Month: October 2007

Quotes from the week – 10/19/07

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

“It’s been the mother of train wreck PR campaigns.”

Elaine Lui, a correspondent for CTV, commenting on Britney’s fall from grace with her single “Gimme More.”

“Some day we will be at a fire or a car accident and we will be called upon to put the camera down and help.”

John Long, Ethics Co-Chair and Past President of the National Press Photographers Association, commenting on an incident in New York’s Times Square where an employee of MediaVest (a brand building agency) was photographed waking around with just one sock.

“It is, we fear, the authorities’ belief that what you are about to read here is against the law to publish.”

Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, commenting on the subpoena of all articles from the Phoenix New Times related to Sheriff Joe Arpaio from January 2004 to present.

“It is nothing short of embarrassing that as we try to sell Phoenix as a progressive city coming into its own we are locked in a cartoon vision of the old west where the Sheriff runs the town.”

Amanda Blum, commenting on a post in ValleyPRBlog, about the arrest of Phoenix New Times owners for publishing a story about a subpoena demanding information about online readers.

“Actually you won.”

Brian Lusk, Manager of Customer Communication, on Nuts about Southwest blog’s winning Best Blog in the Blog category at PRNews 2007 Platinum PR Awards. Nuts even beat OgilvyPR’s Lenovo blog, and Yahoo.

“That subpoena is grossly, shockingly, breathtakingly overbroad.”

James Weinstein, a professor at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, commenting on the Phoenix New Times case.

“Every day I’m seeing more and more Social Media tailors peddling invisible clothes.”

Paul Dyer, Principal/Founder of NewMediAwake, on his blog Dyersituations.

Lessons from Forrester’s Groundswell Awards

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In July, Forrester Research put out a call to organizations using social media to submit their work for the what they called the Groundswell Awards. These were anything innovative by way of blogs, wikis, and communities to achieve some goal.

Last week, they announced the winners. In the seven categories (Listening, Speaking, Energizing, Supporting, Embracing, Managing, and Social Impact) there were unexpected winers. Meaning, some of them were probably so focused on their niche, we didn’t hear much about them.

Alli Research Community (Alli being a Glaxo Smith Kline dietary product) was a finalist in the listening category. In the Managing section, Avenue A Razorfish won for a wiki, and many may remember the ‘design a border fence’ campaign from Brickfish.

To me there were two lessons worth taking away. It was all about focus and participation. Marketing groups tend to lose sight of these two elements.

Focus: It’s easy to set aside the rifle and grab the shotgun because many people are still operating in the mass media/mas marketing mode. Also, there are often too many fish to fry. Too many goals, too many audiences to ping, too many middle managers to keep happy. Chevy Aveo’s Livin’ Large was focused on students. Narrowly focused on seven campuses, in fact.

Participation. Allowing people to collaborate is messy, doesn’t work to plan, and makes the ‘gurus’ look incompetent –especially when the best ideas come from people without marketing or design in their title. We cannot know what kind of content showed up on Avenue A Razorfish’s wiki (it’s a private wiki) but with 6500 pages of content contributed by employees, and 2000 blog posts, it was most unlikely to have been oozing in HR-speak.

Social Media Press Release becomes major tracking tool

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

From time to time I have been covering the development and adoption of the Social Media Press Release. A lot has happened since Todd Defren of SHIFT Communications came up with a great wish-we-thought-that-up-first idea.

But unless you dig deep into the press releases of companies you’d never know who’s using it. I found this one at Ford Motor company, using the SMPR template for its Ford Focus.

It’s got all the (standard) elements of a press release and more. Much, much more. The links, attachments, visuals and navigation give it the feel of a micro-site. They integrate well with the company site (for those concerned about branding), enrich the social experience (to Flickr photos, and the YouTube video on brand ambassadors) and add entry points for feedback and conversation. This is especially valuable for journalists looking beyond the happy CEO statement, to check the pulse of the market.

You could bet all these internal and external links, and commentary gets tracked by their SEO agency, PR agency, and ad agency giving the marketing folk a daily or even hourly reading of who’s looking at what.

Texting while driving

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Ford Motor company is using college students as Brand Ambassadors for the Ford Focus. While the presentation is quite bland, they demonstrate two features that their demographic would relate to – text messaging on the road and calling up music on their iPod.

The car actually uses a Microsoft application to sync with an MP3 player, and integrates with a cell phone so that the driver could have text messages read out, or displayed on the dash!

Give your blog focus and variety

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I received a link to this post about worst practices of a blog. Of the 41, these are what stood out for me.

  • The blog is too personal
  • Not sticking to the theme
  • Not enough variety

There are plenty more, but I think many people don’t pay attention to staying on focus and adding variety. They sound like polar opposites, but aren’t. One is all about not trying to be all things to all people, while the other is all about depth.

Variety could include looking at a topic from several angles, and often putting one’s personal bias aside to explore other what-if scenarios, considering possibilities that you as a person or organization may not adopt but might have value.

As for the blog being too personal, this is a fine line. Of course one expects a blog to bring out the personality of the blogger, but writing sprinkled with far too many personal details is a turn off.

Quotes for 13 Oct 07: Challenges, disruption, stealth and resignation

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“Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy didn’t change the world by asking people to join their Facebook crusades or to download their platforms. Activism can only be uploaded the old-fashioned way…”

Thomas Friedman, saying he is impressed and baffled by college students who are just too quiet about present issues. One climate activist group challenged him, saying it’s more committed and organized than he realizes.

