Fully Disclosed

Posted by Tom Gable

PR firms are often the driving force behind helping clients build buzz, brand identity and even sales volume through promotional blogging and tweeting, Facebook pages, product reviews, restaurant and hotel tips and more. Beyond advancing the art of social media, firms need to ensure that they are equally up to speed on FTC guidelines or face possible legal action, according to two lawyers from Davis & Gilbert, New York, during a presentation to a quarterly meeting of IPREX recently in Toronto.

The lawyers, Michael Lasky and Gary Kibel, told the PR pros from more than 40 firms on three continents that the FTC has continued to update its guidelines about bloggers and others being truthful and reliable.

“And this isn’t just a feel good; it’s a legal requirement,” said Lasky, who chairs the PR practice at D&G. He provided a handout that summarized the FTC guidelines, including this summary:

“The Guides have been updated to ensure truth in all media, including blogs, social networking sites, and other new media. The basic principles of the Guides remain the same — endorsements must be truthful and not misleading and if there is a connection between the endorser and the marketer that would affect how people evaluate the endorsement, that connection should be disclosed.”

Clients and their PR firms can be held liable for unsubstantiated claims, so Lasky and Kibel stressed that PR firms need policies and procedures about expectations for proper behavior on both the agency and client side of the equation. This includes working with third parties, such as hiring people to blog and tweet about a company and its stock price, services or products, or take negative shots at its competition as well.

The lawyers provided an example in one of their publications about complaints being filed against Ann Taylor for giving gifts to bloggers and asking them to blog about an event. The FTC found that several bloggers posted about the event without disclosing the gifts. No action was taken because Ann Taylor had created a written policy stating that it would not issue gifts to bloggers without first instructing them they must disclose the gifts. There was a sign at the event instructing bloggers to disclose the gifts if they posted about the event. Case closed.

Lasky and Kibel outlined several top blogging practices clients and their PR firms should follow:

1. Have a policy.
2. For bloggers, be forthright — disclose any material connection.
3. For clients and their agencies, monitor their bloggers to make sure they make the necessary disclosures. If you see something misleading, unsubstantiated or not reported accurately, take action.
4. In hiring a blog service, companies and their agencies must provide guidance and training about the necessary disclosure.
5. Employees of the marketing or its PR firms should clearly disclose relationships. Such as PR firms blogging about a product from a client.
6. Even street team members who get consideration (reward points, etc.) for their work must disclose the details.
7. When celebrities are paid, they must disclose (Lasky and Kibel provided the example of Armstrong Williams, commentator, who was hired by a PR firm to promote the “No Child Left Behind” program on CNN).
8. Have spokespeople go through extensive media training to ensure they understand the disclosures.
9. On level of disclosure, analyze the audience.
10. You don’t know it all. Seek legal assistance.

In another case, an agency was hired to endorse a client’s gaming application. Its people gave the game high ratings. The agency failed to disclose that it received a percentage of sales of the games as compensation.

Disclosure can be as simple as adding parenthetical notes in the copy (“Company X gave me this product to try.” “Product Y was sent to me by the manufacturer.” “Wineries whose names are preceded by an asterisk * provided samples.” “Agency Z is providing blogging and other services for Client A.”).

Some use hash tags in their tweets and Facebook posts, such as #ad, #paid and #sponsored.

Bottom line: disclose, and have the disclosure displayed where it can be easily found. The lawyers said trouble awaits when the disclosure is buried three levels deep on a website.

Tool Time

Posted by Tom Gable

The blogosphere, Twittersphere and mainstream media are waking up to the fact that the hot new item they fell in love with not too long ago is starting to remind them of infatuations of old. The packaging might be brighter, more exotic and stimulating to the senses. But this hot new item could be a time sink; with hours and days disappearing with little of value to show. Yes, the titillation has been stimulating. But could this hot item simply be distracting us all from more serious, important and strategic activities?

Sound familiar? Remember the first encounter with The World Wide Web and Mosaic (pre-Netscape)? Then came Netscape, email, Yahoo, Google and a million new websites that bragged about capturing eyeballs (but no income), ad infinitum. Many firms, Gable PR included, succumbed to the siren songs of the web. So many pretty new faces are now tired or gone. Is the hot new item – social media – heading for the same fate?

Experts seem to agree that we are seeing the evolution of the social media phenomenon into the development of a commoditized set of tools to add to the PR arsenal for strategic use as needed.

