Digital Proof is Stronger Than a Verbal Statement…

I came across this post “ Be Careful What You Post“  by Peter Shankman on his blog talking about the dangers in posting your own opinions on a company blog. There was a specific situation where a Ketchum employee was blogging on Twitter on behalf of their client, which happened to be FedEx, and made some negative statements about the city of Memphis. He made these unpleasant remarks about Memphis just before he was about to make a presentation to a group of 150+ FedEx employees and an employee happened to find it. The whole “kicker” to the story is that the blogger did not know that a significant amount of FedEx employees are from Memphis and took it extremely personal and saw it as offensive. FedEx copied his letter and sent it to top Executives in both FedEx and Ketchum. FedEx responded to the Ketchum employee’s post and handled it well.

Fortunately, this lucky man did not lose his job. This should teach each and every PR practitioner a lesson! Be extremely careful what you post on the Internet. Not everything is confidential and also, know your client and the audience you are writing about. The Ketchum employee obviously did not know this about his client. Secondly, a written statement is much harder to retract than  a verbal one so beware what your put on the internet. Many of us don’t realize the severity of this type of offense and what repercussions it can have.

As we know, the Ketchum employee was not fired. In my opinion, he should have been fired due to the reaction from the FedEx employees. Company blogs should always be used in a professional manner rather with a purpose. Personal blogs are different, you are representing yourself, and someone else’s reputation is not at stake. If you were the President of FedEx, how would you have handled this situation? Would you have fired the Ketchum employee why or why not?

Has word-of-mouth been replaced by word-of-text?

Today, I stumbled upon a blog by Dan Wool, a regular contributor to the Valley PR Blog, about Jeff Goodman’s launch of his new word-of-mouth marketing company, Blabbermouth. Goodman, a former actor and New Media Director of the Arizona Democratic Party, created Blabbermouth after recognizing the importance and benefit of a strong word-of-mouth reputation.

This got me thinking of the irony of a company called Blabbermouth that I have only heard about via text on the Internet. Which then got me thinking about how overwhelming social media can be to a college student set to graduate in May.  Being part of the generation that has grown up with Internet, email, cell phones and text messaging is seems almost natural that we would adapt to the world of social media with no sweat.

Unfortunately, in my case, it has taken slightly more effort.  With new memberships to WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, Myspace and Delicious, it has become quite a balancing act. But the thing that has me worried the most is, once in the professional world, will this balancing act become easier? Is it more effective to connect to a reporter through Twitter or by sending a press release? Is pitching a story in person a thing of the past or a method that is not used enough? Are people to busy building and sustaining relationships over the Internet that they no longer have time for face-to-face or word-of-mouth conversations, or with so many social media outlets to choose from is it just unnecessary?

I was told by a former professor that in being a new graduate, one of the most valuable aspects we have to market ourselves is our keen sense of social media. That being said, will I be the one who answers all of these questions? Am I going to have a part in determining if social media has more collateral than older avenues of public relations campaigning?

Truth in blogging

With blogging becoming such an important part of media and customer relations, many people (like myself) are being forced to learn the intricacies of blogging if they want to survive in the world of PR. Doing so gives many advantages to a company or a PR professional: It can facilitate communication between a corporation and the consumer; it gives PR people another, more accessible outlet to disseminate information; and it can build media/consumer trust in a company or even an individual PR professional. Or can it?

While there is no doubt that blogging creates an easier flow of information, there is no guarantee that people will have trust in the information that is released. Blogging is just makes it easier for people to see what you have to say. It’s the substance of what you actually say that will decide whether or your not your blog is successful. You need to have credible information that people will care about in order to build lasting relationships with your readers, or else they will not return to your blog. In his blog, Les Potter questions whether or not it is even possible to develop trust among readers, and if it is, how to go about doing it.

This topic is touched upon in the blog post titled Ten Social Resolutions for Marketers in 2009. One of the things that is touched on in the article, and that we are taught in Online Media, is that bloggers need to be up-to-date with a lot of the information that they are discussing. That means actively monitoring and commenting on similar blogs, staying current on all types of news, and engaging in other types of conversation with other bloggers. If you want bloggers to take you seiously, or even are considering pitching a story to a blogger, it is important that they have some information about you and don’t feel that you are just using them. A good way to do that is to use your own blog to get their attention through links and references.

Be Cool, Go to School!

Now that my senior year is dwindling down and graduation is just around the corner, I have been asking myself, ‘what’s next?’  In Seth Godin’s blog, What is School for?, he lists all the reasons why people go to school.  Even after four years in college, two of which were in the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, I still am just as confused as I was when I sat through my first day of class at Arizona State University.  To make matters even more complicated, come May, I’ll have a degree in Public Relations without knowing for sure if this is the career path I want to pursue.

So, really, what is school for?  I thought Godin’s response, “learn for the sake of learning,” pretty much sums it up.  Yes, I have learned a lot in college.  However, am I ever really going to use the information I learned in my Plant Biology or Elvis class?  Probably not.  Do I even remember it?  Not really.  Often times we sit through a class because it is required- not because we actually want to be there learning the material.

I also agree with Godin’s response, “Do well on standardized tests.”  The one thing that I hate about college is that your grade reflects on how well you take a silly test.  I took a class where your whole grade was dependent on one, single exam.  To me, this is unfair to the students who are horrible test-takers.  Likewise, it is great for the good test-takers.  So, after not doing so hot on a few exams, I learned the tips and tricks to do well on a standardized test so it wouldn’t weigh me down.

My three favorite responses about what college is for that Godin wrote were, “minimize public spelling mistakes,” “make sure the sports teams have enough players” and “give kids something to do while parents work.”  I thought these were absolutely hilarious, and I couldn’t help but laugh at the validity of them.

Maybe you have a different reason what school is for.  It seems like a straightforward answer, but it really stimulated me to think of the reasons why I’ve been sitting in a desk for the past four years…and still am right now.  So the next time you are sitting in your early morning class with a Starbucks in your hand and struggling to keep your eyes open through another boring lecture, check out Godin’s blog and it will give you a little spark of clarity why you went to class that day.