Strategic Public Relations

Using Visuals to turn Data into Content | Four Links | 11.22.09

My appreciation for all things visual did not peak with my article on why PR needs visual thinking.

My focus on the topic has increased and there are plenty of sites driving this passion. Here are just a few of them.

The Popular Ones: It’s no surprise that Indexed and Post Secret have books stemming from their popular sites. Post Secret tapped into an entire world’s need for expression while Indexed shows us the power of simplicity.

The Smart Ones: Flowing Data and Infosthetics are my two must reads when it comes to the latest in data visualization. They even point to great content like this article outlining how to create an infographic.

The Wild Cards: Logo Design Love is arguably not a wild card, but it has helped me be more appreciative of the subtleties behind brand redesigns. And Strange Maps brings us visuals like the one to the right showing how large the social sites are getting. It's a great site showing the creative potential in combining the old and the new.

The Future: Google Swirl shows us how important visuals will be to navigate the data streams, rivers of news and content flowing all around us. I’ve also created a Twitter list to track many of the leading data geeks as this field continues to unfold.

The above are just a start. They don't include the media outlets that are also pushing visualization mainstream. The New York Times Multimedia section immediately comes to mind. But The LA Times has its Data Desk and, in my own backyard, The Cincinnati Enquirer’s Data Center and WLWT’s Weather Dashboard point to an even bigger picture of data in the future.

Fight Club 2.0: AdWeek’s Digital Hot List | Brian Morrissey Interview

Reading AdWeek’s “2009 Digital Hot List” it becomes clear we’re in store for a dynamic and competitive digital landscape in 2010.

As the brands on the list fight for market share, it almost reads like a script for Fight Club 2.0.

Brian Morrissey provided Strategic Public Relations his opinion on some of these brands and, in the process, some insight into the Hot List.

1) Social networks are comparable to a bar scene. There's always a hot bar everyone goes to until it gets old and they move onto the next hot bar. How long can Facebook hold onto their hot bar status that, in part, put them in your top spot?
MySpace was 3rd or 4th on this list a few years ago. The same could arguably happen to Facebook. Will it become uncool now that the demographic is expanding? Keep in mind the list is a present to near past snapshot of digital category leaders vs. a forward-looking prediction. That said there’s no reason to believe it will be less popular in the near term.

2) Hulu announced a pay model is forthcoming. With cable TV challenging Hulu with TV Everywhere coming from cable as a challenger, what do you think will happen next?
Hulu has been a trailblazing video delivery platform. They took a lot of heat initially. TechCrunch used to mock them – not anymore. They’re a catalyst for change in an industry desperately needing it. Digital distribution can work well for the television industry. The impact of a subscription on Hulu remains to be seen. But as I understand it, this will be a premium option and the base content will continue to be free.

3) What can mainstream media learn from the brands on this list? Bob Garfield would remind us they're all (f-ing) doomed, but if social is more popular than porn as your article states, can social save mainstream media?
There are challenges facing traditional business models and traditional distribution models. There are some traditional media on the list represented by their digital offshoots...but not many. WSJ.com is succeeding with its subscription/advertising model mix. Other media are now trying to organize around social as a delivery model. Readers are gaining increasing amounts of control based on their recommendations. They are beginning to determine traffic patterns instead of a Google algorithm.

4) Twitter is polarizing to say the least with lovers and haters. Can Twitter make money? It would seem that would quiet both camps and Twitter would settle down into a platform you either use or you do not use.
As far as making money, it’s not a question of if Twitter will make money, simply a question of when. Twitter is sitting on a mountain of real-time consumer intention data. There is a significant business leveraging this facet of Twitter. The recent Google and Microsoft deals underscore the importance of this information. If you start looking at Twitter as an intention data platform instead of a microblogging platform, it gets interesting.

