Horn Group’s Social Media Webinar

I’m currently logged in to tech shop Horn Group’s overview webinar on social media. Above is a screenshot of how they see the social media universe: moving from creating content, to “promoting” it, to measurement. The moderator is citing some good stats from Forrester. Currently RSS is being more widely adopted across most demographics. And, only 29 of the Fortune 500 are blogging. If you have content, put it in a feed: “get it out there, allow people to discuss it. Socialize it, promote it.”

“Don’t just think of the wire as your only method of distribution.”

Social media newsroom: a list of press releases, a list of clips, links to your blog as well as blogs you follow. There are tech tools that allow this to happen. Make this a goal for Q1.

Should I blog? As the following questions: Time to commit? (a few hours per week). Are you willing to be openly criticized? Do you have an outward passion to share? (have the personality to participate, comment, and take the time to go offline and meet people) What’s the goal of your blog? (be honest about your motives)

What NOT to do: Don’t do it just to be “hot.” Don’t lie. Don’t just do it to try to go viral. Don’t do it without the knowledge of what it takes.

Now over to Justin, blogger from Intraware (a Horn Group client). “We’re small but public. Our investors are always looking for information.” Intraware launched a social network for athletes, Zathlete to expand beyond its core competency.

We’ll provide insights from this webinar as they become available afterwards.

Facebook’s PR Flubs

 
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Did Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lie to the NYTimes Louise Storey about the company’s controversial “Beacon” advertising system? That’s what Storey claims in a post on the Times‘ “Bit’s” blog.  “I’m hardly the only one who found a gap between what Facebook said and what it did. And this may be costing it some of the blue-chip support that it had amassed. Coca-Cola, for example, has decided not to use Beacon for now,” she writes. 

Blogger Robert Scoble calls Facebook PR, “the most controlling PR department outside of Apple.”

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg lost a court request to take down confidential documents that 02138 magazine used in a hard hitting story against him and the company. We believe the WSJ’s Kara Swisher when she writes Facebook PR head Brandee Barker, “has to have the most thankless job on the Web these days.”

What do you think? How would you have handled the Beacon and 02138 news differently if you were at Facebook PR?

For Immediate Release Fridays

Time for our weekly scan of the wires to get a look at the bad news released when no one is looking. It’s something to do while speculating the cause of Choire Sicha’s departure from Gawker. He gave us some terrific stuff. Hey Choire, email me.

This week is free of toy recalls yet again, though watch the Luigi’s cookies at Stop & Shop if you have allergies. Not all are buried news–you’ll know those when you see them:

• National R.V. Holdings declares Chapter 11
• Evel Knievel RIP
• Dennis Kucinich’s weekly call for impeachment
• Twenty-one Texas Republic artifacts stolen
• At 7:51 PM tonight, President Bush declares Indiana a major disaster only three months after severe storms and flooding; sends in good ol’ FEMA to help

Kim Kardashian: Hip To Our PR Tricks?

 
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Jossip reports:

Flying is hard, even for the inexplicably famous. Last week Kim Kardashian claimed she was robbed of $50,000 worth of valuables, including a laptop that likely had the long awaited sequel to her sex tape(s) on it, at JFK. But the theft hasn’t been reported to the police, and officials think it was an act to get attention. Either that, or Kardashian doesn’t care about losing 50K. Stars: They’re not at all like us!

The question is, if it was just for publicity, what exactly was she hoping to get out of it?  Enlighten us, dear readers!

For Immediate Release Fridays

Our weekly scan of the late day Friday press releases was again toy-recall-free this week. In fact, Mattel announced a 15% increase in their annual dividend. Other releases of note:

• Raw milk from Chester County P.A. may be contaminated
• Due to the writers’ strike, production on Oliver Stone’s “Pinkville” has been postponed
• A new rotary hammer features integrated dust reduction technology to contain harmful airborne dust particles emitted when drilling holes in masonry. This isn’t bad news though it takes the cake for the most vertical release of the day
• Also good news to many, there’s finally an investment company and private equity fund for the adult entertainment biz. AdultVest was featured on both Squawk on the Street and Closing Bell today. We know it’s big business. The LA Times has 2-3 people at least partially assigned to the adult beat

Not afraid of that raw milk mentioned above? Then you may want to try raw eggs…in your cocktails. According to the Distilled Spirits Council, eggs are “not just for nog” this season. A couple of these sound pretty good actually.

