Should BP spin its wheels on its pesky little PR problem?

June 7, 2010June 9, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

I bet this will be question that many presenters on crisis communications and PR turn to –at the IABC World Conference in Toronto this week, and many other events.

Variations of this question could come range from “can social media rescue a company’s reputation,” to “Is this a warning shot for corporations dabbling in social media?”

You could say BP which has the nation’s largest environmental crisis on its hands should ignore the PR disaster they have inherited (as Len Gutman at ValleyPRBlog noted, “There are some things PR can’t fix”) and stick to fixing what it has wrought. It’s near impossible for them to address the ‘wisdom’ of the passionate crowd leveraging new media.

Take these responses to the oil spill:

The BP Logo Redesign Contest. I’ll don’t need to tell you what this means in a Web 2.0 world where images are shared, commented on and archived forever.

Fake Twitter Account for ‘BPGlobalPR’: With 129,000 followers and counting, it shows how seemingly powerless Goliath is when David’s got the slingshot. The tweets themselves are entertaining.

Facebook Protests, including this one calling for a Worldwide BP Protest Day in the coming week -12 June 2010

More logo attacks on Flickr – Behind the logo group

Wikipedia edits. Lots of activity on the discussion pages of BP’s Wikipedia page, where editors this week seem to be dredging up –still unpublished– unsavory details of cancer etc.

In the face of all this, what in the name of crisis communications is the value of the full page ad in the New York Times, and some of those TV spots? Is there any value in using old media Tylenol-type tactics to fix the situation BP is in? I recall BP used to run a great series of ads, when it was re-branding, that said things like “It’s time to go on a low carbon diet.”

I think its time for BP to go on a low PR diet!

Not all PR agencies get it wrong

June 4, 2010June 4, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

I received one of those dreaded pitches this week from a PR firm in London.

It had the trademarks of having being picked from a list of bloggers and freelance writers: It started Press Release….

But this one was different. It didn’t have “no-reply’ or some garbled name as its sender. It also had a headline that made me want to open it and read. It was about the PR firm’s client, BBC World News.

You might wonder how relevant is that? I could have signed up for all manner of things on the World Service. But the topic was a series of shows Hard Talk On The Road –on Sri Lanka. It may sound dead simple, making sure the subject was in line with the reader. But let me frame it this way. I get so many of these PR pitches that it sometimes makes me wonder where we have taken this form of communication.

This is an industry (PR and Marcom) where everyone is screaming Web 2.0, every consultant, conference presenter and digital marketing agency is throwing out terms such as ‘Social Media Release” and RSS in every slide deck, and every book that has been published on the subject since Cluetrain Manifesto advises that ‘markets are conversations.’ In other words, stop spamming and start talking.

But all my colleagues at ValleyPRBlog, for instance, say the same thing. We are getting drowned in ridiculous PR Spam. We only complain off and on, and that, too when someone really ticks us off, or someone like Chris Anderson issues a fatwa, and everyone nods their heads and says ‘serves them right.’

But in the past 10 days I got two pitches that were spot on! Two! As such, rather than outing the bad ones, I like to hold up the good agencies and the great PR folk who do one simple task -take time to understand their audience.

The first was so good, from Gutenberg Communications, I have agreed to interview the CEO of the company –on Monday. If you’re interested, stay tuned!
And there was this from Parys Communications whose pitch was so simple, I could have hit the delete button.

As a writer I give every pitch a chance. If you take the time to filter, we will take time to read!

Is your company ready for a private social network?

June 2, 2010June 1, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Mixed signals. That’s what’s out there when it comes to social networks.

A few weeks back some UK companies approved of banning social networks in the workplace. A few years back organizations such as the CIA embraced such collaborative spaces. They created their own private network called A-Space, and another information sharing hub, Intellipedia.

But did you know that despite the rush for ‘corporatized’ LinkedIn or Facebook groups, many institutions have adopted private social networks?

Sometimes called ‘walled gardens’ these networks are created using free of paid platforms where smaller communities can share their ideas and –to use that overused word again -engage.

Two examples of this trend:

ResearchGate. This social engagement hub for scientists built by scientists may not be as well known as other networks, but it’s quite a hangout. Population 400,000! While groups on Facebook plan boycotts of oil companies or befriend brands, these specialized networks discuss topics such as the Human adenovirus A-31 genomic sequence, or neural networks and artificial intelligence. Groups range from American Society of Plant Biologists to a one discussing Zebrafish husbandry.

