Nike’s LiveStrong/Chalkbot

I saw this via Tom Fishburne’s Marketoonist – The Nike LiveStrong/Chalkbot, which won the digital grand prix at Cannes.

Nike sponsored a computerized road painting machine that “chalked” inspirational messages along the Tour de France. People submitted 36,000 messages through social media. Each message was printed on the section of the course, photographed, tagged with GPS coordinates and emailed to the person who submitted it.

This is where I agree with Tom: “What made this campaign social was not that it used social media tools. It was about the cause, not the shoes. It’s not where brands communicate. It’s how brands communicate.”

Twitter’s Best Practices For Media

Straight from the horse’s mouth, here are several guides and best practices to integrate Twitter with TV, music, entertainment, sports and news.

• Twitter on TV: A Producer’s Guide – A compendium of best practices for engaging and growing your audience on Twitter using the power of the TV screen. A simple integration can drive two to ten times more Tweets from your audience while your show airs.
• Tweeting for TV – Before the web, the water cooler was the place people would meet to talk about what happened on television. Now this practice occurs in real-time, and people don’t want to wait until the show is over. Here’s how to join that conversation effectively.
• Twitter for Newsrooms – Resources to help you and your organization at every step of the reporting and publishing process. We want to make our tools easier to use so you can focus on your job: finding sources, verifying facts, publishing stories, promoting your work and yourself.
• Live-tweeting Best Practices – Live-tweeting is an easy, flexible way to turbocharge your engagement on Twitter. We’ve found that across many different genres and levels of celebrity, it consistently boosts retweets, @mentions, and new followers.
• Twitter for Sports Organizations – Twitter and sports fit together because sports are live, immediate, suspenseful, and fun—and these are qualities Twitter mirrors and enhances in real-time. People use Twitter to follow their favorite players, sports writers, and teams, but most importantly: they use Twitter to talk about games as they happen.
• Twitter for Athletes - It takes a lot of work to stay on top of your game as an athlete. First you’ve got to stay healthy and focused. But then there’s all the rest: staying in touch with teammates and friends, keeping your fans happy, and even running other businesses and charities. Here’s the good news: from your sport to your passion, Twitter gives you one place to bring it all together.

The Best And Worst Things To Do In A Crisis

In an article over at PR Daily, Danya Proud, Media Relations Director for McDonalds, USA shares a few helpful pointers on the best and worst things to do in a crisis. Very helpful tips when you want to ensure that your brand withstands the test (for it is always a matter of “when” you’d face a crisis, not “if”).

Never

• Never inflate the situation before you’ve figured it out, Proud says. Sending an email to your entire company when in crisis mode is unnecessary. Identify the key players and departments, and focus on communicating with them.
• Never be a slacker. Social media moves quickly. “Gone are the days that you can procrastinate about what you’re saying,” Proud says. “You have a responsibility to get back to people.” If you aren’t informed enough to address the problem at hand, a simple tweet or post letting people know you’re looking into the issue will show that you’re listening.
• Never miss an opportunity. A crisis can be an opportunity to set the record straight. “I seize every opportunity to educate,” Proud says.
• Never fail to recognize C.A.V.E. people. Some people are “trolling” the Internet looking to stir up trouble. You need to know when to respond and when to recognize a “C.A.V.E.” person—that is, a Citizen Against Virtually Everything, as McDonald’s CEO Jim Skinner calls them. “Understand and accept that you won’t get 100 percent” of people loving your brand, Proud advises.

Always

• Define the crisis. Before you go into panic mode, you need to understand what the crisis is, what it means to your company, and who needs to be involved.
• Tailor the communication. The CEO isn’t always the most relatable person. Make sure the person you choose to represent the crisis at hand resonates with the audience.
• Avoid jargon. “People forget conversational language and resort back to comfortable corporate speak,” Proud notes.
• Give them what they want. Proud knows that “it’s not about what you want to say, it’s about what your audience wants to hear.” McDonald’s embarks on listening tours and monitors social media to understand what people want from the company.
• Acknowledge that you’re not perfect. If you’ve made a mistake, own up to it. Let people know you’re listening to them.

Full article here.

6 Tips For Twitter-Friendly News Releases

Social media is a fact-of-life for the PR/Communications professional today. It is no longer just specially-invited “social media influencers” who live-tweet, even mainstream media journalists are in on it!

With that being the case, why not inject some guidance to steer and manage the backchannels while also providing a means to measure the conversations that are going on around your particular piece of news?

So here are 6 tips for more Twitter-friendly news releases, by way of PR Newser.

1. Have great headlines. Keep them within the range of 120 characters – perfect for a tweetable link. People like to leave a little comment when they retweet so leave about 20-30 characters from the 140 character limit. Also, give people enough information on what the press release is about – include something eye-catching and newsworthy, like facts and stats. If necessary, tailor the voice and approach of the release to the audience, which is more than just journalists.
2. Numbers, numbers, numbers. People like numbers and they make ideas real.
3. Make sub-stories tweetable. Several sub-topics within your main story can be worth individual tweets of their own. The subpoints, which are typically highlighted as a subheading of their own, should be of a tweetable length, making it possible for people to like something, grab it, and tweet it.
4. #Hashtag properly. Make sure keywords and search terms are in the release so it can be found. Keeping SEO in mind and being concise work perfectly for Twitter.
5. Make quotes tweetable. Make quotes interesting and substantive! Also, don’t be afraid to include the brand’s or person’s Twitter handle.
6. Include multimedia. Everyone agrees that video, audio, and other multimedia add value to a press release and further draws in your audience once they’ve clicked on the link in Twitter.

