Category: General

There was a strangely fluffy story in the New York Times yesterday questioning whether PR is in a “downward spiral”.

A recent study by the USC Annenberg Strategic Communication and P.R. Center at the University of Southern California, involving 200 U.S. companies and other organizations, showed that they had reduced their P.R. budgets by more than 11 percent this year.

Public relations spending is relatively easy to cut quickly, executives say, because many companies employ their P.R. agencies on a project basis; advertising deals tend to be for longer terms.

 

Which concludes:

As the center of economic gravity shifts from financial capitals to the political kind, the business of public relations is following. P.R. agencies benefit in two ways: Governments need outside help to communicate their new, larger role in the economy, as do lobbyists looking for a share of the action.

In other words, the business of spin — as one of its practitioners might put it — seems well-positioned for recovery.

Of course the irony is that its practitioners are probably the only ones who wouldn’t refer to it as spin.

Greetings from a grey Cambridge, Massachusetts overlooking the Charles river.

In something that is very timely, Shel Holtz has posted the slides and audio from his recent presentation on Social Media and Crisis Communication.  I will be listening to the audio on my flight home.

Here are ten tips for Social Media marketers from Paula Drumm via Todd Defren. The only thing I’d question is the line: “It doesn’t take a big budget to get started in social media marketing.  In fact, much of social media marketing is human capital.” – I know what she means but the human capital cost is often the biggest challenge for companies looking at social media.

Got your brand signed up online? Check the availability of your brand across a plethora of social media tools courtesy of Knowen (many of which you’ll never have heard of).  The danger of these type of tools of course is that it makes it easy for hi-jackers to do the same… so get going. <Link via Brian Solis>

Congratulations to Philip Young and David Philips on the launch of their work on the second edition of PR in Practice: Online PR.

I seemed to have missed Wikileaks a site that encourages you to post leaks about your company, government, whatever.  I’m not convinced that this would provide any value other than to the army of online conspiracy theorists. But I could be wrong… wouldn’t be the first time.  <Tim Dyson>

Greetings from a grey Cambridge, Massachusetts overlooking the Charles river.

In something that is very timely, Shel Holtz has posted the slides and audio from his recent presentation on Social Media and Crisis Communication.  I will be listening to the audio on my flight home.

Here are ten tips for Social Media marketers from Paula Drumm via Todd Defren. The only thing I’d question is the line: “It doesn’t take a big budget to get started in social media marketing.  In fact, much of social media marketing is human capital.” – I know what she means but the human capital cost is often the biggest challenge for companies looking at social media.

Got your brand signed up online? Check the availability of your brand across a plethora of social media tools courtesy of Knowen (many of which you’ll never have heard of).  The danger of these type of tools of course is that it makes it easy for hi-jackers to do the same… so get going. <Link via Brian Solis>

Congratulations to Philip Young and David Philips on the launch of their work on the second edition of PR in Practice: Online PR.

I seemed to have missed Wikileaks a site that encourages you to post leaks about your company, government, whatever.  I’m not convinced that this would provide any value other than to the army of online conspiracy theorists. But I could be wrong… wouldn’t be the first time.  <Tim Dyson>

I leave the country and Ireland win the Grand Slam for the first time in over 60 years….

Then my beloved Leinster put Munster to the sword in the European Cup…

I should have left long ago….

I leave the country and Ireland win the Grand Slam for the first time in over 60 years….

Then my beloved Leinster put Munster to the sword in the European Cup…

I should have left long ago….

I spotted this on Ragan earlier today.  You might have seen it already. I hadn’t.

It’s a great example of the changing nature of communications and how, these new tools and channels are in many cases creating new and more frequent crises for companies of every size, in every sector.

The video (below) left me speechless.  The PR question is how would you respond? Have you put in place the knowledge and expertise to engage online, address your customers’ concerns and manage an issue like this?

Are you engaging today to ensure that you already have a connection and a relationship with people, before something like this happens?

Read the Ragan article.

Oh and by the way, these “people” are idiots.

I spotted this on Ragan earlier today.  You might have seen it already. I hadn’t.

It’s a great example of the changing nature of communications and how, these new tools and channels are in many cases creating new and more frequent crises for companies of every size, in every sector.

The video (below) left me speechless.  The PR question is how would you respond? Have you put in place the knowledge and expertise to engage online, address your customers’ concerns and manage an issue like this?

Are you engaging today to ensure that you already have a connection and a relationship with people, before something like this happens?

Read the Ragan article.

Oh and by the way, these “people” are idiots.

I got an e-mail from Anna Tabakh from 5WPR on behalf of Predicto.

Often PR people cross the line when they’re trying to quickly take advantage of an event – think companies who have jumped on natural disasters etc. but I like this stunt.

You’ve probably heard of Dena Christoffersen, a 13 year old who ran up a $5,000 texting bill by sending 20,000 messages in a month.

