Wrong moves with social media

So I’m a manager at a retail store and recently I received an email that said the company would be discontinuing the weekly newsletters. I was really surprised by this because these newsletters were incredibly informative and always had really useful information about new products and promotions. Corporate said that they would be discontinuing the newsletter because they were trying to establish a better image online; with the new website, as well as facebook and myspace accounts. They want our customers to become familiar with the company by visiting these sites. It seemed like they were pretty optimistic about establishing a new image, however their focus is strictly online. I definitely dont agree with this approach.

Although social media networks and appealing websites are always a plus, I dont think a company should rest its entire message on these outlets alone. I guarantee there are hundreds of people, including myself, who really valued that newsletter. While it’s definitely not as technologically savy as what they seem to be going for, it was still very beneficial. I cant help but wonder how many customers or opinions they will lose with a move like this.  Although many people are hopping on the social media wagons, companies shouldnt take it for granted. I think they should maintain their old tactics while acquiring new ones at the same time…not cancelling one out for the other. Bad move.

Changing of the Guard: Print Goes Online or No Where

A lot has been made of the near 150 year old Seattle Post-Intelligence closing down its print division tomorrow to go strictly to web-content only. Newspapers have been struggling for many years now and it seems that the current recession has pushed a few over the cliff. The Post-Intelligence’s closure of its print department comes a couple weeks after Denver’s Rocky Mountain News closed its doors permanently. It now seems that the Tucson Citizen will also be publishing its final issue on Saturday. With the struggles that are being seen at newspapers across the country, how does this effect public relations professionals?

As with any change in an industry, there are some rough patches that will be seen as well as some great opportunities. Being an optimistic person, I’ll tackle the positives to be seen and then lightly touch on the negatives.

Innovative ideas that at one time would be dismissed are now being valued and accepted.

Voice of San Diego is a non-profit, independent web-content newspaper that does not charge a single penny for its service. Unlike many other newspapers that have ventured into primarily web-content based news, Voice of San Diego has very little advertising on its site. Its principle source of income comes from donations and unlike newspaper conglomerates, they do not have any stockholders that need to constantly see a profit. I hope that this kind of journalism catches on in other cities because it is also very beneficial for PR professionals. Voice of San Diego only has a few dozen staff members, so the information supplied by PR professionals creates a symbiotic relationship that allows both PR firms and businesses to work harmoniously with the news organization.

As previously mentioned, the Rocky Mountain News has left Denver for good, but the former newspaper’s journalists don’t think so. They plan on opening an online subsciption news site. In a similar manner, the Rocky Mountain News‘ new online site, INDenverTimes.com, will need plenty of content to attract the “50,000 by April 23″ that the journalists are hoping to get. Where would these journalists look for the plethora of content needed to grow their new venture? To the trusty (maybe not the right word to some people) PR professionals who have plenty of information about businesses, organizations and events.

A decrease in newspapers could lead to an even greater distrust in journalism institutions.

I was once lucky enough to have a conversation with Len Downie, the former executive editor of the Washington Post and now a part of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. I asked him his thoughts on the growing distrust that the American public has with news organizations. His response to me was that journalists should not worry if the public chooses to believe what they are printing. If journalists begin catering to what the public wants to hear, bias easily sets in. With the closing of newspapers across the country and newspapers caring more than ever before about what appeals to the public, bias is more prevalent than ever. Len Gutman in the Valley PR Blog makes a point that it goes beyond just the conglomerates and the economy in regards to newspapers crumbling left and right:

We can blame the corporate behemoths that have placed shareholder value over news value. And we can blame TV and the Internet. But ultimately we have to look at ourselves as a society and ask why we seem to no longer value real, hard-hitting, unbiased, journalism.

To bring this full circle as PR professionals, we need unbiased and quality journalism. The more newspapers and media conglomerates cater specifically to the public and ignore the journalistic principles that dominated newspapers in the 60s and 70s, the more people will become disenfranchised with news. People need to read the news because without the news, our industry is in just as much jeopardy as the newspapers.

Got a little more pessimistic than I thought I would, but I am still surprised to the lack of news coverage on the soon to be lack of news coverage. I addressed the positives and the negatives that I see in the recent fall outs of many newspapers, but what did I miss and what did I dazzle you all with?

Own Your Conversation

A few weeks back our class had the priviledge of hearing a lecture by SEO guru Vanessa Fox.  While speaking to us via Skype, Fox discussed several companies that failed to make themselves known through Google.  As Fox explained, it’s not enough just to have an amazing Web site, people have to be able to find it, and most people find sites by Googling.  What I found most interesting were the companies that spent millions of dollars on ad compaigns and then failed to optimize their sites.  (Apparently you have to make your Web site “readable” for Google.)   One example was the “Hang in there Jack” campaign by Jack In The Box. 

Many of us remember the moment vividly.  We were happily watching and analyzing another Super Bowl commercial when our beloved Jack was suddenly blindsided by a bus!  I, for one, was shocked and concerned.  Apparently so were others.  Thousands of viewers rushed to their computers and typed “hang in there jack” into their Google search bars, but they were all greatly disappointed.  Jack’s new Web site was not launched until the moment the commercial aired, and it wasn’t landing on Google’s top ten.  What a failure!  Millions of dollars on the ad spot and no one could Google the Web site.  While I’m still concerned for poor Jack, I’m happy to report his site is now doing well on Google.