Peter Shankman, of HARO fame, wrote that he would never hire a social media expert, and neither should you.

“Social Media is just another facet of marketing and customer service. Say it with me. Repeat it until you know it by heart. Bind it as a sign upon your hands and upon thy gates. Social Media, by itself, will not help you. We’re making the same mistakes that we made during the dotcom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible. It didn’t. If that’s all you did, you emphasized even more strongly how pathetic your company was.”

The Sysomos blog offered this guidance:

“In simple terms, social media as a standalone activity is coming to an end. If you are a social media consultant, you need to be really, really good at providing strategic counsel, as well as have in-depth knowledge of the tools and services need to execute tactically. For everyone else, they will need to offer than just social media strategic and tactical services. Instead, they have to offer services that embrace communications, marketing and sales strategies and goals.”

Even Steve Rubel, who grew up being a social media consultant and blogger ubber alles, noted that:

“It was fun while it lasted. But I totally agree that the future is all about integration. We need more systems thinkers who can see the big picture.”

I led a workshop at the recent PRSA Counselors Academy annual spring conference where we discussed PR as the ultimate platform for building image and reputation and social media as part of the tool kit.

The metaphor was PR as the Internet of communications. PR starts with a solid, authentic foundation using traditional methods (e.g. Media relations) and then layers on new applications (websites, email), leverages off other platforms (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and connects with people from all angles to move perception and behavior in the desired direction.

The senior PR counselors attending the workshop agreed that the “start” button for authentic PR was strategic planning brilliantly synchronized to support client business and marketing goals. The strategies, tools and tactics can be far-ranging to support building reputation and driving results with multiple target audiences. The obvious basic list included internal relations, pro-active media relations, social media integration, special events, breakthrough promotions, cause marketing, community relations, trade relations, investor relations, speaking engagements, conferences, trade shows, crisis PR and issues management.

In delving deeper into the hottest topic – the social media component – the Counselors discussed media disintermediation and the rise of what was characterized as the PR Publishing House – a powerful emerging force in marketing communications and public relations. Think of PR as content developer for many communications products, all integrated within unified themes. PR pros serve as creative directors. They develop their own editorial calendars and control multiple channels that bypass traditional media filters. When done strategically, the work of the PR publishing house advances education and knowledge, building trust and credibility through authentic conversations in a human voice that build long-term relationships.

What’s next? The gurus noted the end of the social media gurus, which does have a touch of irony to it. The workshop talked about communications at the speed of light and the two-second news cycle. There will surely be new layers of digital tools that drive faster actions and forms of communications we haven’t yet imagined. And it will be up to the PR pros to manage those new tools within a brilliant strategic context.

Peerless Prose

Posted by Lauren Miller

Your assignment is to write a 1,500-word research paper on a topic of your choice. It’s midnight, you’re tired, you’re at 1,000 words. The paper is due in eight hours. Step one: find a Red Bull and chug it. Step two: dictionary.com and thesaurus.com. Step three: find 400 filler words and phrases. Sleep.

Every college student knows filler words and phrases are an easy ticket to reaching a word requirement on a paper. But in the working world, bosses want tight, concise writing that gets the point across. This means leaving old habits behind and learning how to communicate with clear, succinct messages laced with high-impact words, not air. In a recent Wall Street Journal article about graduate students, Diana Middleton noted that, “While M.B.A. students’ quantitative skills are prized by employers; their writing and presentation skills have been a perennial complaint. Employers and writing coaches say business-school graduates tend to ramble, use pretentious vocabulary or pen too-casual emails.”

Carter Daniel, business communication programs director at Rutgers Business School, said in the same article that, “M.B.A. students often have to unlearn bad behavior, such as using complicated words over simple ones.”

Enter Twitter. Twitter has evolved from a social networking site to a platform used by businesses, PR and marketing professionals, and reporters to connect with their audiences, promote their product or service, source queries, and give the reader a backstage pass to the inner workings of their favorite brands. All of this in 140 characters or less (which can be made more difficult if links are included).

Twitter has added extra discipline to my work as a PR professional and helped me become a better communicator. In honing rambling 20-word sentences to communicate a big idea or insight in 140 characters, I’ve learned how to cut the fluff, choose words wisely, get to the point and better pique my reader’s interest. The same approach is critical in PR when I’m working on a media pitch to connect via email, calling an editor, or drafting a press release. Less can be more. So for whatever the writing or communicating task, think in Tweets for starters. Then soar from there.

