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Rebekah Iliff

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The Launch of the Women Worldwide Video Podcast

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In 2014, I started the Women Worldwide podcast to give women a voice and a platform to share their amazing stories and incredible career journeys. My goal was to have guests offer advice and insights on challenging topics and to empower listeners as they navigated the ups and downs of their own careers and lives. I’ve always said, “If the show can help listeners to feel like they’re not alone as they face obstacles, then we’ve succeeded.”

Podcasting was also a way for me to step out of my comfort zone. Today, we’ve launched Women Worldwide as a video podcast on YouTube. Once again, I’m stepping into an “uncomfortable zone” to build a video show with a team of dedicated professionals, and to experience video with my interview guests.

You can check out my launch video below, which also discusses the first episode with Rebekah Iliff, founder of WriteVest. Rebekah and I discuss creativity and problem solving through the lens of writing. In between the conversation, advice and insights are quite a few laughs. Rebekah made my job, as the host, really easy! You can check out the video interview on YouTube or visit the Women Worldwide website for show notes and the audio version.

Lastly, I’d like to dedicate the launch of the Women Worldwide video podcast to Noelle Skrobola, my stepdaughter, who passed away in September of 2018. Noelle was an instrumental part of Women Worldwide. She worked with the publicists and the guests who came on the show. In the short time that Noelle was with us, she empowered women and she always wanted to amplify their voices. Noelle … this one’s for you!

Featured Image Photo Credit: Noelle Skrobola

Zeit

What Ephemeral #Content Means For Our #Relationships

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The following article originally appeared on the AirPR blog. 

A Guest Post By Rebekah Iliff, Chief Strategy Officer, AirPR

ZeitA Shutterfly study revealed that although Americans are snapping more photos than ever, they’re failing to share and look back at them. Based on the study, Americans now take more than 10 billion photos every month, but only one in two of the survey respondents have looked back at a picture more than ten years old within the last month.

If ephemeral (AKA “fleeting content”) is on the rise – and it is – what does it mean for our relationships, from romantic partners to friends and colleagues?

Snapchat turns moments into one-time secrets, Vine has evolved videos into mini versions of themselves, and Periscope (Twitter’s live video-streaming platform that lets you view “transmissions” for up to 24 hours after the live broadcast) all help to facilitate a digital conversation that’s meant to fade with time. The opportunities for marketers to leverage these platforms are plentiful and quite exciting when it comes down to it. But for the sake of human reflection (and Valentine’s Day), let’s look at how ephemeral content is changing the way we manage our real relationships.

We stare at our Smartphone screens in bed.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever pawed your partner’s phone down in bed only to start a mini-argument about them having lost their place in the article they found via their iPhone’s News app. I see many hands.

We judge romantic prospects in a matter of seconds.

Social/dating apps like Tinder encourage us to judge prospective mates immediately based on a photo and mobile-short bio. What and who are we overlooking because of technology? Do the benefits of being able to quickly preview prospects outweigh the cons?

Treasured photos go unprinted.

RIP scrapbooks and framed family photos – hello, minimalist apartments equipped with cloud technologies. Flipagrams posted on Instagram just may be our new photo albums…

FOMO continues with full force.

Now that we’ve replaced printing photos of fun times with live broadcasting, we’re continually contributing to the FOMO issues of others. Let’s go straight to the source for this one and ask a college student. Syracuse University Digital Journalism major Jane Hong comments, “If you and I were hanging out and I posted a Snap of us to my story, a third party could be hurt or jealous they weren’t invited.” What Jane said.

New ways to engage are born.

From sharing videos of special moments like getting engaged so your whole family can see it the second it happens to reconnecting with old flames via social platforms, we’re also reaping some pretty cool benefits from today’s ephemeral content platforms. You can’t deny that.

So there you have it. The future is indeed here, it’s okay to be in love with software, and we will surely see many more exciting shifts in social sharing that will make us feel torn between whether our real lives or digital lives are better.

What do you think? Is ephemeral content a sign of evolution or does it make you feel nostalgic for old-world ways? Let us know in the comments below!

