When PR and Blogging Collide – Is it a Conflict?
A scandal has unfolded among U.S. Military reporters and bloggers that even made its way to the virtual pages of Gawker – blogger Gina DiNicolo was attending an annual event called the Rim of the Pacific exercise (RIMPAC), where Marines and sailors convene in Hawaii for more than a month’s worth of “nation building and joint operations.” After attending the event, she retitled the event “SNOOZEPAC” on her blog and proceeded to infer the meeting of the minds was little more than a gorgefest and floating cocktail party.
Most PR people understand that when you invite press or bloggers to cover an event, despite your best efforts, you can’t guarantee a positive story (that’s why it’s PR and not advertising). Editorial is just that, the perception and interpretation of the writer, which is why it’s so critical to ensure you provide as much helpful information as possible.
The problem in this story is that DiNicolo, retired from the Marine Corp, wasn’t just an attendee on the press list. Apparently she was attending the RIMPAC per the Marine Corp as a civilian public affairs representative for the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. After the blog post hit, DiNicolo was fired. In a statement to the Military Times she indicated she thought her blogging and contract work should have been treated separately.
So if I’m creating a fair comparison, we could liken this to serving as a publicist for an event, wrangling press, issuing credentials, arranging interviews – and then criticizing said event on a blog.
As PR people, where do we need to the draw the line between voicing our personal thoughts and our commitments to our clients and employers? Blogging gives us the ability to weigh-in on topics important to us and our industries, and while many add disclaimers to their social networks that “these are my words and not those of my employers,” is there really a true division of church and state? Do you think DiNicolo was disrespectful? Should she have been fired? Or do we need to retain to the right to disassociate ourselves from the companies we represent at some point?
What Type of Earthquake Tweeter are You?
We had yet another earthquake here in Southern California yesterday. It should be par for the course by now, but yesterday’s shaker had us all a little rattled – it felt like a big one! For any of us active on Twitter, we’ve come to expect a barrage of tweets after the shaking subsides – I know I like sharing my experiences with my online friends, considering we’re all wondering when the first quivers occur if this will be the big one we’ve been anticipating. Once the fear dies down, it’s kinda funny to see how we all reacted. Here’s my take on the types of #earthquake Twits.
The Comedian – This group of jokers doesn’t let a little earth movin’ stop them from a little Twitter stand up. No harm, no foul, once we know everyone’s A-OK!
If it didn’t Happen to Me it’s Not Worth Talking About – These people can’t possibly be bothered by a potential tragedy. GAWD, what’s the big deal! Sorry to annoy, but ask yourself, have you tweeted in the last several days about Lebron James or The World Cup? To each his own.
The Tough Guy – Yeah B*$%^! It’s an adrenaline rush for guys like this. Boom Boom Pow!
The Ambulance Chaser – Bless her heart, I do appreciate the concern.
Holier Than Thou – Listen guys, we haven’t forgotten Haiti. Trust me, every time the earth shakes these days, which is frequently, we thank our lucky stars that we live in California with its sound structures. It doesn’t mean we can’t talk about what we felt, and how we reacted.
The One Upper – It’s not a competition. We are reacting to something that just happened, and we’re taking it all in and communicating with each other. This doesn’t have to take away from what you are going through.
Confused Substance Abuser – Earthquakes provide a natural high, ok?
Worst Hangover Ever – I saw a lot of these. Question? Isn’t it a little early (or late) to be hungover?
Aspirational – Ask yourself this question: Is the big one really something to be excited about? Trust me, no.
The Earthquake Virgin - Sorry to disappoint you. Hopefully next time a tree will topple on your car for a greater WOW factor.
The Opportunist – How can I use this to my advantage? I am an expert after all.
The SoCal Native – Earthquakes! What a snoozefest! I’m such a veteran of this stuff. Rawr!
If I used your tweet, just remember it’s all in good fun. So, what kind of earthquake Twitterer did I forget? What kind are you?
Social Media Might Not Fix Really Big Problems
On Friday I read a story written by CNET reporter Caroline McCarthy, “Corporate Responsibility in a Post-BP Digital Age,” which recapped the #Promise Conference which occurred in tandem with Internet Week New York. I did not attend the conference, but found her overview pretty compelling, particularly the apparent disagreement of how BP has handled itself in response to public outrage over the oil spill. I’m reluctant to comment on a conference I was nowhere near, but one quote caught my eye (and rolled it a little.) If I’m completely off base or taken anything out of context, I welcome the feedback.