News or Not?

Posted by Tom Gable

In journalism, there has always been a tension between getting it first and getting it right.

– Ellen Goodman

The quote from the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist is cited here to establish a framework for a response to a recent Harvard Business Review blog by Joshua Gans that “Facebook is the largest news organization ever.”

He writes:

“News organizations do two major things, commercially speaking: they use news to grab attention and then sell that attention to advertisers.”

Gans says Facebook provides a platform whereby individuals became reporters, editors, and publishers. But a lot of what is being communicated is trivia, such as commuting delays, bad food experiences, hassles with the job and a sick child. People joke, whine and commiserate. They post opinions.

Gans asks the rhetorical question on who would be interested: you and your friends and family. So what? This lures advertisers to Facebook who can target ads to pop up when you, your family and friends are communicating.

I’d argue that Facebook is a powerful platform for communicating in many ways about anything. Some news may exist that appeals to broader audiences, but most of what pops could be called the digital equivalent of the coffee klatch (or an extended version of The View).

If one goes to Anwers.Com or Dictionary.Com

Noun

1. New information, especially about recent events and happenings: advice (often used in plural), intelligence, tiding (often used in plural), word. Informal scoop. See knowledge/ignorance, words.

2. Something significant that happens: circumstance, development, episode, event, happening, incident, occasion, occurrence, thing. See happen.

Professional journalism traditionally aims for accuracy, enlightenment and fairness. Some Bloggers and Twits claim to practice citizen journalism, which others dismiss as fluff, hype and churnalism. Legitimate media, including top bloggers, post corrections and updates when stories are wrong. Doing a search for corrections on Twitter doesn’t turn up much. Younger consumers of news and information may have difficulty discerning the difference between professional journalism and faux fast news. The race to be first is having an impact on financial news coverage as well.

Tim Carmody, in a piece titled “Twitter, tech bubbles, and the nostalgia of the technology press” for Nieman Journalism Lab, wrote that the technology press is getting pushed in new directions and helping inflate bubbles, “worrying over them, and watching them burst.”

“ What is new, according to Federated Media’s John Battelle and Thomson Reuters’ Connie Loizos, is how the accelerated news cycle of blogs, Twitter, and other digital media forces the technology press to work at the same speed as the investors they cover — with the same worries about getting in early and beating competitors trumping the real value of the product. In this case, though, the product is their own journalism.”

Carmody quoted an email from Loizos about Twitter and Quora spreading good and bad information equally quickly, and in volume. “The first story out wins.” She notes that journalists no longer compete against one another but “also against savvy investors and entrepreneurs who know they can reach just as broad an audience by delivering their news themselves via Twitter and their blogs.”

Battelle commented that Churnalism is a much bigger problem than just press releases and wire stories. It’s everywhere — and creating an echo chamber unprecedented in its size and reach.

Carmody wrote:

“…blogs and social media offer both entrepreneurs and journalists new modes of engagement with each other and a different kind of conversation with their readers. At the same time, the demands of traditional news formats can actually push us into stories that privilege new forms of manipulation. Reporters seeking a news peg for an analysis-driven story about a popular company can find quotes from blogs, Twitter, or Quora as easily as they can from a company’s press release, putting the same texts and voices into circulation.”

Whom do you trust?

Instant News Channels

Posted by Tom Gable

The above title of the CommNexus event in San Diego was intriguing and the syllabus promised to deliver tips and actionable insights to help PR people and others prepare for the unexpected. Is it possible, given the instant news cycle we live in today? Yes, according to members of a panel that represented the news media, a major client and an international PR firm.  And the results are worth sharing.

Liya Sharif, moderator and director of marketing at Qualcomm, outlined the challenges of today’s instant communications and direct attacks on brands, such as Toyota during its recent issues with recalls. It developed a social media strategy after the fact. What should companies thing about and do?

Alex Pham, who’s been with the Los Angeles Times for 11 years and seen it all, outlined her six key tips for being successful in managing crisis in the era of social media.

1. Have a plan
2. Be honest
3. Walk the talk
4. Respond quickly and aggressively if needed
5. Hire a pro for an outside point of view
6. “No comment” doesn’t work

Monte Lutz, senior vice president with Edelman Digital, Los Angeles, said his firm advises clients to first have a plan in place. The pace and cadence of the news cycle has changed to the “24-second news cycle,” so the players need to be ready to move. If an organization doesn’t respond to a crisis almost instantly and accurately, negative information can pop up onto the first page of results generated by any search engine.

