Drew Herdener

New from The Wall Street Journal's Heard on The Street: As AI Changes Internet Search, Reddit Lies in a Sweet Spot. As the story says, Reddit, Inc. is "proving to be a more attractive draw for advertisers looking for an engaged audience that is often focused on commercial subjects" ... and our "popularity as a source for AI-powered search engines is also an asset." As our co-founder and CEO Steve Huffman said last week, "human conversation is not being replaced by AI, instead, it's becoming more important." https://lnkd.in/g7tqmARF

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Yesterday I had the privilege to meet with New York Women In Communications members and share some of the ways that the Yahoo comms and marketing teams are piloting and integrating generative AI into our workflows! Grateful for the invitation from Brandi Boatner and the opportunity to meet with and hear from Joanne Wright, Alyssa Bernstein, Kara Fisher and others. In addition to tangible tips about activating AI in our work - I shared principles to help communicators meet this moment - another paradigm shift in our industry. Here’s one of the four principles: use generative AI for scale and not strategy. Comms pros still need to shape the strategy and the ‘why’ for their key audiences while generative AI can help with the ‘what’ - copy or visual generation (with human review!), for example. Employees are amongst our most important audiences at Yahoo - and how we keep them informed and connected is a huge priority! We’ve been leaning into new generative AI tools to help scale our communications and I am thrilled to share that Axios HQ recognized the Yahoo internal comms team led by Sarah S. as best in class. Check out the case study below to learn more and hopefully find some tips to support your organization as well! https://lnkd.in/gKDta4pB

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You can’t overcommunicate with a communicator.* One reason former reporters make exceptional communications professionals is we know how to ask questions in order to pull the answers we need from leaders and we know what questions to ask because we instinctively know what the public expects. Will there be times when not every question can be answered immediately? Of course. But giving comms pros access to information that can’t yet be shared still helps them strategize. Having the big picture helps the planning process. If your communicator is too intimidated to ask questions, that’s a problem that needs addressing. If your communicator isn’t trusted, same. Are they not trusted for valid reasons? Or not liked because they press hard for information? Two different scenarios. Leaders, encourage those who surround you to share information. Yes, info is power, and that’s the point. Your communicators hold the power, in part, to your reputation. Arm them with information. *One example where this does not hold true is during a crisis. Please don’t inundate us with minituea, rather follow the BLUF method. (Bottom Line Up Front) Communicators will always ask for more details if they need it. Trust me on this.

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Here goes. [deep breath] As a communicator and former journalist, today's news that Meta will rely on crowdsourced "fact-checking" upsets and terrifies me. Where do we draw the line between official company and operational information vs. what employees believe they can crowdsource or just decide their own facts because they do the same in their personal lives? If communications cannot be seen as that trusted source of truth -- *definitive* truth and not what comes to be believed as true -- we lose our ability to be effective. Our entire function becomes at risk if we can't leverage that to influence. What can we do as communicators? 👉 Continue positioning our leaders as credible sources of information. 👉 Reinforce our resources as places people can go for reference. 👉 Cascade talking points that line-managers can use that perpetuate the same information leadership is delivering. 👉 Empower leaders and line-managers to directly address misconceptions and direct employees back to communications as a definitive information source. The move toward subjective "truth" will hurt us all if people decide what they want to believe, rather than what actually should be believed. Fellow communicators, we're facing some serious headwinds, and it's important we dig in early and reinforce our foundational position as deliverers of factual information.

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I can’t turn my head when I see a good crisis response panel. And my favorite part of #SXSW is making new friends. Big thanks to Eleanor Hawkins, Molly McPherson and Laura Barganier for sharing their learnings with Gregory Galant moderating. #SXSW2025 My favorite advice included: 1) Beware the Streisand effect… responding to an issue and drawing more negative attention to yourself than it ever would have had on its own. 2) Assess the “blast radius.” Is this a big deal to your colleagues that no one else cares about? Be careful not to respond emotionally to what most consider a neutral story. 3) Do “empathy mapping.” Even a negative story generally has some positive elements that you can use to build on. 4) Twitter has moved from the “town square for everyone” to “ideological neighborhoods.” (My buddy John Stoll is working on bringing more legit news to the X-hood.) 5) If your attorney is on the line with a journalist—you’ve already put blood in the water, and JAWS is on the way. 6) AI may be even more important right now for reverse engineering: Use it to test the key takeaways from your human-written media statement. If AI can’t find your point, your target audience may not either. 7) Learn where AI bots are going to eat your sound bites—then feed them well! Industry trades may figure much more highly than you’d imagine. 8) It’s better to issue no statement than a BS legal-ese statement that says nothing.

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How can the U.S. government leverage America's greatest strategic asset—its own commercial innovation engine? In her latest op-ed, Google Public Sector's CEO Karen Dahut explores this critical question. She points out a striking paradox: while American companies dominate the global tech landscape 🌎, our own government is often hampered by outdated technology and procurement processes. ⏳ This "vendor lock-in" not only creates security vulnerabilities that our adversaries are eager to exploit ⚠️ but also prevents us from using powerful tools like AI to solve major challenges. It's time to infuse government operations with the agility and relentless drive for improvement that defines our commercial sector. 🚀 Read Karen's full perspective here on Fox News Media: 📰 https://lnkd.in/ecFAZ94D #GovTech #Innovation #USGovernment #AIforGood #NationalSecurity #DigitalTransformation

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Forbes Google And Pollster Scott Rasmussen Will Use AI To Survey Americans’ Political Views: A collaboration between the tech giant and a polling nonprofit will gather five to 10 people each from every congressional district to answer questions about the nation’s most pressing issues. If it works, it could upend the fraught world of political polling. https://lnkd.in/eRy_JPp9 #google #ai #polling — Reporter: Richard Nieva Editor: Katharine Schwab and John Paczkowski Design and illustration: Samantha Lee Art direction: Fernando Capeto

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