She's great

Trudy Beekman

Trudy Beekman is Malory Archer's neighbor and primary rival. Malory is often finding ways to establish herself above Trudy, in "Skytanic" going so far as to call in a phony bomb threat to the rigid airship,Excelsior. She made the threat so she could bump Trudy off the guest list and take the trip herself. When told she had been bumped, Trudy got so mad she vomited in anger.In "Killing Utne," Malory complained about the decor in Trudy's bathroom. After Mannfred and Uta killedUtne and Elke, Malory directed her ISIS employees to dump the dead bodies in Trudy's bathroom. She had everyone shoot Elke with Sterling's gun and then had Krieger burn the evidence.

I'd like a modified Nate Berkus

1787 Gold Coin Sells for $7.4 Million | Pursuitist

1787 Gold Coin Sells for $7.4 Million | Pursuitist:

'via Blog this'

LINDSAY LOHAN - A RICHARD PHILLIPS FILM - YouTube

LINDSAY LOHAN - A RICHARD PHILLIPS FILM - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Strong - YouTube

"

'via Blog this'

Norway Ran Out of Butter Because the Entire Country Ate It All for Their Fad Diet

These people know how to live

Norway Ran Out of Butter Because the Entire Country Ate It All for Their Fad Diet:

'via Blog this'

Jeremy Clarkson doesn't care about getting bad press so get over it

Jeremy Clarkson says striking workers should be "executed in front of their families":

'via Blog this'

acceleration is all that really matters

Koenigsegg Agera R is officially the king of going then stopping


Koenigsegg Agera R is officially the king of going then stopping:

'via Blog this'

Ralph Lauren Car Collection Paris Exhibition - Photo Gallery

Ralph Lauren Car Collection Paris Exhibition - Photo Gallery:

'via Blog this'

Ralph Lauren's car collection on exhibit - 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" (1) - CNNMoney.com

Ralph Lauren's car collection on exhibit - 1930 Mercedes-Benz SSK "Count Trossi" (1) - CNNMoney.com:

'via Blog this'

Grace Kelly had a great publicist ... or style

History of the Hermes Kelly Bag and Grace Kelly | Pursuitist:

'via Blog this'

It's been a great semester guys!

Mickey Avalon - My Dick (with Lyrics) - Watch the best video clips here

Mickey Avalon - My Dick (with Lyrics) - Funny home videos are a click away

Webinar on Analytics

In this webinar from Harvard Business Review they discuss how you can improve your organization by using more detailed internal analytics.  These analytics focus on identification of talent within employees to find new insights that link peoples' decisions to organizational performance.  Identifying talent allows the organization to focus on enhancing organizational performance.



 Taking Measure of Talent With Analytics 

Does anyone else find it disturbing this got global coverage

Not only wad this covered on national domestic news media it was also covered by the BBC and Al Jazeera

US bargain-hunting turns violent - http://pulse.me/s/3vbxn

Gratitude As A Business Strategy | Fast Company

This article discusses how it's important for businesses to show their gratitude for being allowed to operate  - rather than just taking this for granted or only recognizing their customers during the holiday season.  This needs to be honest, unselfish, respectful acknowledgment of another human being. Consider this as you're getting emails from companies left and right this holiday season - ask yourself when the last time your heard from these people and what is their message really about this time?

Gratitude As A Business Strategy | Fast Company:

Bloomberg booed for bouncing protestors

Mayor Bloomberg, NYPD Catch Heat for Nighttime Raid, ‘Media Blackout’ - http://pulse.me/s/3crU5

Ketchum to the rescue?

Penn State Hires Ketchum - http://pulse.me/s/3c6Xb

Why I don't go camping in the Everglades

Python eats deer in Florida | Gadling.com:

He was coming up on Facebook with a dagger

Social Networking Pioneer Dies Suddenly At 22 - http://pulse.me/s/385kn

Use sprout

Apps have become integral to capably managing social media today. The complicated the mission for companies who are trying to engage with their customers and broadcast their message over these complex, intertwined channels is made easier through these modern web machines.  Sprout Social is one company who's got a tool prepared for this situation; they've turbo-boosted offerings so that companies can integrate all of these interactions in one place.