“There is a vacuum for content and people are ready to fill it,” Lutz said.

Speed and Persona

He said speed was No. 1, followed by persona. Respondents can’t be “snarky” and should try to adapt a friendly demeanor. Building trust is essential because trust is a major differentiator. He noted that the Edelman Trust Barometer continues to fall as companies and organizations do a poor job connecting authentically with their many target audiences.

As an additional tactic, he suggested buying ads on the search engines with links back to credible background information on the company website.

Rachel Laing, former journalist and now deputy press secretary for Major Jerry Sanders, said to work on trust and relationships early – get people engaged before you need the connections. Be active in Twitter. Follow people in the space, engage new contacts, gain trust and credibility with intelligent Tweets and re-Tweet relevant information for further credibility.

Harnessing Twitter

Laing said government is always in a crisis mode so be prepared. Control the fan page. Never delete comments but you don’t have to respond to “nasty-grams” and perpetuate the madness. If someone is Tweeting badly, follow them back and then direct message (DM) to them with your phone and email to follow up with the facts.

Pham agreed on the use of Twitter and said the tone can differ based on the audience. But “corporate speak” doesn’t work and the responses have to be authentic and friendly in the social media space, to include restating facts since the social media doesn’t operate under the same rules as traditional media.

Traditional media will call, email and conduct extra research to get the facts behind the story. Cooler heads are at work, versus those personally involved and passionate about an issue, or someone who wants to be first with the news, whether totally correct or not. A lot of bloggers aren’t interested in accuracy, she said, so sometimes companies have to go into “hand-to-hand combat.” If you have been engaged and developed loyal followers, they will become your advocates and defend you in times of crisis.

Responding to Traditional Media

The traditional media is also working on the 24-second news cycle. As a result, Pham said companies need to get back to the media faster than ever before, even if it’s to clarify the information that is needed and promise to get back with details as soon as possible. A key: asking “what’s your deadline.”

Have a clear contact on the website so that point person can be found in 10 seconds or less.

Lutz advised companies to anticipate disaster and have dark website pages and dark tabs on Facebook with facts ready to go on a moment’s notice. Planning with the PR firm should include working on the tone and conducting rehearsals. The company can be prepared to be hits own publisher and broadcaster, too, using the different channels (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, PR, media relations, website, etc.) to get out the word. Embed news releases with pictures, graphs and video if they will help tell the story.

If the opposition has posted a video to YouTube, post your response using the same title and tags as the hit piece. This ensures your quality response shows up immediately.

Organizing the PR Crisis Team

Dan Novak, vice president of global marketing, PR and communications for Qualcomm, said internal plans need to include having a core communications team at the ready and a committee waiting in the wings to be convened that includes legal, government, public relations, investor relations, human resources, IT, and other key units. The plan needs to be based on high values and accountability. The process for launching the plan into action needs to eliminate speed bumps, which can hinder many organizations.

During Q&A, one of the audience asked about how to get clients to commit to a social media program.

The panel’s response: it’s happening whether you participate or not, as evidenced by what happened to BP, Toyota and United Airlines (the guitar incident) when they didn’t respond.

]]> http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/managing-a-pr-crisis-in-the-age-of-social-media/feed/ 0 http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/in-crisis-pr-consider-the-half-life-of-a-tweet-or-comment/ http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/in-crisis-pr-consider-the-half-life-of-a-tweet-or-comment/#comments Wed, 19 Jan 2011 23:40:19 +0000 admin http://www.gablepr.com/?p=2452

Too sensitive?

Posted by Tom Gable

How quickly to respond to negative blogs and comments? Gable PR had a recent experience with a client that announced progress with a controversial technology for drug discovery. We anticipated feedback and had assembled an extensive array of data, links and citations for outside validation. Unfortunately, we soon found ourselves in an imbroglio that went far beyond questions on the technology

The CEO, we soon learned, had personal and financial issues in a previous business almost two decades ago. The science story drew mostly positive coverage. A science blogger probed into the technology and a skeptic’s manifesto. Worse, a former girlfriend to the CEO soon added to the comments. She wrote under a pseudonym and blasted the CEO for a bad real estate deal, other business transactions that went sour and even previous jobs held by the wife (personal shopper at Nordstrom). Others popped in via Twitter.

