Even the Anti-Social Need to Pay Attention to Social Media

Blogging, twittering, facebooking, it can be a bit overwhelming.

But every day we’re reminded how these new communication tools are taking a leadership role in driving dialogue, nationally and locally. Not just dialogue about movie stars, fashion or special sales - but also about important issues like healthcare, the war in Afghanistan and our economy.
For corporations and individuals who carefully guard their reputations, ignoring the “social” media can be devastating.

Take the Friday after Thanksgiving Day blog post about the reputed “black screen of death.” It accused Microsoft of releasing a faulty security program with its new Windows 7 that caused computers to go black and crash.

Posted on Friday November 27 by an obscure computer security company, and allowed to flourish unanswered, the “black screen of death” claim spread with alarming speed.

By Monday morning the blog post had morphed into a news story picked up by wires, PC World, ComputerWorld, CNN and MSNBC. With each repetition the story gained credibility. And with each hour the story was repeated by dozens of additional publications each quoting the other. Mind you, there was still no substantiated connection between Microsoft and the “black screen of death”.

Finally, ZDNet’s Ed Bott tracked down the destructive roots of the story, the sloppy journalism and sluggish public relations that allowed it to flourish.

By Monday afternoon- as a few good journalists got around to asking Microsoft for comment- the headlines turned... but only slightly. As Bott notes the new headlines didn’t help much:

“Microsoft is investigating… Microsoft is probing… Microsoft is looking into the problem… And then, finally, on Tuesday afternoon: Microsoft denies blame for ‘black screens of death’. Oh, really? By the time your name appears in “So-and-so denies…” headlines, you are toast. Ask Tiger Woods.”

Used to be you’d have more time before turning into toast- at least a couple of news cycles. Now it happens in a matter of hours, or even minutes, at the speed of one quick key stroke.

For those who have yet to dive into the “social” media- the “anti-social” among us- there are quick and easy ways to get started. Our basic advice as you put your toe in the water: get an interactive website, set up a blog, sign up for Twitter and establish an e-newsletter. This is your basic communication network, which will allow you to quickly reach your key audiences with accurate, up to the minute information. It doesn’t have to be time consuming, but it can be reputation saving.

Oh and about the black screen of death? Debatable on whether it even exists. But a couple of things do exist- a new “safety patch” sold by the obscure company that posted the first blog and of course out there in cyberspace- just waiting for a Google search- the hundreds of headlines, news stories and posts on the topic that sprouted up and left unchecked, ran rampant.


Posted by Dyana Koelsch

PR Ideas Are All Around

A good PR firm looks for inspiration everywhere. The best communication or marketing concepts can come from any place, and often from people who are not primarily focused on promoting a client. I like to look at the greater creative world for ideas that might be repurposed for the people who hire us. When I stumbled on this (http://niemann.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/17/bio-diversity/?hp), I immediately asked myself why I liked it so much, and what it can teach us about PR.

Here’s what I like about it:

• It incorporates out-of-the-box thinking. We all know the directive to “think out of the box,” but that’s easier said than done. It takes real thought and mind-bending to come up with something truly creative. Christoph Niemann, the Berlin-based artist of this piece, clearly had a million original thoughts when he conceptualized this project. Not only did he imagine simple leaves into new shapes, but he played with the words (“Birch and Ernie,” “Poplar and Un-Poplar”), and used inventive pairings of subjects.
  
  
• It’s playful, poignant and full of personality. Oftentimes, our clients need advice about very serious issues. In those cases, of course, it’s not effective or appropriate to be playful. But part of good PR is recognizing when to bite your tongue and when to put it in your cheek. Many companies have turned to humorous viral videos to promote a new product or get the word out about their services. Humor is a universal language, and if you know when and how to use it effectively, it can do wonders for getting yourself noticed. If not humor, why not tell a poignant story, or otherwise lend original personality to your message?
  
  
• It’s simple and aesthetically pleasing. Cleverness aside, Niemann clearly has an understanding for what draws the eye. This can be easily overlooked by a company eager to produce a message full of information. But sometimes simplicity says it best, and sometimes keeping the images and concepts clean will create a more compelling final product.
  