Its new S2 platform adds "personalized dashboards tailored to each user's specific social media" interface, a Group Support option with different dashboards for each section within a company that wishes to use the social feeds ("beyond the marketing department" as Sprout's press release puts it), and all the necessary permissions controls that mean different groups and managerial levels can have different authorities. 


Their suite includes task or "assignment queues," which means a flagged negative tweet, for example, can be brought to a manager's attention and the queue item kept open until the manager has responded and, perhaps, the marketing team has made a follow-up.

Sprout Social Turbo-Boosts Its Dashboard For Enterprise Social Media

What does your brand's voice sound like?

If you're a retailer and you're not generating a non-stop flow of customized, interactive content, the writing's on the wall: Publish or perish. Publishing has become an essential tool for keeping customers close as they pursue their decision journeys on the way to purchase. Here are four approaches to content retailers are trying. 


The Mass Publisher
Mass publisher retailers create content of broad interest to their customers. They ask, "If we were a cable TV channel or a mass market magazine, what would our content, tone, and the experience we offered be? What would be the on-demand shows or feature articles that get viewed and shared virally? What topics could we own?"


The Problem Solver
This approach aims to make consumers aware of a solution or an aspiration they had not considered. Increasingly these marketers are seeking to help consumers who are already in a market solve a problem. As these customers are searching for answers, retailers intersect with them by publishing text or video content, interactive tools, or gateways to one-to-one help. Like Home Depot how-to videos.


The Social Engager
Social media has enabled people to engage your brand to get a stream of deals, participate in contests, see sneak previews, or receive other regular communications. But delivering on that promise requires creating a robust programming schedule to feed the channel, having the people available internally (with appropriate protocols) to respond to customer posts, and designing experiences that encourage followers to get others involved.


The Personal Concierge
In this approach companies create personalized content to help move each customer through a decision journey from considering a brand to evaluating, buying, experiencing, advocating and, ultimately bonding.





Check out the original article here .... Who's Your Brand's Editor-in-Chief?

Honey Laundering: The New Crime To Buzz About | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation

I had watched a documentary on this topic and I don't find this to be too surprising anymore. The current honey industry in the U.S. is absolutely appalling and damaging - much like modern large-scale domestic agriculture has become.

Honey Laundering: The New Crime To Buzz About | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation: "Honey Laundering: The New Crime To Buzz About"

'via Blog this'

Bank of America won't be the only one to learn from this

Bank of America: A Case Study in Tone Deafness - http://pulse.me/s/2LkpC

Socially Responsible Corporate Activism

A new trend that has been rising is the drive to buy American made products.  Building on this momentum retailers and other businesses are shifting their corporate social responsibility initiatives to reflect the sentiments of customers.  One example of this is a new program that Starbucks has started.

As part of a small business support initiative spearheaded by the company's founder Shulz, Starbucks stores will begin to carry a line of red, white and blue woven (made in America) bracelets with proceeds  directly funding micro-loans and sponsorships for small start-ups.  This program is ideal for Starbucks since they are often seen as a big bad corporation that kills small businesses.  This program directly supports small businesses and likely isn't costing Sbux that much to administer.

Starbucks Takes on U.S. Jobs Woes with Loans, Bracelets - DailyFinance

Corporate Socially Responsible Activism?

The businesses that Starbucks is supporting through this campaign will be featured on the company's various social media channels - their stories being used as promotional material for Sbux corporate.  This begs the question of are the reasons for this program altruistic enough?  Can there be altruistic reasons for CSR?  These are things we must consider when trying to make do-good brands famous using social media.

Starbucks Takes on U.S. Jobs Woes with Loans, Bracelets - DailyFinance

Why aren't you listening?

It's a bit surprising to find that a vast majority of companies don't respond to customers that reach out to them through social media.