Rebekah Iliff headshot HIGH RESRebekah Iliff is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for AirPR, a technology platform to increase PR performance. Previously, she was the CEO of talkTECH Communications, one of the fastest growing, launch-only PR firms in the US. Additionally, she is a columnist for Inc., and Forbes, and a contributing writer for Mashable, Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post.

Rebekah Iliff headshot HIGH RES

In #PR This is all You Need to Know in 2016

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The following article originally appeared on the AirPR blog. 

Ahhh, the new year. A time for resolutions, preparations, and perhaps my favorite: bright-eyed predictions.

Our propensity to look toward the future through lens of the past is as necessary to the human experience as breathing.

Not wanting to be left out (FOMO alert. BTW that word is so last year. What you really need to know is the correct usage of “On Fleek.” Thank you Meredith Fineman for keeping me relevant), I have pulled together everything a PR person may have done in 2015 that they don’t need to do anymore, while giving y’all some guidance for 2016.

Here’s whatchya don’t need to do anymore…aka not On Fleek:

1. Call journalists you don’t know out of the blue thinking they will call you back or be happy that you called. They won’t.

2. Report “headline impressions” or “AVEs” as key metrics. This is a spank-worthy practice. Very bad.

3. Be afraid that what you offer as a professional isn’t as important as other aspects of the marketing function (did someone say advertising, digital, social?). It is so so so important. I promise.

4. Write masturbatory press releases for the express purpose of making some key executive happy because (s)he likes the sound of her own voice or likes to see his name in quotes. Blech. Stop it, puuhlease.

5. Believe that you are supposed to like analytics and numbers, when in fact, you probably never will. That’s ok. But it’s an important part of the PR function so figure out a hack for it. Hire someone. Find someone to partner with who likes this aspect of it. Then soar to the moon with data in hand.

Now for the goods.

Here are a handful of trends to be aware of in the coming year. I cannot take credit for coming up with these. I simply stole narrowed down themes based on this Hotwire Communications Trend Report.

Here’s what is On Fleek for 2016:

1. For B2B, LinkedIn Pulse and Medium are a boon for marketing and PR and will continue to gain traction as leading publishing platforms.

2. To compete against all the noise, go for depth and targeted campaign content. What? I know, being deep rules. Being superficial doesn’t.

3. Brands are shifting focus to “Association” rather than “Advertising”. The argument here: LIFE by association.

4. Influencer endorsements will become even more important. If you can’t get them organically, brands will have to pay for them. TIP: Check out our friends at Thuzio or any of the incredible PRTech companies playing in this space.

5. Culture is shifting to “Ephemeral Content” and not needing to keep a lasting record of everything. THANK GOD.

6. Hyperlocal content and hyperlocal reporting will gain even more traction as this type of content tends to attract specific (subset) audiences. EXAMPLE: BuzzFeed’s model of 22 things you’ll only know if you’re from X.

7. Data first: PR pros need to include data in the content planning phase then track all the way through outcomes. Execs are demanding this.

8. Virtual Reality heats up and meets the desire for data as well as brand experiences. Survios is sooo on this. #ShamelessBigSisPlug.

9. Corporate Social Responsibility and brand activism continue to lead company messaging: “Values don’t (or shouldn’t change) and have a tremendous effect on the growth of a company.” Just ask Qualcomm Wireless Reach.

10. Transmedia branding: The reinvention of PR through creating unified and coordinated experiences (CAVEAT: the ability to engage audiences and negotiate relationships is still a central skill).

11. Mobile, Wireless, and Cordless take all, as the future is about streaming (rise of Netflix, Spotify, etc.), and consumers want to be free to move from place to place over space and time. Trippy.

Let’s see if I got it right. We’ll circle back in 12 months.

Any other emerging trends you’re keeping an eye on in 2016? Please do share in the comments below.
Rebekah Iliff headshot HIGH RESRebekah is currently the Chief Strategy Officer for AirPR, a technology platform to increase PR performance. Previously, she was the CEO of talkTECH Communications, one of the fastest growing, launch-only PR firms in the US. Additionally, she is a columnist for Inc., and Forbes, and a contributing writer for Mashable, Entrepreneur, and The Huffington Post.