“Twitter is simply a digital manifestation of this phenomenon of thinking “aloud” and seeing if there is a response. A bit like bat echo-locating, but on a social rather than topographical level.”

Member of MyRagan, responding to a question about whether or not Twitter could replace blogging. 90 percent of conversation is meaningless filler the writer notes.

“You will be ‘vanilla’. Bland. Inoffensive. Overlooked for more exciting flavours.”

Australian communicator, Lee Hopkins on why it’s important to blog. Actually this is a quote from 2005, from his blog Better Communications.

“My question is: What should I do with this PR stuff?”

Someone posing a question (at Ask a MetaFilter) about accepting an offer from a PR firm to place videos in her Facebook group formed around a movie.

“Practically speaking, I fought the good fight. I’ve variously made my points. Together, we’ve exposed a few frauds and killed countless sacred cows … BUT now I am tired; and now regrettably, I seem to spend all my time revisiting the same battles previously won.”

Amanda Chapel, who resigned from Strumpette on October 8th.

“Facebook has real competition coming. Competition they haven’t yet faced.”

Robert Scoble (who says he has 552 reasons to hate Facebook) on what to expect now that Google has bought Jaiku. world

“As long as it doesn’t mean a tumor is growing on my leg because of my BlackBerry, I’m fine with it … Some people have biological clocks, I might have a biological BlackBerry.”

Jonathan Zaback, PR Manager at Burson-Marsteller, quoted in an AP story on people imagining vibrations from a BlackBerry when no one is messaging them.

Pinch the firehose

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

This week I met a good cross section of business people who were intrigued and excited about the potential of new media. At meetings like this I try to explain what this media and marketing shift is all about by referencing the usual suspects: RSS, blogs, wikis, Search engine optimization, online video and networking.

But rather than further segmenting them into sub categories (and confusing the heck out of people) I tell them to think of it as not just technology fixes to marketing opportunities, but a way of rethinking what our marketing goals are. Are we trying to amplify the message –as in the old tactics of expensive media buys — or are we trying to empathise with our customers better? Are we trying to stuff our brochures into their inboxes or are we trying to get them to find us on their terms, on their time?

I also tell them not to drink from the proverbial fire-hose, and take these techno solutions in small sips. The fire-hose is not what you want opened when you’re trying to achieve specific goals. There are just too many tools out there that may not even be relevant to your marketing objective.

My take is that, in our exuberance, we might be opening the new media pressure valve a bit too far, making marketing look too complex, to “wild west,” too faddish. Sometimes it’s OK to pinch the fire-hose. Work with what you have. Maybe what you have is a marketing team of two-and-a-half people, a lean budget, and a CEO who first needs you to serve it out in sippy-cup. The big thirst could be filled down the line.

Life beyond YouTube

/ Angelo Fernando / 3 Comments

There are several video plays trying to grab a piece of the YouTube market.

Two alternatives to think about when the geeky guy at your next meeting drones on and on about his YouTube strategy.

Kyte TV: It’s a place where you could go and create your own video channel, but the difference is you get to edit the video, add music tracks, effects, links etc. You could then grab the embed code and host it on your own site (and avoid being slotted in between some seriously embarrassing lip-syncers, or cat mutilations.) It’s still in beta, and is free!

VideoClix: A way to link elements in your video to specific landing pages. Let’s say your story has images of buildings, or objects that you like to link to other parts of your site. You create hot-spots in the video that can take the viewer deeper into the story, or off to an e-commerce site should you want to sell a subscription or merchandise. The site gives you detailed metrics so you know what the viewers clicked on, how much time spent on different parts of the story. The Lite edition is free, and the version for Educators is under $250.

Free copywriting seminar

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Who is this guy and why is he giving away free advertising advice?

If you’re a copywriter, you may want to check this out. Trevor Crook, an Australian writer, is giving away a copywriting seminar. It’s called the Copywriting Blueprint Formula.

The catch? Apparently none. He simply believes in the pay-it-forward principle, and expects everyone who listens to the 10-part audio seminar (downloadable MP3files) to share the knowledge. In a world where everything that could be is “monetized,” it surely stands out. Check it out!

Thanks to Lee Hopkins, a fellow IABC member for the tip.

Facebook critic calls it fake “theater”

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Facebook is being described as many things today, as pundits, marketers, social scientists and educators try to get a handle of what’s going on in this space. Is it the ‘”connective tissue,” or a “social graph,” a resume, or a utility?

New York Times Op-Ed writer Alice Mathias has a different take on all of this, dismissing it as an place that encourages performances and escapism –a time-sucking hangout of the “Fakebook Generation.” Here is how she describes it:

I’ve always thought of Facebook as online community theater. In costumes we customize in a backstage makeup room — the Edit Profile page, where we can add a few Favorite Books or touch up our About Me section — we deliver our lines on the very public stage of friends’ walls or photo albums. And because every time we join a network, post a link or make another friend it’s immediately made visible to others via the News Feed, every Facebook act is a soliloquy to our anonymous audience.

I know we instinctively want to challenge this notion. But wait. Mathias is not some angry pundit –she’s a grad student who’s grown up on the thing. She makes a solid point that’s worth addressing: Networks like FB, she says, make us miss other valuable parts of human interaction. “Dwelling online is a cowardly and utterly enjoyable alternative to real interaction.”