Study from Socialbakers about Facebook, indicating that brands don’t respond to 95 percent of questions posted on their walls.

Research from Maritz and Evolve24 of 1,298 Twitter complainants found that only 29% of those tweet gripes were replied to by the companies in question.

83% of the complainants that received a reply liked or loved the fact that the company responded.

The bottom line is that angry customers just looking for a sympathetic ear, and that's how the company should approach these people in resolving their complaints since these particular people are shouting about it in a public forum.

The needs and desires of your customers have changed - i.t's time to start listening to what people are asking for!

Could this be an OWS goal?

Yale Prof. Says OWS Should Resurrect Guarantee Clause

Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin proposed this morning on his popular legal blog that OWS should resurrect the Guarantee Clause to "offer a still deeper vision of the Constitution than simply a rejection of Citizens United."

The Guarantee Clause of the Constitution, found in Article IV, states that "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union, a Republican Form of Government." The clause, Balkin argues, "was designed to ensure that a small group of powerful and wealthy individuals could not hijack the government and make it do their bidding to the exclusion of the vast majority of the public."

The clause has been unenforceable in the courts ever since the mid-19th century, when the Supreme Court handed down a decision that left it to the political branches to decide for themselves whether they were, in fact, representative of the people they are supposed to serve. Luckily for OWS, that decision was penned by Chief Justice Roger Taney, whose legally and morally bankrupt Dred Scott decision has forever cast doubt on the legitimacy of his legal judgment.

If the Tea Party can take its vision of the constitution, abandoned long ago by the mainstream, from "off the wall" to "on the wall," writes Balkin, so should OWS ground its protests in the constitutional text that guarantees "a government that cares about the 99 percent, not a government that is of the 1 percent, by the 1 percent and for the 1 percent."

Coaching the Boss on Social Media

Mashable has an excellent article on How to Provide Social Media Support to an Executive - I think it has some pretty useful main points (and pains) that you may experience working in communications.

1. Listen First

Listen to the customer/audience before diving in with a blazing flag and blaring message.  

2. Communicate Externally and Internally

If an executive were to spend all their time gazing at the beautiful view from their 44th floor corner office they probably wouldn't notice Patrick Bateman behind them with an axe.  Basically, you need to keep the lines of communication strong internally as well as externally - by mirroring these networks adoption will be closer to integration.

3. Be Open and Accessible

Approachable executives are paramount to foster a culture of openness and sharing. Encourage your leadership team to establish direct lines of communication.

4. Coach and Reverse Mentor

Traditional mentoring has been a top-down process during which an executive mentor adopts a junior mentee. However, social rests on a different set of skills. Therefore, it may make sense to pair up “digital natives” with “digital dinosaurs.”

5. Start Small Conversations

Start executives off by encouraging them to post to a private space that you can monitor, then provide direct feedback.

6. Focus on Impact

It’s important to stress from the beginning that executive involvement will affect how the organization views social. As leaders, executives must recognize that their actions will affect not only themselves, but also the entire social process.

For example, my company’s customers generally report significant bumps in engagement after the CEO joins and engages on social media. One customer organization saw a 27.93% increase in messages, a 28.37% increase in replies and a 49.60% increase in “likes.”

Think they're of any use?

More infographics!

Mashable has some great infographics that are really beautiful, informative, interesting, and useful.  Social media metrics are displayed in an easy to understand and playful way.  Graphics like these are excellent tools for organizations to use when communicating both growth, gains, or movement to both internal and external publics.  The graphics provide the information in both text and visual representation so more people will understand it in general.

There are some great templates and tools in Microsoft Office to create charts and some basic dashboards but these are custom works of art tailor made for the story they're telling.  But it's still easy to borrow this idea and create something along these lines for your organization's story - think of how amazing it will look online or printed in an annual report.  I've fount that this type of thing is often LOVED by executives - they think it's young and hip and professional-cool.

