Top 2 PR Crises of 2010 involve taking eye off social media

What were the top-5 PR nightmares that got you fired up, or made you realize that social media is playing a bigger role in our reputation systems, marketing strategy, and media presence?

There have been just too many mis-steps this year, but here are my top two.

• Nestle Palm Oil – a social media faux pas that made the marketing giant change its ways

• BP’s handling (mis-handling, really) of the oil spill. And then there’s the fake Twitter account, BP Global PR, that turned the spotlight on BP

But… why stop at two stories? Here are some other categories that 2010 will be remembered for.

As for the best of, here’s the one campaign we could learn from:

• Old Spice, Man in Towel

And for the Evergreen PR Issues of 2010, I have two strong contenders:

• TSA - the folks who maintain security at airports. Despite its attempt to be transparent about its security scans and pat-downs, the Federal agency has never got it’s PR right.

• Facebook - It’s tinkering with privacy settings, the movie, and the CEO who has been very careful about whom he speaks to.

Most Overblown story of 2010

• More of less unanimously, it’s the focus on Julian Asange, and Wikileaks

Media Foot-In-Mouth Stories

Why was it that this year saw so many ‘name brand’ media people get into trouble? I was personally shocked

• When NPR sacked Juan Williams. No one really knows what’s hidden in the code words it used when NPR stated that William’s comments were “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

• When Helen Thomas had to exit, stage left, after she said what she said about Israel.

 

What’s your story? Dump the ‘pitch,’ find your story!

I’ve said it before: radio, which seems a lot like ‘old media’ has one leg up over new media because it’s where people come to expect to hear stories. Not sound bytes, not pitches, not bullet points, not all those forms of condensed communication snacks we have come to expect in every other form of media.

Don’t blame it on TV entirely. There are TV programs that refuse to do the truncated story, shun the fast cuts, and slick camera work so as to let the story unfold. We have ingested this packet switching mentality that the Internet brought with it, and forced our stories into the tiniest bits of content. It’s become the default format, and we go along with it.

But guess what? It is not the only format that works.

Exhibit A: I listened to a long segment today on a new trend Daryl Hall started, called Live From Daryl’s House. It’s an internet phenomenon. But if it hadn’t been thoughtfully told as a story by NPR reporter Robert Smith, I would have skipped it.

Exhibit B: Radio again. This time I have to bring in the show I co-host with Derrick Mains as an example of how we make  ’talk show’ (in most people’s minds it’s where the hosts yak all the time) into a storytelling space. We bring people around the topics of business entrepreneurship, innovation and corporate sustainability, and let their stories unfold.

Everyone’s tired of hearing pitches. Too many people tell you what they do in that distilled, dehumanized format. Stories have a different pace, and in fact, different goals. Yet they break through the clutter in a more powerful way.

What’s your pitch? Could you turn it into a story? Try it. Record it and listen to it. You’ll never want to talk in bullet points again!

 

Thoughts on another missing journalist

Even though I mainly write about marketing, social media and PR, my attention always turns to journalism and media. How could it not, when it is an integral part of those categories.

So every time I see a journalist incarcerated or detained for reporting, I think about how easy and risk-free it is to practice marketing or media relations.

We don’t give much thought to how none of these two practices would exist if not for the courageous reporters who bring in the stories, that create the readers, viewers and listeners, that sustain the organizations we take for granted. CBS and Catie Couric would not exist if not for people like Richard Butler. He’s not a household name, but last year he was abducted in Iraq and held for two months.

This week, it’s an American Journalist, Roxana Saberi. Her story is told at NPR and the Times Online. Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders keep track of these reporters who have been imprisoned or killed (11, and 136 respectively in 2009!) These are more than statistics. We ought to at least speak out for them –if not re-tweet the awful news from the comfort of our cellphones.

Speaking of which, you could keep up with incidents related to press freedom by following this British journalism site on Twitter @press_freedom

 

Clay Shirky on the power of web collaboration, media

Experiments in communication take off when they create ‘social capital’ rather than take that “big bang” approach, says Clay Shirky. He discussed this and more in an NPR interview and call-in last week.

Of course Shirky has written extensively on this subject of social capital, especially in Here comes everybody –the the best book on social media, to-date, in my opinion. His analysis of new media is spot on. As in observing how technology needs to become ‘technologically boring‘ before it gains social traction. It has to first lose its geek stigma, then become ‘normal’, then ubiquitous, to finally become pervasive enough to start a revolution.

And for those grappling with how much PR and media presence is necessary I love this quote from the book:

“All business are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all businesses rely on the managing of information for two audiences – employees and the world.”

Which opens a rich debate on the blurring line between internal and external communiction, whether PR should be taught in business schools etc, but that’s grist for the mill for another post.

 

2008: When the definition of PR was revised

2008 brought some sweeping changes to marketing, journalism and PR.

But as PR got tight with marketing, technology and media, the old, timeworn, definitions had to be reworked, as the practice of PR changed. I found a thought provoking definition by Parry Headrick of Shift Communications) who called PR still about fishing, but:

“once there was but an ocean filled with a certain type of fish, today there are channels leading to different bodies of water, where the fish exhibit unusual behaviors and don’t respond to the old bait.

It’s PR’s job to find out what these new fish in these unusual waters like to eat – before ever casting the first line.”

The use of word ‘channels’ is not accidental. The angling metaphor brings up interesting analogies.

Key issues were the blocking of PR Spam, and the assault on the ‘embargo‘ that closed out the year.

 

San Diego station leverages social media in crisis

San Diego broadcaster KPBS, an NPR affiliate and service of the San Diego State University covered the fires in a way that most local stations would –with updates, lists of evacuation sites, safety tips etc.

But it has also embraced social media in a big way. Its stories have links to Delicious and Digg, a Flickr account inviting residents to upload images, and has a Google map embedded with icons to tell residents the status of the fire, and where to locate an evacuation center or animal shelter. For those inclined, there’s also a Twitter feed providing regular updates.

If you’ve ever been temporarily displaced, you’ll know that a phone line becomes a lifeline. Hence the value of Twitter, proving to be an incredible on-demand, up to the minute channel for situations such as this. On Saturday for instance, at 10.01 am, a “tweet” went out to announce that:

” The community of Deerhorn Valley has been reopened to residents only. Residents must enter from the west side of Hwy.”

The station also began using a free wiki from PBWiki that is a quick and easy way to assemble timely information, and allow the community to contribute or update. PBWiki responded by throwing in two free weeks of its Platinum service to KPBS.