Do you eat your own cooking?
The old adage that you should ‘never trust a chef that doesn’t eat his own cooking’, or in fact a ‘skinny chef’, is due an update in my opinion. With the rise of celebrity chefs, a nation obsessed with obesity and the dubious contents of the McDonalds secret sauce – it just doesn’t make sense in the 21st Century.
So what would be today’s equivalent? Based on the recent news surrounding Google+ the phrase ‘never join a social network where even the management aren’t even members’ could catch on.
Last week, 3 months after its launch, Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has finally gotten the message and joined Google+. I understand he’s an extremely busy man, he’s running one of the biggest companies in the world and retweeting Ivanka Trump’s promotion of “Snow Flower & The Secret Fan”, but surely someone might have mentioned it?
However, the fact is that most of Google’s management team aren’t much better. Only 3 of the 12 people listed on Management Team page have ever posted on Google+ since launch, with a total of just 29 posts ever and only 6 in September.
With a recent press release from the company stating the social network has over 40 million users, perhaps the company doesn’t believe a few rogue management users will make much difference, and yet a rogue software engineer could.
Steve Yegge, a Google Software Engineer, recently hit the headlines after describing the site as “a knee-jerk reaction” and “a pathetic afterthought.” Only certain members were meant to be able to view the post, using Google+’s Circles feature, but it instead ended up going out for the whole world to read, showing even employees are struggling to figure out how to use the service.
With recent research showing that activity levels are on a continued downward trend, the newest social network contender needs all the help it can get as it continues to force its way on the agenda.
Facing the challenges of social media: managing the crisis
Everyone talks about the great opportunities that social media offers to engage with customers in new ways. But, there’s another side to the story that’s less appealing.
Recent research shows the social media crises are on the rise and it seems businesses are unprepared. The good news is that 76% of the crises examined in the report could have been prevented had the brand been prepared to respond. According to the same research the top three reasons for the crises were lack of internal social media education, absence of professional staff to monitor and handle social media issues and lack of an emergency plan.
These results clearly demonstrate that despite the buzz around social media brands are not confident about using the medium when it comes to crisis situations. So how can businesses get the most out of social media and ensure they can effectively handle a potential crisis?
Taking social media seriously is maybe the most important advice to be given when it comes to managing social media crisis. Underestimating the power of the medium can have damaging consequences for the business. Monitoring social media regularly and developing an effective strategy that enables companies to deliver a consistent message across all communication channels is a necessary step in reducing the potential damage of such an event.
Having dedicated staff to handle social media issues is also a good way to ensure that your business will be better prepared to react effectively in an emergency situation. Another important step to consider is using the social media channel to choose the direction of your social media strategy in a crisis situation. Monitoring the reaction of your target audience for example could provide organisations with useful tips on how public opinion is changing and help them select the most appropriate course of action.
How hot is your grammar?
I recently discovered this 10-point comma quiz on PR Daily. It’s a test to see how good your grammar is and an opportunity to see if you could ever cut it as a Sub-editor.
As PRs we’re sticklers for correct spelling and grammar. Everybody makes mistakes now and again, hence the need for proof reading. However, writing and proofing press materials day in day out, you can’t help but exercise the skill out of the office. For example, whilst enjoying a blog post or online article, I find grammatical anomalies jumping out at me.
The worst offenders tend to be incorrect use of punctuation and abbreviations, with some of the classic confusions being:
your / you’re
it’s / its
there / they’re / their
of / have (as in ‘should of’, ‘would of’ or ‘could of’)
affect / effect
DVD’s / DVDs
Naturally when writing a personal blog, it’s understandable to use an informal writing style. Additionally, there are some sentences that read better when inaccurately punctuated, suggesting that rules are meant to be broken.
Take the quiz to see for yourself.