From McCarthy’s post: “Imagine if when (the BP) disaster happened, think about what would have happened if they embraced the social networks,” Ogilvy planning director Evan Slater said during a panel at #Promise. “Instead of telling people, ‘you can’t come research this’…imagine if they had gone out to the social networks and said, ‘We’re going to take $30 million and put out a reward for the group of individuals, the organization, the company, that can find a solution to this problem.’ I think the difference would have been phenomenal.”
Really though? I’m not sure how Slater intended that strategy should be executed tactically and I’m confident he’s savvy at social strategy, but I can only imagine what might have happened had that been posted on a staffed Twitter account, Facebook fan page (dislike button would work well here) or a comment-enabled blog. Self-initiated execution no doubt. Twitterers in scores would demand answers, ask questions and tweet obscenities in the thousands. The idea behind social media is to engage, but how on earth could anyone, especially a company tasked with fixing one of the most significant environmental catastrophes ever, sit back and respond to all of that dialogue. And then would come the fallout of said company spending time tweeting and Facebooking when an ecosphere is dying! Or that said company wasn’t responding – which would probably happen due to the influx of messages. This is not customer service, this is an unseen environmental tragedy that needs to be fixed.
When I commented on McCarthy’s post in a similar fashion, she reminded me that much of the public’s scrutiny on their response was on the massive cost of the traditional advertising that BP did to defend themselves that could be allocated to fixing the problem or caring for those affected –social media is essentially free making it a better solution. Absolutely agree with the unnecessary cost, but I still don’t think social media would change public opinion, ingratiate the company or provide the best platform for a fix– again, I think the reverse could happen. If they wanted to save money but still get the message out, I can think of a few dozen reporters who would sit and chat with management – I’ll take some liberties and guess every major network on the planet would chomp at the bit for that story. No ad buy required.
I’m a huge believer in the access that social media gives us regular folk in speaking to companies and becoming involved in issues that matter. I also believe BP made some huge mistakes in its communication strategy. My point is simply that in this day, sometimes we are too eager to propose social media as a cure all for brand repair. A calculated communication strategy looks at the problem, the objectives and the anticipated outcome, and that may not always mean opening the floodgates to dialogue. I agree with Slater that seeking any and all solutions to fix this problem is a good thing, I just don’t agree that social media is the best way to find that – taking the time to weed through thousands of messages driven by emotion to find the few that may have tangible ideas. May not be the most efficient tactic.
Am I wrong? How do you think BP should use social media to solve this problem? Are there other vehicles that make better sense? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Photo credit: GoodZach
Twitter Wish List
Twitter’s growth spurt isn’t slowing, and the social network has even begun to put revenue streams into place without ruffling too many feathers. While the site has its fair share of Fail Whales, fans don’t stay mad for very long. While I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, there are just a few little teeny, weenie, silly things I, and some of Twitter friends, would love to suggest, as Twitter becomes a critical tool for daily communication. Not that they asked.
• Mass Direct Message Delete Capability – Like emails, DM’s are one of those pesky things that add up quickly, until you have more than 600 like I do. I hope you all manage your messages better than me, but wouldn’t it be great to delete them all with click?
• Sort Function for DMs – While we are on the topic of DMs, have you ever thought of an old DM you wanted to revisit, only to find you had to slowly go through each page until you could find it? It would be much more efficient to sort by sender, as a start. It’d be even more awesome to search by keyword, but let’s not get greedy.
• Longer Shelf-Life for Searches – PR expert @jgoldsborough and I remember the good ole’ days in Twitter’s younger years when we could go back much farther in time to track activity on a certain topic. Now, search.twitter.com only goes back several days. Can we please go back months instead of days? This is also important for Twitter as they expand resources for businesses – in order to track conversations and trends to prove the social network is a viable marketing tool, we need a more robust archive to study.
• List Notification – Lists are an important way to gauge influence on Twitter, trumping followers when automated follow tools may artificially inflate perceived popularity. Lists can also help signal users that they are important to those in their communities. PR and social media strategist @timotis would love to see some sort of notification that you’ve been added to a list. Sometimes it’s impossible to keep track.
• Manage Multiple Accounts in Web – Most of the many Twitter functions trump Twitter’s own interface because they feature sophisticated functions like the ability to manage multiple accounts from one page. Social media practitioner @samirb mentioned how great it would be if Twitter would add this function, which would encourage more usage of Twitter’s Web version.
