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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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

Why Content Marketing Matters for Your Trade Association’s Future

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

Every 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.

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.

This Week in Digital and Public Affairs: Snapchat and the Trump Digital Transition

January 30, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Digital and social media are transforming how government institutions, political campaigns and trade associations are communicating and marketing to their key audiences.

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

Content, Digital and Social Media

Social Media Today reports that Facebook is testing discussion topics among Facebook groups as a way to promote greater engagement. The new discussion prompts separate out topics from within the group chat, making it easier to see trending conversations and areas of interest. The new feature follows Facebook’s testing of Facebook group member application questions, which will help group admins better filter and screen their audience.

The New York Times reports how Snapchat issued new publishing guidelines for media outlets on its Discover channel. The new rules restrict publishers from posting questionable or explicit pictures that do not have news or editorial value. Snapchat also clarified guidelines that prevent publishers from including reports or links to outside websites that could be considered fake news, saying that all content must be fact-checked and accurate. The new guidelines come ahead of an initial public offering expected this spring by Snapchat’s parent company, Snap.

Gov 2.0 and Public Affairs

NextGov reports on what President Trump’s C-Suite tech team may look like at the White House. While it remains unclear which of the Obama administration’s tech-themed C-suite appointee positions will be replaced, the Trump Administration did announce the appointment of Gerritt Lansing, former chief digital officer at the Republican National Committee, to the role of Chief Digital Officer at the White House.

The Hill reports on President Trump banning EPA employees from posting social media updates as part of restrictions put in place during a policy review. A similar social media ban was put in place for employees of the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Park Service. In response to the order, some administrators of the National Park Service set up an alternative twitter account @AltNatParkSer that is “Not Taxpayer Subsided” and vowed to tweet “facts” regarding climate change. Official verified twitter accounts for the Badlands National Park and the Golden Gate National Park respectively continued to tweet climate change policy information after the ban.

Associations Now reports that while associations are aggressively planning for the recruitment of millennial members, they need to start thinking about Generation Z, which will enter into the workforce for the 1st time this year. Born on or after 1995, Generation Z has unique digital consumption habits that are different from Millennials, and love Snapchat.

Campaigns and Elections

The Knight Foundation presented a report on how the major chat apps such as Snapchat, Facebook Messenger and Viber promoted civic engagement in the 2016 Election. While the 2016 Election was the first time that the major chat platforms collectively attempted to register voters and promote election coverage, Snapchat was the most active platform; encouraging users and politicians to use the platform for sharing ideas and political conversation. Led by Head of News Peter Hamby (formerly of CNN), the platform also offered extensive election coverage.

These are some of the reads that matter to us for the week in digital and public affairs. What do you think? What are your favorite stories? We’d love to hear from you!

This Week in Digital and Public Affairs: The Facebook Journalism Project and the Trump Inauguration

January 23, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Digital and social media are transforming how government institutions, political campaigns and trade associations are communicating and marketing to their key audiences.

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

Content, Digital and Social Media

Fast Company reports on recent moves by Facebook to become more of a media company, such as the announcement of the Facebook Journalism project. This move farther into the realm of professional journalism is described by Facebook as an initiative to establish stronger ties with the news industry. To learn more about the Facebook Journalism Project go here.

Speaking of news and Facebook, Tech Crunch reports that Facebook is taking its trial of measures to combat fake news beyond the United States for the first time – rolling out the updates in Germany. The measures that Facebook has been testing in the U.S. to fight fake news include making it easier for users to report fake news by letting users click in the top right corner to report a suspect post; badging suspect content with ‘truth warnings’ and down-ranking it to make it harder for it to spread; and reducing financial incentives for spammers to create fake news as a route to generating advertising revenue by eliminating the ability for them to spoof well-known news websites. To identify fake news, Facebook is working with external fact checkers who are signatories of Poynter’s International Fact Checking Code of Principles

Gov 2.0 and Public Affairs

The Washington Post reported on how the presidential inauguration committee utilized social media ads to encourage Trump supporters to attend inaugural festivities. The ads on Facebook and Instagram showed a video of then President-elect Trump inviting supporters to come to The Mall on January 20th for his swearing-in.

For those not able to attend the festivities or watch them on TV, Tech Crunch outlined the many ways to stream the presidential inauguration online. Of note was YouTube’s partnership with several media outlets including NBC, CBS, Telemundo, Univision and The Washington Post to broadcast the inaugural ceremony and festivities on its platform.

