Commentary by blog and social media consultant Josh Hallett on the use of blogs for public relations, media, marketing, communication & branding and from time-to-time the unsolicited opinion.
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Big thanks to Billy, Andrea, Jill and Sara from Delaware North Corporation for hosting the BlogOrlando session leaders at Kennedy Space Center today.
I'll be uploading my photos in a few days, but for now you can look at some from Chris and Judson.
P.S. it was almost an all Nikon crew out there!
BlogOrlando kicks off Thursday so I'll be tied up with running that event till next week. This year's event is much bigger than last year, and thus requires more planning and time.
Some updates will be posted over at the BlogOrlando blog, but you're best bet is to follow what other folks are saying. The official photogroup is up on Flickr.
Green is the new black, or at least the new way to get press. In my area, politicians are all jumping on the 'green' bandwagon. They're announcing 'green' summits and panels to study this new concept :-)
To take advantage of all the hype surrounding buzzwords I'm going to launch a new program, here's the pitch:
Buzzcorp is launching a one-of-a-kind green, Web 2.0-based campaign to feature consumer generated videos uploaded to their blog via YouTube and Facebook which will be judged via Twitter and Digg by MySpace users from around the globe using OLPCs provided to third world countries which are powered by ethanol and recycled carpet fibers. Supplemental judging will be completed by SMS via iPhone by Halo 3 players using SecondLife to organize an unconference about DRM in iTunes. Celebrity judges will be Britney Spears, OJ Simpson, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Barry Bonds. The winner will receive a new Toyota Prius and be adopted by Angelina Jolie.
The natural evolution of this would be to look at Yahoo's top searches each day and then write a press release using all those words. Here are today's top searches:
Now, go write a pitch that uses all of them. I'm interested in seeing how you can connect Marcel Marceau, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the UAW.
October is shaping up to be another busy travel/conference month. Three key events to highlight that I'll be speaking at:
MarketingProfs Business-to-Business Forum: I'll be leading a panel on the second day of the conference.
University of Georgia's Connect Conference: A few days of fun in beautiful Athens, GA.
PRSA International Conference: I'll be part of a panel on Monday and then presenting on Tuesday. In addition I'll be joining Kami and a few others in blogging the conference for PRSA. As with recent conferences, I'll be mostly focussing on photography. We're trying to organize a blogger dinner for Sunday during the conference.
I stopped by BarCamp Orlando for a little bit today. Photos from the event are here.
This post wraps-up to my series on the individuals involved with corporate social media programs. In the first part I looked at the downsides of an organization becoming too reliant upon an individual with a social media/community initiatives. The second post looked at the same issue from the standpoint of the individual who may become overshadowed by the brand they serve. I wish this third post could come under better circumstances, but in business things don't always turn out the way you want them to. What happens when you layoff the staff that runs your corporate blog?
Earthlink corporation has been undergoing some tough times recently that culminated with a number of staff being laid off last month. One of those was their official corporate blogger, Dave Coustan. Dave was hired in 2005, to be the first 'blogmaster' for Earthlink. Longtime readers of this blog may remember that Toby Bloomberg first spotted Earthlnk's ad for this position back in 2005.
If you have a corporate blog and you take away the blogger, well you guessed it, the blog probably goes away too. Dave talked recently about the changes going on at Earthlink and what it will mean for Earthling, the corporate blog.
While many corporate blogs are indeed that, a 'corporate' blog, the people reading them often follow the personalities that write them. This is very similar to how people follow columnists in the print media. While I read SI.com, I usually seek out the work of Peter King. If Peter ever left SI, I'd probably visit SI.com less frequently.
One of Dave's major responsibilities was writing the blog, in his absence what can/will Earthlink do? I don't think turning the blog over to a group of people that can't give it their full attention would be wise. Also, Earthlink says one of their goals is to concentrate on doing a better job for their existing customers. It's a bit ironic then that they'd take away a communication vehicle between company and customer.
Tying back to my first two posts on this subject: 1. What could/should happen to the blog and 2. What should Dave, the individual, or in this case the Earthling do?
