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How To Use and Promote It at Your Organization

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How To Use and Promote It at Your Organization

Language has the ability to build relationships and forge connections, but it’s equally liable for creating barriers and impacting someone’s sense of belonging. 

Using inclusive language, and having workplace conversations devoid of exclusive language, means employees are more likely to feel like they belong and can be their authentic selves at work. 

Here we’ll explore what inclusive language is and provide examples to ensure you create an inclusive workplace and inclusive marketing material and 2022 and beyond. 

 

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To explore how you might promote inclusive language at your organization, I spoke with some experts at HubSpot who have first-hand knowledge of incorporating inclusive language into their processes, products, and overall team culture.

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For instance, Hannah Fleishman, who led the charge on updating HubSpot’s Careers website to be more inclusive, told me, “Language has a big impact on our sense of belonging in the workplace. The challenge is, language is nuanced. The changes we should consider making to how we talk and write are often subtle.”

Melissa Obleada, an Associate User Experience Researcher at HubSpot, echoes this thought, mentioning, “Many of us don’t realize that our language has additional meaning hidden between the lines. Certain words can imply a certain age, gender, educational background, social class, and so much more. We see this a lot in the ways many folks write job descriptions.”

Consider, for instance, the last time you were in a meeting and a leader said, “Okay, guys, let’s get started” — do you think that automatically made female colleagues feel a little less-welcomed than their male peers? Would it have been better if he’d said “ya’ll” or “everyone”?

Alternatively, imagine you’re hiring a new person on your team and your boss tells you, “We’re looking for a good culture fit.” You know most people on your team are extraverted — does that make you unfairly biased during interviews as you seek out a “good culture fit” by looking for candidates that mirror your colleagues’ personality type?

Beth Dunn, Marketing Fellow at HubSpot, wrote a Medium piece on the topic of instilling a human voice in product content, and said, “Try not to present the privileged, tech-savvy, wealthy, able-bodied, white, cisgendered, anglo-centric male experience as ‘standard’ and everything else as ‘other’ or ‘diverse.’ Seek ways to place the ‘other’ in the center of things instead.”

Additionally, Dunn told me, “What’s great is that the English language is such a flexible, expressive language, so there are all sorts of ways to say what you need to say without indicating anything that might be exclusive. It just takes a little imagination, empathy, and practice, that’s all.”

Take job descriptions as an example — you might’ve heard by now that women only apply for jobs when they feel they’ve met 100% of the requirements, while men will apply when they feel they’ve met 60% of them.

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Fleishman suggests, “Try to avoid writing job descriptions with unattainable requirements. Using more inclusive language can be like building a new muscle; you need to get in the habit of recognizing nuances and asking yourself if what you’re saying, or writing, is accessible for everyone.”

Obleada adds that it’s not just job descriptions that you should edit for inclusivity — it’s all communication, whether through email, Slack, text, Facebook, or in-person: “When it comes to implementing inclusive language, it takes practice to shift your typical ways of speaking and writing.”

To monitor whether your communication is exclusive to certain groups, you’ll want to look at resources and tools online. For instance, Textio is an augmented writing tool that identifies whether you’re using gendered language in your writing or words with a strong feminine or masculine association. This can be undeniably helpful for both job descriptions and even emails to colleagues.

Additionally, you might consider taking a look at the Conscious Style Guide, a resource on conscious language that breaks down exclusive language into categories, including age and disability.

Finally, to identify your own implicit biases, try taking a Hidden Bias Test, like this one created by Psychologists at Harvard, the University of Virginia, and the University of Washington, to uncover how your biases might be inhibiting you from expressing yourself more inclusively.

If this all sounds like a lot of work to you, it’s important to note — this isn’t just about creating a more inclusive environment at work. It’s also critical for your company’s bottom line, particularly if you work for a global company or plan to expand your offerings to other regions in the future.

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Obleada explains it like this: “For some, writing and speaking inclusively may feel like a restrictive set of rules, hindering instead of helping us. In reality, it’s just the opposite.”

“Inclusive language opens up and amplifies your message to more people, making your blog post, job description, or website copy more accessible than before.”

Next, let’s explore some inclusive language examples in-practice.

1. Avoid company or team acronyms.

Fleishman told me, “Acronyms have become part of most companies’ vocabulary, but they can be alienating for new employees, candidates, or global teams.”

