Social Media "Blunders" vs. Sins

I found BusinessWeek's Six Social Media Sins today, and while it's a good article with valid points, I think they overlook the fact that these aren't sins if you don't know what you're doing on Social Media; these are more uninformed blunders.

So to add on to what BusinessWeek started, I made a list of three "blunders" that many newbies to social media make when trying to effectively spread their message.

1. Mixing messages - A twitter account or Facebook updates should have a cohesive theme to the messages (and NOT just marketing messages, like BusinessWeek warns). But if you're talking about what you ate for breakfast without asking readers without relating it somehow to your tone, then it's confusing to the readers as to who is on the keyboard - or even if it's the same person.

2. You think that followers, fans or subscribers are the litmus test of success. If you're communicating and meeting the goals that you've set for yourself, it doesn't matter if you have ten followers or ten thousand. If you're using Twitter to reach journalists and you've successfully contacted several, then you've met your goal. It doesn't matter if you only have 20 or so followers.

3. You think the more platforms, the merrier without evaluating the communication potential. You might not need a Youtube account if you don't really have relevant videos. If you're working for a certain company, for example, having a Youtube channel of just your commercials is straight marketing, and not something that will foster communication. As the article says, social media is "about engagement in two-way conversation" - so just having a profile to be on that platform without something that will create a dialogue, is really just a waste of your time.

Are there any other sins or blunders you see new people or uninformed corporations make? What's the worst mistake you've made, and what lesson did you learn from it?

Words of Wisdom from Dan Edelmen (via Culpwrit)

Every once in a while, a blogger makes a "top ten" list that actually has some really insightful points that people should hear. When I was reading Culpwrit, I came across a list of keys to success by Dan Edelman that was definitely worth reading. For the too-long/didn't-read crowd, here are the points I found most relevant to us as students:

1. "Celebrate your victories but be quick about it so you can get back to the game." This is especially applicable to our recent NSAC victory. We've been celebrating our win for almost a month now. However, while we've been celebrating, our new account executives have been strategizing, coordinating and learning to prepare for the new year. I hate to predict the outcome of any competition I'm a part of, but I will say that I respect the dedication of our new leaders who, while the excitement hasn't faded, already know they have to work even harder to keep our team innovative and creative. Thanks Anna Duffy, Simon Blockley and Lexi Vanni!

2. "There are three legs to the stool - family, work and community." It's hard when your work becomes your life, your co-workers your family and your office your community. But I think, as long as you're aware of all of these elements, you can still provide for a good work environment that can transfer itself into the world beyond the office doors.

3. 'Woe to the young person who fails to take notes-sure to prompt a “never do that again” comment.' My memory's already going - that's why I keep my notebook (and my blog!) consistently updated with pertinent new information, things I want to keep close and possible topics for the future. Write it down, or else you'll forget it.

This article has inspired me to look for another professional to interview, since I got such great information from Joy Donnell when I interviewed her a few months ago. Any suggestions or connections out there?

Know Your Medium (Or At Least Put a Leash on Your Spokespeople)

The Attorney General of Utah announced the approval of a death sentence on Twitter yesterday, drawing shock and disapproval from the Twitter community. I agree with the general consensus that this was an inappropriate place, and the response to it less than professional.

To reply to people's concerns about the comment with a "flippant" and then aggressive manner, shows not only an inconsistency in tone, but that the Attorney General is either tweeting while emotionally unstable (which is not recommended) or someone else is tweeting for him (which is a lapse in tone for the communicators).

At this point, the Attorney General should apologize to his followers and to the families of everyone involved in the case. To announce such an important decision on a trivial medium was inconsiderate to the families of the victims. His PR team needs to jump on this situation and handle it to control his credibility as well as smooth over community relations, both online and offline.

Twitter Task Forces & Why They're Essential

Recently, a State Farm marketing exec advised students of at the NSAC conference this year, "You can't stop the conversation - you have to let it play out and try to respond as quickly as possible." In regards to twitter communications, all it takes is one frustrated customer tweeting at the counter to get attention.

Though I myself haven't had much interaction as a consumer with brands on Twitter, today was one of my first experiences and I have to say, one of the most impressive.

I recently was involved in a car accident that has left me car-less for the past few days. My insurance company arranged for me to get a rental car from Enterprise. Through poor staffing, pickup from my home would have been long delayed. Upon arranging my own ride and arriving at the location, I had to wait for a considerable amount of time and wasn't told to bring the appropriate paperwork. While I waited, frustrated, at the counter, I tweeted: "having a bad experience at enterprise, trying to rent a car." After telling the associate of my frustration, she apologized and made sure I was more than satisfied with my rental. Everything from that point went without fault.