The real difficulty in creating one of these beauties is the information, facts, figures, and statistics that determine everything about how the final art will look.  Getting that information may meen bugging someone to create a report with statistics, then drafting something and taking that back to the numbers person to make sure it jives, working out any discrepancies, re-do, etc. ..... done and it's amazing and DURABLE -- once you've done this kind of thing once it's much easier the next time around.

Has anyone done anything they'd like to share?

Now you'll get it

Cancelled
Get More: SOUTH
PARKmore...

Who bought the candidates you're allowed to vote for?

"We are the 99%," but the 1% Buy Elections, Reports Show | Center for Media and Democracy

Read this if you care about corporate greed

ALEC Politicians Spin Special "Interest" Bill to Protect Corporate Wrongdoers as "Job Creation" | Center for Media and Democracy

How much spin has BP got?

BP's Gulf of Mexico PR, One Year Later | Center for Media and Democracy

The U.S. Department of the Interior and the Coast Guard recently released their joint report (pdf) on the Deepwater Horizon disaster and it has restarted the blame game.  The report concluded all three corporate participants in the calamity -- BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton -- were at fault. Furthermore, it concluded all three companies violated federal laws and safety regulations by "failing to take necessary precautions to keep the Macondo well under control at all times." Additionally it found all three companies were "jointly and severely liable for the failure to comply with all applicable regulations."  Meaning all three companies are mutually responsible for the accident, and each can be held singly responsible for the entire debacle. The report parsed blame among the companies for sloppy materials and workmanship, inadequate training, failure to properly assess risk and conduct proper testing, failure to abide by stop-work policies after multiple anomalies were discovered, and so on.


BP agreed with the report's "core conclusion" that the accident was the result of "multiple causes, involving multiple parties, including Transocean and Halliburton." BP encouraged the other companies to "acknowledge their roles in the accident" and urged them to make changes to prevent similar accidents in the future. The report, though, held BP "ultimately responsible for conducting operations at Macondo in a way that ensured the safety and protection of personnel, equipment, natural resources and the environment."

BP Messages and Actions are Far From Aligned 

A year after the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico BP is publicly trying to look like it accepts responsibility for the disaster. However, behind the scenes the company is quietly engaging in activities that cast doubt on its sincerity and appearance of contrition. For example, BP is one of the highest-level corporate funders of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a corporate bill mill that gives companies a hand in crafting business-friendly legislation and resolutions. ALEC helps energy companies fight restrictions on offshore drilling and pushes a deregulatory agenda at every turn.

Contrary to What BP Wants the Public to Believe, All is Not Well in the Gulf

The PR tactics seem to fit BP's strategic "corporate responsibility" needs at this point. But while BP's website shows pleasing photos of clean sea turtles and throngs of happy beachgoers cavorting in the water along the Gulf of Mexico seashore, reports about the status of the Gulf one year later show marshes still saturated with oil, even after billions of dollars have been spent on cleaning. One marsh that BP pronounced particularly clean showed oil oozing out of the mud just below the water's surface when journalists stepped in it, and it still reeked.  BP has also refused to help restore Louisiana's oyster beds, saying "BP is not obligated to pay for such damage -- because it was not caused by the oil spill." The damage, BP claims, was caused by a release of fresh water, but the fresh water was only released because of the oil disaster, to try and flush out the wetlands. Dolphins and dead endangered sea turtles are washing up on Gulf shorelines at 10 to 20 times the normal numbers.

BP is hoping that Americans will simply forget about the 2010 Gulf disaster, absorb their corporate PR strategies unquestioningly, and won't look any deeper than the "all's fine" facade they're striving to spin.  Is this the best they can do in a case like this?>

The BP homepage shows their latest business success a $15.95 billion dollar project in the North Sea.








Their Gulf Recovery section mentions $500 million earmarked for study to monitor long-term effects of the spill.  Isn't that generous of them?

Podcasting for some

Podcasting is a great method for new artists to get their music heard in a couple of different ways.

First, an artist could make their own podcast and provide content for however long they wanted the show to be.  The downsides of this are that updates are the responsibility of the artist, but more problematic is their listener-base is likely to be quite small.

