Nov 4 2008

Goodness Gracious, Great Blogs of Fire!

November 4, 2008 – 10:35 am

2008blogsoffire3 Free time can be hard to come by, especially on Election Day. Amy Flanagan’s post on theshortestblogintheworld is particularly relevant. Amy says, “…We will send a message around the globe. It will either be, ‘Whatever’ or ‘We’re on it.’” Amy continues, “I don’t care who you are voting for, just VOTE! We are way, way better than 57%.”

Sports Marketing 2.0’s Pat Coyle answers, “Are female NFL fans more social active online?” In doing so, Pat refreshes readers on two important ideas from Charlene Li and Josh Benoff’s Groundswell – goundswell and social technographics profile. Based on statistical data Pat had from working with the Indianapolis Colts’ MyColts.net and ideas expounded upon in Groundswell, Pat was able to determine that, “despite the fact that women represent only 33% of the community, female members generated 55% of the Cred points.” Check out this fascinating post, discover exactly what a Cred point is and much more.

Lisa Hoffmann provides an example of why developing relationships is so important in business. Lisa says, “If you flit from site to site, leaving comments that are nothing more than sales pitches or links…if the first email or direct message people get from you is a link to your sales site, you are making some scary social media mistakes.” Check out Lisa’s full, smart explanation on New Media Lisa.

Jeremy Griffin of Ignite Social Media: The original social media agency presents five social media trends he’s ready to see kick the bucket. According to Jeremy, some of the zombies of social media are: email forwards, Rick Rolling, Twitter Killers, and ‘Pimped Out’ Profiles. Visit Jeremy’s post for his complete list and detailed explanations, and offer up your own thoughts on the subject.

Twitter alerts you by email when someone starts following you, but not when he or she stops. Qwitter is a clever new application that does just that. Kyle Flaherty of Engage In PR has given Qwitter a try for a month. According to Kyle, anyone can find out who’s unfollowing any Twitter username. To raise attention to this issue Kyle writes, “Dear Qwitter, please add email validation linked to Twitter username, thank you.” Positively, Quitter allows users to reach out to those who have unfollowed you in order to ask, why? and receive valuable feedback.

Douglas Karr of The Marketing Technology Blog does not stand alone when he says, “It’s [been] a filthy election and one that I’ll be happy to see the end of soon.” Yet, Douglas believes, “bloggers have had more honest, transparent and exposing discussions about the candidates than any single television station.” It would be nice if political and economic leaders would similarly engage in candid, unfiltered conversations.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Nelson | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (4)
Nov 3 2008

Crisis Communications for the Social Web

November 3, 2008 – 1:36 am
Crisis Communications on the Social Web
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

The reality of business is that crisis happens. Whether it’s cyanide in your medicine, your inability to get airplanes off the ground, or a financial implosion, companies inevitably face difficult, even life threatening situations. Those situations demand crisis management and communications.

I recently had the opportunity to speak to the airline industry vis a vis the National Transportation Safety Board on how social media can impact companies in this scenario (see above presentation). Clearly social media offers a fantastic toolset because it allows direct access to stakeholders. Consider how during times of crisis the American Red Cross uses social media tools to keep both stakeholders and the media informed.

At the same time, the social web can be a lightening form of brand damage or death in a time of crisis. It’s conversational, and companies have a limited scope of meaningful dialogue to offer, especially when something goes wrong. Consider jetblue’s Valentines Day crisis and the beginning of the end for Toshiba’s HD-DVD standard respectively.

See the social web is so open, so uncontrolled that companies with active communities online must communicate. Further, in life-threatening situations it’s even more paramount. Online there is no way to tell if the voice tone, no body language to read, no facial expressions. In the cases of audio or video, you can at least hear voice or see body language (though editing and re-recording can mask this). Then there’s the person to person interaction.

It all equals a very emotional place that requires not only communication, but a company that will listen and react appropriately. Reacting appropriately means not getting caught in the emotions of the moment by either shutting down or over-promising resolution. Acknowledge community frustrations, but company representatives must be factual, prompt and genuine. Otherwise social fire may catch.

Consider the worst case scenario, a plane down over the ocean and no one knows exactly where. How can you promise rescue? Further, given the government’s role in investigations, you can’t even offer deep insights. But you can communicate and interact and answer questions about the families, etc.

It gets back to meaningful dialogue. People want to have a real two-way conversation about the situation. That’s why companies that have high risk scenarios should do everything they can to prepare so when crisis does occur, the teams and tools are in place to best communicate between all parties.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in PR Industry Trends | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (12)