I returned to Twitter only an hour and a half after to find that I had been contacted by an Enterprise associate asking what went wrong, and how they could help. Only an hour and a half, and one tweet! I was really impressed with Enterprise's monitoring of their brand on Twitter. I explained that I was satisfied. That's when I realized that, as consumers, we have an obligation to report the conclusions after we complain. I tweeted my admiration of Enterprise's online support and gave credit where credit was due. It's my own fault for not tweeting that everything was resolved afterward. So before you send that angry tweet, prepare yourself for two responsibilities after the fact...

1. You're responsible to report the conclusion. Your followers and others finding brand representations online need the whole story, not just your initial dissatisfaction.

2. Give credit where credit is due. Don't ignore any attempts to make the situation right online. Even if you aren't satisfied, if someone contacts you to ask why you were not satisfied, you owe it to them to thank them for their attempts. Chances are, if you've had a problem with one associate, that's not an accurate representation of the company as a whole. Thank them for what they do well and return or don't return; you decide with your money how satisfied you are. However, don't disregard the company if it's trying to help you out.

So, well done, Enterprise! We'll see how the rest of this transaction plays out, but as for now, your associate's responsiveness and your online outreach are very impressive to me!

Pitchin' Ain't Easy

I'm starting to get involved with writing and pitching national media for a local Iraq and Afghanistan memorial, and I'm facing the same issues I've faced with my last few pitching adventures...

1. Who gets this?

2. How can I get you to read it?

3. Please, please run it? Please?

While running the press release through a syndicate would help ensure plenty of coverage and help with credibility, the price (over $400) breaks the bank for a group of locals who care about properly memorializing veterans and those we lost in Afghanistan and Iraq. On the other hand, it would take hours upon hours to personally call the editors of newspapers nationwide, asking them to pretty please run this release. It's a catch-22; either you spend a lot of time, or a lot of money; and neither features a guaranteed outcome.

Has anyone else run into this problem? How did you overcome it?

#NSAC Goes To Orlando

This week, teams from all over the United States will bring their comprehensive campaigns for State Farm to the National Student Advertising Competition national championship, in Orlando, Fla.
The #ChapmanPRA group will be presenting our #FEELfree campaign on Friday. We're excited, optimistic and eager to see what our creative counterparts from all over will be bringing to the table.
I hope State Farm looks at their current campaign and uses the millions of research impressions and new ideas that we present to create a campaign that resonates with their target demographic.

Check out Tom Arthur's portfolio to see our commercial and our book. Wish us luck!

(thanks to Kayla Glass for her photo!)

McDonalds France: "Come As You Are"

McDonalds France released a viral commercial this week, depicting a young homosexual man and his oblivious father.

There are so many possibilities as to what the motives are for this commercial, I don't really know where to start. An appeal to the homosexual audience in France? Support of a social movement? Rebranding as a "hip" restaurant who opens its doors to the changing times? There are arguments for all of the above. But since I enjoy anything French, and things that are generally positive and accepting of all different lifestyles, I'm just going to leave you with the link. Enjoy.

Chase Community Giving: Round Deux

Since I don't want to be the BP oil blogger (there are way too many others that blog about it much more informed than I do), here's something more PR and less oily...

Chase Community Giving starts up its second round of charity donation voting on June 15. After the last round ended with fraud accusations aimed at one of the nonprofits, hopefully this time around, supporters of the nonprofits will play fair.

Unfortunately, some nonprofits were denied access because they weren't informed of the contest quickly enough. One Orange County nonprofit tried to contact Chase as recently as yesterday and was denied entry into the rankings. A search of Chase Community Giving last week showed nothing more than the fraud accusations for the last round. Why was there so much less press this time, Chase? To avoid fraudulent submissions? Or because you'd already determined which charities were allowed to participate?

In any case, a good cause (or several) is well served from the Chase Community Giving initiative. I hope to see this cause marketing via social media continue.

BPGlobalPR Revealed...

From a PR standpoint, this guy is a nightmare.

A few points that particularly caught my eye, for the "too long; didn't read" crowd...

"The point is, FORGET YOUR BRAND. You don’t own it because it is literally nothing. You can spend all sorts of time and money trying to manufacture public opinion, but ultimately, that’s up to the public, now isn’t it?"


My response to that? Look at Tylenol. Look at Apple. Look at the millions of businesses worldwide who have encountered issues and bounced back through the management of their brand. The fact is, the public believes what it wants to believe. It forms these beliefs by how the company acts in public. These actions are controlled through PR. He says forget your brand; I say, your brand is EVERYTHING.