I personally remember how frustrated I felt when I first joined my team at HubSpot and everyone kept saying “TL;DR” in meetings. I was too embarrassed to ask what it meant. I finally Googled the term, but in the interim, the acronym made me feel separate from the larger group.

While this is a small and innocent example, there might be bigger acronyms you use every day within your team that continue to alienate new members or employees from other teams. And if your company does choose to use specific acronyms (like, in HubSpot’s case, H.E.A.R.T.), make sure you explain what it means during the employee onboarding process.

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2. Use plain language in your writing rather than expressions or jargon.

Many of us use colloquial expressions every day. For instance, I often say, “It’s just a ballpark figure” or “it should be a piece of cake,” without pausing to consider whether the listener knows or has heard the term before.

Of course, this can be confusing to other parts of the world that aren’t familiar with such expressions. If your company has global offices or works with customers from across the globe, expressions that are common to you can pose a major deterrent to clear communication. 

For instance, in Dunn’s Medium article, she writes, “We also avoid using metaphors (visual and written) that are specific to just one culture or class. So, for instance, we avoid using phrases like ‘knock it out of the park’ or ‘hit a home run,’ even though these phrases are pretty common in North America as they’re just not going to resonate outside of the U.S. Not because people will be offended by a reference to baseball, but because they won’t be as familiar, so the meaning won’t be as clear.”

The graphic below displays examples of colloquial words and phrases and plain language alternatives to ensure everyone understands you.

inclusive language examples: plain language

3. Refer to a theoretical person as “they” instead of “he” or “she.”

As marketers, we’re exceptional storytellers. Sometimes, however, whether you’re talking offhandedly with a colleague or delivering a pitch, you might get caught up in using pronouns that unintentionally support stereotypes.

For instance, let’s say you’re giving a pitch and you say, “We’ve found through analysis that our readers are typically in a VP position or higher, which is why we believe we should lean into LinkedIn as a strategy in 2020. For instance, let’s say our reader needs to deliver a presentation. He might turn to our blog ahead of time, but more likely, he’ll turn to LinkedIn first.”

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Your fictitious VP-level reader doesn’t need to be “male” or “female” — why not call them by the non-gendered pronoun “they,” “them,” or “their”? You can still make your point, and you won’t alienate people on your team who feel hurt that you’ve assumed that leaders are likely male.

This also relates to gendered terms that add nouns to the end of them, like salesman. Opting for a more inclusive term could be saying salesperson or sales rep. The image below shows additional examples of gendered terms and alternative phrases to use. 

inclusive language examples: gendered terms and phrases

4. Ensure your company’s designs or images reflect a diverse group of people.

When potential customers take a look at your website, you want them to see people (or figures) that look like them. Simultaneously, you want potential new hires to see themselves reflected.

Otherwise, you’re likely missing out on both potential customers, and future employees for your company.

1655827668 818 How To Use and Promote It at Your Organization

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In her Medium post, Dunn writes, “Our product illustrators try to ensure that the people we represent in illustrations are diverse in appearance, and that these different types of people are represented doing many different things (for instance, a person of color doing the talking while others listen, a woman in a wheelchair at an executive desk, etc.).”

As you scale as a company, you want to ensure your marketing materials reflect as many groups of people as possible. Otherwise, you’re unintentionally sending messages to people who don’t see themselves in your content that your brand “isn’t quite right for them.”

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5. Be mindful of terms related to race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture. 

Many terms used daily have roots in racism and discrimination, so using them can make people feel unsafe, whether in your marketing materials or day-to-day correspondence with team members. 

Some regularly used terms have roots in racism and discrimination or are taken from celebrations and sacred practices of marginalized communities. Using them in your marketing materials or day-to-day correspondence with team members can make people feel unsafe and unwelcome. 

For example, pow wow is often used informally to describe a meeting or get-together. Using it in such a way disregards pow wows as indigenous cultures’ sacred rituals and social gatherings — ceremonial events that have nothing to do with work. A simple alternative is saying stand-up, meeting, or hang-out. 

