Good morning, everyone. I know we're just getting started with some of the programming today for the Women Tech Global Conference. I'm Tiffany Carnac, the CEO of kite hill pr.And today we're going to be talking about a very exciting topic, creating communications programs that drive your business forward in this dynamic, ever-changing market. We've experienced so many changes even over the past year when we look at the impacts of the pandemic and communications, public relations, the world of pr and telling your story is one thing that has continued to change. So I'm going to give you some tips and tricks throughout the presentation today that will help you decode some of these changes. A lot of this as you're listening in, as you're taking notes will be relevant to the US market, but translates to many other markets. As I know this is a global international program. And I was just on this morning's kickoff with some of the organizers and we have people joining from everywhere across the country. So exciting. So let's get to it. And as I go throughout the presentation today, if you have any questions, feel free to just jump in to the Q and A side, that section on the side of your screen, drop a question in there.

I'll get to it as I can throughout the presentation or at the end of the presentation, if we have time. Thanks so much. So as we think about some of the key things I wanted to just first introduce you to kite L pr who I am and, and what I'm doing here today. So I'm the CEO of a leading agile tech pr agency. I used to say we're based in New York City, but in this work from anywhere environment, we're across the US. We've been recognized by some of the top leaders in the business as one of the top pr agencies in the US. We work with a lot of technology companies, media companies from Snapchat to buzzfeed and more and telling their story and continuing to develop communications programs that are impactful for them. I'm someone who has a long standing background in the pr industry for over 20 years.

I've been at the helm of communications programs for various technology and media companies. And before I launched Sky Hill, I was in house at the Huffington Post and spent many years in the broader media and tech pr industry. I'm also the founder of another industry conference called Communications Week, which was just Department Rean. So very excited to talk to you today and thanks so much for tuning in. So let's get to the meat of the the program today and some of the key tips about how you can create communications programs that really drive your business forward. So if you're thinking about what are the key things that have changed within this dynamic environment, really want to look at four key areas in communications programs and start to break them down one by one before I do that, let me give you an overview of some of the changes and impacts that we've seen over the course of this year, the first six months of 2021 and 2020 and the impact that it's had on shaping your communications program at this point in the year, we're halfway through 2021.

You're probably thinking about how do I start to adjust my communications programs right now to make sure I'm making an impact to drive my business forward, to invest in the right way. So there's four areas that I want you to keep in mind and I'll define each one of them as we go through things today. One is agility. Now, this is a little bit of a buzzword. I'll admit it's something that we talk about time and time again. It's agility not only in mindset, but what I want you to leave here with today when you look at your communications program is how are you going to be agile in practice? I'm gonna tell you how you can do that. Two, if you're adjusting your communications programs, whether you're A B to C company. So business to consumer or B to B, the area of thought leadership has become even more important, showcasing that value that you provide as a business. The third is leaning on data and insights to tell your story. And the fourth is purpose and passion. So if you think about those four areas, those are four main trends that are impacting your communications programs right now, if you're thinking about planning for the rest of the year, this is something that you should really be considering when you're adjusting your communications programs to drive your business forward.

Let's talk about the importance of agility and the most successful companies today are companies that are embracing agility, are looking at how they can pivot within this ever changing and very dynamic environment to come out on top, to be successful. That's what I want everyone to think about.

How do I adjust my communications program to do exactly that. So first, when you're taking the, the concept of agility and applying it to pr I just want to take a step back, I'll talk to you a little bit about what I mean by agile pr I, I gave a nod to say, of course, there's a bit of jargon around agile pr but what do we really mean when we talk about agile pr and how can I put that into practice right now today to change my communications programs.

Well, it's really about shifting your mindset. You're mapping out your communication strategies. You're looking at some of the main goals and those, those be hags, those big hairy audacious goals that you have for your communications program. What we used to do, we wind the clock back to 2019 was to map out a year strategy. We would sit down with our pen and paper. We'd start to map out seasonal peaks and valleys for our business and really look at what's that annual plan that we have for communications pro programming. So we can take that piece of paper, map everything out. So what if you've been working that way? I want you to rip up that approach to planning and adjust to a more agile approach to communications program. So that's shifting your mindset from long term planning, annual planning to near term planning. So everything you're starting to do when you're adapting your communications plan today for the rest of the year is starting to look at 90 day or even shorter 30 day cycles. Now, that doesn't mean that you're not keeping an eye on some of the bigger things that your company needs to accomplish.

On the contrary, you are, you're thinking about those bigger goals and you're tracking towards them, but you're breaking your communications program down into smaller bite size pieces running through those programs and then testing and learning with pr just like you would do potentially in marketing or just like you would do within product development.

