Pass the Mic Blog

(Editor’s Note: This is the second in a two-part discussion on Pinterest.  Earlier this week, Katie Peterson discussed why “Pinning Is Winning.”  Today, colleague Marta Weissenborn gives her point of view.)

Call me crazy, but I have no interest to go on Pinterest. Honestly, I don’t get what the excitement is all about. For those of you who don’t know, Pinterest is a content sharing service that allows members to “pin” images, videos and other objects to a virtual pinboard. Don’t get me completely wrong, I think Pinterest is an intriguing idea, but before I jump on the Pinterest bandwagon, there are two aspects to this new social medium that bother me.

Take a look at some of your friends Pinterest pinboards – you’ll learn a lot about them. In fact looking at a friend’s recent pins, I was able to predict she is expecting, before she was ready to announce it to friends. This is a perfect example of my main plight with Pinterest: Why can’t pinboards be set to private? I get that the whole concept is about sharing content and ideas, but some things you may want to keep private. Really ladies, do you want your boyfriend to know you secretively scope out wedding ideas on Pinterest?  I mean I don’t want him to know that our hypothetical wedding is virtually planned from bridesmaid’s dresses down to the cake flavor.

My other big pet peeve with Pinterest is there is no context as to why someone pinned something. Sure there is a caption at the bottom of the picture that usually says something like “WANT!,” or “Cute idea!” but that really doesn’t tell me why you pinned it. Sure it is cute, but what about it caught your eye? What made this of interest to you? What about it warranted a pin? Every picture has a story behind it. Pinterest gives you 500 characters to describe the context in which you like the photo. Even though what you are pinning is not your original content, you can still give it personalized context as to why it was pin worthy.

Even though I may not be a fan of pinning, you probably are. Here are some signs you or your brands pins are just empty holes.

> Web site not found: It’s as silly as a typo, but linking to a dead link is counterintuitive to why you are pinning in the first place.

>Enough about me, let’s talk more about me: Self-promoting on Pinterest is like being that annoying, Debbie-downer poster on Facebook. You know who I am talking about, the one who posts all the horrible things that happen to them. It’s annoying and usually leads to blocking from news feeds. You don’t want to be “that guy.”

>I speak no Americano: If the 500 character descriptor is misleading or has wrong information, this can lead to misconceptions. Brands need to be especially aware of this as it can spread misinformation like wildfire.

While I am still trying to find my interest in Pinterest, I do see some benefits and specific use cases for the site such as event ideas, interior decorating and recipes. Heck, I have even been known to waste my lunch break on Pinterest. I am just not what I would call a full-fledged pinner. If you, on the other hand are an avid pinner and don’t want empty pin holes, take a look at these 8 Rules of Pinterest Etiquette. How do you feel about Pinterest? Has is sparked your interest? Share your thoughts with us.

–Marta Weissenborn

I, like many of my friends, have a slight obsession with Pinterest[www.pinterest.com]. I wouldn’t go so far to say I spend hours upon hours on the new social network, but I do like to pin craft ideas, try new recipes, link to travel locations and give kudos to some of my favorite websites or brands. (Disclosure: I do not have a pretend wedding or unborn child board on Pinterest)

For those that don’t know, the website has a very large female demographic, appealing to women ages 25 to 44. It actually does have a growing male following, with men rounding out the users at 32 percent. The site gets about 1.36 million users a day, and has grown by 2,702.2 percent since May 2011. (Take a look at this neat infographic from Mashable for more fun facts about Pinterest) Bottom line: Pinterest is growing, growing quickly, and has a nice demographic of users for marketing potential.

Using the site to link back to original photos, products, blogs, and more is a great way for businesses to engage with the users and get pinning. One thing to keep in mind though is the core demographic. This isn’t a site for B2B marketing. It is a social medium that B2C businesses can utilize, so long as they understand the audience and aren’t trying to sell table saws or hand knives.

While the majority of brands on Pinterest have a focus in interior design, crafts, travel, fashion, food, event planning, etc., there is also a handful of online publications, non-profits, and even consumer facing tech brands that have pages on the site. This is a social medium that when used correctly and creatively can be a significant aspect of marketing campaigns.

