Mashable Expanding Its Coverage (Media Coder/NYTimes)
“Mashable, the popular Web site for information about technology and social media, said Tuesday that it was expanding coverage to include new sections for entertainment, United States news and world news, and that it was hiring a veteran technology editor to oversee all editorial content.”
Where Newspapers Thrive (LA Times)
“Some 8,000 weekly papers still hit the front porches and mailboxes in small towns across America every week and, for some reason, they’ve been left out of the conversation.”
Court OKs Suit Over Toyota ‘Prank’ Campaign (MediaPost)
“A California appellate court has handed a defeat to Toyota and Saatchi & Saatchi, its ad agency, in a lawsuit stemming from a viral “prank a friend” campaign that went awry.”
Photo Posts Major Mobile Activity (MediaPost)
“Tracking its panel of 294 smartphone and tablet owners, Prosper finds 69.4% are reading status updates on their networks, 53.4% are updating their own status. But 65.6% are viewing photos and 49% are posting photos.”
Lights, Camera, Advertisements (WSJ.com)
“More advertiser-created shows are running on the internet. They could provide a new template for TV that harkens back to the era when advertisers not only sponsored but helped to create, cast, and script ‘soap operas’ and variety shows.”
Example 1: The lively interactive hour included several examples and ideas for gaining coverage for clients. A recent well-known example is the Old Spice campaign, where Isaiah Mustafa, Old Spice pitchman, answers Twitter and Facebook questions via videos. The videos were timely and funny, and lead to huge amounts of mainstream media coverage.
Example 2: Many people were shocked last year, when Pepsi announced they would not advertise during the Super Bowl. Instead, they agreed to donate the money to charities, and the public could nominate and vote on where the money should go. The Pepsi Refresh Project garnered Pepsi massive coverage via social media buzz, which lead to mainstream media coverage.
Example 3: Vermont maple syrup and bacon seller Dakin Farm has been able to trace the ROI to their social media posts. They started with a blog and then moved to video. Recorded with a Flip camera, the videos on their YouTube channel and their blog have significantly increased bacon sales. Ravlin suggested using these kinds of videos to show the broadcast media producers the camera-readiness of your spokesperson.
Example 4: As I’ve discussed previously on the BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas blog, incorporating geo-location social media into a campaign is new and a struggle for some organizations. But Boloco, a regional burrito restaurant chain, successfully used Foursquare to drive business and gain print and broadcast coverage. Each location’s “mayor” was given a VIP card good for prizes. If a new mayorship is awarded, Boloco invited both the incoming and outgoing mayors to lunch for handing over the VIP card. The promotion drew the attention of local newspapers and TV stations, which lead to increased traffic and sales.
Boloco’s CEO John Pepper blogs tweets for the company and responds personally to customers on Twitter. PMG Relations often refers reporters to his blog to get an idea of his personality and philosophy. The panelists commented on the importance of getting executive buy-in for any successful social media campaign.
How are you using social media to help you drive coverage in mainstream media? Do you have any suggestions or tips?
BURKE: And, Colleen, we’re talking about how the media relations has impacted the bottom line of businesses, and you have a great example of that and the attributes that brought to your business and to you as a PR professional. Can you share those?
WILBER: Sure. For the past two and a half years, America’s Promise has been working to raise awareness of the high school dropout crisis in this country. And as a result of that work, we’ve seen nearly 3,000 news stories in print, more than 400 million media impressions. We’ve seen a fivefold increase in news coverage on the high school dropout issue, with nine out of 10 of those stories being directly attributable to America’s Promise Alliance. So not only has that meant an increase of awareness of the actual issue of the high school dropout crisis in this country, it’s meant a lot for our organization. It’s helped to raise our visibility and credibility. It’s helped to increase our partner network so the people who are working with us two and half times–we’ve gone from 150 partners when we started this campaign to close to 450 now. We’ve seen increase in financial support. And we’ve actually seen a big increase in the support in the action on the ground for the work that we’re doing. So it’s meant quite a bit.