The second way hearkens back to the olden days of calling DJs and asking them to play your song ... get in touch with the DJs of popular music podcasts and try to get your music played there.  The benefits of this are being able to reach much larger audiences that already exist, many of these are spread internationally due to the portability of podcasting.

Third, start micro-podcasting on sites like SoundCloud.  Choose a site that suits your needs and setup an account here with your sounds, keep things up to date so fans know you're alive and producing.  Have fun with it really.

Occupy Wall Street unites nationally with social media

Protesters attempt to occupy US Senate - http://pulse.me/s/28mhY

Does RSS make sense for you?

It probably does.  It makes following your content easier and accessible to a wider audience with relatively little effort.  So, why not?

RSS will add real value across all industries and client types (nonprofit, corporate, governmental, associations, and so on), and a variety of subjects and interest areas can be broken into syndicated RSS enabled information.


Content isn't going to be updated enough - even if content isn't updated often RSS makes sense because it will allow followers to receive new information as soon as it's published, without having to check your site.

• RSS is a straightforward means to reach your audience, it is unmatched in terms of its effectiveness. 
• Ability to distribute targeted information reduces your audiences sense of information overload from e-mails. 
• RSS setup is simple - software programs guide you through the process without having to be an expert. 
• RSS technology bypasses the "typical" influencer, it should still be considered an important part of communications planning. 
• Customers might find tremendous value in your RSS feeds; however, it's yet to be determined the number of journalists who sign up for feeds to find interesting information for story ideas. 
• RSS keeps your brand top of mind. The more interesting, newsworthy information you make available, the more your audience will immerse themselves in your brand. 

Breakenridge, Deirdre (2008). PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences (pp. 159-160). FT Press. Kindle Edition.

Social media metrics for the modern practitioner

The following tips came from this excellent article that is absolute must read.   Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value

The author proposes for useful metrics for determining the vlaue of your social media activities.  These metrics aren't currently built in to other reporting suites but are easy to calculate manually (or you could even design a custom reporting system for yourself using something like MS Access or FileMaker).

Four (New) Social Media Metrics:

1. Conversation Rate

Conversation Rate = # of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post

Achieving a high conversation rate requires a deeper understanding of who your audience is, what your brand attributes are, what you are good at, what value you can add to your followers and the ecosystem you participate in.  By boosting your conversation rate you’re building your own watering hole in the digital universe and have meaningful conversations with your audience.

2. Amplification Rate

Amplification is the rate at which your followers take your content and share it through their network.  Amplification allows you to reach more users than you could solely through your own network (simply due to follower, friend, or other limits in the medium).

On Twitter: 

Amplification = # of Retweets Per Tweet

On Facebook, Google Plus:

Amplification = # of Shares Per Post

On a blog, YouTube: 

Amplification = # of Share Clicks Per Post (or Video)

(Share clicks as in number of times your social media buttons were used to spread the content.)

Calculating this metric allows you to measure what pieces of content (type) cause amplification (allow your social contributions to spread to your 2nd, or even 3rd, level network).  This metric also provides insight on the times and geo locations and topics and things that cause amplification.

3. Applause Rate

Measure applause ….

One Twitter:                    Applause Rate = # of Favorite Clicks Per Post

On Facebook:                           Applause Rate = # of Likes Per Post

On Google Plus:               Applause Rate = # of +1s Per Post

On a Blog, YouTube:                  Applause Rate = # of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video)

Applause rate tells you what the audience likes (to use the Facebook terminology) and what they don't. You get a much deeper understanding of what your audience likes so much that it will +1 your content (or contribution) and allow for that to be then shown to others in their social graph.

4. Economic Value

The actions that social media campaigns spark among consumers translate to Macro and Micro Conversions (which are further explained through that link)!  And with macro and micro conversions you can measure Economic Value!

On all social media channels: 

Economic Value = Sum of Short and Long Term Revenue and Cost Savings

Social media participation, done right, adds value to the company's bottom-line. Some of it can't be computed.  The best tools to begin using to measure economic value of online activities are Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends, CoreIBMInsights, etc.