  
• It’s not what you think. Personally, I don’t like to be tricked. But I do like to be pleasantly surprised. Here, you expect to see pretty leaves, and upon closer inspection you see they have been altered. That is a fun revelation, and whets our appetite for more. Just as Niemann viewed an everyday object through the lens of an artist exploring all its possibilities, a company wanting original PR can think about how to reinvent everyday concepts for its own purposes. What will make your constituents, clients or customers chuckle? What will make them think in new, inspiring ways? What will make them remember you and want more of what you have to offer?
  
  

Posted by Hillary Rhodes

It's never too early for PR

It’s never too early to start incorporating public relations into your business plan…as illustrated recently by the high stakes race between paint retailers Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore to attract new customers.

Both companies released slick i-Phone applications this summer that allow users to snap a picture- whether it be of a flower, an upholstered chair or seashell - and instantly match it to one of the thousands of hues in the paint companies’ system, while at the same time harmonizing and coordinating palettes. The apps even provided directions to the nearest store.

Actually Sherwin Williams was first out of the box with the new application. But that turned out to be largely irrelevant, because Benjamin Moore was first with its public relations campaign. In fact, Benjamin Moore’s PR campaign was in full swing months before its “ben Color Capture” application was even available to the general public. That meant Benjamin Moore scooped the free publicity and was featured in blogs and lifestyle stories in numerous media outlets including the New York Times.

The Benjamin Moore media blitz left Sherwin Williams in the unenviable position of having to pitch reporters and bloggers with an “us-too” story line. But once the story is done - it’s done. By the time Sherwin Williams launched its PR campaign, the cool “new” i-Phone paint app was simply old news.

Benjamin Moore’s product development director Carl Minchew, speaking at the Ad Age/ Appilicious Apps Brand Conference, said the application has received over 50,000 downloads and generated a surge in businesses that is still accelerating. “We got a lot of media coverage. We were seen as being first, much to the chagrin of our larger competitor. We beat them to the punch on getting the word out about our application and that seems to be more important thing than being first,” said Minchew

Getting their public relations underway early in the research and development phases gave Benjamin Moore a focused, multi-tiered campaign implemented for maximum effectiveness. Did it matter that Benjamin Moore wasn’t first with the new product launch? Clearly not. What mattered was the ability to get out early (first) with a coordinated PR campaign that defined the company as the industry leader.


Posted by Dyana Koelsch

Don't Try This at Home II

A while back we posted some thoughts about the dangers of going "off the record". Recently, President Obama ran into trouble wading through this uncharted territory, which is defined by the question: what, exactly, does "off-the-record" mean. This episode highlights a new question: does technology change those meanings?

The issue came up when the President called hip hop artist Kanye West a "jack-ass," in what Obama thought was an off-the-record conversation. (West, you may recall, stormed the stage and gave a foolish, self-centered speech in his native gibberish at this year’s VMAs, upstaging another artist who had actually won an award.) But the reporter in the interview from ABC Twittered it, and so it got "out there", much to the chagrin of the White House.

(This raises another question: Maybe I’m old school, but who, exactly, sits in the Oval Office fiddling with their Blackberry while conducting an interview with the President of the United States?)

The good news for the president? Well, his language wasn’t "too" salty, and he said something that most folks who cared actually agreed with.

Some of the discussion about "off-the-record" seemed to center around whether or not Twitter is a media outlet that would be covered by an off-the-record agreement. This strikes me as being besides the point, and ABC apparently agreed, apologizing for breaking their agreement with the President. But the real issue is the degree to which technology moved so fast that ABC’s editorial process couldn’t keep up. One more thing for reporters, Presidents and the rest of us in the business to be mindful of.

Also of note: if you listen to the recording, you can hear the President say, "Cut the President some slack," after his comments about West. This sheds light on my view that your ability to enforce an off-the-record agreement often depends, in part, on how much leverage you have. Sometimes you don’t have any leverage. If you’re the president, you would think that you and your press office have a great deal of leverage with covering media. Nevertheless, the president was out there; technology had let the cat was out of the bag and no amount of presidential leverage could get the cat back in. I just wouldn’t want to be that reporter going forward as I tried to cover the White House. ("Excuse me, Mr. Emmanuel would like a word with you.")

This episode highlights how dangerous the "off-the-record" waters can be, and offers an interesting window into how the speed of the new media can nullify old ways of managing the relationship between covering and covered.

Nevertheless, my advice to clients remains the same: be very, very careful out there.

Posted by David Preston