If you are a consumer brand then pinning is winning and I encourage you to explore the opportunity for your business. I’ve seen some brands that are utilizing Pinterest really well, including GE, Glamour Magazine, Nordstrom, Panera Bread, Southwest, the Today Show, the Travel Channel, and Whole Foods.

What are these brands doing right and what should you do to achieve a similar level of pinning success? It’s a mix of the things. Here are some tips on things to do to effectively engage on Pinterest:

> Pin items from around the web, and do not just self-promote your website
> Connect with top brand evangelists and utilize guest Pinners for alternate perspectives
> Correctly attribute images and include original descriptions on all pins
> Know what your customers are looking for and tailor boards accordingly
> Engage with your audience by re-pinning and hosing contests
> Showcase the lifestyle of your brand and represent the brand promise, not just the products
> Use high quality images and videos
> Tell a story through themed boards

–Katie Peterson

(Editor’s Note: Please check back on Thursday for an alternative view of Pinterest)

As some friends of McGrath/Power know by now, we are proud to have been named a finalist in the Consumer Electronics Campaign of the Year category by The Holmes Report Sabre Awards for our work on behalf of Fusion Garage.  The Sabre Awards receive more entries from agencies and in-house communications teams around the world than any other public relations award program.

We are one of five finalists in the category and made the short list for our entry “Bringing a Brand Back From the Dead.”  The campaign, which ultimately enabled the embattled tablet manufacturer to receive a second chance in the market after an initial false start, was based around “TabCo,” a snarky, opinionated parody tablet company.  The program captured the industry’s imagination by promising a breakthrough new tablet through a gradual unveiling of features and associated teaser content.  TabCo also offered market commentary from the brand’s fake CEO, viral-esque video content covering everything from a remake of Apple’s legendary “Lemmings” commercial to the stolen iPhone caper involving a tech industry blogger, “special deliveries” and Twitter Tweet Chats.  The campaign opined that the tablet market had become stale, was about to receive something completely different and get people asking the question “Who is TabCo?”  And, wow, did they ever.

The campaign kicked off with professional sky-typing planes hired to spell out “Forget the Fruit” above the Apple Worldwide Developer’s Conference as attendees cued for entrance.    From that point, the market’s attention was captured.  Millions of consumers hit the TabCo website, Twitter followers surpassed 70,000 and TabCo TV videos received widespread views on YouTube.  The media followed the campaign as well with Fast Company, AllThingsD and numerous trade publications covering TabCo.  Consumers speculated online about the brand behind the brand (Nokia was often mentioned) and contemplated the new features of Fusion Garage’s then forthcoming Grid-10.

We also had to conceal Fusion Garage’s identity during the campaign.  As all activity would take place online, hacker attacks on TabCo digital properties were expected to unveil the brand behind the campaign.  To combat this, we retained one of the world’s foremost “white hat hackers” to cloak the campaign in an attack-proof cocoon.  We also implemented a Tor browser to enable email communication and content uploading/distribution without leaving “digital tracks.” Tor is a network of private virtual tunnels developed by the U.S. Navy to protect online government communications.  To also conceal our identity during phone communication with media and analysts, we implemented “drug dealer phones.”  These disposal phones had diverse area codes and no user name or ID associated with them.  Thus, they weren’t traceable.   Thanks to HBO’s “The Wire” – a popular series focusing on a drug dealing gang – for that idea.

We had a great time with the TabCo campaign and look forward to learning the decision of the Sabre Award judges in early May!

—Jonathan Bloom

How many of you out there are on Twitter?  Facebook?  Pretty much of you, right?  And, how many of you have ever had a lousy experience trying to communicate with a brand?  Lots more of you, I know.  It seems as if some brands out there have seen the light and gone social in their communication with customers and fans while others still don’t get it.  Unfortunately, the ones that don’t get it out number the ones that do and that is why McGrath/Power Public Relations and Communications is proud to welcome LiveOps as a new client.

As PR Week reported today, LiveOps is the leader in enabling cloud-based customer engagement across multiple social, mobile, and traditional channels. The company is fundamentally changing the way brands interact with consumers by joining cloud, social, and mobile together within customer care centers.

That is cool stuff to anybody who wants to communicate effectively with a brand on their own terms instead of being relegated to solely to 1-800 purgatory.  For communications professionals like us, it is also pretty darn cool.  It blends our Agency expertise in mobile, social and enterprise with the opportunity to transform how a market views a brand interaction.