Pluck is one of the popular platforms used by media, insurance and marketing companies. It offers more than the bare template, lending editorial support – for what it calls a “curated, professionally produced content library.” I find it interesting that Pluck is not standing around building fortifications around its clients’ private social network, but making it easy for them to provide pass-through integration with Facebook, for instance.

You know your organization is ready for a private social network when you see the following signs:

You mention a document posted to the web site and you get 80 percent blank stares. You mention a statistic about your competition, and 95 people already know about it –via Facebook.
People complain that they can’t find anything on the company Intranet. They whine that “the search engine is so nineteen-ninetees.”
You overhear that there are unauthorized LinkedIn groups within the company because they hate having to share ideas via email
Someone in HR complains that someone has created a FriendFeed room in which designers are chatting; the guys in Marketing are equally ticked off.

Three things to do before you ‘sell’ social media to anyone

May 26, 2010June 4, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

I hate using the word sell in a way that really means ‘influence’ or inform. But there are some times when you as a communicator need to sell the idea upstream because, frankly, no one seems to have the courage to broach the subject.

I was talking to someone in an association the other day and he sort of shielded his mouth and lowered his voice to tell me “our website sucks.” I’m sure you have had that kind of experience. Then he went on to say that most people agreed that the content was so badly laid out, and the delivery was soooo not in keeping with new media, that the higher-ups had decided to revamp the site. But still, no one wants to be the first, or loudest, to say that ‘we need to plug into some social media strategies – fast.”

How do we tell them and prove to them these are the things we need to do, he asked? I was tempted tp say make a list, but I held back.

I came across a “Five things to do” article (on executive buy-in) at Ragan Communications that was one of those. It is a great list and I happen to agree with the steps. But I worry about numbering these, and even putting a finite number to it.

I know, I know! I titled this post “Three things” but you will discover why in a bit.

The writer, Frank Strong, asks you who dare to sell the idea to the big guys to take these steps:

Get the facts
Identify customers and prospects
Review the competition
Know your ‘Use Cases’ –a buzz phrase that means what-if scenarios. Among many other things!
Manage expectations

To which I would add:

Identify related topics and conversations that the company ought to be addressing. He covers part of this in#3. But apart from responding to queries, senior management might like to know the blind spots and what might not seem obvious, and why this ‘chatter’ could be responded to.

Provide a plan of action. Sounds simple. But most people tend to want to wait for the green light to provide the steps that might be taken. By outlining, however basic, the road map you will might take, makes the executive more confident that this is not just another “let’s throw something and see if it sticks” idea.

Work the back-channel. Execs often have their ear to the ground and randomly check the pulse of people who have opinion credibility. Get to these first if you can. See if you can have their buy-in even at a basic level, so that they may not be the ones who make of break the deal.

So here’s my list of things to do.

Seek out the blind spots
Sketch your road map.
Get lower heads to nod
Ask permission later

On that last point, sometimes you need to get things moving before you can bring the heavy lifters in. Social media always lets you try-before-you-buy. (Can’t see that happening with say, a TV campaign or magazine inserts!) Start a Twitter account even if no one has approved of one. The worst they could do is shut it down. This gives you the up-seller a way to reach deep and wide and check the pulse, so that you can then say you have dabbled in this thing and have acquired … (provide numbers and details here.) Same with other channels whether it is starting a LinkedIn group, a Flicker account, or guest blogging for a friendly vendor or alliance.

So yes, there are four suggestions in my “Three Things.” The point is, there could be four or fourteen; they can (and should) vary for every situation.

Make your own list! Don’t follow mine, for goodness sakes!

What if Starbucks ‘saw’ my review in real time?

May 14, 2010May 17, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I’m sitting here at Starbucks with a bunch of uber talented technology folk, discussing mobile apps and what it would take for a mobile device to play a seamless–frictionless — part of role in ia community.

We experiment with the usual suspects (Facebook, FourSquare, Twitter, Flickr) the ships and shoes and sealing wax of community building, but it strikes me that sometimes the simple things might still work, and be a win-win for the marketer and the customer.

For example: I snap this picture with my phone, email it to my Flickr account and ta-da, it appears in my album. I’ve been doing this for years. If you look on the bottom right of this blog (at least this week) it shows up here too.

But what if the act of tagging the photo and uploading it triggers something that tells Starbucks marketing that there is a potential review going out from this zip code, and this mobile device. What if, by triangulating a Quick Response code on the cup of iced tea, my FourSquare signature, and my phone, they could send me a digital coupon?