So common way to think about agile is applied to product development, going through an agile cycle, going through a testing, learning, rolling something out, looking at some of the impacts and then adjusting we're gonna apply that to pr right now. That's our existing plans. We're thinking agile, we're not thinking of longer programs, we're going to think near term measure results and move that way. So the impacts on your pr plan is exactly what we're thinking about. We're moving from that waterfall pr planning, we've adapted. We're going to look at not only the results that we're getting, but keeping an eye on market conditions and then mapping out accordingly when it comes to the tactics that we have the impact that we're making and really keeping an eye on the audience and the audience adoption that we have of the communications messages that we're putting out into the market and the channels that we're using.

So that's really going to help us as we think about anything we're doing right now to drive our business forward is looking at really embracing that, that near term planning mindset that we can have and looking at some of the adjustments there. So here are some quick tips now that I've set you up with what it is and why we need to act this way in an agile pr way when we're moving things forward, what can we do right now. I want to implement this into my Pr pro program today. Um One embrace short term planning. Two, keep an eye on industry trends. So when you're testing and learning, it's not just about your, your existing environment don't operate in a vacuum. It's even more important to look at.

As you're testing and learning constantly, you're looking at what's happening in the broader industry, go out, look at, learn from competition, learn from some of the other impacts within the broader market and then continue to adjust there. You also can adjust by looking at different tactics and channels.

So what we're seeing more and more is that the classic PR model is even more integrated with other parts of the marketing funnel. So what I'd love to think about this might be something that you've heard of before. When you're thinking about agile pr planning and putting it into practice is the classic PO model. So this graphic is an example of the PO model and that means you're looking at as you're rolling out your communications program, you're changing your communications program today.

You're not going to only look at that top bucket, that top circle which is earned media. You're also going to look at how you can adjust other channels, it's paid shared and owned. Now, if you're not familiar with this, I'll just give you a little bit of background on this model. I know many of you probably are earned um that's a common question I get pretty often is what is earned media. Um That's everything you're not paying for that. Think about that traditional pr it's working with journalists, it's getting those headline moments, your company in the headline, driving your business forward with that traditional pr tactics. And really, that's valuable because it's adding credibility. But as we adjust that earned communication strategy, we're evaluating how earned can feed paid. So the different ways that we're using paid social, we're using, for example, paid uh posts on linkedin, we're looking at Se Os En and then how that influences the rest of the pieces of the po model owned and shared. Um That's particularly important for us today because one of the big shifts that we've seen really over the past year is even more of an integration with earned paid uh shared and owned.

So, um really, we're using that, that pr story that earned media to feed those other channels. Something that we saw pretty commonly in 2019 is that a lot of those channels would operate separately. Now, if you're looking to really drive your business forward, you, you really have to think about the integration and how all of that's coming together. Number two, if you're looking at adjusting your communications program right now to drive your business forward, highly recommend that you re evaluate how your company has been investing in thought leadership as a key part of the program. Now this is a key driver for your business.

So let's talk about what it is. First, we get set up on some of the things that we talk about. What are we talking about when we talk about thought leadership, uh that's all about cultivating a personal brand that is really in line with the company's uh business values and some of the messages that you need to put out within the marketplace today. So it's all about driving the business forward, influencing purchase decisions and providing relevant information to audiences. So that means when we're thinking about the impacts on our planning and putting that into practice, we really wanna evaluate the company's ongoing pr activities, the messages that we have that we're putting out to the marketplace and what do we need to communicate to our audiences, to our potential customers, to our potential clients that can be informational for them to make a decision to work with us and to work with our business.

That's particularly important we've seen from industry research that thought leadership can help to build the sales funnel, it can help to influence purchase decisions. So we wanna make sure that that's a part of that earned media mix that we have when we're creating a communications program that is future proof today. So some of the things that I want you to keep in mind when you're putting thought leadership packing it into your existing program, you're looking at some of the opportunities that you can create for your business. One is to really, when you think about thought leadership, how do you become a thought leader? Huh? It's working with you if you're the ceo of your business, um what I advise you or if you're working with executives and you're trying to work with them to build out a thought leadership program, look at what they can own. So when I think about best practices, I often say, pick your go to Lane. So that means digging into what area and topic is important to you, important to your business.