The Obama Administration outlined the digital transition to the new administration on whitehouse.gov, including listing the digital assets that would remain with the White House, where to access Obama White House archival content; and ways to continue to follow and engage with President Obama, the First Lady, and other Obama White House officials after January 20th.

Soon after the swearing in of President Trump at 12:01 p.m., January 20th, the incoming Trump administration relaunched whitehouse.gov, including a new splash page for collecting email addresses and Trump’s biography. Politico reports that a major overhaul of the site is scheduled for later in the year.

Campaigns and Elections

Wired reports that the Republican National Committee’s Chief Technology Officer, Darren Bolding is moving to Cambridge Analytica as its new CTO, where he will build products for commercial and political clients. Cambridge Analytica is the data firm that helped engineer Donald Trump’s victory in the general election.

These are some of the reads that matter to us for the week in digital and public affairs. What do you think? What are your favorite stories? We’d love to hear from you!

This Week in Digital and Public Affairs – Instagram, Snapchat and The BuzzFeed Dossier

January 16, 2017 By Patrick L. Burns Leave a Comment

Digital and social media are transforming how government institutions, political campaigns and trade associations are communicating and marketing to their key audiences.

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

Content, Digital and Social Media

Facebook announced the hiring of Campbell Brown, a former NBC News correspondent and CNN prime-time host, to lead its news partnerships team. While Facebook indicated that she would not serve in a role as editor-in-chief, she would work as a liaison with news organizations so that Facebook can better meet their journalistic and business imperatives.

Snapchat announced the launch of universal search to simplify navigation on the platform. This move was clearly to ward off competition from Instagram’s Stories which has hit 150 million users. Instagram has now offered an advertising product on Stories that has the targeting capabilities offered in Facebook.

Medium, a platform for long form content, announced it was laying off a third of its employees, mostly in sales. CEO Ev Williams stated that Medium would be renewing its focus away from an ad-driven model to one that rewards writers “on their ability to enlighten and inform, not simply their ability to attract a few seconds of attention.”

Gov 2.0 and Public Affairs

On DigitalGov, Julia Jackson with the National Institutes of Health explores how social media platforms are becoming one-stop shops for information needs as the platforms become more feature rich and audience share falls away from search engines. Jackson recommends that federal agencies should refocus their attention on content created for social media in 2017 and use the platforms as one of their primary communication strategies.

In Social Media Today, Alan Rosenblatt talks about how public affairs organizations should consider self-publishing strategies to achieve their objectives. Once dismissed by professionals as less worthy than earned media, Rosneblatt argues that self publishing on your own website, blogs and social media is an effective strategy in achieving goals and can have greater impact than placing stories in the news media.

Speaking of effective, self-publishing strategies in public affairs, Associations Now reports on how the American Medical Association created a new content strategy that provided the framework for its website redesign. The new site is easy for its key stakeholders to navigate to content that is tailored to their needs.

Campaigns and Elections

Buzzfeed draws criticism for its publishing of a unverifiable secret dossier on President-elect Donald Trump and Russia. After its posting, BuzzFeed editor-in-chief, Ben Smith took to Twitter to explain how they made the decision. Smith stated that even though “there is serious reasons to doubt the allegations”, he noted that “publishing the dossier reflects how we see publishing in 2017”.

Writing in The Atlantic , staff writer, David Graham agrues that BuzzFeed sidestepped a basic principle of journalism in publishing the dossier. He argues that a reporter’s job is not simply to dump information into the public domain, but to gather information, sift through it and determine what is true and what is not.

On Federalist.com, lawyer turned writer Leslie Loftis argues that BuzzFeed’s decision to publish the dossier may lead to a defamation lawsuit. Loftis argues that BuzzFeed Editor in Chief Ben Smith’s rationale for publishing was the same rationale Rolling Stone’s Will Dana used to justify publishing a fake story that ended in a major court loss in Eramo v Rolling Stone.

On a side note, Nieman Labs reports on the success of BuzzFeed’s Tasty customized cookbook product which has sold enough copies to make it one of the best-selling cookbooks of the year. Tasty: The Cookbook, a choose-your-own categories, print-on-demand cookbook, sold over 100,000 copies in the last two months of 2016, earning BuzzFeed an estimated $2.4 to $4 million in sales.

These are some of the reads that matter to us for the week in digital and public affairs. What do you think? What are your favorite stories? We’d love to hear from you!

Content Marketing Internship – Fall 2019

Why Content Marketing Matters for Your Trade Association’s Future

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