Jack’s case and Fox’s presentation inspired me to do some of my own research.  I thought of some of my most and least favorite commercials and looked into how well their respective companies “owned” the conversation.  I’ve ranked them from least to most successful:

• Jared the Galleria of Jewelry: He Went to Jared Campaign –  Every one of the top ten Google results when searching “He went to Jared” is a Web site bashing this campaign.  This is the opposite of what a company wants.
• Stride Gum: Alternate Uses Campain – If you search “alternate gum uses” you’ll find Stride’s official Web site as the seventh result.  It’s safely in the top ten and it’s link is clearly labeled.
• Dancing With the Stars Campaign – Granted this campaign does not use a tagline.  The only thing you hear over and over is “Dancing With The Stars.”  Type these words into Google to understand what it means to own the conversation.

Gaining Coverage in a Declining Journalism World

The Valley PR Blog recently reported that Brad Perry and Dan Davis of KTVK Channel 3 are no longer with the station, no reason has been given for their departures. Regardless, this only adds to the growing number of  job loss in the journalism industry, which is no longer stranger to recent headlines (ironic).

This is not an issue independent to the United States either, the UK ’s Press Gazette reported a loss of over 500  jobs in the media industry since February.  

Not only are media outlets cutting back their staff, they are being forced to adjust to the growing demand for online news. Today the Seattle Post announced they will release their final print publication Tuesday and continue the paper solely online, which created a cut back of  over 100 positions at the paper.

The decrease of journalists will only continue to make it harder for PR professionals to pitch stories and get coverage. The journalists that are left are being stretched to the max to pick up for those that have lost their jobs. This may seem like a dead-end for the PR professions, but this is where we must get creative and remember use the basic tools we’ve learned.

I learned the hard away about cut backs today when I was pitching a Phoenix Suns charity event in Surprise, AZ  to local media outlets. I started getting frustrated when I heard the same response over and over, “we can’t commit because we don’t have enough staff to cover it.” It really bummed me out when I called the Surprise reporter for the Arizona Republic and he was no longer with the organization. However, I was directed to the reporter who took over that area and my luck started to turn around. Even though she could not attend the event, I told her I would be more than happy to supply her with the release, photos and names so they could run it in the weekend edition.  

Within 30 minutes an article was posted on azcentral.com featuring the event. Even better she was able to find a photographer of their own to cover the event. In these tough times, it’s important that we sympathize with our media partners and work with them to make it as easy as possible to cover our stories. A little extra work on our part can go a long way and build great relationships with the media.

You can’t always rely on your fans…

Everyone always says “there is no such thing as bad press?”  At times I am sure people disagree with this, especially when they are on the negative side of things, but what happens when you set yourself up for this?

Okay, I know we are not teenagers, freaking out over the Jonas Brothers, but my job requires me to care who the Jonas Brothers are and what they are up to.  They just released a movie Jonas Brothers 3D Concert Experience personally I had no interest whatsoever in seeing this, which I think is a good thing, because that means they target the right audience.  

I did notice a few things that they have done wrong.  The week prior to the release date The Jonas Brothers did tons of PR for the movie including a press conference shown on MTV throughout the week.  For one, they were sitting in front of their private jet, bragging about their private jet and two WE ARE IN A RECESSION! Are you kidding me!?!  It kills me because we are so down in the dumps right now that celebrities, especially those who barely have a drivers license, should really be mindful of others who aren’t as fortunate as them.

Another brilliant idea that the Jo Bros came up with: lets con our fans into coming! In hopes to get people to the theatre they planned “surprise visits” in theatres because if you were 14 wouldn’t you want to go JUST IN CASE they popped by the theatre you went to.  I feel like there were too many angles the these guys were trying to cut and in the end it didn’t pay off.

The movie made $12.5 million in it’s 2 week run in theatres.  I’m sure it was a terrible movie, but to get back to “there is no such thing as bad press,” people around the nation are making fun of these guys.  Radio stations, news stations, internet sites and more are slamming the movie.  I would think that the first week of terrible reviews would hinder the possible number of people who would attend the movie, which I would consider to be bad press.

Too many choices?

During spring break I had a conversation with someone about the different types of social media and how they were changing the way people communicate with one another. This person explained to me that they did not fully understand the point of all the different applications available and that they did not know where to even start because there were so many to choose from.

Although I am not a self-professed social media guru, I have tried a variety of them and have a basic understanding of them, but this got me thinking about it. Are there so many different types of social media applications that the market is being overrun? Are we going to end up facing a quantity vs. quality problem?  

On his blog, “The Glass House”, Frank Shaw, President of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, addresses this problem of being “overrun by ‘new’ communications”.  There are so many new social media applications currently being utilized by companies and organizations, but many turn to the most current application and forget the “old” effective ways of communicating. Can it be argued that Twitter can convey the same message as an email?  It is almost as if people are replacing the informative e-mail with a 140 character tweet.

I believe the solution to integrating social media into an effective public relations campaign to find a balance between the old and the new. A tweet may be a great way to get an idea out there, but sending an email should be used to send more in-depth information.  Also, stretching information across multiple facets of social media could make the message less effective. Using the application or applications that best fit the information would be much more effective.

With countless social media applications in use today on the internet, do you think it is effective to be a part of all of the applications? Or just particular ones that meet your specific client’s needs? Is it possible to be too involved in social media?