• DM Multiple Accounts –PR and social media whiz @ryanmathre suggested that, outside of the annoying auto-DM, the ability to “CC” multiple Twitter accounts via DM would help streamline correspondence as we look more and more to the social network for communication.
• Easier to Search by Geography – Public relations and social media pro @arikhanson suggested that an easier way to search by geographic location would be a valuable upgrade. I agree, as geo-targeting has become critically important for marketers this year. I’d go farther and suggest additional ways to better search the people you want to reach, such as by profession or interests.
• More Detailed Follow Notifications – The current email notification sent by Twitter only includes the new followers name and many followers he or she has, and how many people are followed. What’s more valuable, in my opinion, is the bio which appears on every profile page. I’d love to see that at a glance, to help me decide if we might have a good connection. Right now, the numbers don’t mean much to me.
I couldn’t include every great idea, so I just posted some of my favorites. To reiterate, I know everyone who answered, myself included, are huge Twitter fans, so trust me when we say we aren’t being critical. We’ve simply integrated the network into our daily routines so heavily it’s easy to create a wish list of new and improved features. What did we leave out? If you were in charge of product development, what would you put on Twitter’s roadmap? Leave your suggestions in the comments below.
Photo credit: alicepopkorn
Why Pay on Performance Might Discount Performance
This week, CEO, writer and speaker Margaret Heffernan, took aim at PR agencies with her Huffington Post Story, “Don’t Waste Money on a PR Firm: 4 Smarter Ways to Get Press.” Heffernan provides some great ideas for companies looking to garner exposure, unfortunately it’s at the expense of PR agencies, many of whom have mastered the art of effective communication. Defending our industry is nothing new, and I’m not intending to dissect the entire post.
Heffernan made one suggestion in particular that discredits some of the skills that PR people bring to the table. The concept of “Pay for Performance,” meaning that clients pay for actual secured media coverage, sounds good in theory. The problem is that good PR agencies do a lot more than dialing for dollars. A couple of things the Pay for Performance model doesn’t take into consideration:
· PR planning – While most of us win programs via our PR plans, those overarching communication strategies are constantly evolving. Good PR pros will locate your target audience, monitor your competitors, identify vehicles to communicate the message, pinpoint seasonal or newsworthy tie-ins, trend watch etc… That takes time, and its valuable research that can be used for a comprehensive marketing plan.
· Communication architecture – Companies understand their value to their constituents, unfortunately, not everyone knows how to translate those benefits into persuasive messages. Good PR pros help with that, and create influential messaging that can be used across the board to effectively communicate that goal.
· Full service communication – Media relations is one vehicle for public relations. A true PR program also includes social media messaging and education, grassroots outreach, trade show and event attendance, sponsorships, award identification, charitable tie-ins, stunts, and the list goes on. Each program is different. And if you are relying solely on media hits, you aren’t getting your bucks worth.
· Relationship building – We work hard to create relationships with press and other influencers, and we are constantly developing those relationships as we connect on your behalf. In terms of media relations, we may influence a story that hits stands an year or more from the initial outreach. I once spent a year traveling, talking, massaging a story for a top tier fashion glossy, and a year and a half for a blurb in USA Today. What may not fit today may fit a year from now. We aren’t placing ads, so we can’t control that.
· Quality – What makes a great placement? The circulation of the magazine? A Quote? A link to a Web site? How many times it’s shared across the Internet? A picture? How do you place a value on the results of a media placement? Column inches is a poor measurement on the impact a good placement has. Maybe there are better benchmarks, like awareness, site traffic, donations, changing of perception.
· Long term groundswell – A one hit wonder is rarely a sustainable business. You have to look in the future to see if a communication strategy turned the dial. That doesn’t happen overnight, even for large companies. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where we can see, at an instant, the impact we’ve had on the bottom line. Good PR pros are setting the stage for a long term advancement in awareness and education. Identify success metrics and see how (or if) those metrics change after a period of time. Is the message succeeding?
What do you think? Should PR pros own up to the fact that media hits are our bread and butter, and only charge a client on hits secured? Is all of the rest designed to achieve that goal? I welcome your thoughts in the comments.
