marketing strategies together.

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: Arc 3 Communications, Content Marketing, Email Marketing and Trade Associations, Email Newsletter, Email Tools, marketing, media relations

Welcome New Account Executive Paul McNally!

November 28, 2018 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Arc 3 Communications welcomes Paul McNally as Account Executive. McNally is a recent graduate of Kennesaw State University with a bachelor’s degree in Communication & Media Studies. With a strong passion and skill for writing, research, content creation, marketing and media, he is the perfect addition to Arc 3 Communications.

During his career, McNally has worked on many impressive projects. His proudest work was teaming up with the non-profit Sober Living America in creating a media kit and campus event at Kennesaw State University which raised awareness of addiction among young adults and students. He wrote multiple articles that were published in the 2018 edition of KSU’s communication magazine, Pipeline including alumni stories; coverage of the dedication ceremony of the new radio lab named for the late Rhubarb Jones, a beloved Atlanta country music radio host; and a story on a new study abroad program in Milan, Italy. Prior to attending Kennesaw State University, Paul attended the Art Institute of Atlanta where he studied graphic design and animation. While a senior at KSU, he interned for an entire year at Arc 3 Communications with company president Patrick L. Burns. 

In his free time, he likes to read, write, draw, and spend time with his wife, Cobb County school teacher Trish McNally and their lovely black Labrador, Malcolm. Together the couple loves traveling, hiking, and enjoying nature. They just recently returned from traveling abroad with the Workaway program, a service program that allows people to work a variety of jobs in return for food and board, in which they volunteered all around Europe. During their three-and-a-half-month trip they worked on farms in Sweden, art festivals and foster animal care in Wales, a tango event in Germany, gardening in London, as well as visiting Amsterdam and Denmark.

“I am really excited to work with Arc 3 Communications to bring clients quality content and account service,” McNally said, “It is an innovative company doing amazing work with the top associations and companies from across the country right in the heart of downtown Marietta.”

Filed Under: Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, News, Public Affairs, Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized

Don’t Be Like United Airlines: Crisis Communications and Social Media Protocol Tips

May 27, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

In order to better protect the reputation of your organization, new crisis communications protocols that integrate social media strategies must be put in place to meet today’s new challenges. The following video presentation by our Founder, Patrick L. Burns quickly highlights key strategies that are an important part of an updated crisis communications plan that incorporates social media.

Need to update your crisis communications plan with the latest social media strategies? Contact us here or via Facebook Messenger.

 

Filed Under: Social Media Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: Social Media and Crisis Communications, Social Media and Crisis Communications Protocols, Social Media and Crisis Communications Tips

Ten Ways to Post Political Views On Facebook Without Being Unfriended

May 26, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Facebook messages have been shown to be an effective tool in get-out-the-vote political efforts. In the prestigious journal, Nature, political scientist Dr. James Fowler found that a single get-out-the-vote message could produce a 2.2 % bump in voter turnout. More importantly, 80% of the impact came from users sharing the message with their friends.

However, sharing your political views online can come with the risk of being unfriended if not done in the appropriate way. Here are some simple tips for sharing your political views on Facebook:

1) Be humorous. Humor disarms and is a powerful weapon to articulate a point of view to someone who may not agree with you.

2) Comment on timely topics and events. Remember the “Query Deserves Freshness” (QDF) rule of Google search which ranks fresh content on timely topics higher. Be relevant in your discussions, especially with those whom you may disagree.

3) Use an image, preferably one that promotes empathy or sympathy for your cause. Social media is about images. Without them your message is ineffective.

4) Avoid ad hominem attacks on those who do not share your views online.

5) Rely on facts and figures and data to support your position. Utilize infographics. Social issues especially are helped along by sociological data to support your position.

6) Listen and learn and engage your audience. Your audience must first know that you listen to them, before they will entrust you to persuade or lead them.

7) Timing of posts; the best time to post on Facebook is between and 9 and 10 p.m. EST. People are more receptive to messages at this time.

8) Be a consensus builder. Find small issues that you can agree with those of different political viewpoints first.

9) Be conversational. Facebook is a large cocktail party; act as though you were talking with your friends in person. Social media is a conversation and it helps to be pleasant and engaging.

10) Keep you content consistent and interesting. Facebook is not a graffiti wall in which you just post information for the sake of posting. Give thought to your overall posts. Once posted, it is out there. Even if you delete your post, chances are someone may have taken a screenshot photo of it.

The most important rule of all in discussing politics on Facebook is to use your common sense and be civil. Just as in real world conversation, civility and tone can go a long way in your online conversation.

Filed Under: Campaign Management, Digital Marketing, Public Affairs, Social Media Audits and Listening analyses, Social Media Relations, Strategic Communications Planning, Uncategorized Tagged With: Campaign and Elections, Campaigning, Defriending, Facebook, Facebook Defriend, Facebook Defriending, Facebook Friends, Facebook Friendship, Facebook Friendships, Politics, Social Data, social media, Unfriend, Unfriending, Unfriending On Facebook

Why Content Marketing Matters for Your Trade Association’s Future

May 15, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

content-marketingEvery industry is facing the digital disruption of their traditional marketing and communications. Trade Associations are no different and not immune to the winds of change that have occurred in consumer and business to business marketing. Trade associations’ marketing and communications efforts to membership, stakeholders, alliance groups and government audiences is changing and aligning with big brands’ transition to a content marketing model. The largest and most effective brands in the world such as Coca-Cola and IBM, use content marketing to build relationships and brand loyalty and make future sales.