I'll be one of the presenters at the upcoming PRSA International Conference in Philadelphia. I'll also be one of the conference bloggers along with Kami Huyse and some other good friends.
The Sunday before the conference kicks-off we're planning a blogger dinner. I've asked Annie Heckenberger with the Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Co. to suggest a locale.
As soon as we have the final details we'll post them, but go ahead and mark your calendar for dinner on Sunday, October 21st.
The other day a colleague and I went to the airport at the same time and went through security at the same time. He gets held up by the TSA for the 'extra' bag search because he has a small amount of lip-balm in his bag. I walked right though with no problem.
What's in my bag? Or I should say, what's almost always in my bag? My Bogen Manfrotto 680B monopod. The thing weighs a few pounds, is made of metal and can be extended to five feet in length.
Yep, you can't take lip balm on board but a metal bat is OK. In all the trips I've taken this year I've never been questioned once about this, or received extra-screening. Of course I do use the CLEAR program so maybe that has something to do with it. However I mostly use CLEAR at the Orlando airport, they're just now opening up in SFO and other airports I frequent.
I've recently started to blog over at MarketingProfs DailyFix. This is the first post and is cross-posted. I am going to try to avoid cross-posting in the future though.
Seth Godin recently talked about a SEO firm that promises to move negative reviews down the page on Google. Rather than spending money to fix the original problem, firms will spend money on making the criticism go away. (sarcasm) Smart (/sarcasm)
Earlier this year I asked, are you willing to take from your pr/marketing budget to fix a problem in another department? A great case in point was the recent Spirit Airlines dust-up. For a quick refresher:
- Alex has customer service issue with Spirit Airlines
- Alex blogs about it
- Other people comment, sharing their customer service horror stories
- Google ranks post #3 for "Spirit Airlines" search
- Even more people comment, sharing more horror stories
- Aviation Week blogs about it
- Traditional media picks up the story
- Rinse & repeat
If you read through the blogs posts, Alex's issue revolves around the customer support line. From his experience it just doesn't work. Many of the people who commented on his post shared the same view.
When I was interviewed by the media for the story about Spirit Airlines I was asked, "What would be your counsel? How can they make peace with the bloggers?" My response:
Well there is what I would tell them they should do, and then there is what they will do, which are two entirely different things.
What they should do.....It seems that the majority of their issues are related to their customer support line, they should fix that problem first. Fix the customer support lines and then go back to the bloggers and say, 'We're sorry for the issues you encountered. It seems that we had some problems with our customer support lines and we heard that from you and the other commenters. We've fixed those issues by increasing our staff at our major call centers. We'd love to have you fly with us again and if you ever need to call our customer service line again the level of service will be much better.'
Of course they won't do that. Each time something like this comes up again their communications depart will apologize. But we all know that it's a hollow apology since they really don't plan on fixing the problem.
I know budgets are really tight at a low-cost airlines, but at what point does the time and effort spent dealing with PR issues related to this (not to mention the lost sales) outweigh the cost to fix it?
I often hear old-school PR practitioners complaining that all this 'blog stuff' is negative. It depends on where you're sitting of course. Social media is great for shining a light on the broken parts of your business. You can take the exposure of faults as a negative, or as an opportunity to fix things and make your products/services better. Which will you do?
While I'm spending time in Mobile, AL for a conference I snuck away and spent some time aboard the USS Alabama. The thing is huge and photos don't do it justice. There is one sense of scale when you're on the deck, then you go below deck and keep finding room after room and story after story. I've uploaded a photoset from the afternoon. The bottom photo here is from the engine room. Lots of tubes :-)
SPRF/PRCA. that's quite the acronym, it stands for Southern Public Relations Federation and Public Relations Council of Alabama. The group is holding their annual conference over the next three days in Mobile, AL. I'm slated to speak on Tuesday, but I'm heading to Alabama today.
Why early? I plan on sneaking away on Monday afternoon to photograph the USS Alabama and some of the other 'hardware' they have at Battleship Memorial Park.
I may post a few session recaps from the conference as well. We'll see.