Four metrics to prove your work is working

Conversation Rate. Amplification Rate. Applause Rate. Economic Value. Four simple measures that get you to focus on the right thing from a social media participation perspective, help you understand how well you are doing at it, and quantify the business impact.

The dashboard is available here: 

Download: Social Media Metrics Dashboard. Adapt it to your business.

I'm going to make sure my resignation is this fly

How To Quit Your Job

Ways for CMOs to Utilize Social Media more effectively

Just an interesting article I'm sharing, stay tuned for further commentary

Four Ways CMOs of Major Companies are Using Social, Multimedia to Engage Audiences - http://pulse.me/s/20LLM

Organizations need to get more social

How often do we forget that organizations consist of people?  Ultimately the success of an organization depends on how well its people collaborate and work together.

Has anyone ever gone above and beyond or gone the extra mile at a job?    Doing something outside your explicit job description because you saw a need and handled it.  I doubt I'm the only one of working a little too hard sometimes, but it's actions like these that really make organizations succeed.

Organizations are more successful if they can work as a community sharing information more directly between the people on the front lines and those in product development, management, and other departments.  For organizations to achieve this they must go beyond technology implementation and change the way the organization operates.

"A social organization mobilizes its people — from associates to customers, suppliers and others without regard to hierarchy or position — and their interests, passions, knowledge and experience. "

All Organizations Are Social, But Few Are Social Organizations - http://pulse.me/s/1YA8K

A social networking revolution?

Chapter 8 of PR 2.0
Reaching audiences


People today only see what they consider relevant to their own sphere - consumers decide what is newsworthy to them.   If companies want to ride the same wave as today's socially networked consumer, they need to change the way they're marketing to them.

Companies should enter social media knowing what their brand stands for and then produce social media tactics to support that.  For instance company blogs should take a stance, which will impact the brand's PR and ignite W.O.M. marketing since social media enables audiences to share more information.
Video blogging can be extremely valuable to companies and their leaders.  It ties in well with social networking since it reaches beyond a profile or blog to really grab the audience and tell them who you are in both words and in a visually dynamic medium.  A video can provide consumers with an answer to "What do you stand for?" and "Can I trust you?"  The key concept here is "people buy from people.

Social Networking & Your Brand

Social media has shifted power from the companies to the individuals—people have always wanted, but can now get things on their terms because social media is a forum for these demands.  Broadly companies need to focus on having the best products and, in particular, customer services so that their fans will be the ones creating the sites and evangelizing about their products.

Companies should take note of social networks that could intercept their brand because these connect with other people who share the same interests, however niche—so markets that were previously inaccessible can now make sense.


Identifying trends

The author identified the three biggest trends in social media as: the shift in power from brands to individuals, the move from advertising to services, and the integration of the real and virtual worlds.
Social media is an integral tool the help companies focus engaging in information-rich, two-way conversations with their customers.

Integrating real world data, such as location, direction, and even traffic conditions, has become increasingly important part of the makeup of services.  Two dimensional Internet services being supplemented by real world data to improve users' lives, which occur inevitably in three dimensions.


Moving forward

21st Century reporting and the news distribution is no longer an exclusive function of the media outlets. Direct-to-consumer newswire services, including PRWeb, focus on "media bypass." Blogs go one step beyond the profile. A blog is the best way to say, "Here's who I am and here's what I have to say." Today, people want to connect, not just to the companies they purchase their products/services from, but also connect to the people behind those companies. If the executives behind a brand are not blogging, they're losing an opportunity, especially if they want people to talk.

Social media fusing PR and advertising?

This article explores the increasingly close relationship that advertising and public relations have partly due to the increasing power and presence of Social Media.

The ideas posed in this article have practical relevance when developing effective strategies to integrate public relations activities into an organizations' integrated marketing communications.  When working in a company that does use advertising as a primary communications method the public relations person/department would be smart to suggest a lead PR campaign to determine the type and target of advertising efforts.