"Don’t let people forget what has happened here. Don’t let the prolonged nature of this tragedy numb you to its severity. Re-branding doesn’t work if we don’t let it, so let’s hold BP’s feet to the fire... Right now, PR is all about brand protection. All I’m suggesting is that we use that energy to work on human progression. Until then, I guess we’ve still got jokes."

Using Twitter to make jokes about the BP oil spill is helping to create a lighthearted look at the oil spill that is obviously very important to this man. He should maybe re-evaluate the tone he's giving the disaster by joking and making it a laughable situation.

I wonder where both @BPGlobalPR and @BP_America are going to go from here?

@BPGlobalPR vs. @BP_America: Not a Fair Fight

Since 10 a.m. this morning, almost 30,000 Twitter users have jumped on the @BPGlobalPR bandwagon, giving the comical feed almost nine times the users that the real BP Twitter account, @BP_America, has. Personally, I saw the fake Twitter for the first time this morning on The Daily What. I can only imagine the other arenas in which @BPGlobalPR's link has been spread.
The @BPGlobalPR account has been live since May 19, barely a week. Since that time, it has accrued over 46,000 followers and has been listed 1,200 times. These are impressive numbers for a humor feed. My surprise is that BP has let this go on for a week.
Yes, it's fairly apparent that the account is a fake. But the bio reads, "This page exists to get BP's message and mission statement out into the twitterverse!" The name of the page is "BP Public Relations." The logo and fonts associated with BP have been modified but are still recognizable. The damage that this account could help bestow upon BP's already critical situation is massive. Yet BP has taken no action. Why not?
Well, it seems that BP's PR team has something more important to worry about: the oil spill.
Rather than fighting the internet bully, they're focused on distributing information to the public. This fake account is one element of the crisis that the PR team is letting slide, and for good reason: the bogus BP's aim, to sell "BP Cares" t-shirts, benefits the gulf through clean-up funds; buzz has drawn more traffic to BP's own Twitter feed, adding almost 400 followers in just under an hour. This fake account may actually be helping BP's reputation in the long run.
This makes me wonder if other companies in crisis have handled fake Twitter accounts in a similar manner, or have they spent time and energy in putting the faker in his place? Does anyone know of any examples?

Interview: @DoItInPublic AKA Joy Donnell of 720 PR

Professionals I Love: Interview with Joy Donnell

Twitter, being the great connector tool that it is, helped me find Ms. Joy Donnell of 720 PR one afternoon. Joy's tweets included some very interesting articles, as well as RTs of other resources I began to follow as well. Joy's digital citizenship, that is, her retweeting of helpful resources and pertinent information, contributes to the #pr community on Twitter. Since she's in a field I'm very interested in, I wanted to ask her more. She very graciously answered a few questions for me, which I thought I would share here...

Besides agency experience, what do you look for in a candidate?
Job continuity is always fantastic to see. I also love to read about publishing; such as articles that the candidate has had published, blog writing that has acquired a following, great association memberships and volunteerism. [Before an interview,] I like to review a portfolio with the resume and cover letter (as well as see it during the sit down interview).

How have you found are good ways to get contacts in the media?
Get as many contacts as possible by face to face interaction. So, going to journalist mixers like those held by MediaBistro, LA Press Club, and PR Newswire can be great ways to meet journos. Another great way to build contacts and end up with things to add to your portfolio is doing pro-bono PR for a nonprofit, especially if it's a celebrity-heavy event. It gives you something great to talk about, you build connections with talent managers and other publicists and you work closely with producers and journalists. After you obtain that connection, don't forget to send a nice thank-you, like cookies or chocolates.

What are your favorite parts about working in celebrity branding? The biggest drawbacks?
Every day is different and you're constantly challenged to think outside of the box. Branding is a broad term for almost anything commercial that extends the client's image, so you really get to stretch out and try new things. There are virtually no rules.
The biggest frustration can be when you approach a brand that the talent had previously expressed a desire to work with, only to find that the talent or management have changed their minds about working with that brand.

Does a good grasp of social media mean a lot to you as someone working in entertainment, or are there other skills you'd rather see in a candidate?
Social media is lovely, but it means nothing without the fundamentals. I mostly like to see that a candidate knows how to form a strategy then craft a story, pitch it, and land it in a way that all parties walk away happy.