I, along with good friends Kevin Dugan, Constantin Basturea, Paull Young and K.D. Paine will be presenting at the University of Georgia's Connect conference. It's being held October 19-20, 2007 and is hosted by the Grady College of Journalism & Mass Communication.
I'll be arriving in Atlanta the morning of the 19th. I might stay in that area, or head directly up to Athens, GA. We'll see.
Last year I spent the day on campus at UGA speaking to a number of classes. It's a great place and I'm looking forward to spending some more time there.
In the previous post I talked about how corporations that are creating social media programs inherently need to rely upon the individuals involved with those initiatives. But what about the individuals? Quoting from the previous post:
On the flip side, what about an individual that becomes associated with a brand. In some cases they're not an individual, they're the company's blogger. I've seen it happen at conferences, "Oh hey, John....you're X's blogger?" They're always introduced as John, X's Blogger, never just John. It's like without that qualifier at the end they wouldn't be anybody.
What happens when they want to move on but the corporate brand overshadows their own?
It's a double-edged sword. The major brand is what has put them in a position to possibly move on to other opportunities, but that brand can also obscure them.
Sometimes you also get lost in the crowd at large corporations. Would you want to hire the PR person that 'oversaw' the blog or the person that actually wrote the blog? Executives taking too much credit for their staff's work is nothing new.
What do you do if you're the company blogger and want to establish your own identity? In smaller circles this is easy since the majority of the people you interact with via the blog will hopefully know you. It's a natural effect of the blog and the interaction between individuals. In many cases that might be all you need. If you're looking to move on, often it's the folks in the small circle that are your best resources.
Recently Jeremiah talked about his career blog, or a blog that moved with him from job to job. It's part personal, it's part professional. Striking the balance is the challenge though.
In my case, I'm fortunate because my name and brand, Hyku, are somewhat synonymous. But then again I work for myself :-)
A number of 'corporate blogging' friends I know also have personal blogs. Some are open about this, as in it's easy to find them and the connection. A few others like to keep thing separate and on the DL. It's only their friends that know the address. However, we all know that keeping something hidden in plain sight doesn't always work.
One little issue is the simple Google search of their name. Many times the corporate blog will be the first result. The only way to gain control of that is to get out there and start blogging/linking, etc. Taking on too much of a personal presence could cause tension at work though.
Facebook might be the solution. A number of corporate bloggers I know are my friends on Facebook, it's a great way to network.
Getting back to the question, what should/can a corporate blogger do to establish their identity?
First off, own your name, create a basic site/blog that is your personal brand. What you do there is open for debate, but it's important that friends know how to locate/interact with you outside the corporation you work for.
What else should one do? Comments?
One of the elements crucial to corporate social media initiatives are the individuals who blog for organizations. Often these individuals become somewhat official spokespersons for the organization, but that's what they're supposed to be correct? It's the humanization thing. What are the downsides though?
Recently I was on a teleconference panel with a few organizations. One of the panelists talked about all the major social media initiatives that were handled by a member of their staff, let's call them John. John had become their spokesperson. Previously they never had one. The relationships that John built within communities online (and offline) were invaluable to the organization. During the Q&A, the questions mostly focussed on technology issues and we ran out of time before I could ask, "What happens when John leaves?" From the earlier discussion it would seem that if they left their entire community outreach efforts would vanish and so would a portion of sales.
Another issue related to business blogging is ego and internal politics. In some cases a junior staffer suddenly becomes an invaluable asset, sometimes that goes to your head. However, most of the corporate bloggers I know firmly have their egos in check, but it could be an issue. When Robert Scoble worked at Microsoft one of the questions that often came up was what do others in the company think of his profile? Here was a person that recently joined the company and suddenly is mentioned in the same breath as Gates and Ballmer. There were probably quite a few folks that said to themselves, who is this guy? I've been here a decade....etc.
Then of course Robert left Redmond and some folks foolishly asked, "What will Microsoft do?" I think Microsoft is doing just fine. Along the same lines, does anybody remember Cooper/Katz? (if you do, you somewhat date yourself in the PR blogging world.)