5) OK, Rocky IV reminds me of Google and Bing. Bing seems to be Rocky to Google's Drago...they made Google bleed! Less than 10 percent market share/blood, but still. Is social search the next big fight between the two search super powers?
There was much debate with my colleagues at AdWeek on whether or not the $80 million marketing spend around Bing’s launch also bought it a spot on this list. Will it keep the gains it made on Google? As long as marketers want an alternative to Google, they have a shot. What’s a market without any competition? Bing is hope for marketers. As far as which one will own social search, that remains to be seen.

6) My last fight with a brand on the Hot List is iPhone and Android. The iPhone has more than 100,000 apps in its corner. But Android seems to be gearing up for a serious cage match with iPhone. Will the consumer benefit?
The consumer will definitely benefit by having another alternative to the iPhone. It’s tough to compete with THE mobile platform with 100,000 apps in their store. But if there is a digital war waged in 2010, iPhone and Android will be one of the battles in this war.

Fort Hood, Twitter and Real-Time News

Social media detailed a tragedy today.

 

While I learned of the Fort Hood shootings earlier this afternoon, it was a late afternoon scan of Twitter that connected me to the real-time news source set up by The Austin American-Statesman.

 

@fthoodshootings is an account quickly set up by the paper to create a dedicated line of real-time news around this sad and tragic story. In just a few hours the account already has more than 3,200 followers and is on more than 85 different lists as of publishing this post and climbing.

 

Unfortunately it’s not the first bittersweet example of how helpful Twitter can be in a crisis. Twitter became a lifeline of news and information coming from Iran during their election protests. During tragedy and crisis, a steady flow of information is more critical -- and sometimes even more elusive. The Sago Mine tragedy comes to mind as a time when Twitter might have been equally useful.

 

Statesmen’s Use of Twitter is Second-Nature

It’s no surprise that the Austin American-Statesman decided to report in this fashion. A Twitter power-user, their town is also home to social media festival SXSW and clearly Austin American-Statesman has made Twitter a seamless part of its news coverage.

 

Twitter Lists to Bring More News in Real-Time

For stories that aren’t breaking as quickly, allowing newspapers to devote more resources, you’ll surely see lists created to track story coverage. The Cincinnati Enquirer has already done so to cover its city’s recent elections. And Mashable points to other media outlets using lists to cover Fort Hood from afar. Real-time news is clearly in demand and Twitter lists ability to curate multiple sources in an easily-shared stream brings to mind multiple applications beyond just news coverage.

 

The stories are horrible. And let me note that my thoughts are with the families of the Fort Hood victims. But hopefully, by getting real-time news in this fashion, the Austin American-Statesman is ensuring the right story is told quickly.

 

originally posted at Social Study
24 Hours of FOX News uploaded by edkohler

Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Success | SummitUp 2009

SummitUp brought together some of the best and brightest in Ohio's social media scene as well as industry luminaries like Chris Brogan and Bob Garfield. Fueled in no small part by the passion and determination of David E. Bowman, the event was a complete success and I was honored to kick it off with my keynote presentation.

"What's Your Story?" details how the craft of storytelling can help us deal with the challenges social media creates. I consider these challenges a bit of a paradox as my slides and video will explain. But the very technology that is bringing us together with people from around the world also prevents us with truly connecting with people.

My presentation serves as a refresher course on storytelling, gives some examples of how it's being used in social media by non-profits and consumer brands in everything from big strategic plays to the littlest of details. It also gives 12 action items to challenge attendees to apply storytelling to their job and improve social marketing efforts.

Some additional resources from the presentation can be found here.

What's Your Story?

View more documents from prblog.

Marketing Meets Augmented Reality

Like most marketers, augmented reality popped up on my radar when GE used it to unveil its Smart Grid technology.

The ability to create a digital hologram is intriguing, but it always seems to be applied to sci-fi technology or futuristic plans. I’ve wondered how someone might put it to more practical use.

Meijer*, a client of Empower MediaMarketing, answers my curiosity with the “Be Transformed in 3-D” promotion.

Having Fun with Masks
The microsite allows you to try on four different masks – using a web cam and augmented reality. You can record a :30 second video message using a voice to match each mask and send it to someone via email, share it via Twitter or post it to your Facebook profile.

