At a recent conference on crisis communications, a participant stopped me and asked this question:  What do you do when your leadership is not communicating?  WHAT? Her real question was this: during a recent crisis in her town, the city leaders were not communicating to the tourism pros in town, yet the reputation of that […]

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Why You Need ‘Everybody Writes’

  • Fran Stephenson
  • July 7, 2015
  • 2 min read

I’ve been having lunch with Ann Handley several times a week for the last two months.  Well, it feels like I’ve been having lunch with her.  I’ve been reading her new-ish book Everybody Writes during my lunch hours.  But now, I’m done with her.  It was a sad day when I finished the last page […]

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Why You Should Wait to Post To Your Social Media Channels

  • Fran Stephenson
  • April 29, 2015
  • 3 min read

We get really excited when we have timely content for our social media channels.  So excited that we often shoot ourselves in the foot by trying to get it all out there at once.  As communicators, we are as trained to follow the news cycle as Pavlov’s dogs were trained to respond to the sound […]

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How to Find Content for Social Media

  • Fran Stephenson
  • March 15, 2015
  • 2 min read

Finding content is a struggle for many of my clients. Even with a well-developed brand and strong marketing campaigns, many organizations have a tough time filling the spaces of their social media networks with content. Content is right under our noses if we know how to look for it. “I just don’t know what to […]

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Is Improv the Latest PR Trend?

  • Fran Stephenson
  • January 14, 2015
  • 3 min read

Communications professionals are geared to be planners.  We do research, create plans, make road maps, all in the name of being thorough.  Certainly our timelines are more condensed than they’ve ever been before.  But what if we should be doing the opposite of planning? The nature of today’s communication environment makes planning more difficult, maybe […]

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Add Crisis of Reputation to Your Crisis Planning Kit

  • Fran Stephenson
  • January 8, 2015
  • 4 min read

Most companies planning for their crisis communications focus on physical types of crises like natural disasters and crime. Increasingly, however, it’s just as likely that an organization will face a crisis of reputation and the crisis will happen on social networks. This is a shocker to many traditional companies. You can just imagine the CEO […]

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Survive Your Holiday Trip with These Tips

  • Fran Stephenson
  • December 10, 2014
  • 5 min read

Thanksgiving was a warm-up to the big Christmas trip for many travelers.  With the peak travel period just weeks away, it’s time to look for some serious coping skills for the trip. Traveling this time of year is stressful.  More than 46 million Americans traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday this year according to AAA. Based on […]

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Packing Your Suitcase – Video Advice

  • Fran Stephenson
  • December 6, 2014
  • 1 min read

Here are 5 Resources for packing for your next trip. Check them out! This video from Real Simple is focused on packing womens’ clothes. This packing video from Holiday Inn Express is perfect for business travelers — with a really unusual way of folding shirts with collars. This is not really a video, but it’s […]

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Stitch Together Information for Your Visitors

  • Fran Stephenson
  • November 12, 2014
  • 5 min read

I pride myself on being a pretty good planner, especially when it comes to trips.  I also think I’m pretty good at online research, but a recent getaway with my family in Tennessee showed me (and now my clients!) just how important the little details are to travelers who are putting their faith into what […]

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Taking a Fall Vacation? Take My Advice

  • Fran Stephenson
  • November 5, 2014
  • 3 min read

This time of year is considered off-season by the travel industry, and for many, the lure of lighter crowds makes a fall getaway very appealing. But if you’re thinking about taking a vacation in fall or spring, the travel industry’s “shoulder periods,” you should be prepared for a different experience. Here’s what I found on […]

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