2022

DiverseB2BMarketersImageA600w
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B2B Marketers: It’s Time to Make Inclusive Language a Priority. Here’s How.

Diverse Marketing Team Collaborating on Inclusive Language

Diverse Marketing Team Collaborating on Inclusive Language

If you’re in the business of marketing, I don’t need to tell you that words have power.

They have the power to influence. The power to endear. The power to alienate.

If you’re in the business of marketing, I don’t need to tell you how undesirable that last effect is.

It’s the risk today’s brands are running if they fail to make inclusive language a priority. The words used in content and communications speak volumes about a company’s values.

Following a few simple guiding principles can make a big difference in projecting a brand culture and community that are welcoming to all, both externally and internally.

Defining “Inclusive Language” in Marketing

Inclusive language, as defined by our friends and clients at LinkedIn, is language that “does not exclude or stereotype people based on race, sexual orientation, age, gender identity, ability, socioeconomic status, or any other characteristic.”

Examples of inclusive language cover a wide range of visible and invisible forms. There’s no set playbook to follow, because the recommended guidelines and best practices are fluid, just as language is.

LinkedIn Chart

(Source: LinkedIn’s guide to Inclusive Language for Marketers)

Inclusive culture is a journey, not a destination. But it’s an extremely important one for B2B organizations to undertake. Emerging generations are more diverse than any before, and the modern world is more globally interconnected. Your future customers and employees want to see themselves reflected in your brand’s marketing. The stakes are high.

“The ability to communicate with all audiences is a sign of respect and demonstrates to prospective connections what to expect from your company,” says Rachel Douglas, Influencer Marketer. “Inclusive language can deepen relationships and leading brands understand the need to have an authentic, inclusive voice as part of their core identity.”

Why There’s “So Much Work to Be Done”

Last year, the AI-powered software company Creative X conducted an analysis of more than 3,500 image and video ads in the U.S. across popular CPG, beauty and alcohol brands, assessing representations of age, gender, skin tone and setting.

The study produced some stark findings:

  • Although more than half (55%) of ads feature female characters, male characters were 1.5x more likely to be shown in professional settings.
  • Characters with light to medium skin tones were shown twice as often in professional environments. Characters with darker skin tones were featured roughly half as frequently as their lighter-skinned counterparts — 18% compared to 8%.
  • Only 1% of ads included people over 60, and of those, less than 2% were featured in physical settings (i.e. offices).

“Female characters are historically four to six times more sexualized and less depicted as leaders,” according to Madeline Di Nonno, president and CEO of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, in the aforementioned article. “And marginalized communities, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, they’re not even anywhere near the baseline population. There has been progress, but there’s so much work to be done.”

B2B brands and marketers have a key role to play in this work.

Taking the Journey Toward an Inclusive Culture

The single most important step marketing leaders can take today is to openly make inclusive language a priority.

Talk about it frequently in team meetings. Build it into your creative process. Seek different viewpoints on how a message or piece of content will be received by different audiences.

Moreover, here are some specific actions that will help embed inclusive language into your B2B marketing strategy:

  • Create an inclusive language style guide, highlighting words and phrases to avoid as well as recommended alternatives. To get you started, the American Psychological Association has a lengthy list of guidelines. Ideally, your guide should be tailored to your company and its specific values; it should also be a living, breathing document that evolves continuously over time.
  • Make diversity a focal point in hiring, across a variety of identity traits. Authentically infusing different worldviews and experiences into the creation of your marketing is the best way to make it resonate with diverse audiences.
  • Set the standard from up top. When executives and leaders make a point of using inclusive language and calling out opportunities to do so, it sets an example for others to follow. Consider providing managers with free trainings on inclusive language and its principles.
  • Review and evaluate past copy and content. Find instances of non-inclusive language from past content or ads (from your brand or others) and, as a team, identify better alternatives that could have been used. It’s helpful to see concrete, real-life examples to demonstrate more inclusive thinking.
  • Maintain open and honest communication. As we said earlier, inclusive language is fluid and ever-changing. That’s why it should never be a set-and-forget initiative. Encourage team members to speak up and share ideas about how your guidelines can and should change over time.

What Message Are You Sending?

Seemingly small word choices and linguistic decisions can have a dramatic impact on how their source is perceived by readers or listeners. Keep in mind that nobody is expected to be perfect, and your audience will likely be forgiving of missteps if the intentions are clear and genuine.

The journey is well worth taking. As Maysa Akbar, Chief Diversity Officer for the APA, explains: “By embracing inclusive language and encouraging others to do the same, we firmly believe that we will not only communicate effectively with more people, but also better adapt to a diversifying society and globe.”