Anyone think that this gives PR some credible cause for taking the lead in organizational communications activities?


The Bizarre and Uncomfortable Future of Advertising & Public Relations Convergence
"Social Media is conveniently “horizontal” and can legitimately be considered the glue between PR and Advertising. Thus the fierce rush to tout converged capabilities."

Critical examination of public relations blogging

I think we can all agree that blogs definitely possess strengths not present in other types of media.  Kent's "Critical analysis of blogging in public relations" examines some strengths and weaknesses inherent to blogging and points out some of their pitfalls and potential.

Blog Strengths: Research, environmental scanning, message framing

Research and Environmental Scanning:

• Blogs can be extremely useful for research, issue monitoring, and environmental scanning
• Especially when organizations are dealing with unfamiliar ethnic, cultural, and social groups or publics for the first time
• They're also excellent for ongoing monitoring and environmental scanning tools.

Blogs empower PR practitioners with power to know how individuals/publics are interpreting and responding to organizational events, messages, and activities before that information even reaches mainstream media and news outlets.  For us this means we can formulate better, more compelling, and more effective responses.

Message Framing:

• Blogs enable organizations to allow and encourage website visitors to participate in how online news and information is framed
• This is one of the greatest strengths of blogs and 
• Blogs foster identification
• By identifying with individuals and publics (via blog membership, sponsorship, etc.) an organization or group can foster trust and empathy
• Homogenous groups of individuals and publics are brought together by blogs

With these characteristics blogs can represent the ultimate in public segmentation for PR professionals, giving them: coherent groups of individuals/professionals who share a common interest.

Weaknesses of Blogs:  Communicative risks, exaggerated significance of blogs, blogger credibility and status

Communicative Risks of Blogging:

• Often blogs are populated by fanatics
• Professionals shouldn't place much stock in what a few dozen fanatics have to say 
• However, for each “fanatic” there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of people who feel similarly even if it isn't with the same fervor
• Organizational bloggers who are not adequately trained in public communication and dialogue can become a liability
• Additionally problematic are those who independently decide whether or not to go public on an issue without consulting organizational leaders 

Exaggerated Significance of Bloggers: 
(Statistics presented by Kent)

• 27% of 120 million Americans have read a blog (2005 Pew Internet and American Life Project)
• Less than one in 10 people who have the potential to be influenced by a blog (Kent's estimate when factoring in how many blogs are rinky-dink homegrown rags)
• Blogs probably have the potential to influence fewer than 1 in 20 U.S. citizens (Kent's estimate when factoring in how poorly written many blogs are, the fact that almost no one except those already interested in the subject actually reads to the bottom of many blog posts, and the demographics of bloggers)

Blogger Credibility and Status:

• 65% of bloggers do not consider themselves “journalists,” 
• 84% post infrequently
• 56% make any effort to check their facts
• 60% do not publish corrections
• 95% get their news content exclusively from the Internet (Lenhart, 2006).

Many blogs have begun to blur the distinction between independent organizations and the media.  Despite the media-like reach of blogs, most bloggers lack the credibility, training, and objectivity that the mainstream media possess. 

Conclusions:

Overall, I believe that the jury is still out on the usefulness and practicality of blogging for organizations.

Successful blogs are only sustainable if an organization has someone to maintain it, someone trained in effective dialogic communication, and someone who has the trust of individuals and publics. Anonymously posting to blogs is not a smart option for any organization and neither are attempts to manipulate their audience members with self-serving propaganda or thinly disguised news releases. 

The most practical application of blogs for most organizations is as a research tool.

If your next job asks you your opinion of implementing an organizational blog what will you say?

Who are we tweeting for - certainly not ourselves

Goal: Finding More Meaning in Social Media

Stalk up on your website visitors

It would seem that technology capable of taking visitors this closely would be overkill, but with the drive to force profit margins ever wider it shouldn't be too shocking. Looks like they're taking Hoot Suite quite a bit further...