We’re looking forward to working with LiveOps and driving this brand and consumer interaction transformation!

—Jonathan Bloom

It would be an understatement to say it has not been a good year for Costa Cruises. Earlier this week, there was an engine room fire on board their Allegra cruise ship that ended in a power outage, as well. The bigger story, though, happened in January. Now that things are settling down, we want to take a step back and look at the situation from a PR perspective.

Ironically and tragically, on Friday, January 13th, right before “Titanic” was supposed to make its way back to theatres, history repeats itself. The Costa Concordia, a 114,500-ton cruise ship carrying more than 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members, set off from Rome on a seven-day journey. No more than four hours after it set sail, the Concordia ran aground four miles off course, hitting a reef and opening a 160-foot gash in the hull. This incident was the cause of at least 25 deaths and even more questions – How did the ship get so far off course? Why did the captain abandon ship before everyone had been rescued? And what does this tragedy have to do with public relations?

While people worked around the clock to save the passengers and crew members on board, Costa Cruises also had a team of public relations professionals working to address the situation. In this crisis communications mode, Costa Cruises had to deal with a multitude of problems ranging from travelers talking about their experience on Facebook to the harsh reality of a 13-deck cruise liner running aground, tipping over, and killing passengers and crew members.

When in crisis communications mode, compassion for those affected, timely and accurate dissemination of information, and transparency are critical. So, from the communications perspective, how did Costa Cruises fare during this catastrophe? Let’s take a look…

25% Under Water – What Costa Cruises Could Have Done Better
>Costa Cruises did not have impeccable timing. They issued the first statement acknowledging the shipwreck approximately three full hours after it occurred. They then waited an additional 14 agonizing hours before providing a contact phone number for the loved ones of passengers and crew members so that they would be able to obtain information. They waited even longer to provide support numbers for individual countries. By that time, the story broke in every major publication across the globe, alerting loved ones before those same people had a solid line of communication with Costa Cruises.
>Costa Cruises also waited two and a half days after the wreck to hold a press conference with their CEO. During that period, the world and the world’s media speculated and created their own set of perceptions surrounding the disaster. At that point, they were rapidly losing control of the situation and making it even harder for those affected to fully understand what had taken place.

75% Above Water – What Costa Cruises Did Right
>Costa Cruises eventually stood up to take responsibility for the situation in the form of placing a human face on the situation in the form of CEO Pier Luigi Foschi’s who acted as the official voice of the company at a press conference on January 16. At that time, he shared the company’s condolences and addressed key issues regarding the wreck.
>Costa Cruises issued several press releases over the course of more than a month in order to update the passengers, their loved ones, the press, and future customers. Through those statements, they addressed issues and inaccurate statements.
>Costa Cruises also used the power of social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, to communicate updates and company statements on the wreck. (Note: While their North American Twitter account didn’t provide updates for more than two weeks, their Italian account continued to remain transparent. (https://twitter.com/#!/costacrociere)
>Costa Cruises has addressed major accusations brought against them, including offering discounts on future cruises to guests and having no plan of action to recover the reserves of fuel from the Costa Concordia.
>Costa Cruises followed up with the passengers, making personal phone calls to make sure they returned home and are well, and to confirm that they will receive a refund for the cruise and all material expenses relating to it.

How do you think Costa Cruises handled the situation?

– Rory Mohon

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) have been items of hot debate in the tech world this month. According to Christina DesMarais of PC World,  this may “possibly be the most contentious uproar seen on Capitol Hill and in the tech world ever.”

Originally, the bills provided a primary means of fighting online piracy. By forcing service providers to block infringing domain names, it would be more difficult to access file sharing hubs or other copyright violating websites. Furthermore, according to Jared Newman of PC World,  the bills would seek court orders “requiring payment providers, advertisers, and search engines to stop doing business with an infringing site.” Although this may hinder many online pirates from downloading with ease, it would also open the door to a new type of online censorship. Governmental control over Internet access could snowball into general censorship over opinion, content creation and social media. After public discovery of SOPA and PIPA, protests flooded many blog sites, Twitter, Facebook and news channels as technophiles around the world voiced their opinions. The uproar culminated into a 7,000-site blackout on January 18, 2012 and support from the Internet hacktivist group Anonymous.