Facebook Ads | Geeks Chat | Start Reading | Pepper on Blogger Relations | CBS Nails the Net

CNET: Legally, are Facebook’s social ads kosher?

Publishing 2.0: Guy Kawasaki Interviews Robert Scoble At Stanford Web Publishing Course

WebProNews: Recommended Online Marketing & PR Reading List

Jeremy Pepper: Blogworld: PR Do’s and Don’t's

Huffpost: Why CBS “Has The Smartest Internet Strategy Of The Major TV Networks”

Back from Vacation

 

Hey all. In case you haven’t noticed, Jason has been doing all of the posting over the last week or so, as I was out of the country visiting family, friends and eating way too much in Italy.  So, it’s good to be back in the saddle and getting things going again.  Recovering from jet lag is no fun, but things should be back to normal soon. In the meantime, keep those tips and feedback coming: prnewser at mediabistro.com

Clean Up That Resume

Golin Harris seeks “awesome people” in L.A. and San Francisco for the Nintendo account (via Kotaku)

Rubenstein is looking for an Associate Publicist and a Managing Director

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia is looking for a Communications Manager / Director

Fashion and celeb shop Workhouse Publicity seeks an Account Manager

Manning Selvage & Lee (MS&L) is looking for a VP-Director of Media Relations for a consumer wellness account

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Live from Critical Issues Forum; Panel Discussion

A curveball conclusion by the moderator: “What one action should we take from this discussion?”

• Mark Penn: It’s not one answer. Take your focus internally first. Recognize the “new reality” and take the second step to your clients to tell them, here is PR 2.0. This is an opportunity not to just go internal, but go external to the clients. There is no industry transformation if the clients don’t buy it
• Jon Iwata: IBM spends over a billion a year on marketing and a fraction of that on communicatons. We still don’t know the answer but at least it costs us half as much. Perhaps a cynical view, this is very real to CEOs. Differentiation and ROI. They are going to look for new, cost efficient approaches and they don’t have to be that precise. The economics of this are very compelling
• Andrew Heyward: Make sure you know your ‘digital profile’ as an organization
• Pete Blackshaw: Go right back to your customer service and score it. Do that DNA test. I you find you’re insulting to the consumer, it will reverberate across the organization and then you can change

Live from Critical Issues Forum; Burson CEO and Hillary advisor Mark Penn

The 2007 Critical Issues Forum is on to desert now (a small semi-sphere of flourless chocolate cake) and patiently awaiting the panel discussion which includes Mark Penn, CEO of Burson Marsteller and author of “Microtrends:”

• People think the future is 10-15 years away. It’s here now
• For example, the majority of people buying cars is women. Automakers know this, but the system is built for men. They don’t fundamentally change things to catch up
• People are diverging to so many microtrends so quickly. Stop trying to lump them together. Until we do that, we won’t see the changes in agencies that are needed
• There is a difference between being authentic and trying to seem authentic. I realized this in 1995 when I first met Bill Clinton. I realized in 5 minutes I was dealing with a very serious, hard working, authentic person. It’s impossible to do this from the outside
• Most people thinkg PR is the height of inauthenticiy. It’s important to overcome the gap. Don’t always go back to the client and tell them to change. A lot of times they already have. We don’t always believe it and and competitors are driving the opposite message.

• Andrew Heyward: We have to figure out a way to reward the ‘disruptor’ within organizations
• Iwata: Intranets sound boring. We use them in the modern area find out who we are. One starting point to understand your employees to find out. If we did it again, we’d go outside our firewall to our partners. If your team creates, stages, and analyzes this conversation, that is incredible power. You can actually deliver the entire dialogue. Then you can find out your response mechanism to drive organizational change. This is not a traditional communications function.
• Blackshaw: Before you drop a lot of money in a media campaign, find out first the openness to believability. First thing is maybe creating mechanisms for holding back. If, in fact, the ad messaging is at odds with the conversation, may be hold back. What the PR world needs to do is figure out how to reconcile the two.