For more insights, good articles and advice, follow Joy at her handle, @DoItInPublic or visit her website that includes articles, speaking engagements and more: http://www.doitinpublic.com/

Iron Man II Remembers Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein

I, like millions of people across the United States, was waiting with bated breath for the "Iron Man" sequel to come out this weekend. I saw it and it did not disappoint me, whatsoever. However, this is not a movie review blog, but a PR blog, and I found something that was very interesting and I wanted to talk critically about here.
Adam Goldstein, known as DJ AM in Hollywood and in this movie, passed away in August.
When he appeared in the movie, I was curious to see how it would be handled in the credits.
A simple "in remembrance" plaque before the credits? A line at the very end?
Neither. The acknowledgement of AM's passing was sandwiched between technical kudos and the designer of Robert Downey Jr's suits.
The nature of whether or not it was disrespectful is definitely open to interpretation, but I found this placement to be in accordance with how AM's passing was referenced by the makers of the film: lightly mentioned but never exploited. Jon Favreau stated in August that "We tried to make it respectful, and for people who know him, they’ll get a kick out of it, and for people who don’t, it will sort of slide by without much notice..."
I would say they succeeded. In a Google search, there are very few articles dedicated to his appearance in the film. There is almost no critical mention of the usage of his likeness. I think Favreau and the creators accomplished their goal of respect, at least from the standpoint of a fan of AM's. There was nothing more than a small and collective "oh" from the packed house when he came on the screen, and it was barely noticeable.
I think it was important for the filmmakers to handle the situation this way. To cut him out would be an expensive but also an evasive maneuver, to someone whose bit had already been publicized beforehand. Instead, they created a subtle reverence that honored him and his talents rather than exploiting this as his "last appearance," as other films with late stars have been wont to do.
Publicity handled right, along with the exquisite product placement in this film.
Say what you will about the plot, but from a publicity standpoint? I give this film two thumbs way up.

Make a Positive Intern Impression

I found this article about how to get your foot in the door with a company before applying to an internship. It's very useful and advice that had certainly never occurred to me before. What do you do, however, when you have the internship, and are looking to get hired? Having recently experienced this myself, I've found there are four attributes that impress employers universally.

1. You're not an intern they have to babysit. This may seem like a bit of a "Well, duh" statement, but it's more common than you might think. Some interns get to the office and get sidetracked in doing their work in the first ten minutes of the assignment. Worse, they're hard workers, but they need their work to be guided every step of the way. For many interns, they think it's a sign of making sure they get the project right; to the employers, it feels like they basically are having to complete the task themselves. This isn't to say that you should rush off and complete a project to the fullest then check with your employer; but if you can fill in the blanks with previous examples or even run a simple Google search of the project, that's going to mean a lot more than having to have your hand held the entire time.

2. No work is above you, if it's a company you want to work for. At my internship, my boss would apologize to me if I was given something menial to do, like scan and fax or fill out manual labor paperwork. However, it's doing these things without complaint that show you care about not only your job, but the company as well. You're helping save them time and money and complete a task in the meantime. One caveat - you're not a personal secretary. Don't get taken advantage of. But if there's a slow day at the office and your projects get done early, I'd advise asking what you can help them with and then accept the task with a smile.

3. Your work is consistently exceptional. Even if you're not getting paid money for your internship, you're still being paid in experience. You should own every project you are given to the maximum potential. Not giving a project your full attention or efforts is a sign of disrespect. Plus, if you're doing high quality work, they're going to want to keep you around.

4. People know you as nice and efficient. If you're sitting silently at your computer all day, it's easy to fall through the cracks. If you're standing talking to other co-workers or interns a lot, you'll look like you don't do very much. But if you can find the perfect balance of being friendly and helpful to others in your office, especially higher management, while still being an efficient worker, you'll increase your value considerably.

Bottom line? Snagging a hire after an internship is all about managing your personal brand. Sometimes the company might not have room or a position; this is an unfortunate but common situation. However, in some cases, they're willing to make a spot for you, even if it is just part time. Keep your brand idea in mind next time you're asked to do some filing, then smile and take the project. Trust me, it'll help.

iPhone 4G... Oh hello there!

I was very unsurprised to wake up this morning and find that the iPhone had been leaked. As a bit of a tech nerd, I was intrigued, but moreso in Apple's response to the situation rather than the device itself. Being as I'm on Verizon and have no hope of acquiring an iPhone any time soon, I set to looking at Apple's PR response and found... none. At least thus far.

"If you've ever had the misfortune of dealing with Apple's PR people, you know the company treats information about its products the same way Kathy Bates' character in Misery treats authors." (http://bit.ly/bW53tX)

Some bloggers seem to think that this was a marketing ploy, by Apple, to bring attention to the new iPhone and get people hyped for it. However, I doubt this to be true.

The product itself seems to be very new and complex. This could be as bad for Apple as the iPad... that customers get a sneak peak, build it up into something it isn't, and then find nothing but disappointment when it actually gets released. What Apple would be smart to do in its response, is to make sure to confirm or deny the Gizmodo feature speculations.

When I got to Apple's website a few minutes ago, ready to read their response, I found nothing. I'm really anxious to see what they have to say.