What specifically caused the commotion and how it could have been handled differently? I believe that there were two core fallacies behind SOPA and PIPA that created a whirlwind of bad press. These fallacies could have been easily fixed by applying very basic PR principles.

Communication Failed From the Top Down
Those of us in PR know how quickly opinions can sour if communication is not handled in a professional way. SOPA and PIPA supporters were at a loss with communicative explanations for the bill and its intended purposes. Mel Watt (D) North Carolina, ranking member of the Intellectual Property Subcommittee stated that he was “not a nerd and didn’t understand a lot of the technological stuff.” This sentiment was soon followed by Zoe Lofgren (D) California, Darrell Issa (R) California and Jason Chaffetz (R) Utah, who all stated that they were not enough of a nerd to understand the issue. One step that could have helped mitigate the social upheaval would have been better communication with stakeholders. Obviously, congressional members had spoken with lobbyists from Hollywood’s powerhouses, but hadn’t discussed the issues with bloggers, online journalists or the technology industry at large. Worse yet, congress retaliated to the protests with public name-calling. The generalizations were astonishing. Apparently, all those in the technology industry, anyone who publishes online content, as well as general Internet end-users are, for all intensive purposes, “nerds.” Jon Stewart,  host of the Daily Show and news comedian, stated it perfectly when he responded, “Really? Nerds? You know, actually, I think the word you’re looking for is ‘experts.’” Communication is key. Communicating professionally, early and often could’ve alleviated this issue.

Research Didn’t Exist
Another PR101 lesson that would have helped the SOPA and PIPA bills would have been better understanding of the dialogue and audience. Had the congressmen understood the terminology in the bill and read the bill as a whole, they would have better grasped the consequences and the possible infringement on the 1st amendment it could cause. One of the first lessons learned in PR, either in school or on the job, you must understand what your client does. How can you represent your client if you don’t understand what they do? How can a congress represent the citizen-base if they don’t understand what we do? Lack of research and comprehension can be devastating in any field.

Through research, shared vision and communication SOPA and PIPA could have helped prevent the expansion of online piracy, along with protecting the rights of online content creators. According to Eugene Lee, the CEO of Socialtext, SOPA and PIPA identified and targeted the wrong side of the issue. Lee asks, “how would we solve the problem if it were analog? Would we shut down video stores if an independent film company made a movie that violated copyright? We need to start with a rational assessment of the problem and propose solutions that make sense for both the protection of copyright and the protection of innovation.”

With thorough communication around the issue and research backing the solution, PR basics (and a little common sense) can make problem solving more effective in any field.

—Majhon Phillips

Over the next two weeks, three teams will be gearing up for Super Bowl XLVI. You read correctly, three teams. Not only will the New York Giants and New England Patriots be battling it out at Indianapolis’ Lucas Oil Stadium, another team will take to a different field – the social media field.

This past Monday, the Super Bowl committee announced that the most watched sporting event will have the first-ever Social Media Command Center. In the lead up to the game, a local digital marketing firm will send a team of roughly 50 strategists, analysts and techies to monitor the digital fan conversation on various social media channels. The people in the command center include college journalism, public relations and telecommunications majors from Ball State University, Butler University and Indiana University and they will work out of a 2,800-square-foot space facility that utilizes over a mile of Ethernet cable.

You might be asking what are these people going to do all day? Troll around on social media channels? Essentially, yes. But there is very good reasoning behind this approach. This social media super team will monitor the Web for the 150,000+ football fanatics who will descend on Indianapolis for the game. The team will specifically be looking for key words and phrases to help the out-of-towners maneuver around Indy, providing directions, parking information, things-to-do around town provide alerts should an emergency arise.

The super team concept is pretty novel, if you ask me. Indianapolis is effectively utilizing the social media super team as virtual tour guides. With cash-strapped cities looking to lure visitors in order to jump-start local economies, this is a cost-effective tool that can be used for future events as well.  If well-executed, it could have a profound effect on the people attending the event and enhance their experience. The super team concept could very well catch on with other major sporting event such as the Olympics, World Cup, World Series, and NASCAR – all major events with significant online interactivity. The beauty of the super team concept is not limited to just sporting events as it could also be applied to big tradeshows such as the Consumer Electronic Show, or even multi-day music events like Coachella and Stage Coach.