Listening To Your Customers With The Five Digital Senses

Reading this article the take-away is Ektron has new tech being to more effectively manage social media communications.  I'm not sure if this is a news release from Ektron, but if it is it's quite brilliant in its camouflage. 

The article has no mention of the company until the fifth paragraph -- the first four are anecdotal but engaging, which is appropriate for a blog.  The story makes a good analogy and segues well into the facts, numbers, names and details on the product.  The quote from the company's CEO is most likely from a press release if I had to guess.  Five digital senses seems like information right from the company's website but the writer brings them up in reference to a personal project.

So, I'm wondering -- Is this all news release (fully pre-written), or more likely a story developed from a smaller release?  And I'm really curious if the company provided the anecdotal intro story ... 

I love info-graphics like these!

Amazing Infographics by James West

Ketchum upsets bloggers

Check out this article that touches on the importance of recognizing changing ethical standards in social media.

Ketchum Gets Kid-Glove Treatment on Ethics - http://pulse.me/s/1zG5l

So it is clear that as practitioners embracing this new media we must act with the most professional
standards possible DESPITE consumers of this media being averse to business utilization of it.

Does anyone else think it's hilarious that Ketchum tried to trick bloggers and totally FAILED?  Are they underestimating the sophistication of these nouveau journalists or is this something a client saw on TV and insisted on trying?  Either way I think it's wise to learn that being brash, bold, and exciting on social media is really easy when you're a nobody with nothing to lose, but companies are held to higher standards than nobodies.

Maybe get a patsy/shill/scapegoat to start an underground social media movement for the company instead? 

Elizabeth Taylor is Eternally Classy

This is a wise lesson for anyone to learn ... Acting with class ALSO produces positive PR


I hope to catch a glimpse of this collection before it's no longer together ...

Christie’s has arranged a three-month tour of highlights from legendary film star and jewelry aficionado Elizabeth Taylor’s extensive jewelry collection that will begin in September. 

The public exhibition The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor is scheduled for Dec. 3–12. Christie’s New York will devote its entire gallery space to the exhibition and sales.

A portion of the sales generated by exhibition admission, events, and publications related to the sales will be donated to The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.

Auctions begin Dec. 13., with the Legendary Jewels, Evening Sale.

Full article here:

Elizabeth Taylor's Jewelry Collection Set for World Tour

Social Media Press Release Must Continue to Evolve

It must continue to evolve until it's obsolete.  Supporting technology will change, subsequently the medium will adapt and grow.  Practice will never stop evolving as people find new ways to interact with each other through computer information systems.

From the article:


Lastly, the release announcing the oneforty acquisition represents the latest iteration of the Social Media Press Release (which I also hold near-and-dear).  In it, each and every sentence comprising the release is fashioned as a standalone tweet, complete with hashtags:

Today @HubSpot acquired @oneforty, a social media marketing company based inCambridge, MA. #Hub140 – http://bit.ly/Hub140  Tweet This   (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110817/NE53515LOGO )

Like @HubSpot, @oneforty recognizes the importance of social media in the transformation of marketing. #Hub140  Tweet This

@oneforty created a directory of social media applications and the social media marketing tool SocialBase. #Hub140  Tweet This

The @oneforty directory will merge into the @HubSpot App Marketplace, the largest app store for marketing. #Hub140  Tweet This

The original SMPR template was never intended to become “official.”  It was intended as a wake-up call to the industry that the hidebound, over-written, text-driven press release was becoming archaic in the Web 2.0 mediascape.

The HubSpot/oneforty announcement is just the latest iteration of the idea: “Let’s innovate this sucker.  Let’s try something different.”  I saw some complain that the “twitteresque” treatment of this release was a bit kludgy or heavy-handed, but given oneforty’s roots, it's an appropriate choice — and awesome.

And it got results.

The article continued here ... The Social Media Press Release Continues to Evolve


I've been seeing other marketing materials formatted similarly to this press release in recent months ... check out this business card (I think it's kinda slick).  Anyone else think it's innovative (but probably won't be for long)?