eriksr on October 10th, 2008
Over the past few months I’ve been in touch with hundreds of public relations and marketing professionals. Through some great discussions about how social media is affecting their work and business, I’ve learned two very important things. I’ll go into detail on them, below, but the reason I bring these up is because I’ve developed a very short, very friendly social media primer. It’s a .PDF file, and you can get it by clicking here: Social Media Primer.
The first big pain point
“There’s so much out there, I don’t know what to focus on.” No kidding! The only way I can keep up is by constantly reading technology news sites, blogs, message forums, leading Twitter users…and then spending time to think about what I’ve just read.
I can do that because I love this stuff and am glued to my computer. Other people aren’t quite that passionate — they have things like stamp collections, dogs, and children. My suggestion? Read my primer, and then go out there and pick a social media strategist blog to read. Like mine.
Pain point number two
“There’s no single source of information that gives me just the very basics so I can get started.” There is now! Again, snag my primer, above. But I feel your pain. What I recommend is that you find a single source you trust and stick with them — they will eventually cover just about everything you need. No need to try to take it all in at once. You can of course read me, but check out my blogroll, off to the right there — I follow all those folks, and ProBlogger is my favorite source for news.
Ultimately, you can always write to me! I’m happy to help.
eriksr on August 14th, 2008
Brian Solis just wrote about MicroPR, an effort that combines Twitter like brevity with public communication. He and Stowe Boyd came up with it, apparently, after Boyd successfully determined that he prefers to be pitched via Twitter.
Here’s a link.
All I can say is: Wow. Great idea. Pitching in the clear is an interesting concept. The catch, of course, is that no PR person in their right mind will share information of value to competitors of their clients…and reporters sometimes don’t want to share what they are writing about.
I totally agree that this will force PR pros to focus on the key details and not the useless buzzwords and crap that litter frequent communications. But again, will the need for secrecy kill MicroPR? And will a critical mass of journalists and bloggers opt into this?
I love the idea, but I think it is ahead of its time. Regardless, in their own words, here’s how it works:
Examples of usage:
Journalists and bloggers can declare that they do or do not want to be pitched via Twitter and other micromedia tools. They can also announce their specific preferences for contact.
Reporters looking for help with on story development can send a tweet, “@micropr Need startup recommendations for story on new micromedia tools. Reply via public tweet to @reportername” (112 characters).
A writer can share relevant beats @micropr beats = #social #micromedia #networks #media #infrastructure #hosting.
They could declare what sorts of microPR they want (or don’t want) to receive, and in what mode — @public messages or direct/private.
Other services could include scheduling calls and or meetings, etc.
Conference and awards organizers can call for speakers or submissions.
Media can also block certain PR people who are doing it wrong.
eriksr on July 30th, 2008
I have a secret. My secret is that I love to read about companies making asses of themselves. Not because I suffer from a severe case of schadenfreude, but because there’s just so darn much you can learn from these situations.
And, yeah, they sometimes make me laugh.
Case in point: One of my favorite blogs, Consumerist (a veritable font of best practices or case studies for anyone dealing with consumers), recently wrote about how Eforcity Eforcity bribed a customer to remove a negative Amazon.com review she had given one of their products with a refund.
A copy of their letter is below. But stay with me here.
Your first lesson today, class . . .
First off, credit goes to Eforcity for being proactive about the things people are saying about it online. Way to go! If every business was this proactive we might have a veritable consumer utopia on our hands! So I award you 4 million points.
But wait. I am now about to penalize you those 4 million points, plus 12 million more for being such an, well, I don’t want to use the “ass” word.
So let’s say donkey.
The value of feedback
Customer feedback is an open and honest dialogue between a customer and a company and one customer and other customers.
The key here is “open and honest.”
But if that feedback is manipulated by the company, then you lose the “open and honest” part. And not only does it make the feedback pointless (which is why Eforcity loses 4 million points), but even worse (and this is why Eforcity loses an addition 12 million points) it makes the company look like a manipulative bully.
Which creates a helluva PR nightmare, doesn’t it?