The CFO of the company responded with facts and suggested that perhaps the personal attacks weren’t relevant and bordered on defamation, which generated more personal attacks!

Long story short: the company stopped responding and the commentary died a day later. Lesson learned: answer succinctly and factually to correct the record; don’t get caught up in continuing the negative dialogue and personal attacks, which seems to get progressively worse and more personal once the opposition figures out that the facts are against them.

Understand that the half life of a Tweet is two to five minutes, according to a study of an Audi program that used Twitter for branding, and hot blogging topics, particularly on obscure topics, flame out and die in a day or two.

The plan, then, is to set aside ego, which is often difficult, especially when the attacker and his or her motives are known. Stick to the facts, post and move on. You will be amazed how quickly the issue goes away (well, it never totally goes away, since the Internet is forever).

Disaster Landing!

Posted by Tom Gable

What happens when bad conversations bubble up in the blogosphere and elsewhere about the quality of your client’s product, services, science, people, culture, character and customer service, among other things? For Gable PR, we had two very different experiences recently that indicate a core truth about public relations and issues management when conducted at the speed of light: fast, fact-based, non-emotional but human responses based on intrinsic core values of the organization win; non-rational responses that don’t deal with the issues fail.

I am probably restating the obvious to most PR professionals, but our approach and tools used may provide additional creative resources to some. Read on.

In one instance, a prominent blogger took issue with the scientific foundation of our client’s work, which generated many negative comments about the client. The client chose to take an aggressive stance and question the sources of the blasts, rather than deal solely with the content and trying to change the direction of the conversation with new data on the basis for their science. The debate deteriorated rapidly into dueling comments on the blog about things other than science, nasty tweets and links to previous issues the client had gone through in a previous business 20 years ago! The negative conversations careened along for two weeks when the client stopped responding; it could have ended in two days. And through the wonders of the Internet, it is all searchable, which doesn’t add much to the client’s credibility when it tries to raise money and the analysts start doing their due diligence.

In the other instance, a medical device company set aside ego and took an analytical, clinical look at complaints about one of its products, thanked everyone for the input and promised to move quickly to remedy any shortcoming. The client focused on doing the right thing, in addition to doing things right. The result: a fast end to the negative conversation and a 180-degree switch by some critics to becoming fans.

Gable PR used an emergency issues management check list for both clients. The results varied, as noted above. Each had a Crisis PR Plan, with extensive details. But this “lightning round” list might prove helpful for a PR firm helping its clients or an internal staff putting its organization on the right track – fast!

Speed of Light Crisis PR Check List

• Source of the communications, legitimacy
• Issues being raised
• Internal analysis of accuracy, validity, magnitude of the issues and conversation; duration, desired end-point
• Analysis of potential impact on reputation of the brand, company, people, technology, etc.
• Beyond communications, are internal changes needed to the organization, product, service, culture and core values?
• If analysis indicates the fundamentals of the organization seemingly aren’t lined up with the outside audiences, how to move toward better alignment?
• Launch issues management and Crisis PR plan if required, to include response strategy, core values, messaging, tools, tactics and timing (in some cases, you don’t have to respond immediately, especially when the attacks are emotional and personal)
• Set goals for moving the conversation
• Add resources to the Crisis PR team if needed, including outside experts
• Respond in a sincere, human voice and work to build trust
• Conduct minute-by-minute tracking, analysis of trending in tone, content
• Adjust the response strategy and tactics as facts and circumstances indicate
• Continue to evolve the internal culture and organization as needed
• Celebrate success!

Social Evolution

Posted by Lauren Miller

If you sit back and visualize about how you keep current on what your friends are doing or check the latest entertainment, recreation, industry specific or other breaking news, how do you think you spend the majority of your time?

The latest results from eMarketer show the world spends more time on social media than email, browsing or other online activities. Once a novelty, social media has become part of everyday life and has even become a verb (i.e., “Facebooking”). The eMarketer study shows 58.1 percent of Americans manage an online profile, with the worldwide number at 61.8 percent.

How did we get here? From Flicker and YouTube to SlideShare and LiveJournal, there is a social media platform for almost every letter of the alphabet and every Internet user. No matter what your platform of choice, you have probably noticed something interesting: Your use of these sites has evolved and migrated along with your life (think about changing demographics, interests, lifestyle, etc.).

Maybe over the last few years you’ve become a parent, started a new job, relocated or have become a job-seeker. If you look back over time, you can actually trace your personal and professional development based on how your posts have changed.