The image below displays other examples of words commonly used that are related to ethnicity, race, nationality, and culture that you can easily swap out for more inclusive terms. 

inclusive language examples: race, ethnicity, nationality, and culture terms

6. When speaking to colleagues about family, use gender-neutral labels for family members.

Obleada told me, “Inclusive language has a real impact on how ‘themselves’ folks feel they can be in a given space. As a queer woman, it makes me cringe when folks ask me about a boyfriend. Intentionally using gender neutral titles — parent, spouse, partner, child, etc. — when speaking about your or others’ families can make a big difference in how comfortable someone may feel.”

Rather than making assumptions, approach conversations with colleagues using gender neutral titles. For instance, it’s better to use “parent” or “guardian” when making conversation with a colleague since “mom” or “dad” excludes family structures such as grandparents as caregivers, same-sex parents, etc.

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7. Be mindful of medical conditions and ability terms. 

Common phrases like “turning a blind eye” are ableist and insensitive to people whose lives are impacted by medical conditions.

While likely used innocently, someone who hears such a phrase in the workplace or sees it in your marketing materials may feel unsafe and like you don’t represent them or what they care about. 

It’s best practice not to use such terms unless they’re relevant to your topic of conversation. The image below displays commonly used phrases that can be harmful that you might not have realized before and alternatives to implement.

inclusive language examples: mental conditions and ability terms

8. When in doubt, ask individuals which pronouns they prefer (but make it clear they can choose not to identify, as well).

It’s critical to note — there’s no one-size-fits-all “right” and “wrong” when it comes to language. Many people have personal preferences, especially when it comes to identity.

For instance, person-first language (i.e., “people with autism”) was introduced because many feel it’s dehumanizing to put the disability or gender orientation first, as it seems to define the individual.

However, some prefer identity-first language (i.e., “autistic people”) since they accept autism as an inherent part of their identity — identity-first language can even help evoke a sense of pride among individuals.

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(For more information on person-first or identity-first, take a look at this article by the Autistic Self Advocacy Network.)

Over To You

It’s critical you avoid applying hard-and-fast rules to all individuals, since these preferences are incredibly personal. You might consider asking them what they prefer, or offering up your own preferred pronouns to create a safe space for them to do the same — but only if they feel comfortable doing so. (To learn more about etiquette when it comes to asking pronoun preference, take a look at Gender Neutral Pronouns: What They Are & How to Use Them.)

Ultimately, it’s important to remember none of us will get it “perfect” 100% of the time, but admitting when you’ve made mistakes and consistently working to communicate more inclusively are two major steps towards creating a more unified workforce, and creating deeper connections with your customers.

Remember — inclusive language is about widening your message and allowing it to resonate with as many people as possible, so it’s critical for your business’s bottom-line that you do everything you can to communicate more inclusively every day.

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How To Combine PR and Content Marketing Superpowers To Achieve Business Goals

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A figure pulls open a dress shirt to reveal the term PR on a Superman-like costume, reflecting the superpower resulting from combining content and PR.

A transformative shift is happening, and it’s not AI.

The aisle between public relations and content marketing is rapidly narrowing. If you’re smart about the convergence, you can forever enhance your brand’s storytelling.

The goals and roles of content marketing and PR overlap more and more. The job descriptions look awfully similar. Shrinking budgets and a shrewd eye for efficiency mean you and your PR pals could face the chopping block if you don’t streamline operations and deliver on the company’s goals (because marketing communications is always first to be axed, right?).

Yikes. Let’s take a big, deep breath. This is not a threat. It’s an opportunity.

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Reach across the aisle to PR and streamline content creation, improve distribution strategies, and get back to the heart of what you both are meant to do: Build strong relationships and tell impactful stories.

So, before you panic-post that open-to-work banner on LinkedIn, consider these tips from content marketing, PR, and journalism pros who’ve figured out how to thrive in an increasingly narrowing content ecosystem.

1. See journalists as your audience

Savvy pros know the ability to tell an impactful story — and support it with publish-ready collateral — grounds successful media relationships. And as a content marketer, your skills in storytelling and connecting with audiences, including journalists, naturally support your PR pals’ media outreach.

Strategic storytelling creates content focused on what the audience needs and wants. Sharing content on your blog or social media builds relationships with journalists who source those channels for story ideas, event updates, and subject matter experts.