BURKE: Great, Colleen. And where can people find you online and in social media?
WILBER: Sure. You can find us online at http://www.americaspromise.org/. That’s our website. Check it out. You can see videos about our launch and the work and the media clips. And you can find us at Twitter. Our handle’s @fivepromises. And we’re on Facebook at facebook.com/americaspromise.
To summarize the panel: location apps (e.g., Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt) serve as another way to enhance a consumer or stakeholder’s experience and interaction with your company, brand, or client.
Tara Dunion, Consumer Electronics Association, looks to enhance the attendee experience at the International Consumer Electronics Show each January by creating an official location page on Foursquare and aggregating all the social media coverage on the website. (And they even plan to add additional locations for 2011). She commented that many exhibitors have multiple locations available for check-in, which also buys-into the game aspect of Foursquare.
Danielle Brigida says, The National Wildlife Federation wants to get you outside enjoying nature, so they employ Whrrl and Foursquare to help people share their experiences with others. Whrrl works well for their needs because it allows the user to upload a picture to help tell their story.
A recent story on Mashable by Dan Klamm highlighted how universities and colleges can use location-based tools to promote the school, foster school spirit, drive revenue and promote the community. One idea included offering special badges for exploring places on campus.
However, not all location-based tools are gaining momentum. When Facebook Places premiered, Foursquare had a record number of new sign-ins because it connects with the new Facebook app. A few weeks later, few people are using Facebook Places. Dan Frommer explored the possible reasons on Business Insider, commenting, “Only 2% of My Friends Are Using Facebook Places…”
After the panel ended, I enjoyed brainstorming with others on how they might use these tools to help their organizations. How could you add geo-location social media into your PR toolbox? What questions do you have about the tools? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuceFresh Ideas.
MARTIN MURTLAND: Good afternoon. My name’s Martin Murtland. I’m vice president at Dow Jones Solutions for Communicators. I’m here at Bulldog Reporter News Summit.
BURKE: Martin, can you talk about the qualities that PR practitioners need to have?
MURTLAND: That’s an interesting one. I think there’s probably two key qualities that I see communicators needing in the future, first one being their alignment to the business media, both to truly align themselves with what the business is trying to achieve. And secondly, I would say regards to analytical skills, the ability to question things. I’ve sort of looked at the future and sort of tried to create a–I’m interested in scenario planning, sort of four scenarios what the future may, may not hold. You sort of imagine a two-by-two grid where you have, at one end, people who are very much aligned to the business, and the other end people that have sort of, “vanity publishing.” You’re just going to get a publication where the coverage of the story with their CEO is actually a hometown newspaper. And the other axis we imagine something like highly analytical skills and that augment, you know, very uncomfortable with analytical skills. So what I would say, somebody who’s got high analytical skills and a–and strong alignment in business are going to be the winners in the future. And those are the things we should strive to try to become as communicators.
But some of the other scenarios, what I would say, they’re what I would term the bluffers. They’re people with good–can talk the talk. They’ve got political alignment to the business, but they don’t have the strong analytical skills to back it up. And they’re typically people who’ll move on after shorter period of time, perhaps before they get found out. And the other end of this expert spectrum I would sort of look at people who I call ostriches. They’re people that are very much into vanity publishing, or a world future that’s sort of run by ostriches. They’re very much into vanity publishing, and their idea of measurement would be how large–how loud the clip book makes whenever it hits the desk.
And then there’s the–sort of the final scenario for what the future may hold, is a world that’s sort of controlled by the gamblers. They’re people who do have strong analytical skills, but then they’re basing on flawed content or data. And so they’re doing the sophisticated analysis on not complete information. That’s why I call them gamblers. But what I–what I think, and certainly what I’m getting across in this conference is there’s a lot of winners out there, and how there’s a very good future in store for communicators as we look forward.
BURKE: Martin, thanks so much. And where can people find you in social media?
MURTLAND: I’ll try and do the–without doing the funny dot-com bit. You can find us at the conversationofcorporation.com.