Photo credit: tim pitt
Monetization Does Not Equal Selling Out
Media can be highly prosperous in many forms. Brands shell out millions on Super Bowl Ads. Coke dishes out big $ to make sure Simon’s iconic coke glass faces with the logo to the Idol audience. Restaurants like Cheesecake Factory line their menus with ads for designer shoes. Even urinals have become a hot spot for in-your-face promotion (don’t look down). Whether it’s in the pages of a magazine or on the wall of a bathroom stall, marketing is everywhere. Most of us are smart enough to know we’re being sold to, and think nothing of turning the other cheek if we aren’t interested.
Enter the Internet, where buzz words like engagement and conversation often provide the misdirected impression that marketing here is offensive, off limits, and we’re all here just to make friends. Twitter executives made several announcements this week, most notably about its new advertising model, which left many users feeling that Twitter was selling out to “the man,” a common theme when a popular start-up decides it actually wants to start, “gasp” generating revenue. New is always hard, but it’s important to remember that highlighting paid search results isn’t a new practice – Google built its machine in a similar fashion.
In the same vein, notable bloggers and social media strategists also come under fire if it’s ever revealed they’ve actually generated money with content of education, and a virtual witchhunt typically ensues. I truly believe Chris Brogan enjoys interacting and sharing through vehicles like his blog and Facebook, but I’m also pretty certain that if he had the same number of followers on Twitter but was making $23,000 a year he’d be working on his resume right about now. And I’d also guess he’ll be chilling in Bali with a mojito when his start-up begins generating millions in revenue. That’s not selling out, that’s smart business. We need to spend less time pointing fingers and more time examining profitable business models for best practices.
The word transparency (one of those overused buzz words) can create hypersensitive emotions about whether or not a type of marketing is fair game. While I wholeheartedly feel that paid editorial disguised as unbiased commentary is unethical (I’m a sucker for journalistic integrity) I don’t believe accepting paid, clearly marked advertising makes the seller a sellout. Just because content moves from the pages of a magazine, a newsletter, or the television to the Internet does not mean it becomes a free for all. If you’ve monetized your online real estate, kudos to you.
Relationships, knowledge, entertainment – they’re all priceless fruits of the social Web. But if you are using the Internet to build your business and you aren’t making money, you are doing it wrong. What do you think? What is the line between creating a revenue stream and selling out? Why is it so hard to swallow when an online entity starts hosting ads or charging for certain elements, when we’ve been watching ads for years?
photo credit: Muffet
The Politics of Social Media for the PR Practitioner
Last night was an emotional one, as some of the most compelling issues in politics today took center stage – healthcare, abortion and the overall passion that fuels our dominant political parties. I watched as the social Web lit up with fiery opinions on both sides of the fence (and around it, and under it). What struck me most is the number of people I’d previously counted on for PR and marketing counsel suddenly exposed their political views in a very zealous manner. One agency professional, who I greatly admire, unabashedly touted a viewpoint on Twitter targeting one of the most controversial issues of our time, and faced immediate backlash. While I don’t disagree with her, I was truly awestruck that she so publically displayed her leanings.
I own a PR agency. Our clients are companies selling products for the most part. Consumer products and services – sports, fashion, food, technology. Not too much controversy and certainly nothing political. The faces behind the companies are an incredible mix of people with different lifestyles, views, religions and ideals. While you’ll often hear me share my views of PR, social media, marketing and maybe some other stuff (like my love of animals), you won’t hear me share my viewpoints on politics or religion. I consider it my obligation to my clients to remain neutral publically. I also expect that my employees will remain neutral on topics for the sake of our clients. I believe that when you take on the task of representing a diverse mix of clients, it’s your obligation (as a member of their teams) to censor what you put out in the public world of social media.
I look to other PR practitioners and others in the client-facing business world to weigh in. Is it important in a client-based business to keep your views more private so as not to alienate your clients? Or as individuals with our own interests and causes, is it important to comment on topics that you believe in, despite the consequences? Are these two separate worlds, or should we always consider the way we present ourselves in public to be directly associated with our work?
Photo credit: Tiago Ribiero
IKEA.com’s First 5000 Fans Campaign – I Am Not a Fan
I received a notification from a Facebook friend alerting me that IKEA.com had created a fan page and was offering the first 5,000 consumers a free $1,000 gift card for becoming a fan.
Truth be told, I’m already a huge IKEA fan, my whole office is IKEA-fied, so declaring my love on Facebook wasn’t a stretch. I wasn’t alone – by the time I was able to join the effort I missed the opportunity at the golden ticket as they had surpassed 7,000 fans. I was still curious so I followed the steps to start registering, but quit pretty quickly when I was prompted to answer a survey that asked nothing about room décor or color palettes.