A new lens. Marketers are often flying blind. Yes they fall back on market research, but they seldom engage in real-time marketing intelligence gathering. Tracking and sensing how people are using a mobile device to navigate through and interact with their service providers would be a boon to not just coffee shops. Book stores, movie studios (think ‘citizen critics’ using a cell phone to review a movie before the closing credits!), theme parks, airlines etc could look at the mobile device as solution to an opportunity they never even thought of. If only they can find ‘sensors’ that tell them who’s talking them up -or down.

And why do these opportunities rarely show up? Because they tend to be seen through the lens called ‘marketing.’ It’s time to switch the focus.

Screw on the lens marked ‘conversations.’

Still thumbing your nose at Wikipedia?

May 13, 2010 / Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Cross posting this from the IABC Blog.

I’m not sure what you think of Wikipedia, but there are many people -communicators and business people – who are still deeply suspicious of it, even though they continue to dip in and out of it to ‘check on something.’Students use it but sparingly, it seems. Most people I asked said they use it a lot. I was curious about this ambivalence, and wanted to find out how distrust can work alongside usefulness. But the more I looked, the more I became convinced that it’s time for serious communicators to put those early notions aside and take a second look at something that has changed knowledge sharing in a remarkable way. This is the topic of my article in the upcoming July-August CW magazine, but before it hits your mailbox, here’s something that might whet your appetite.

Did you know that over 50 percent of edits are made by less than one percent of Wikipedia users?
Did you know that there are hundreds of articles waiting in a queue to be edited, completed, fact-checked, etc.?

If you’ve been one of those people who have complained loudly that some of the articles are patently written by some 14-year old, then here’s your chance to do something about it. If you’re one of those folks who proudly inserts the term ‘crowd-sourcing’ into a PowerPoint presentation or discussion on social media, then here’s a great opportunity to get some dirt under your fingernails and see how it really happens.

I love the idea of crowd-sourcing myself, and quite frankly, I had stayed off the Wikipedia edit pages for awhile -after some very simple edits many years ago. The coding (wiki syntax) is not easy to remember unless you dabble in some HTML. But you don’t need to know a lot to start. When I got back to it, what I found was fascinating. Even outside the realm of serious ‘collective intelligence,’ one of the great side effects of Wikipedia is that it has turned into a site to go to for event coverage. Like a global team of citizen journalists, passionate editors quickly add detail to a breaking story like some back-room iReporters. Their bylines are cryptic usernames, and they don’t seek recognition. Some news tidbits don’t always show up in the main article –until the edit wars and discussions are settled– but they are a rich source of information. Maybe you could be one of those contributors as well!

But as I explain in the article, there is a lot of serious content you may be able to contribute to. Wikipedia needs more editors, writers, and good content specialists. Even persnickety fact-checkers, punctuation freaks and content curators. In other words, people like you who yearn to inform and are natural collaborators.

If you like to get an idea of where you could start, Wikipedia has some areas for you waiting to be worked on. Check these out:

Requested Articles: these are internal links (known as, and seen as, ‘red links’) that go nowhere, so basically they are articles waiting to be created. Type WP:RA into the search box to find them. Plenty of topics to choose from.

Articles for Creation: Type in WP:AFC to get started on an article. It takes you thgrough the basic steps and policies, and points to an article wizard.

There’s work to be done in updating small things, if not writing full-blown articles. Consider your local IABC chapter perspective. Of the 100 or so IABC chapters, only 13 have been listed here, with external links, that is. This is up from 10 chapters when my article went to print.

Go for it!

Ian Schafer in Advertising Age about the dawn of Facebook currency

Mike Klein, responding to Steve Crescenzo‘s post at IABC Exchange, on the three kinds of writing communicators need to know.

Doron Kritetz, on the four subject lines that grab readers

Najibullah Malik, secretary of Pakistan’s ministry of information technology, on why Facebook was banned this week in the country.

Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris, who called for the ‘day’ to draw a cartoon of the prophet.

Gary Pierce, Arizona’s Corporation Commissioner in an empty threat to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The spat was over several states and counties calling for a boycott of Arizona over its new immigration law. The law has promoted many cartoons and punch lines.

Kevin Roberts, CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi Eorldwide, on his about turn on the vakue of the iPad

Gary Severson, senior vice president of entertainment for Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores

BT Chief exec, Ian Livingston on a device said to rival the iPad

Verizon Wireless’ Lowell McAdam commenting on the high speculation that it is soon to launch a Google tablet that will take advantage of its new network and new pricing plans.