And it's integrated with some of the messages that you have for the rest of your communications program and sales and marketing channels. So that's something that is uh informational. So it's not an ad, it's something that provides value to your potential customer or client and it is something that ties back to the business. But again, advertising should be left in that paid bucket. This is really something that you use to generate more earned media when you're looking at building out a future proof communications program. But I also advise for thought leadership. And when I say thought leadership content that could be a bylined article, it could be commentary within a bigger article. So commentary piece in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, it could also be a Q and A or another blog post that you're submitting and that's authored under you as a CEO or if you're apr professional, you're representing a CEO that's having third party bylined article that's in a big industry trade or a publication like Business Insider or Venture Beat.

Um So the kind of thought leadership content is it ties back to your business. It's not an ad. I also like to advise you to present a counterintuitive point of view. And when I say counterintuitive, I don't mean negative, just something that provides additional value might be different from what you might have already heard within the marketplace. So as you do that, it's also something that's aligned with your corporate values. Here's an example of a thought leadership piece that we worked on with one of our clients, the clients uh was called momentum. Uh They are called momentum that is an experiential advertising agency. And one of the key things that they were looking to convey from a salt leadership perspective was that um you know, of course, they're looking at the gaming market, they wanted to provide more information and value to their potential clients about that market. So what they did is underpin that thought leadership piece, talking about how women are important to the gaming and e sports marketplace and gave some tips as to how you can market to them. So you can see very clearly it tied back to their business. It provided value and it was something that was placed in venture be game speed. So just one quick example, there another key thing is you're adjusting your communications program. This is more important now than ever before.

Of course, we've always talked about if you're looking at communications, the importance of using data and insights. But today, when, when we're on the phone, when we're talking to journalists, when you're looking to break through, and there's even more importance for you to leverage data and insights that are P rable. So it's a question I get all the time. What does that mean? How do I start to use more data that will be impactful? How do I do that today? Well, it's really about looking at the overarching communications program that we talked about from the beginning of the presentation today, some of those messages that you need to get out in the marketplace, the different channels that you have to push those messages out into the marketplace.

So you started with that agile mindset. You move through the importance of thought leadership and how do you start to back up those key points in your communications program in the marketplace? But I really strongly advise you to dig further into data, whether it's data that um for example, if you are the CEO of a technology platform or the pr manager of a, a large consumer company, um you probably have some, some great data points and nuggets that you're sitting on that might tell a story that might support your company's position in the market.

Um You can take that and you can start to look at how it backs up your points for thought leadership and some of the other messages that you have in the market and that's particularly important today because journalists, you know, they're hungry for that data that showcases not only your positioning but where you fit in to this new normal that we are in right now that we're in today.

Um And you're going to need to really look at how, how you can leverage the research you have. And if you don't have it start to evaluate potentially working with a third party on research reports or white papers that you can have integrated into your communications program overall.

So a couple of impacts there, look at the most impactful insights, less is more um oftentimes when you start to think about a communications program, you're gonna drive your business forward, you're looking at data and insights, it can be a little overwhelming, right? What do I have to invest in? How much do I need? Um If you're working with the data that you already have, think about those, those quick nuggets that support the points that you need to make within the, that support those bigger communications messages, uh use it to back up your thought leadership pieces and then you can also leverage that research first going back to some of the key points we talked about today for earned media.

So that's what I'd advise you on that strategy to drive your business forward. Use some of those research nuggets first for earned media and then look to leverage it for the other channels. So if we think about the po model example that we shared before, look at earned and then look to use some of those key points for the rest of your channels last but certainly not least. Um We have showcasing passion and purpose now. It feels like purpose driven communications. This is something we've talked about time and time again. Uh But it's, it's important today that really underpins your communications program to drive your business forward. Uh Really think about shifting from brand driven communications to purpose driven communications and showcasing your company's values as you adjust your communications program today. So that's the last tip I'm gonna leave you with today. Uh Really looking at that passion and purpose. What can you do right now?

Take this home, adjust your communications plan, look at being brave but sensitive, be relatable and relevant, be sensitive to, to current events and really take the values that you have as a company, don't be afraid to pull them forward and remember that consumers are more likely to purchase from purpose driven companies.

So this is something that is not only important when you think about your company's communications program, it's important to driving your business forward today. So that, that rounds us out everything we have to share uh looking at your communications program, this is how you do it.

I hope you learned from today's programming and gathered some insights that we have. It's all about first starting with that agile mindset, taking that agile approach. Then looking at how it influences your thought leadership and communications program with data and insights and purpose driven communications.

And then from there really being able to put that red thread together and, and tie everything together as to some of the existing opportunities that you can create for the business overall. I don't see any questions coming through. If anyone has any questions, you can reach out to me directly. Uh I'm at Tiffany at Kite Hill pr.com and you can always reach me via email via linkedin. Thank you so much for joining today. Have a good day.