I didn’t even need to finish the survey to start receiving texts on my phone that had nothing to do with IKEA. To be fair, in this day and age it begs the obvious that when you start answering personal questions about your lifestyle and are prompted to elect to third party advertisement, you shouldn’t be surprised when sales people come knocking on your virtual door. That said, typically it’s a third party (not the company itself) luring subscribers with gifts. I’ve searched the site hoping this was a crafty effort to appear to be affiliated with the iconic Swedish furniture emporium but no such luck.
A friend and fellow PR practitioner Jennifer Wilbur also did some digging, using a dedicated email address to track the spam. So far she’s received more than 10 spam emails, and has another friend who’s received 5 telemarker calls he attributes to the campaign.
From the social side (or lack thereof), there is no activity from the company on the Facebook page wall, and only a few comments from seemingly thrilled customers who’s profiles I can’t click on.
Update: As I’m writing this post, the entire fan page has just disappeared. In fact, in no longer shows up in the updates of its new fans. In searching, it looks like the company already has a fan page with 60,000 fans and counting and lots of conversation. We’re we all duped? It’s beginning to look that way. Hopefully the brand chimes in on this one.
Photo Credit: Per Ola Wiberg
An Inconvenient PR Truth or an Inconvenient Solution?
PRWeek UK reported on a campaign recently launched by Realwire chief executive Adam Parker and supported by Borkowski founder Mark Borkwoski, Speed Communications MD Stephen Waddington and Umpf founder Adrian Johnson. The campaign is designed to reduce the copious amounts of “spam,” or untargeted email pitches and press releases, sent to reporters by public relations practitioners. Offered up are a “Bill of Rights,” proposing such things as enabling reporters to pre-approve content being sent to them or mandating that PR pros read all publications first. In theory, this should help foster give and take relationships with the press and remove a lot of the negative stigma associated with our industry. In concept the idea is valid and the idea are great, but is it really realistic to believe this is an executable program?
The Inconvenient PR Truth campaign focuses on the belief that media relations should be rooted in relationships and targeted, appropriate outreach. While completely true, this isn’t a groundbreaking revelation. PR people and journalists have been promoting this type of interaction for decades. Hopefully PR people who continue to toss spam at reporters will seal their own fates. As an industry, we can and should promote and demand positive media relations habits and work hard to educate our peers on the long term benefits of knowing how and when to pitch a story. My question; however, is whether or not putting a Bill of Rights in writing is continuing to throw our industry under the bus. Do we continue to promote the bad seeds, fueling the sour taste for PR, rather than showcase the successes we drive on a daily basis? Who becomes the PR police in enforcing these rules? Is this really executable? I’d love to hear from PR people and journalists on their thoughts in the comments below.
Bristol’s First Crisis Communication Challenge
I want to preface this post by saying it has nothing to do with my political leanings, which is something I typically keep personal. Like many others I was surprised at the news this week that 19 year-old Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin’s daughter, has started a PR firm. To little surprise the announcement caused an uproar, notably among PR people who questioned what experience Bristol boasts to be able to offer strategic public relations counsel to companies and organizations. As PR people we know there are a lot of facets to our jobs outside of publicity, including crisis communication, investor relations, special events, tradeshows, messaging architecture, consumer relations and on and on. Some practitioners voiced in both blog comments and through social media that the move actually discredits our profession and the amount of demonstrated experience that goes into being a skilled PR person. Some people simply blew off the move as a savvy tax strategy. Other’s still, a publicity stunt.
Enter Bristol’s first crisis communications challenge – the negative reactions to her own company. Although the story appears to have broken two days ago, it appears we haven’t heard a word from BSMP LLC., other than a fairly cryptic response from her lawyer confirming the company exists. It’s still unclear whether she has created an agency in the “traditional” sense of the word, where she will take on clients and execute plans. The Twitterverse has been abuzz and The Huffington Post’s story has received more than 2,000 comments. I’m sure Bristol’s camp is monitoring “her brand,” but so far they’ve chosen not to respond, which is an atypical strategy from a PR firm.
In my opinion, it’s time to calm the waters with a clear explanation of the intent of the company and the motivation behind a career in public relations. As with any uproar, the more transparent and informative you can be, the less inclined people will be to come to their own conclusions. What do you think? What do you recommend Bristol do in response to all the buzz?
Photo credit: O6scura