“Embedding PR strategies in your content marketing pieces informs your audience and can easily be picked up by media,” says Alex Sanchez, chief experience officer at BeWell, New Mexico’s Health Insurance Marketplace. “We have seen reporters do this many times, pulling stories from our blogs and putting them in the nightly news — most of the time without even reaching out to us.”

Acacia James, weekend producer/morning associate producer at WTOP radio in Washington, D.C., says blogs and social media posts are helpful to her work. “If I see a story idea, and I see that they’re willing to share information, it’s easier to contact them — and we can also backlink their content. It’s huge for us to be able to use every avenue.” 

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Kirby Winn, manager of PR at ImpactLife, says reporters and assignment editors are key consumers of their content. “And I don’t mean a news release that just hit their inbox. They’re going to our blog and consuming our stories, just like any other audience member,” he says. “Our organization has put more focus into content marketing in the past few years — it supports a media pitch so well and highlights the stories we have to tell.”

Storytelling attracts earned media that might not pick up the generic news topic. “It’s one thing to pitch a general story about how we help consumers sign up for low-cost health insurance,” Alex says. “Now, imagine a single mom who just got a plan after years of thinking it was too expensive. She had a terrible car accident, and the $60,000 ER bill that would have ruined her financially was covered. Now that’s a story journalists will want to cover, and that will be relatable to their audience and ours.” 

2. Learn the media outlet’s audience

Seventy-three percent of reporters say one-fourth or less of the stories pitched are relevant to their audiences, according to Cision’s 2023 State of the Media Report (registration required).

PR pros are known for building relationships with journalists, while content marketers thrive in building communities around content. Merge these best practices to build desirable content that works for your target audience and the media’s audiences simultaneously.

WTOP’s Acacia James says sources who show they’re ready to share helpful, relevant content often win pitches for coverage. “In radio, we do a lot of research on who is listening to us, and we’re focused on a prototype called ‘Mike and Jen’ — normal, everyday people in Generation X … So when we get press releases and pitches, we ask, ‘How interested will Mike and Jen be in this story?’” 

3. Deliver the full content package (and make journalists’ jobs easier)

Cranking out content to their media outlet’s standards has never been tougher for journalists. Newsrooms are significantly understaffed, and anything you can do to make their lives easier will be appreciated and potentially rewarded with coverage. Content marketers are built to think about all the elements to tell the story through multiple mediums and channels.

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“Today’s content marketing pretty much provides a package to the media outlet,” says So Young Pak, director of media relations at MedStar Washington Hospital Center. “PR is doing a lot of storytelling work in advance of media publication. We (and content marketing) work together to provide the elements to go with each story — photos, subject matter experts, patients, videos, and data points, if needed.”   

At WTOP, the successful content package includes audio. “As a radio station, we are focused on high-quality sound,” Acacia James says. “Savvy sources know to record and send us voice memos, and then we pull cuts from the audio … You will naturally want to do someone a favor if they did you one — like providing helpful soundbites, audio, and newsworthy stories.”  

While production value matters to some media, you shouldn’t stress about it. “In the past decade, how we work with reporters has changed. Back in the day, if they couldn’t be there in person, they weren’t going to interview your expert,” says Jason Carlton, an accredited PR professional and manager of marketing and communications at Intermountain Health. “During COVID, we had to switch to virtual interviewing. Now, many journalists are OK with running a Teams or Zoom interview they’ve done with an expert on the news.”

BeWell’s Alex Sanchez agrees. “I’ve heard old school PR folks cringe at the idea of putting up a Zoom video instead of getting traditional video interviews. It doesn’t really matter to consumers. Focus on the story, on the timeliness, and the relevance. Consumers want authenticity, not super stylized, stiff content.”

4. Unite great minds to maximize efficiency

Everyone needs to set aside the debate about which team — PR or content marketing — gets credit for the resulting media coverage.

At MedStar Washington Hospital Center, So Young and colleagues adopt a collaborative mindset on multichannel stories. “We can get the interview and gather information for all the different pieces — blog, audio, video, press release, internal newsletter, or magazine. That way, we’re not trying to figure things out individually, and the subject matter experts only have to have that conversation once,” she says.

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Regular, cross-team meetings are essential to understand the best channels for reaching key audiences, including the media. A story that began life as a press release might reap SEO and earned media gold if it’s strategized as a blog, video, and media pitch.