In Scoble's case, PodTech knew one of the things they were getting with Robert was his celebrity/followers. There is attention/publicity that comes with that, and to some degree that can be of value. You could compare this to pro sports before free agency. Often the star player would remain with one team for their entire careers, today that's a rarity. In the gadget blogging world the editors/writers seem to change teams quite a bit.
It will be interesting to see how situations like this play out in the coming years. Could you imagine a Ford press release: "Ford hires former GM Chairman Bob Lutz to launch new F-150 Fanatics blog!"
But let's go back to my initial example, if/when that person at a small operation leaves there would be huge consequences. That person is a communication channel and that suddenly disappears. It is possible to move on, but since much of the community is built upon relationships with an individual, you can't easily swap people out. That's been standard operating procedure for companies though. If it's a faceless corporation, then you can swap out the 'faces' as much as you want :-)
On the flip side, what about an individual that becomes associated with a brand. In some cases they're not an individual, they're the company's blogger. I've seen it happen at conferences, "Oh hey, John....you're X's blogger?" They're always introduced as John, X's Blogger, never just John. It's like without that qualifier at the end they wouldn't be anybody.
What happens when they want to move on but the corporate brand overshadows their own? Part two coming soon.
You get off an airplane at a somewhat rural airport. The kind with only a few gates. Then you see an advertisement for RFID tracking systems. That would be Radio Frequency Identification for logistics. Something is out of place here?
Then you remember you're in Northwest Arkansas, the land of Wal-Mart. Chances are somebody getting on or off a plane in this area would be interested in that specific type of technology. What looked out of place at first now makes sense.
I ran into the same situation in Washington DC earlier this year. I stepped on the Metro and noticed all the in-car advertising for Boeing's KC-767 Advanced Tanker. I'd never seen a $140 million dollar plane advertised on a subway before. Same thing with the in-station advertising, lots of pictures of planes. Of course most of this in-station advertising was at the Pentagon-area stations.
Same situation as today. Some of the folks riding the DC Metro around the Pentagon might just have a few hundred million for a new plane :-)
I'm a big Oakely fan. I remember my first pair of Factory Pilot Eyeshades back in the 80's. I had yellow ones to match Greg Lemond's. Then there were the Frogskins, Razor Blades, the Iridium phase....ah those were the days. One of my all-time favorites were the original Sub-Zeros.
Today you'll find quite few Oakleys in my collection: 00, Why 3.0, Gascan S, M Frame, Zeros and Minutes. Also somewhat contrary to the often said line "If I bought expensive sunglasses, I'd lose them or sit on them," I've never lost a pair and when one pair did break I received a free warranty replacement pair from Oakley.
Checking out the Oakley site today I noticed a new 'Asian Fit' feature. I thought, "What is that?" Sure enough Oakley has a link that says, "What is Asian fit?"
Here is their explanation:
Getting the right fit is essential for comfort, protection, and even optical performance. You may have heard industry terms like “European Fit” and “Asian Fit”. If sunglasses tend to sit too low on your face or slide down your nose, touch at your temples or cheeks, or feel narrow at the sides of your head, try our Asian Fit. The tabs below show all the technology we put into making these frames fit with perfection.
At first glance the term 'Asian Fit' seemed a bit direct for me? What do you think?
This is a neat milestone. Marcomblog is a collaborative blog written by 'industry' folks for students at Auburn University. Yesterday one of the former students has joined the contributor list. Auburn professor Robert French introduces a post from Mary Metcalf, a recent Auburn grad who now works for Edelman in Chicago:
The first post in Marcomblog happened on Saturday, November 13, 2004. We’ll celebrate our third anniversary in just a few months. That’s a long time ago. Many students have passed through my classes and participated in our social media activities. So, I had this funny idea. Hundreds of those students have graduated and gone on to careers in public relations and marketing communications. Why not hear from one of them? I asked Mary Kneeland (MK) if she would write a post reflecting on the transition from student to practitioner. Here it is.
Yes it's been a bit too long since I posted something to Marcomblog, need to get back in that habit.