Many of you may be shaking your head and saying sure, this is a great concept, but the mobile networks will get bogged down, fail to support the increased online traffic and kill the experience? Not so fast. Recent reports indicate Verizon and AT&T have spent millions of dollars to prepare their networks for the influx of data usage in the Indianapolis area. AT&T has also deployed nine COW’s  (Cell on Wheels)  which will boost high speed 3G and 4G LTE service to the surrounding area to help alleviate the added stress on the networks. The city of Indianapolis will most definitely benefit from these advances in the long run.

Sports fans are without a doubt that are the most rabid in social media posts as record-setting Tim Tebow tweets clock in at a solid 9,420 tweets per second  and last summer’s Women’s World Cup finals approached that with 7,196 tweets per second. The Super Bowl’s groundbreaking Social Media Command Center is more proof that people, especially sports fanatics, prefer to communicate via social media than any other outlet available today.

Do you see Social Media Command Centers catching on? What events do you see this concept being adapted for?

— Marta Weissenborn

We’ve been busy in the first 20 days of 2012 at McGrath/Power Public Relations!

We are proud to welcome the future of networking to our client base.  We have won two new clients critical to the next generation of this industry – the Open Networking Foundation and the Open Networking Summit.

The Open Networking Foundation was founded in 2011 by Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo!  ONF is rethinking networking and collaboratively bringing new standards and solutions to the market, including the highly topical OpenFlow. ONF is accelerating the delivery and use of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) standards and fostering a vibrant market of products, services, applications, customers, and users.

The 2nd Open Networking Summit is the premier official /Software Defined Networking event of the year.  The two-day Summit will highlight the latest SDN developments and bring all stakeholders from the networking and cloud computing industries into an intimate, focused and high-energy setting.

M/P won these two related, yet separate networking entities based on the agency’s work in the SDN market on behalf of other clients including IP Infusion and ConteXtream along with an extensive list of event and association clients including Digital Living Home Alliance (DLNA) and The Video Electronics Standards Associations (VESA).

We are also proud to welcome two new partners to the Worldcom Public Relations Group family.

Com&Sense is based in Tel Aviv, Israel and focused on finances, law, publishing and B2B. We are excited about this new partner as many of our technology clients are beginning to market in Israel and Com&Sense will allow us to extend our programs into this region.

Oxenstierna & Partners is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden and specializes in B2B and investor relations.
Both of these agencies demonstrate the global reach and strength of the Worldcom partnership.

–Jonathan Bloom

I’ll bet you one of my children that numerous exhibitors at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show are standing in their booths today asking “why?”

“Why am I here?”

“Why did we think this show would be a good vehicle to announce news?”

“Why are we not getting any attention?”

“Why should I do this again?

To the last query, I would answer: You shouldn’t.

While I think CES is a fun show to wander, I am not a fan of CES to communicate company news.  In fact, I am not much of a fan of any large-scale trade show as a place to be heard at any level.

Yes, we have clients attending the show and, yes, we are communicating on their behalf before and during CES.  But it wasn’t our first choice.

And it shouldn’t be yours.

Literally hundreds of companies thought issuing news and doing some level of promotional activities at CES would pay dividends.  The majority of them wasted their time, energy and budget because they believe that they will be rise above the boisterous conversations at this industry event.  Sure, it would be nice to capture the industry attention while everybody is in one place but that is a dream for the vast majority of companies that flock like lemmings to Las Vegas.

The days of the tradeshow are numbered in my opinion and I am not alone.  Apple long ago pulled out of CES and Microsoft announced plans this year that the 2012 CES would be its last.  Hey, I am not dogging CES alone.  I’ve been attending trade shows for nearly 30 years and we have represented several events including a five-year run with the RSA Conference and this year’s forthcoming Open Networking Summit.  Industry events have a definite place in the landscape.  For certain (read: large) companies, they can be effective as communications’ vehicles.  For the majority, however, not so much.