“At Intermountain Health, we have individual teams for media relations, marketing, social media, and hospital communications. That setup works well because it allows us to bring in the people who are the given experts in those areas,” says Intermountain’s Jason Carlton. “Together, we decide if a story is best for the blog, a media pitch, or a mix of channels — that way, we avoid duplicating work and the risk of diluting the story’s impact.”

5. Measure what matters

Cutting through the noise to earn media mentions requires keen attention to metrics. Since content marketing and PR metrics overlap, synthesizing the data in your team meetings can save time while streamlining your storytelling efforts.

“For content marketers, using analytical tools such as GA4 can help measure the effectiveness of their content campaigns and landing pages to determine meaningful KPIs such as organic traffic, keyword rankings, lead generation, and conversion rates,” says John Martino, director of digital marketing for Visiting Angels. “PR teams can use media coverage and social interactions to assess user engagement and brand awareness. A unified and omnichannel approach can help both teams demonstrate their value in enhancing brand visibility, engagement, and overall business success.”

To track your shared goals, launch a shared dashboard that helps tell the combined “story of your stories” to internal and executive teams. Among the metrics to monitor:

  • Page views: Obviously, this queen of metrics continues to be important across PR and content marketing. Take your analysis to the next level by evaluating which niche audiences are contributing to these views to further hone your storytelling targets, including media outlets.
  • Earned media mentions: Through a media tracker service or good old Google Alerts, you can tally the echo of your content marketing and PR. Look at your site’s referral traffic report to identify media outlets that send traffic to your blog or other web pages.
  • Organic search queries: Dive into your analytics platform to surface organic search queries that lead to visitors. Build from those questions to develop stories that further resonate with your audience and your targeted media.
  • On-page actions: When visitors show up on your content, what are they doing? What do they click? Where do they go next? Building next-step pathways is your bread and butter in content marketing — and PR can use them as a natural pipeline for media to pick up more stories, angles, and quotes.

But perhaps the biggest metric to track is team satisfaction. Who on the collaborative team had the most fun writing blogs, producing videos, or calling the news stations? Lean into the natural skills and passions of your team members to distribute work properly, maximize the team output, and improve relationships with the media, your audience, and internal teams.

“It’s really trying to understand the problem to solve — the needle to move — and determining a plan that will help them achieve their goal,” Jason says. “If you don’t have those measurable objectives, you’re not going to know whether you made a difference.”

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Don’t fear the merger

Whether you deliberately work together or not, content marketing and public relations are tied together. ImpactLife’s Kirby Winn explains, “As soon as we begin to talk about (ourselves) to a reporter who doesn’t know us, they are certainly going to check out our stories.”

But consciously uniting PR and content marketing will ease the challenges you both face. Working together allows you to save time, eliminate duplicate work, and gain free time to tell more stories and drive them into impactful media placements.

Register to attend Content Marketing World in San Diego. Use the code BLOG100 to save $100. Can’t attend in person this year? Check out the Digital Pass for access to on-demand session recordings from the live event through the end of the year.

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Cover image by Joseph Kalinowski/Content Marketing Institute

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Trends in Content Localization – Moz

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Trends in Content Localization - Moz

Multinational fast food chains are one of the best-known examples of recognizing that product menus may sometimes have to change significantly to serve distinct audiences. The above video is just a short run-through of the same business selling smokehouse burgers, kofta, paneer, and rice bowls in an effort to appeal to people in a variety of places. I can’t personally judge the validity of these representations, but what I can see is that, in such cases, you don’t merely localize your content but the products on which your content is founded.

Sometimes, even the branding of businesses is different around the world; what we call Burger King in America is Hungry Jack’s in Australia, Lays potato chips here are Sabritas in Mexico, and DiGiorno frozen pizza is familiar in the US, but Canada knows it as Delissio.

Tales of product tailoring failures often become famous, likely because some of them may seem humorous from a distance, but cultural sensitivity should always be taken seriously. If a brand you are marketing is on its way to becoming a large global seller, the best insurance against reputation damage and revenue loss as a result of cultural insensitivity is to employ regional and cultural experts whose first-hand and lived experiences can steward the organization in acting with awareness and respect.

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

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How AI Is Redefining Startup GTM Strategy

AI and startups? It just makes sense.

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