As an example, for young professionals currently in their 20s, in high school the craze was all about MySpace – the pictures you uploaded, the music on your page and the number of friends you had. Most teenagers posted fun party pictures that sometimes straddled the line of inappropriate. But there was no privacy on MySpace, anyone could join the site and they weren’t always who they said they were.

Moving forward to college we found something new – Facebook. You couldn’t have a Facebook page unless you had a college email account – and not every University had Facebook available to its students. Facebook, when it first launched, not only looked very different than it does today, but the purpose for most was a way to stay connected to your high school friends and new college friends.

Slowly, Facebook began to evolve and anyone with an email account could create a Facebook page. The early adopters of Facebook started seeing their parents and aunts and uncles joining Facebook and wanting to be friends with them. Then, potential employers started looking at Facebook to see if those recent college graduates applying for a job seemed like the kind of person that the company wanted representing them. All of a sudden, you saw seniors in college and recent grads changing their Facebook pictures, their content and their status updates. It went from “Party at Joes!” to “Working Hard.” Facebook no longer was just a fun way to post pictures and chat with friends. It evolved into a community with more depth. It became a way for families to keep in touch and also offered businesses, institutions and organizations the opportunities to create personalities to promote their products and services in new ways.

College grads and young professionals then stumbled upon the next social platform that could be value to their careers – LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows professionals to discuss hot topics in their industry, probe other industry professionals for their ideas or advice and is another source for job listings. With LinkedIn you don’t post crazy pictures or status updates, it’s purely a way to put your resume and qualifications out there for the business and professional world to see. LinkedIn also took on a higher professional aura as organizations and those of like interests formed discussion groups (much like the Internet bulletin boards of old, but with considerable more class).

As with any form of communications and connecting, social media users continue to evolve with their favorite platforms over time. Social media and social network sites can prove to be very effective ways to open new doors. You never know – The new lead singer of Journey landed his gig from a video he posted on YouTube of him belting out the band’s classic “Don’t Stop Believing.” There is more focus and thoughtful content today than ever before as we learn to post content that projects the right image and is something you would be comfortable with your 90 year-old grandmother and potential employer seeing.

(Editor’s Note: Lauren is 24 years old, a 2009 graduate of the University of San Diego and has changed her photos and content significantly in the past few years).

]]> http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/social-media-usage-grows-up-just-like-we-do/feed/ 1 http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/getting-a-grip-on-the-ghost-blogger/ http://www.gablepr.com/clientserviceresults/getting-a-grip-on-the-ghost-blogger/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:09:11 +0000 admin http://www.gablepr.com/?p=2188

Channeling the CEO

Posted by Tom Gable

Your favorite CEO wants to get social and start blogging, but: a) doesn’t want to commit much time; b) isn’t sure why but his peers are doing it; c) isn’t clear on what he wants to say; and, d) wants you or your firm to be ghost blogger.

How to approach this challenge strategically and diplomatically? Here are six steps to get started.

Six Steps to Ghost Blogging Glory

1. Brainstorm with the CEO on what he or she hopes to accomplish (boost image, gain guru status, position the organization versus the competition, promote an industry cause, support company marketing, connect with investors, counter negative blogs, etc.)
2. What is the CEO’s voice, the personality? How much to show or not show?
3. Can the blog be differentiated to support organizational image and reputation
4. What about frequency? Will there be a steady flow of facts, insights and other content to support a daily, weekly or biweekly blog? Or will it be tied to events, breaking news, industry trends and commentary? Or all of the above?
5. How to measure success?
6. And the final tough question (or maybe the first): so what and who cares?

Venture forth if it appears anyone beyond family and friends might care, if the work will add value to the conversations and if the collective impressions will contribute to building the image of the organization. If not, cease and desist and recommend other approaches (authoring white papers, speaking at conferences, etc.).

For process, ghost blogging can work if you have a plan and adopt protocols and procedures.

For example, to speed development of copy and ensure you keep to your desired frequency, have the busy CEO provide his idea on the perfect headline, directions on copy, bullet points, links or other guidance on what he or she wants to talk about, the target audiences, the important points to be made and impressions to leave. This brain dump can be done via email, voice mail, and one-on-one or group brainstorming sessions with others involved in reaching out to your different audiences.