Back in the day, major shows like CES and Comdex were “must drop” events, meaning every company no matter what size or how important would drop news at the show.  Period.  Also back in the day, we did some pretty wild things to break through the growing clutter at shows including conducting an actual funeral for a product that competed with a client’s offering.  As recently as last year, we did sky writing over an Apple industry conference.  Both were effective but for different reasons.

The funeral was a hit because we broke the rules and created a stir on the show floor.  ‘Nuff said on that.  The sky writing was a huge success because it was in the physical world outside the show and the event was concentrated on a single venue.  Venue “creep” ultimately helped doom Comdex and it makes it hard to break through the noise.  Noise and size doom attention seeking small and mid-size companies.

When it comes to maximizing communications activities at shows, we counsel clients to view them strategically:

> Don’t use a show to communicate long-form information – you will only get brief attention spans from influencers and you run the risk of not being heard.
> Don’t make the show your focal point.  Think of it as the period at the end of a sentence.
> Plan to get heard by influencers or other target audiences in advance of a show.
> Use that advance buzz to attract your audience during the event.
> Consider a two-pronged news approach in which the primary announcement drops 2-4 weeks in advance and a follow up “show announcement” reiterates the key points in a show wrapper
> Consider using social media as a means to connect with show attendees on site and build further buzz onsite – but don’t rely on at-show social as the primary vehicle for the same attention span challenges mentioned previously.
> Only undertake a creative attention-getting if it is actually creative and actually capable of gaining attention (most aren’t).

Of course, if you have a highly recognizable brand with a highly newsworthy announcement, a show like CES can be an effective part of your marketing mix.  Few companies can claim that mantle and many of them are unfortunately left asking “why?” long after the event has concluded.

–Jonathan Bloom

My phone recently called it quits on me. While it may not have been the end of the world, it was the end of my mobile world; for a week at least. After the tech specialists deemed my phone unfixable, I had to get a new one. Lucky for me, I had insurance. Unlucky for me, my phone model was no longer sold in stores and a replacement had to be ordered. ETA: One week.

While this was quite an inconvenience to live through, it was also an eye opener to see how much one person relies on that little electronic we toss in our purse or tuck in our pocket. I was left without any form of mobile communication or information flow, and I quickly realized how much we rely on our smartphones to interact with people and the world around us. I also quickly realized how hard it is to find a payphone, but I digress.

When I say communicate, this not only includes voice calling, but extends to sending emails, posting on Facebook, shooting out text messages, checking in on Foursquare, browsing the web, Tweeting and more. While I was out and about, I had no idea what was going on and nobody knew where I was. I wasn’t able to call my mom from the road to tell her  I was on my way to visit and I couldn’t text my boyfriend to let him know I would pick up dinner. I couldn’t check my emails so I felt a little lost as to what was happening at work while I was away from my desk. I wasn’t able to login to Facebook, and as odd as it is, I missed a dinner invite from one of my girlfriends.  I couldn’t browse the internet for local news, traffic and weather updates, and I wasn’t able to “check-in” to my current location.

Earlier this year, Pew Research released a report on how mobile phones have become a near-ubiquitous tool for information seeking and communicating. The research revealed that 83 percent of American adults own some kind of mobile device. Text messaging and picture taking topped the list of ways that Americans use their mobile phones, shortly followed by content sharing and going online. A similar report from Current Results showed that people spent half the time on their smartphones to keep in touch with others through emails, text messages and phone calls.

The shift towards mobile in the way we communicate and consume information has had a direct impact on how professionals interact with each other and how businesses engage with consumers. People being mobile and constantly online have influenced when and where we can communicate with other professionals, whether they are colleagues, clients or journalists. We can answer urgent emails from the grocery store and take conference calls from the airport. I have even received text messages from a reporter about a meeting.  Moreover, news outlets themselves have begun publishing stories differently and creating apps so they are more reader friendly on the gadgets we view them on, thus creating a direct impact on the way information is packaged.  From a business perspective, there has been a shift toward mobile marketing because consumers are acquiring their content differently through mobile devices. This includes couponing, advertising, QR codes, app development and social media.

There is a lot of information online about mobility, smartphones and the way we communicate. I highly suggest that you check out this great roundup of infographics that shows just how big the world of mobile marketing and communications is, and how fast it is growing. You may be surprised to find that two hundred trillion text messages are received in America every day.

–Katie Peterson