|
|
 |
Virtual Social Intimacy: The Future of Social Media Marketing?
Marketing… By Matt Merritt, Co-Founder and President, Audingo
Those of you who have been in the fields of public relations, marketing or advertising for more than five years probably remember a time when social media wasn’t part of the communications strategies you were drawing up for clients. But now – with blogs often considered legitimate news sources, Facebook approaching a billion users and nearly six million Twitter users following the handle @CNN – these avenues of influence are impossible to ignore. As of February 2012, 66 percent of online adults and 80 percent of online teens were users of social media sites, according to Pew Research.
|
|
|
| |
 |
What Are They Thinking? Fun Marketing and PR Insights into the Class of 2016 and Beyond
Public Relations… By Robert Geline, 144 Media
Every year about this time, something called the “Beloit College Mindset List” appears, often to some great fanfare in the media. It’s a compendium of ideas, attitudes and everyday truths that constitutes a good approximation of the organizing principles and shared understandings of those who are now beginning their undergraduate lives on college and university campuses from Maine to Mailbu, a.k.a. The Class of 2016. The brainchild of Ron Nief, Emeritus Director of Public Affairs at the school, and Tom McBride, a professor of English and the Humanities…
|
|
|
| |
 |
SEC Busts Eight in Georgia-Based Insider Trading Ring
IR Therefore I Am… By Gene Marbach, Makovsky & Co
The SEC charged eight individuals living in the Griffin, Ga., area for their involvement in an insider trading ring that generated more than $500,000 in illegal profits based on nonpublic information about an upcoming company merger. The SEC alleges that local accountant Thomas D. Melvin, Jr. exploited confidential information from a client who was on the board of directors at Chattem Inc., a Tennessee-based pharmaceutical company known for such over-the-counter products as Allegra, Gold Bond, and Icy Hot.
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
New Markets: What Does CSR Look Like in Burma?
By CSRwire for the Corporate Social Responsibility Channel
There is a lot of news swirling around these days about Burma, today’s big frontier market. Democratic reforms that were inconceivable just two years ago have all the markings of real change: the release of hundreds of political prisoners, the re-registration of the once banned National League for Democracy party, which in the April by-elections won 43 of 44 contested seats, the proclaimed end of “press scrutiny” with the elimination of the Press Scrutiny and Registration Department, the legalization of trade unions, the return of the license of a Burmese lawyer who had been disbarred for defending clients in political cases…
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
 |
In Case You Missed It: Ex PRSA Chair to Join Cross Cultural PR Firm Republica
CommPRO.biz
As reported by the South Florida Public Relations Network and O’Dwyers, “Rosanna Fiske, 2011 chair of the PR Society and a faculty member of Florida International University since 2006, has left the school to joinRepública, a “cross-cultural” advertising and PR firm based in Miami. It was founded in 2006 by Jorge Plasencia and Luis Casamayor, who have “decades of experience in media, advertising and marketing” and who founded a company that “lives by ethics, trust, loyalty and responsibility.” Fiske, previously in Communique, her own firm, and with Ketchum, was director of the Global Strategic Communications Master’s Program in the School of Journalism and Mass Communications at FIU, where she was also an associate professor. Fiske last November initiated a quest for a new definition of PR via an interview with ad columnist Stuart Elliott of theNew York Timesthat touched off a flood of comments, most of them negative” …
|
|
|
| |
 |
PR to the Rescue: Continuing Failing Stock Means Facebook Must Boost Public Relations
Technorati
Thanks to Facebook’s sinking stock, social media wunderkind Mark Zuckerberg is currently feeling the pinch of public scorn–a mere few short years after being immortalized as the genius underdog in The Social Network. Is Zuckerberg, however, really to blame for Facebook’s floundering stock price? While some may argue that Zuckerberg’s sense-of-self rivals that of notoriously egotistical Apple founder, Steve Jobs, Zuckerberg is shrewd enough to surround himself with smarty-pants–including Facebook’s current Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google big-wig who also has a distinguished history at the U.S. Treasury Department. Ostensibly aware of Facebook’s dependence on the public’s pleasure, the social media genius is working the PR angle to counteract the negative press. In recent days, to mitigate the “should Zuckerberg step down” chorus, Facebook has unveiled their new Frank Gehry-designed campus – which is being touted as the “largest open-plan office in the world.” They also made sure that word got out of Zuckerberg’s and Sandberg’s meeting with the platform’s oldest user, 101-year-old Florence Detlor …
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
 |
Online Marketing: Twitter Providing New Way to Target Marketing to Prospects
Washington Post
Twitter is offering a new way for advertisers to deliver their marketing pitches to the people who are most likely to buy their products and services. The targeting tool introduced Thursday allows ads to be sorted into different categories of interest. Once an ad has been tagged under a specific topic, such as “dogs” or “animation,” it could crop up among the tweets of users whose activity has indicated an interest in those topics. Twitter also is allowing the ads known as “promoted tweets” to be tied to specific accounts that may have followers likely to have an interest in the subject of a marketing message. The effort to sell more ads is part of Twitter’s ongoing bid to capitalize on the popularity of its short-messaging service …
|
|
|
| |
 |
Study: Armstrong’s Marketing Flame Extinguished
Dallas Morning News
In case you wondered if Lance Armstrong’s marketing power could withstand the drug firestorm, the latest consumer poll by the Marketing Arm says nope. At the height of Lance’s popularity – June 2008 – the Tour de France phenom was as appealing as Ron Howard. In February, he was still on par with Justin Timberlake. Now he’s ranked 2,192 (out of 2,500 celebrities tracked by the Dallas agency) on par with Michael Bolton. As for endorsement value, he once was in there with Brad Pitt, slipped to Steven Spielberg, and now is neck-n-neck with foul-mouthed singer Nicky Minaj. People trust him about as much as they do Paula Abdul. Matt Fleming, who oversees the agency’s celebrity data, says Lance’s plunge from grace is stunning. “With the USDA’s announcement, and Armstrong’s response, he’s no longer getting the benefit of the doubt in the court of public opinion.” …