It’s a lot of fun and reminds me of Office Max’s Elf Yourself with an augmented reality spin – a perfect mix for Halloween. But consider the practical implications at work here. Trying on a product in the comfort of your own home using augmented reality could easily become a long term must have for retailers. At the 2009 NRF, some of the latest dressing room technology contained similar holographic options to eliminate the need to change into several outfits.

The end result is a higher probability to purchase a product. Meijer’s site also offers the masks for sale on the site and in stores. There is also a coupon for purchasing a web cam on the site. It will be interesting to see if this use of augmented reality starts a trend of more practical and fun applications moving forward.

*As I noted above, Meijer is a client. I work on the account. I’m posting about it because I’m genuinely interested in this promotion.

AMP, #PepsiFail and staying on brand

There's been lots of discussion around the iPhone App "AMP UP Before You Score" from Pepsi's AMP Energy Drink. Let me see if I can sum it up.

The Issue: The AMP app profiles 24 types of women, from "Cougar" and "Athlete" to "Out of Your League" and "Married."

Each profile provides unfortunate content including pickup lines and other information to help the user "score." It also has a brag function which allows users to promote and share their efforts via email, Facebook or Twitter. The app states: "Get lucky? Add her to your Brag List. You can include a name, date and whatever details you remember."

The Outrage: Needless to say, the immature, chauvinistic app has Twitter frothing. The vitriol is understandable. It even elicited an apology from AMP.

"Our app tried 2 show the humorous lengths guys go 2 pick up women. We apologize if it’s in bad taste & appreciate your feedback. #pepsifail"

Whether or not it's a genuine apology, it's smart because it:
* acknowledges the issue
* addresses the issue where the conversation is taking place vs. on the company's web site
* uses the #pepsifail tag to ensure the apology reaches the right people on Twitter. While some feel they should distance themselves from Pepsi, I highly doubt that's even remotely possible.

But AMP has done nothing else. And by not removing the app from the iTunes store, the amount of ill will for the AMP brand and for Pepsi has snowballed.

The Brand: It's obvious and understandable why people are offended by this app. I downloaded it to write this post and will be removing it promptly. But it bears noting that, if nothing else, it appears to be on brand. I'm not the target audience. Disclosure: Starbucks is the only energy drink I consume and have been happily married for more than 11 years.

But the site, including the Yo Mamma Slam and extreme sports sponsorships, seems to be geared to the same target audience. While AMP takes a slightly different approach, it reminds me of the positioning around Axe grooming products. 

The Strategy: The brand claims the app is a lighthearted attempt at humor vs. a misogynistic tool. But the concept and a variety of details in the app are a bit over the top. AMP knew it was competing with 76,000 other apps in the iTunes store. It even created a YouTube video riffing off the Apple "There's an app for that" commercials to promote it. AMP knew it needed to push the envelope to stand out. Perhaps they planned for controversy to fuel that promotion. Mission accomplished.

The Hypocrisy: If AMP had pulled the app, I can already see pundits like myself saying that AMP over-reacted to a Twitter mob mentality. Motrin received a similar rap when it responded quickly to a negative response one of its ads received online. AMP acknowledged the situation, something other brands don't always do, and they moved on.

We criticize brands for not responding online. Do we also get to criticize them when we feel they haven't responded to the degree of our expectations or even exceeded those expectations? Every "social media expert" shaking their head to the affirmative as they read this might also want to consider the cost to develop an iPhone app and then shelve it.

The Bottom Line: Does Motrin Moms set up the expectation that brands must instantly go to extremes when negative conversations first pop up? Perhaps, but I think Motrin Moms did so because its target audience was up in arms – the very consumers they’re trying to get buy their product. And, while I agree that the app is in poor taste, this does not appear to be a similar case.

I'm impressed by brands that use Twitter to monitor the conversation and respond as quickly as possible. But at the risk of increasing ire, I'm not sure AMP should remove the app. I think this is a new wrinkle. Brands might not be able to do everything we want. Or they simply might not be willing to do everything we want -- when we're not the target consumer.