Developing a content marketing program for your trade association is important to achieving your organization’s goals and objectives in the digital age of communications. What is content marketing? It is the creating and sharing of valuable, relevant and consistent content in order to build relationships with an audience to achieve an objective such as a membership sale. It is owning media, not renting it. By sharing your best ideas and experience, good content builds trust and relationships with people and encourages them to come back to you when they need your services or product.

The most popular forms of content marketing are articles, social media content, blog posts and e-newsletters. But case studies, white papers, e-books and webinars have also proven to be effective in reaching audiences. Although social media and digital formats have made content marketing affordable and effective for big and small organizations, it is not strictly confined to online. Print publications such as John Deere’s The Furrow Magazine and Lego’s Lego Club Magazine have been around for decades and are remarkably successful in building long lasting relationships for these respective brands.

Like the big brands, trade associations must come to the realization that traditional marketing with its heavy reliance on television, direct mail and print media is a losing strategy in retaining and growing membership and promoting advocacy and policy goals, especially among millennials. With the rapid decline in cable television subscribers, newspaper readers and the increase in junk mail into mailboxes, producing compelling content that engages your members and reaches them on the digital continent is vital. The most popular television channel for millenials isn’t even on TV; it is YouTube.

The future of trade associations and all those organizations that are engaged in civic life depends upon the sharing of content online that engages and forms relationships with audiences. In order to have millenials active in your association, you must reach them on the digital continent in which they live. Support for your association’s membership, legislative and advocacy efforts depend upon this large group upon which future board members and leadership will come.

Want to learn more about the principles and fundamentals of content marketing and how you can update your trade association’s communications and marketing efforts? Contact Patrick Burns at pburns@arc3communications.com. We can work with you on content marketing fundamentals such as a content audit, the creation of a content marketing plan, content calendars, a content management system and analytics. Arc 3 can reboot your trade association’s marketing efforts and implement a content marketing process in your organization that helps you achieve success.

Filed Under: Business Advocacy, Content Marketing, Digital Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: Content Marketing, Content Marketing and Trade Associations, John Deere, Lego Club Magazine, YouTube

This Week in Digital & Public Affairs: Snapchat IPO, Facebook Live and Conservatives

February 4, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Below is a roundup of key stories in digital and public affairs for this week:

Content, Digital and Social Media

The New York Times reports on the public S.E.C filing by Snap, the parent company of Snapchat. Snap filed confidentially to go public with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last year. Making the filing public was one of the company’s final steps before it begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol SNAP. In the filing, Snap disclosed that it had built a nearly $405 million advertising business in just over two years. By end of last year,  an average of 158 million people were using the app daily, with the average user opening the app more than 18 times a day according to the public filing.

AdAge does a analysis of the Snap filing pointing out key facts that every marketer should know about. AdAge points out that while Snapchat has 158 million users, growth appears to have flattened out, as it was only up from 153 million at end of September 2016. In addition, the overwhelming majority of users are 18 to 34 years old and the highest engagement on the platform is among those younger than 25. AdAge also points out Snap’s admission in the filing that it has had difficulty in securing long-term commitments from advertisers and is concerned that advertisers may take knowledge from playing on their platform and use it with their competitors.

Gov 2.0 and Public Affairs

State Scoop reports on a recent poll of local governments by the Public Technology Institute that found that 85% of local governments use social media to disseminate information to their constituents. However of those local governments who use social media, 88% of them do not have a specific budget for social media activities and 63% do not have an enterprise wide social media strategy for their efforts. The survey found the top three social media platforms for local government were Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Associations Now offers 5 tips for associations to optimize online fundraising. Tips include creating a compelling narrative that bring donors into the story; design an easy to use branded giving page and make your website mobile friendly; remembering end of year dates and holidays; and periodic messages to donors throughout the year.

Campaigns and Elections

Backchannel reports on how Facebook Live has become the perfect incubator for conservative media. Conservative outlets like the Daily Caller are using Facebook live to not just explain policy but take their audience behind the scenes in the new Administration. Backchannel argues that the low key nature of Facebook Live is the perfect medium for the conservative news media to reach millions. The off the cuff, unscripted nature of Facebook Live videos mirror President Trump’s style and are more authentic and believable to conservative audiences.

Mike Su, Chief Product Officer for Mitú, a Latino digital media company, writes an analysis in Medium of how through the examination of Facebook data, his company found that despite Latinos being apprehensive about the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton made little headway among them on the Facebook platform. In their study, Mitú found across all Latinos on Facebook, Hillary Clinton had just a quarter of the interest that Donald Trump had. Su credits the Trump campaign for moving quickly and efficiently to grow it base on the platform and rants about record low spending by Democrats on Hispanic outreach.

These are some of the reads that matter to us for the week in digital and public affairs. Want to get in depth analysis, news and how to tips in digital and public affairs? Subscribe to our monthly newsletter here.

Filed Under: Business Advocacy, Campaigns and Elections, Civic Innovation/Gov. 2.0, Government, Public Affairs, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Relations, Uncategorized Tagged With: Associations and Online Fundraising, Facebook and Election 2016, Facebook and Hispanics, Facebook Live and Conservative Media, Facebook Live and Politics, Snap, Snapchat, Snapchat IPO, Social Media and Local Government

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About Our Founder

Husband, Father of 5, Founder of Arc 3 Communications - a digital and public affairs agency. Over 25 years in politics and public affairs. Follow me on twitter and instagram at @patricklburns. I live, work and play in the community I grew up in. Read More…

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