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
 |
FASB Previews New U.S. GAAP XBRL Taxonomy
Accounting Today
The Financial Accounting Standards Board made available its proposed 2013 U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy in XBRL format for public review and comment Thursday. The taxonomy is a list of computer-readable financial reporting labels coded in Extensible Business Reporting Language, or XBRL, an open-source computer language that allows companies to tag precisely the thousands of pieces of financial data included in typical long-form financial statements and related footnote disclosures. The tags allow users of financial statements to electronically search for, assemble, and process data so that the data can be readily accessed and analyzed by investors, analysts, journalists, and regulators. The proposed 2013 U.S. GAAP Financial Reporting Taxonomy contains updates for accounting standards and other recommended improvements to the official taxonomy, which is used by public issuers registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The deadline to submit written comments is Oct. 29 …
|
|
|
| |
 |
Bernanke Unlikely to Tip Fed Hand in Jackson Hole Speech
NBC
It is annual rite rite of late summer: The Federal Reserve chairman flies far beyond the Beltway to scenic Jackson Hole, Wyo., for a major address on monetary policy. When central bank chairman Ben Bernanke takes part in the ritual Friday, his influential audience will be hanging on every word, listening for any hint of what policymakers might do next month to spur the sluggish economy. Pundits and the few journalists invited will quickly rush out to expound on Bernanke’s speech, taking advantage of the telegenic setting against the Teton mountains. But don’t hold your breath. Most Fed watchers expect Bernanke to avoid tipping his hand ahead of the Sept. 12-13 rate-setting meeting, especially given recent signs of a slight firming in the economy. The title of the Friday morning speech, “Monetary Policy Since the Crisis,” suggests Bernanke “might take a broad, ‘lessons learned’ approach” rather than lay out potential next steps, Goldman Sachs economists said in a note. In part that is because the Fed has little ammunition left after five years of slashing interest rates to rock-bottom levels and injecting cash into the economy through other means …
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
 |
Sears Crisis Center Was Ready to React to Isaac
Chicago Tribune
As Hurricane Isaac hung over the New Orleans region Wednesday morning, dozens of Sears Holdings managers were holed up in a high-tech space on the retailer’s Hoffman Estates campus planning to react to the storm by reopening its affected stores there and restocking others. It’s a war room of sorts, this Sears Crisis Command Center, where the mission is to have high-demand items in the stores as soon as possible. Monitors show The Weather Channel, other cable news channels and a local news channel. A map displays red and green dots that represent Sears’ and Kmart stores — with the red noting downed stores. As of Wednesday afternoon, about 40 stores have been closed with another 120 in danger of being affected by the storm. “We’re monitoring all these types of events, but we’re all reacting too,” said Bill Titus, vice president of loss prevention and safety. “And it’s not just people. We’re taking advantage of all the technology” …
|
|
|
| |
 |
Facebook May Drop to ‘F’ Rating in Corporate Governance, GMI Ratings Says
IR Magazine
Facebook’s ‘poor governance’, plus recent large stock sales by board member Peter Thiel, will likely see the social network firm drop to the bottom 5 percent of companies on the ratings list of GMI Ratings, the independent environmental, social and governance ratings company says. GMI Ratings placed Facebook on watch for a potential downgrade from its current ‘D’ rating to a possible ‘F’ after news emerged that Thiel sold $400 mn worth of shares in late August, GMI senior research associate Greg Ruel wrote in an alert on GMI’s website. The sale brings to $1 bn the value of shares in Facebook that Thiel, a founding investor, has sold since the $16 bn IPO in May. ‘This divesture news has Facebook on watch as a company likely to join the 5 percent of companies we rate ‘F’,’ Ruel wrote …
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
|
|
Twitter Ads to Be Geared to Users’ Interests
Chicago Tribune
Twitter Inc. will begin allowing advertisers to target users based on the interests they reveal in their tweets, the social media company said Thursday. No longer content to be a “dumb” bulletin board, with 400 million micro-messages posted daily, Twitter has moved to a strategy of sifting through what each user is reading and tweeting to discern their interests. Founded in 2006, Twitter is hoping to catch up to other consumer Internet companies that have found varying degrees of success by using technology to serve better-targeted ads. For years, Google has reaped huge profits by displaying ads based on users searches, while Facebook encourages users to input their “likes.” But Twitter, by contrast, has long faced the challenge of indirectly inferring these preferences, something that marketers find less attractive…
|
|
|
| |
 |
New Directions for Mobile Advertising
Daily Finance
Mobile ad network Millennial Media Inc. (NYSE: MM) has release a report on mobile advertising spending, and while the company clearly has a dog in the hunt, the survey data compiled by comScore Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) for Millennial has some general interest. The mobile ad market is expected to grow from $1.8 billion in 2011 to about $13.5 billion by 2015. Millennial competes against Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) and its iAds platform and Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) for a place in that market, as well as with other smaller players. Smartphone adoption grew by 42% in 2011 and of smartphone owners those who use mobile devices are 22% more likely to own a tablet. Smartphone users who make entertainment purchases typically buy tickets, DVDs, games, or digital downloads, or use the devices to pre-order these items. The biggest reason for consumers to use smartphones to purchase entertainment products is convenience – according to the comScore study two-thirds of smartphone users cite convenience as the most important reason for making a purchase on a mobile device …
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