We’re certainly reinforcing AMPs stance by drawing even more attention and Google juice to the application. That’s the real energy drink fueling this conversation.

AMP assumed its app would be ignored during the concepting stage. They designed it to get attention. Perhaps the lesson is that the proper response from Twitter, and consumers like me, is to do the exact opposite of our reaction up to this point. We should move from outrage to silence.

Much Ado About Avatars

From the minutia department, I’ve been talking a lot about Twitter avatars lately. I enjoy swapping out my avatar. It’s my version of a t-shirt --expressing my personality in a small way. And, as I have my pic on my Twitter background, people can put a face with the name the first time a person follows me.

This goes against conventional Twitter wisdom. In Trust Agents, Brogan and Smith recommend using your picture across all social site profiles in an effort to be more human online. Even Twitter notes: “A real picture of yourself is encouraged. It adds personableness to your tweets.”

But avatars are very polarizing. The Bob Ross and Big Boy avatars never fail to encourage Twitter love. While the Charlton Heston and Hanson Brother avatars usually wig people out a bit. The end result is that changing out my avatars has become a great conversation starter on Twitter.

At the same time Trust Agents also talks about the benefit of going against conventional wisdom. The book devotes an entire chapter to making your own game. Now I’m not going to try and tell you that swapping out my avatars is a strategy or a game-changing technique on Twitter. Or is it?

Millions of Mad Men
AMC’s MadMen Yourself is the most recent avatar-swapping craze to hit Twitter. It resulted in 1 million visits to AMC’s microsite and 600,000 avatars have been created. This is a great example of everyone wanting to wear the MadMen t-shirt by turning themselves into an early 60’s cartoon. And it successfully flies in the face of Twitter wisdom. Sure I can see a resemblance between people and their avatars, but only if I already know what they look like.

At the end of the day, I guess I’m saying there’s more than one way to skin your profile on Twitter. Whatever approach you take, make sure your tweets, background and profile give potential followers a good idea of who you are as a person.

avatari uploaded by prblog

Selling Ideas with Words, Numbers and Pictures

We're always trying to tell more compelling stories...delivering messages that get our point across credibly and effectively with our target audiences.

It's one of the reason research and hard numbers(regardless of the sample size) tend to make big news.

When creating messaging to tell a story, consider if words, numbers, pictures or a combination of all three get the job done. Let's say you're trying to note that Wal-Mart has far more stores than their nearest competitor.

omg, Wal-Mart has a freakin' buttload of stores.
or
Wal-Mart has over 4100 stores and clubs in the U.S.
or
As you can see above, the biggest retailer in the world covers an area larger than Manhattan.

All Hail the Infographic
Especially in our social world where people pass around good content like a joint at Woodstock, turning a compelling factoid into an infographic gives you the ability to share it and to share it much more easily than in the past.

And while it would behoove you to work with a graphic designer in creating said infographic (to ensure it doesn't look jank), if you have no other option you can jump into Powerpoint, use Smart Art to create your own and save the slide out as a .jpg.

You can see the dramatic impact a visual makes in truly getting a point across. Creating one is time well spent.

Cross-posted to the Bad Pitch Blog

Considering Blended Media

My last few posts detail how the old approach to media outreach isn’t working with bloggers and how blogger relations takes more time compared to traditional media relations.

Add to this recent FTC Guidelines and anyone moving from pitching traditional media to building relationships with bloggers needs to revisit their plans.

One thing that hasn’t changed is client needs. They have to justify their marketing spend – even defend it when investing in social media. A 2.0 world of experimentation and soft metrics has given way to the need for scale and a better idea of expectations -- due in part to the economy.

Paid │ Earned
These factors are evolving my thinking of paid and earned media. As a quick refresher, let’s define terms. Paid media comes with guaranteed placement and total control of the message. Earned media does not pay for placement and, as a result, you don’t know the message until you see it online, in print or elsewhere.

