Lesson From Miley Cyrus: PR Can Get Hairy

Posted on Aug 21, 2012 in Critical Now | 0 comments

The Critical Mention team has been busy demonstrating our new AllMedia platform to harried PR pros desperate for relief from the news alert overload that’s been eating into their August beach time.

The ability of AllMedia to make sense of incredibly high volumes of content became very clear last Monday when Miley Cyrus had a bad hair day. We had been tracking issues relating to the American Cancer Society when all of a sudden there was a big red spike indicating negative-toned stories in social.

Coverage on TV, news sites and other channels remained constant, but the social platforms had exploded with comments about the new pixie hair style being sported by the 19-year-old.

What was the connection between Miley Cyrus and cancer? Turns out supporters of agencies who repurpose donated hair into wigs for cancer victims had jumped into the fray, speculating whether the singer’s tresses were simply snipped for publicity value or to help someone undergoing chemo.

For a PR pro trying to sneak in a bit of beach time before Labor Day, there was no need to spend hours drilling into Google News or Twitter to understand why there was a spike and why it was negative. A quick review of the AllMedia dashboard on the iPad would have told the story.