Predicto are stepping in to pay the bill with one condition:

In exchange, Predicto Mobile has requested that Dena write a 1,000 word essay on “smart texting,” offering fellow teen text enthusiasts insight into what she learned from the experience and how her habits might change moving forward.  The essay will be posted on the Predicto Mobile’s blog as a way for parents and texters to learn from the costly error. 

I don’t know much about the company or their services.  At my age I’m wary of any mobile service, but I like this.

I got an e-mail from Anna Tabakh from 5WPR on behalf of Predicto.

Often PR people cross the line when they’re trying to quickly take advantage of an event – think companies who have jumped on natural disasters etc. but I like this stunt.

You’ve probably heard of Dena Christoffersen, a 13 year old who ran up a $5,000 texting bill by sending 20,000 messages in a month.

Predicto are stepping in to pay the bill with one condition:

In exchange, Predicto Mobile has requested that Dena write a 1,000 word essay on “smart texting,” offering fellow teen text enthusiasts insight into what she learned from the experience and how her habits might change moving forward.  The essay will be posted on the Predicto Mobile’s blog as a way for parents and texters to learn from the costly error. 

I don’t know much about the company or their services.  At my age I’m wary of any mobile service, but I like this.

Well Twitter’s popularity continues to grow (as can be evidenced by the return of the whale).

I have a chequered relationship with Twitter.  I have been a cynic, a convert, a lapsed practitioner and a pragmatist. I see great utility in the service, along with great waste, great opportunities and great disappointments.

Overall though I think Twitter is a great social experiment and the number of people continuing to come onto the service is absolutely staggering. 

Furthermore the growing number of tools to help you search and track topics of interest make it even more interesting and valuable.

Of course, I’m also developing pet hates:

1) People who automate a reply when you follow them: “hey hi, thanks for following I’ll try and be interesting” or some such.  Like I need more inane messages in my life – probation

2) People who automate a reply and try and sell you their get rich quick scheme – unfollow

3) People who exclusively use Twitter as a cheap and not so cheerful promotion vehicle for their inane blog posts – unfollow

4) People with Twitter tourettes – unfollow

5) People who offer you the secret of 10,000s of followers on Twitter – unfollow

(Insider advice from someone not on the inside: Folks if you want 10,000s of followers, just follow 30,000 people on Twitter, the proportion of people who will follow you back will probably be 3:1. It’s easy and just takes some time.)

I can’t imagine that Twitter, with that number of follows, is of any value whatsoever, but if you’re looking for numbers then you probably don’t care and just want to broadcast.

Twitter can be incredibly useful for keeping in touch with people, researching things, finding out what’s hot (on Twitter), connecting with people etc., etc. Just remember that like every other single part of life there are some eejits.

What’s very interesting (to me) is that companies are doing some very interesting things on Twitter.  Given my geographic location, let me give a local example: Starbucks.

Nothing earth shattering… but they are providing a human face on the organization.  And they have over 130,000 followers!

 

I spotted some new Twitter-related content today (not a terribly difficult task), so I thought I’d share (all were found via Twitter, but I can’t recall from whom – so apologies).

 

• Utility in the jumble of Tweets (NY Times)
• The “Golden rules of Twitter marketing” from Ireland’s Business & Leadership:
  • Do engage in conversation. Watch what people say and, if it is relevant to your area, offer advice and get to know their needs.
  • Don’t use Twitter as a place to continually post about how great your company or product is. People will block, ignore or unfollow you.
  • Do learn the power of ‘retweeting’. Make your message short, snappy and useful. This way, if someone finds it useful they can re-send or retweet it to others in their network.
  • Don’t be formal. If your company wants a presence on Twitter make sure that it is Dave from Acme Ltd as opposed to a faceless entity. People can approach Dave on a one-to-one basis.
  • Do think before you tweet. Before you write a new message ask yourself: Am I connecting with someone? Am I adding something useful?
  • Don’t think of Twitter as a closed container. Twitter is picked up by the Google search engine so if someone googles your company or keywords associated with your brand, then your relevant tweets will appear in the search engine almost like a mini webpage.
  • Do learn how to filter the users you are following. Using a tool like TweetDeck means you can place followers in different groups to read tweets more easily. You can also search for keywords and keep an eye on your brand in this way.
  • Don’t be bland. Not everyone will like you so there is no need to try to please everyone. A strong viewpoint will help your brand positioning.

 

Yet another Twitter satire: Flutter. (Via Mr. Barefoot’s article on social media gimmicks).

 

A tutorial on using Twitter:

So there you go. 

Feel free to share your thoughts, aspirations and challenges with Twitter…

 

Update 1:

• Kraft turns to Twitter for product launch (Crain’s Chicago Business)

Update 2:

• Twitter And A History of Technology And Communications (Frank Shaw)

Update 3:

• How to survive a Twitterstorm (Advertising Age)