Early in my career, I kept paid media and earned media as separate as church and state. This was in part a reflection of my passion for public relations. As various marketing disciplines were more siloed back then it was easy to do. As the integrated marketing campaigns I worked on grew in size and budget, I saw how much paid media and earned media need each other. In some instances one serves as ground cover for the other as part of the campaign strategy.

Blended Media
Viewing the paradox of blogger relations and client needs, I’ve wondered if there isn’t middle ground that would blend some benefits of paid and earned media without coming off looking like an advertorial, infomercial or worse.

The topic was also  discussed during a recent panel discussion I was on with Pete Blackshaw, Dave Knox and Suzanne Tosolini at Cincinnati's Digital Hub Conference.

According to Blackshaw,

“There is so much evidence across the web that "earned media" -- consumer-generated media, social media, conversation, variants of PR -- is creating meaningful lift and value for brands that we now need to think more critically about resource and spending allocations.

“Here is an attempt to acknowledge that paid media often serves as a critical stimulus or even vitamin for "earned media." Moreover, in a world of crowdsourcing and co-creation, "earned media" is increasingly becoming a core input into the paid equation. Yes, we must always accommodate that fuzzy middle.

Blackshaw created the above diagram as a possible model for paid, earned and blended media. There's potential in blended media that circumvents the old ways of doing things with this new audience.

Collaborating in the Middle
Let’s consider some completely fictitious scenarios as examples. Sharpie does an excellent job of marketing their products from Susan Wassel’s tireless efforts and showing up at Fashion Week to sponsoring NASCAR and encouraging artists to push the limits using their products.

So for their next product launch, instead of bombing bloggers with product samples, what if Sharpie teamed up with Hugh MacLeod and developed a cartoon generator widget?

Sharpie would fully disclose their involvement. It’s not an ad or a sponsorship, but the end result is more predictable than potential blog posts resulting from product mailings. The pitch becomes a collaboration where Hugh is the creative director, Sharpie is the sponsor and the end result is shared across the web.

Some would argue that collaboration is the ultimate connection with a specific audience online. This is just one example of how funding gets to the end result more quickly. But it’s done in an acceptable, fully-disclosed fashion. 

In the Mix
Social media and blogger relations are still a nascent field. We’re applying a few years of experience against projects compared to entire careers in other marketing disciplines. But as we continue to build programs that do more than simply broadcast across social media platforms, I think we'll see more examples of blended media.

A Quick Thought on Mommy Blog (Over)Marketing

Something’s been bugging me about mommy bloggers.

Much more specifically, I have issues with the marketers foisting largess upon mommy bloggers.

Mommy bloggers have become the Robitussin of marketing. Arm broken? Put some ‘tussin on it. New product? Do some mommy blog outreach.

Let me be absolutely clear: mommy bloggers rock. There are a few folks I read regularly and I’ve always been impressed at how much of an impact that many mommy bloggers have in their communities.

But even mommy bloggers are quick to note they’re not a marketing panacea. Neither is the iPhone for that matter.

Participate vs. Pitch
Even the most well-intended blogger outreach with all the right due diligence -- from segmenting their bloggers and targeting their content accordingly -- usually results in sending "stuff." Whether it's product samples for trial, books to review, a USB to hold the electronic press kit or simply a link to a microsite flush with YouTube videos, Flickr images and background information, it all stacks up.

BlogHer offers an extreme example. Enough products are given out at BlogHer that a swag recycling station is set up at the show where attendees can drop off the swag they won't be able to use. This acknowledges that more stuff is handed out than the average attendee can haul home.

This in turn creates another difference between bloggers and journalists. The more stuff a blogger gets, the tougher it becomes to post about it -- if the blogger posts at all.

Less/Different is More
We can keep sending stuff and wondering why bloggers aren't engaging. Or we can accept that swag mail bombs and totchke baths only make sense to the vendors supplying all of the logo-laden goods. I know marketing and PR can get more creative. We can do better than this. To me the most potential lies somewhere in between paid and earned media. But that's a topic for another post.