And, straight from The Consumerist, here is a copy of the letter the customer says Eforcity sent to her.
The letter:
Dear Sarah X XXXXXXXX
RE: Amazon order #XXX-XXXXXXX-XXXXXXX
Invoice #XXXXXXX
Item title: SAM M300… Car Charger
Thank you for your recent purchase with Eforcity on Amazon.com.
We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. We would like to offer you a refund, if the negative feedback is removed.
Please reply to this email directly and let us know. As soon as the feedback is removed, we will go ahead and process a refund.
Please follow the below instructions to remove feedback on Amazon:
1. Go to http://www.amazon.com/your-account.
2. Find the pull-down menu next to View by Order. Select ORDERS PLACED IN THE LAST 6 MONTHS, and hit the GO button.
3. After you sign in, you’ll find a listing of your recent orders. Select the relevant order and click the VIEW ORDER button.
4. You will find a feedback section 2/3rds of the way down the page. To remove feedback, click on the REMOVE link in the feedback section of the order summary.
5. You may only remove feedback if it is 60 days or less since you left the feedback.
We appreciate your business, and again would like to extend our sincere apology. Please feel free to let us know how we may further assist you with your order.
Sincerely,
Salina
Customer Service Team
And here is the “you’re killing me part”
As if the request to remove the negative feedback were not bad enough, the very specific instructions on how to do so are just side-splitting.
(And bearing in mind that these sorts of things tend to be form letters, it does make you wonder how often Eforcity sent this out, doesn’t it?)
eriksr on July 24th, 2008
One of my personal crusades is to help grease the wheels between marketers and bloggers. It’s no secret that the relationship between the two is frequently strained with PR practitioners not truly understanding bloggers and with bloggers routinely receiving press releases or pitches that have little or nothing to do with what they write about.
And that’s where a new service, Blogio, fits, or tries to fit, in.
Blogio describes itself as “…a pipeline between top marketers and top Bloggers.” Here’s some more on their philosophy:
Blogio was born from a need to adapt an “old world” media (Public Relations) to a new media phenomenon (Bloggers). We believe that the continued fragmentation and diversity of the internet is great, but lacks an economic engine that is non-advertising based. Blogio provides a new financial model that allows marketers access to bloggers while supporting the blogging movement in general. Blogio seeks to offer compensation for a Blogger to read and review the information offered.”
Blogio uses a revenue share model — marketers pay $300 to distribute information on Blogio, and that revenue is shared with targets 50/50. The top ten bloggers in a niche end up with $15 each. Marketers can even use a service called “BlogExclusive” where Blogio keeps $150 and the target blogger gets $150. Marketers are paying for access to bloggers, who are under no obligation to write about anything.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? I’m going to register and take it for a spin and get back to you with a more in-depth report later. (But, in the meantime, if any of you have tried the service, do comment and let us know how it worked out.)
eriksr on July 16th, 2008
Note to RSS readers: There’s a web-based widget on this page you may only be able to see on the Web site.
I’m in love. Erik and Sprout, sitting in a tree, C-U-S-T-O-M-I-Z-I-N-G.
For years I’ve desperately wanted to make my own widgets but, truth be told, I’ve never quite had it in me to learn things like XML and JavaScript. That’s changing these days since I’m on something of a personal education kick, but Sprout has given me a good reason not to bother. See, Sprout is a Web service that lets you build a Web-based widget using a drag and drop interface. You can incorporate pictures, video, music, RSS feeds — tons of great stuff.
You can see my own personal work of art after the jump — and yes, I couldn’t resist adding music, so lower the volume on your speakers!
Read the rest of this entry »
eriksr on July 12th, 2008
In this new post I cover ways bloggers can work with PR people to build traffic for their sites. Pretty easy stuff — asking for product, information, or even setting up interviews. PR people are good sources of content, and content rules supreme!
My original post over at ProBlogger can be found here. It attempts to explain to bloggers why PR people do the things they do…with an eye towards easing tensions between these two communities. Think before you spam!