Google+ vs. Facebook: The battle of the two contenders
The launch of Google+ was the biggest social media story recently grabbing the headlines for good and bad reasons. Just a few weeks after its launch, the website is boosting 20 million users and rapidly gaining market share in the social networking space. However, last month Google+ asked businesses not to create Google+ profiles and caused a furore with the scandal around cancelling accounts using nicknames.
In the meantime Facebook has focused a lot of efforts into improving its relationship with businesses and does not seem likely to relinquish its supremacy as the number one site in the social media world. Last week it quietly launched Facebook for Business, a new service which offers help and advice for businesses looking to boost brand awareness and engage in a two-way conversation with the Facebook community. With more that 750 million subscribers, Facebook remains a valuable marketing and PR tool, and a great way of engagement with difficult to reach audiences.
In addition to creating a Facebook page or using Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories, business users can choose among plenty of free business applications to boost their marketing efforts. Applications such as RatePoint and Hudle for example enable businesses to create professional communities on Facebook by sharing reviews and testimonials or creating secure workspaces for colleagues and business partners. Furthermore businesses might soon be able to use conference video calling after Facebook recently introduced video calling to boost its service portfolio.
However, as Google+ is gaining momentum, Facebook is likely to face severe competition for the attention of business customers. Last week Google+ announced that it was planning to bring business profiles and analytic tools to its social networking platform later this year. The service will allow businesses to link their profiles to products like AdWords, enabling businesses to tap into Google’s substantial online advertising platform. Furthermore Google will be able to benefit from its strong enterprise customer base to drive business customers to its new social networking offering.
As Google and Facebook continue to diversify their services, there will be much more to witness in the coming months. The business offerings of the two internet giants will create great PR and marketing opportunities for companies looking to engage with online communities and make their brands visible in the social media space. However, we are yet to see how the battle between the two contenders for the social networking crown will unfold. I would only say that it is too early to make any predictions as the social media world is full of surprises and you never know what will be the next ‘hype of the day’.
Indie 2.0: Inspiring a Generation of Artists
As you may recall, in a previous post I talked about how filmmaker Kevin Smith announced he planned to market his next movie, Red State, using just social media and entirely without studio support. He has since not only made back the cost of the movie, something several recent summer blockbusters have failed to do, but also launched an internet radio station, filmed a pilot for a new TV talk show and started work on his final film, Hit Somebody.
The story of Kevin Smith is enthralling, but what’s more exciting is that it is far from unique. As far back as 2004, the British director Franny Armstrong made the eco-documentary The Age of Stupid, pioneering “crowd-funding”, a method whereby the financing (£450,000) was raised by selling shares to individuals and organisations, who all received a pro-rata share of the profits.
Now with the decline of the printed book and the rise of the eBook, supported by recent announcements by both Borders and Penguin books publisher Pearson, many authors are self-publishing and promoting their latest page turners.
For example, Toronto writer Blake Northcott decided to launch a Kindle version of Vs. Reality, a “comic book-inspired urban fantasy novel” on Amazon.com. During the nine months she spent writing the comic and movie blog, she amassed a 16,000 strong Twitter following, more than 1,700 personal Facebook friends and 4,500 page views providing real-time feedback on her work. To put that into perspective, it’s more than Image Comics, the world’s largest independent comic book artist publisher.
Even those authors that still have the financial and marketing support of their publishers are realising the opportunity around social media in promoting their work.
John Green’s latest book, The Fault in our Stars, recently landed the number-one spots on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. This isn’t particularly strange – expect the book won’t be published until 2012. Using a variety of social media tools, including Twitter, Tumblr, community forums and YouTube, he has created a community around his work and unprecedented pre-orders have followed.
This presents a conundrum for any artist. Consider the extra blood, sweat and tears that self-distribution requires; engaging with followers via social media instead of getting that final chapter done, which is surely self-defeating, but also becoming an intrinsic part of the marketing mix which was traditionally handled by the publisher.
Thanks to social media however, artists across the globe are writing their own rules about branding and fan engagement.