There’s work to be done, but B2B marketers are uniquely equipped to help their companies accomplish it. If you’re ready to make inclusive language a priority in your strategy, but unsure where to start, here are some valuable resources:

  • Last year, LinkedIn not only created a pocket guide, but also a full learning course covering key marketing-focused elements like making a business case for inclusive language.
  • This inclusive marketing resources roundup from Search Engine Land includes links to a bevy of useful materials, such as Harvard’s Implicit Association Test to evaluate your own biases, and guidance around website accessibility.

TopRank Marketing CEO Lee Odden wrote on our blog about how marketers can become more inclusive with content and influencers.

The post B2B Marketers: It’s Time to Make Inclusive Language a Priority. Here’s How. appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.

19 Gennaio 2022
Radeon RX 6500 XT recensione: una scheda video con dei limiti evidenti
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Radeon RX 6500 XT recensione: una scheda video con dei limiti evidenti

AMD ha introdotto la prima scheda video con GPU prodotta a 6 nanometri. La nuova Radeon RX 6500 XT è una soluzione entry-level per giocare in Full HD con dettaglio medio-alti ma che si basa su alcune scelte di progettazione quantomeno discutibili: ha solo 4 GB di memoria, un bus limitato a 64 bit e un’interfaccia PCI Express 4.0 x4. Nel corso della recensione analizzeremo se queste decisioni si sono rivelate corrette oppure no.
19 Gennaio 2022
Surfacing Women in Science with the Smithsonian
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Surfacing Women in Science with the Smithsonian

Women have always been on the forefront of science. From Ada Lovelace designing the first computer programs, to Rosalind Franklin decoding the structure of DNA, to Katherine Johnson figuring out the physics for mankind to reach the moon, the history of science has been driven by the contributions of women. However, they have often not received proper credit or acknowledgement for their essential work.

This is why today we are thrilled to announce a new phase in our long-term collaboration between the Smithsonian and Google Arts & Culture. Together, we’ve developed new machine learning tools for use by curators at the Smithsonian American Women’s History Initiative as we dive into the institution’s archives to help uncover and highlight the many roles women have played in science over more than 174 years of history.

Through this first of its kind collaboration with Google Arts & Culture, our lead partner on the Smithsonian Open Access initiative, it is now easier than ever to surface the work of women in Smithsonian history. This project builds on Google Arts & Culture’s previous work, which made over 2.8 million 2D and 3D images from the museum collections available to the public for the very first time in 2020.

Powered by machine-learning, these new tools enable three types of research in the Smithsonian’s archives: comparing records across history by connecting different “nodes” in the metadata, identifying the names of women even when they haven’t been explicit (such as by the use of a husband’s name instead), and analyzing image records to cluster and group together similarities to facilitate comparison.

Results are already promising. Through analyzing collections relating to Mary Jane Rathbun, likely the first woman curator at the Smithsonian, for example, we have been able to find taxonomy cards in Smithsonian records that detail a collecting trip she took with Serena Katherine “Violet” Dandridge, a scientific illustrator who worked alongside Rathbun in the Department of Marine Invertebrates in 1911, and gain a better understanding of early collaborations between women. In fact, the taxonomy cards reveal that a third colleague, Dr. Harriet Richardson Searle, identified some of the specimens that Rathbun and Dandridge brought back to the Smithsonian. Though this experiment is only just beginning, it is clear that technology can play a key role in facilitating further research and help to recover stories of women in science.

  • Collage of digital records

    This multi-dimensional cluster of images in museum data represents one of the machine learning tools to create new ways of parsing through more than 16.9 million digital records in the archives and collections developed by Google Arts & Culture in collaboration with the Smithsonian.

  • image of an early taxonomy card

    This taxonomy card, one of the early finds of the collaboration, details a specimen collected on a 1911 research expedition to Maine undertaken by Mary Jane Rathbun, Serena Katherine “Violet” Dandridge, and Dr. Harriet Richardson Searle, and provides valuable insight into the collaborative work of women scientists in the early 20th century.

  • Picture of Mary Jane Rathbun

    Mary Jane Rathbun (1860 – 1943) was likely the first woman curator at the Smithsonian. According to colleagues, in 1914, Rathbun resigned her paid position so that her salary could go towards hiring an assistant to aid in her work. She continued to work unpaid for the remainder of her career.

  • Image of Serena Katherine “Violet” Dandridge

    Serena Katherine “Violet” Dandridge (1878 – 1956) worked as a scientific illustrator at the Smithsonian circa 1903 – 1915. Dandridge supported the suffrage movement and developed her interest in art and nature throughout her life.

  • Picture of Dr. Harriet Richardson Searle

    Dr. Harriet Richardson Searle (1874 – 1958) worked as a collaborator and later a researcher at the United States National Museum (now the National Museum of Natural History) circa 1896 to 1913. Dr. Searle earned a Ph.D. in zoology from George Washington University, and her research and publications focused on isopod systematics.

19 Gennaio 2022