With directions in hand on topics, the ghost blogger can then draft copy for CEO approval and post only after approved. Should the post generate comments, the ghost blogger shouldn’t assume the persona of the CEO and reply directly. The ghost blogger needs to get the CEO involved in responding as fast as possible within the guidelines established earlier for tone, personality, theme and overall positioning. Then, even ghost blogging can fit neatly into your overall investment in image and reputation as a part of corporate strategy, with consistency across all channels.

(??? Tom, did you approve this? Let me know as soon as possible. Thanks! – KR)

Rolling out new tools

Posted by Laura Woods

The public relations profession is at a wonderful and challenging crossroads in its evolution. No longer can the traditional approach of solely using press releases be effective in building a client’s reputation and media presence. Now PR professionals have to be comfortable integrating all aspects of social media — blogs, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and other tools – into their strategic arsenal. Beyond proactive approaches, PR pros need to be diligent in setting high standards for all communications and monitoring for questionable or negative impacts.

Social Media: The Perfect PR Tool

With the soaring popularity of social media, consumers are now in charge. Praise or complaints for a company, product or individual can go worldwide in an instant, damaging sales and brand image if they are not positive. Negative consumer feedback can take on a life of its own if a company doesn’t respond appropriately, as with Nestle in the recent bashing over use of palm oil. PR professionals can track the feedback and develop appropriate responses.

This rings especially true with Facebook since studies now show that the social networking/photo sharing site has become the most visited Web site today, surpassing Internet giant Google.

Many Companies Still Making Facebook Fumbles

Still, many companies are getting it wrong when it comes to Facebook by jumping into social media without a clear direction or management strategy. The U.S. military recently made a Facebook fumble by failing to standardize the use of Facebook. The Pentagon hired PR firm, JANSON Communications in Washington D.C., to conduct a study on the quality of military Facebook pages. The results pinned the military’s messaging to be messy, inconsistent and lacking a clear strategy.

The JANSON study revealed:

- 22% of pages lacked of clear terms of use governing behavior of fans

- 84% of pages had no interaction with fans at all during the study period

- Most of the Facebook pages viewed were not marked as the organization’s “official” page, leading to potential confusion with fan-created pages and “clone” pages

By misusing Facebook, the military lost a valuable opportunity to share its message and promote positive interactions with U.S. military members, many of whom are in their early 20s and avid users of social media.

How could this have been avoided?

The following tips are common knowledge among PR professionals but are worth repeating to help focus on the fundamentals:

1) Develop a clear understanding of the different elements of social media. You should be familiar with the top sites, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn and how each can be used strategically for your business or organization. Facebook works for both consumer-based and B2B companies because it helps achieve the goal of getting your name out there. You can start by engaging your own friends and coworkers and then expand from there.

2) Create a plan that will help your business achieve its goals. What are people saying about your brand already? Who is your target audience? How will you attract them to your site? What value will you provide? What do you want to achieve with social media? By answering all of these questions, you will already have a strong foundation for your social media efforts. Monitor, analyze and adjust to stay fresh and relevant.

3) Social media is all about consistent, honest communications. Posting and commenting is the only way you and your organization can truly engage in social media. Without it your page will become stale (what the JANSON study refers to as a “Zombie” page). But let’s face it, most people in business find themselves too busy to devote time to it every day. One approach: share the wealth. Develop a plan, schedule and deadlines for several people to participate.

4) Track social media for crisis situations; instant responses. In today’s world of breaking news every minute, consumers won’t write a complaint letter to the president of a company when they can post instantly and share with thousands via Facebook or Twitter. They now have an open forum and audience who may empathize. The key is to react, address the problem, and continue to interact with your followers, fans and critics, too.

Einstein Bros. Gets it Right!

With a little time and preplanning social media PR is a breeze and will make your clients very happy. The bagel shop, Einstein Bros. had a successful Facebook debut by utilizing some of the tips above.

Einstein Bros. launched their Facebook Fan page by offering a coupon for a “free bagel-with-a-schmear.” The result was a drastic jump in fans up to over 400,000. Einstein Bros. played it smart and had already created a plan to keep those 400,000 fans engaged. In order to make sure content was posted consistently, they created a monthly calendar with holidays, high-profile events and store promotions to be posted on the Fan page.

This type of plan is simply a guideline because you should always be listening and responding to what your customers want to talk about. The flexibility of the plan is what will make it easy to follow. Einstein Bros. had an enormous amount of initial success with their Facebook page because they simply dedicated time to preplanning—and so can you.