In the past few days I have been receiving the following message when I visit Flickr. Needless to say it scares the shit out of me. I have close to 12,000 photos on Flickr, so when they say they don't have them....well it's not a good feeling.
A number of us use external services like Flickr or YouTube to store our content. Most of the time it's free and easy. In the case of Flickr it's not free, I pay the yearly subscription fee. In the end though, we're putting a tremendous amount of faith in their hands.
I recently reached Medallion status with Delta's Skymiles program. I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad about this. Either way I'm looking forward to my first upgrade.
Brandweek has published an interview with Brice Ertmann, Toyota's corporate manager of consumer-generated media (there is that phrase again):
When bloggers write smack about Toyota, Bruce Ertmann is there to read every word and, in some cases, respond. As corporate manager of consumer-generated media at the Torrance, Calif.-based automaker, Ertmann constantly trolls the Web to see what people are saying. This includes both the gray anonymity or the way-too-public blogger world, and not just the good and the bad, but also the ugly. Although other car companies also have people who track and write blogs, Ertmann's title is believed to be the first in the U.S. auto trade.
The interview is decent, and shows how often the 'voice' of a corporation online falls to one person.
Please accept this as my formal apology. Over the weekend our DSL modem from Verizon died. I asked my wife to call Verizon and see about getting it replaced. Once again I apologize.
I think the ordeal took most of her afternoon today, and it's still not resolved. To set the stage, the DSL modem does not power up. I swapped out power supplies and switched outlets, no luck. It's dead. We were also one of the first in our area to get DSL, something like 6 years ago.
She calls and talks to one person, then another, then another. I'm overhearing bits and pieces of the conversation. Here are some highlights:
- At one point the tech says, here is the issue, you might not have DSL service since you're not paying for it. My wife responds, "Looking at my bill, we're being charged $35 for 'Advanced Data Services'...." Oh yeah, that's it, never-mind.
- The tech asks, "Have you tried the other phone lines in the house?"....Hello, the modem is dead, changing phone lines isn't going to make a difference.
- Verizon says they need to test the circuit, can we plug the modem in. If you remember the modem is dead, not sure how plugging it in will help you test it.
- It turns out our DSL circuit is so old they actually need to upgrade it to get us a new modem. That's 1-2 days.
More updates as this story develops.
Recently Brian Oberkirch posted about the anonymous editing of corporate Wikipedia articles. There was some spirited discussion in the comments among some good friends. However, the major issue was anonymous edits. My general view is that if you're stupid enough to try something like that, then you're stupid enough not to cover your tracks...and will be caught.
But what about claimed edits? The Talk/Discussion channel is there for a reason, but what if there is no talk? Can a corporation start it?
There is of course a reason I am asking. I have a situation with a corporate client (who shall remain nameless for now). Their current entry has almost nothing on it. They want to edit it, but want to do it in the right way. But what is the right way?
Like I said before there is no discussion about this entry, so they can't really go to the 'community' and present their case.
Here is what I have proposed:
- I'll post something about the situation and see what some colleagues think (done)
- Post an item in the Discussion thread outlining who they are and the edits they propose
- Allow the discussion to take place for a set period of time, take in suggestions (if any)
- With community approval post their edit
- Welcome community edits of their entry
The sticking point is that third item...we don't expect their to be much discussion (might be wrong there). I want to be clear that during the entire process they'll be open about who they are and the edits they're making.
What are your thoughts?
Over the weekend I finalized the schedule for the 2007 edition of BlogOrlando, the un-conference being held in Orlando, FL on Sept 27-29th. You can check it out here.
When you have so many great sessions planned it's difficult to figure out which ones should overlap. This year we have four distinct tracks tailored to the diverse audience that attends the event. The tracks are: PR/Marketing, Media, Technology and Life/Local.
If you're in the Orlando area (or want to come to Central Florida) be sure to check out BlogOrlando and perhaps register. See you in September.
e-mail: josh@hyku.com
skype: jrhallett
mobile: 863-258-7338
yahoo IM: jrhallett
aol IM: jrhallett@mac.com
msn IM: josh@hyku.com
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