Remember: Twitter is more about trading information so tweeting a link to a news item is pretty much stock and trade. In fact, many look to Twitter as a news source, so it’s best to ensure that your news item is designed appropriately to leverage that fact.

How To Avoid a Social Media Disaster (via Mashable)

I was writing about my terrible ordeal with the telemarketer for the iStrategy2010 conference (on Social Media, no less) [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3] when I stumbled upon this helpful article via Mashable: How to respond when Social Media attacks your brand?. Of course, prevention is much better than cure… so here’s another helpful article via Mashable: How to avoid a social media disaster. (I really love Mashable!)

For the PR and Communications professional, the impact of a crisis has been exponentially exacerbated by the power of social media. As I’ve said before, this is due to the powerful fact that social media is essentially a network, with implicit assumptions of trust and credibility (by network members), and a built-in capacity for rapid dissemination of news.

Now, anyone and everyone can now vent their dissatisfaction about your brand and, I assure you, they will have their own like-minded audiences (friends, relatives, total strangers) who are similarly equipped and empowered. If unmanaged, you will have an echo-chamber of negativity that will get out of hand.

Even so, any practitioner will understand that one can never fully “control” what customers and audiences say about one’s brand – especially on social media platforms. Most would also agree that it’s not something you want to do, since social media is essentially a social medium – i.e. you don’t own it, the community does. It’s exactly because of this freedom to comment, to voice opinions and to generally share information that results in the kind of customers you want – those who are engaged with your brand! These customers end up being that desired loyal fan base that spreads the word about your brand to their friends and family.

Still, there are a few steps that you can take to prevent or circumvent a negative PR crisis about your brand on social media networks online. Here’s what the Mashable article recommends:

How to respond when Social Media attacks your brand? (via Mashable)

Just as I was writing about my terrible ordeal with the telemarketer for the iStrategy2010 conference (on Social Media, no less) [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3], I stumbled upon this helpful article via Mashable: How to respond when Social Media attacks your brand?

It’s a great article with real case studies of how three brands were attacked via Social Media and what they did to respond. Here are my key takeaways:

1. Stop the attack before it escalates. It’s very easy to jump on to the “bashing bandwagon.” You must realise that social media is essentially a network, with implicit assumptions of trust and credibility (by network members), and a built-in capacity for rapid dissemination of news. Think of what that means when people start bashing your brand.
2. Listen to your customer. Social media is social. You’re in a dialogue/discussion now. Gone are the days of monologues or one-way conversations. These days, the customer has the tools that empower them to be heard… so start listening for real!
3. Have a plan. Crisis communications and issues management is no longer just about managing print and broadcast media. Now, anyone and everyone with Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn can spread the news. Make sure you have a plan that takes that into consideration.
4. Monitor social media. Set up some capability to monitor social media channels. You’ll want to know what’s being said about you and where so that you can respond quickly.
5. Engage! As I said, social media is social! To earn the right to be heard (and therefore respond to allegations), you must participate in the conversation!

Dilbert’s Scott Adams: How Steve Jobs Successfully Managed iPhone4′s “Antenna-gate” Controversy

I’m often amused and surprised that some of the best business insights I’ve ever come across are from cartoonists (although, maybe I shouldn’t be!). In following the iPhone4 “Antenna-gate” controversy, I came across Dilbert’s Scott Adams positing a very interesting observation on how Steve Jobs successfully managed the controversy for Apple.

Basically, he applied what Adams called the “High Ground Maneuver“.

How Not To Do Brand PR: Volvo Crashes Brand New Car In Safety Demonstration

I just read this story via Wired, “Video: Volvo accidentally smashes new car in safety demo“. It pretty much sums up the perfect PR disaster during a product launch or demonstration. Great stuff for nightmares, really… especially when Volvo’s main “brand attribute” is… wait for it… “safety”.

To add insult to injury, apart from this occurring in front of the entire media corp Volvo invited, it was all captured on video…

(And blogged about all over the interwebs)

The question for discussion is: If you were the Corporate Communications officer or PR representative for Volvo that day, what would you have done?

14 Skills & Attributes PR Professionals Must Have

I really like this list by Dave Fleet. It’s a good handy list for those planning to venture into the world of Public Relations, especially for those who think that PR is just a series of cocktail parties and glamorous wining and dining.

I also especially liked how he acknowledged that there were some traditional skills that were still required even in light of today’s new frontiers in digital, online and social media.

Here is his list:

How To Talk To Bloggers

If you haven’t started engaging bloggers for your PR or marketing effort yet, here’s a nifty little article that helps you think about what to do just before you start: How To Talk To Bloggers via Media.Asia. I really like how the article starts right off the bat by deconstructing a common assumption: “Talking to bloggers is only more hassle than it’s worth if you don’t know how to. If you think all it takes is giving away a free gift, you’re never going to make any progress with your blogger relations.” That is, it isn’t easy to get a blogger to blog about you, if you’ve not done your home work and that it’s not all about the freebies (well, not ONLY about the freebies, at least).

The key steps to engaging a blogger: