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Benghazi: Lessons in Crisis Communications
Gene Marbach At Large
Each day brings new revelations about the tragedy in Benghazi in which our ambassador and three others were killed on September 11th. The latest are contained in government emails which indicate that an Islamist group had claimed credit for the attack two hours after it occurred and that the White House, the State Department and the FBI were told about it. Apparently, the group – Ansar al-Sharia – used Facebook and Twitter to claim responsibility for the attack… As we know, US ambassador to the United Nations Susan E. Rice made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows on September 16th…
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Branding: It’s More Than a Clever Name
Marketing…By Carolyn Akel, Founder & President, Akel Ventures
The words “brand” and “name” may be synonymous, but don’t ever let that fool you into thinking that a catchy name will drive the launch of your product. Just a few of the considerations you will face when introducing and positioning your product or service include: What are the trends in my industry? Who are my customers and how do I reach them? Is my pricing model correct? How will I test such items as color, packaging, Web presence and messaging?
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PR & Wikipedia: ‘It’s Complicated’
Corporate Social Media Zone…By David Rosen, Senior Director, Burson-Marsteller
I hit the conference jackpot last week at the PRSA International Conference in San Francisco when I ran into a professor who has studied the intersection of public relations and Wikipedia. This is an important topic given that different associations have come out with different points of view on how PR people should engage with the site. Dr. Marcia DiStaso, an expert on social media and financial services, is assistant professor at Pennsylvania State University, where she has published multiple peer reviewed articles on the topic of Wikipedia.
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Agency Two-Minute Survey–Enter Drawing for $100 AMEX Gift Card
Agency Management
Welcome. Like never before, agencies and in-house departments need to expand their capabilities to make effective use of today’s communications and marketing approaches. Many have added experts in social, digital and creative services. These additions are creating new personality dynamics and reporting relationships. How is this new structure working? We’d like to know. Please join us by taking this short survey on what is working, and what is still a work in progress. We’ll report back on what you told us.
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“Twethics”: A Brief Analysis of Twitter Ethics in Public Relations
By Angela Dwyer, PRIME Research, for the PR ROI Channel
Public relations practitioners, celebrities and employees use twitter to promote causes, issues, products and ideas. While codes of ethics address the use of traditional forms of media, few resources specifically provide guidance for public relations ethics with social media platforms such as Twitter. In my opinion, public relations tweeters can be classified into four groups that face ethical challenges: the paid tweeter, the company tweeter, the out-of-context tweeter and the ghost-tweeter.
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VIDEO & PRESENTATION–Is Your Organization Prepared to Respond to Crisis in the Digital Age?
In the Green Room With Priya Ramesh, Managing Director, Social Media, CRT/tanaka
Welcome to this online conversation about how to “Identify a Social Media Crisis Response Strategy for 2013″ Hosted by Priya Ramesh, Managing Director, Social Media, CRT/tanaka @newpr VIDEO & PRESENTATION AVAILABLE HERE. Register to Download the PRESENTATION, “Is Your Organization Prepared to Respond to Crisis in the Digital Age?– Google+ Hangout On Air
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Pushing… er, Pulling All the Right Buttons
By Christopher Brimble, PR Newswire, for the Agile Engagement Channel
Our own campaign at PRSA proved to be an effective inbound marketing tactic. PRSA 2012 was a living, breathing example of integrating inbound marketing into communications. Inbound Marketing is an effort that pulls in your audience by offering them information they want, and ideally, they’ll be running to you. Wear a button! Win a Kindle! The direction in our button campaign was crystal-clear. Be findable & give direction.
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Secrets of World Class CEO Communicators: The Ten Key Techniques–Free Webinar
In The Green Room With Virgil Scudder, President, Virgil Scudder & Associates
SESSION OVERVIEW This webinar will provide the necessary tools and techniques you need to communicate your message to your target audiences from shareholder meetings to media interviews to handling crises. KEY TAKEAWAYS You will learn: Keys to successful shareholder communication …
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Donald ‘Bombshell’ Fails to Blow Up–Claims “…Not a Publicity Stunt”
ABC
Donald Trump today pledged $5 million to a charity of President Obama’s choice, provided the president makes public his college applications and transcripts and releases his passport history, a far cry from the October-surprise bombshell Trump had promised. Calling the offer a “major announcement,” Trump released a video via Twitter at noon to much ballyhoo, and his online followers grew by the hundreds in the moments before the video was released. “I have a deal for the president,” Trump said. “If Barack Obama opens up and gives his college records and applications, and passport application and records, I will give to a charity of his choice, a check immediately for $5 million.”
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NYT Defends Incoming Chief Amid BBC Scandal
Associated Press
The New York Times stood by its incoming chief Wednesday, even as questions about a BBC child sex abuse scandal followed him from one of Britain’s most respected news organizations to one of America’s. But as new CEO Mark Thompson was getting support from his new bosses, the Times ombudsman questioned his fitness for the job. And in Britain, a lawmaker said he had more questions for Thompson. As Thompson prepares to take over as president of The New York Times next month, he has been put on the defensive about his final days as head of the BBC and the broadcaster’s decision to kill what would have been a bombshell investigative story alleging the late Jimmy Savile, one of its biggest stars, had sexually abused up to 200 children. In a letter to a lawmaker and an interview with the Times, Thompson said he never knew of the Savile story before it was spiked and had never met the network’s popular star.
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When Caffeine Kills: Energy Drinks Under the Spotlight
NBC
Does this sound like you? Two cups of coffee in the morning, a coffee break at 11 or so, another cup in the afternoon and a cup after dinner? That might be enough to interfere with sleep or even give some people the jitters, but it’s nowhere near an overdose. It may also be nothing compared to what some teenagers are consuming to deal with schoolwork or job pressures. James Stone, a 19-year-old from Wallingford, Conn., died in 2006 after he took nearly two dozen NoDoz tablets. Each tablet has about 200 mg of caffeine – about twice that found in a cup of coffee. But while it would be near impossible to down 48 cups of coffee in a few hours, it’s relatively easy to pop a handful of small tablets. Now the question is whether guzzling energy drinks might be as dangerous as popping No-Doz. The Food and Drug Administration is investigating reports that five people died and one survived a heart attack after consuming energy drinks. It is not yet clear whether the drinks actually caused – or even contributed to – those adverse events, said FDA spokeswoman Shelly Burgess.
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Salesforce.com Laying Off Radian6 Employees As Buddy Media Shows $20 Million Net Loss
TechCrunch
Two of Salesforce.com’s most high profile “social media” acquisitions are showing signs of trouble. At Radian6, Salesforce.com is reported to be laying off “less than 100 people.” And at Buddy Media, the company amended its 8-K, which shows $20 million in net losses for the first six months of the year. Salesforce.com acquired Radian6 in 2010 for $326 million and Buddy Media earlier this year for $689 million. The acquisitions were meant to complement each other with the two integrating and operating under the same umbrella. The news of the layoffs and the losses raises questions about how the work is going in combining the companies and integrating them into the Salesforce.com ecosystem.
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U.S. Study Reveals Online Marketing is Failing with Consumers
Daily Finance
Digital marketing is not meeting the needs of consumers according to new research released today from Adobe Systems Incorporated (NAS: ADBE) . The U.S. study, Click Here: The State of Online Advertising exposes new insights into the beliefs of both consumers and professional marketers that traditional marketing is still more effective than online marketing. The research is based on interviews with a nationally representative sample of 1,000 consumers and 250 professional marketers. The study revealed that two-thirds of consumers believe that television commercials are more effective than online advertising and that online banner ads do not work (54%). Further, respondents prefer to view advertising in their favorite print magazine (45%) or while watching their favorite TV show (23%) compared to the stark 3% who state they prefer to view ads via social media and 0% who like ads in an app.
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Content Marketing Increases Among B2B, Challenges Still Remain, Study Reveals
CMS Wire
If ninety percent of content is screen-based and nine out of 10 organizations now market with content – what does that say about the state of content marketing? Investing in Content Strategy…According to the third annual study from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, “B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends,” organizations are getting serious about content strategy. The study shows that most content tactics are being used more frequently, with B2B organizations using an average of 12 tactics. Not surprising, the most popular tactics are social media (87%), articles on a company’s website (83%), eNewsletters (78%) and blogs (77%). While social media reigns, it’s still just coming into its own, as this is the first year where social media is used more frequently than articles.
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Facebook Wins Back Friends on Wall Street, Shares Soar
Reuters
Facebook Inc’s shares headed towards their biggest one-day jump on Wednesday after the company reported a surprising rise in mobile advertising, easing concerns it was having trouble capitalizing on soaring use of smartphones and tablets. Facebook shares were up 21 percent at $23.55 in afternoon trade. They were sold for $38 each in their initial public offering in May but slumped to a low of $17.55 in September as investors fretted about the company’s slowing growth. Several brokerages raised their price targets on Facebook shares. Barclays Capital raised its target to $26 from $23, Jefferies & Co to $32 from $30 and Macquarie Equities Research to $24 from $21.
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Buffett Tells CNBC He Doesn’t Know Solution for P&G
Bloomberg
Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) has been cutting its stake in Procter & Gamble Co. (PG), said he doesn’t have solutions to improve the consumer- products company’s earnings. “What goes on inside the place, what mistakes have been made, what the plans are, I don’t know the answers on that,” Buffett, 82, told CNBC today. “The jury’s out on that now, because they have disappointed in terms of earnings and we’ll see what happens. I know the board is actively engaged and trying to come up with a strategy they think makes sense to take the earnings forward.” Chief Executive Officer Bob McDonald is under pressure from activist investor Bill Ackman after cutting P&G’s forecast three times this year and scaling back price increases that hurt sales. Ackman, whose Pershing Square Capital Management LP took a $1.8 billion stake in P&G in July, has pushed to fire McDonald and split the CEO and chairman roles, a person familiar with the matter has said.
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Tackling Employee Fraud
Personnel Today
Recent figures released by the Fraud Prevention Service revealed a 52% increase in fraud committed by employees in the first half of 2012. The prevailing theory as to why businesses have experienced such a dramatic increase in theft from their own employees is that it is due to the economic downturn. Job insecurity, a lack of employee engagement and a sense of entitlement have also been mooted as possible causes. What is clear is that internal fraud poses a huge risk to businesses, not just in the pure financial sense, but in terms of damage to hard-won reputations. Of course, the difficult issue for businesses is that they do not know that they are victims of employee fraud until it is uncovered, at which point the damage is already done. So, what proactive steps can you take to address this risk? The first option is to seek assistance with crime reduction and advice around minimising security risk – both in terms of physical security and IT security.
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Internal Social Collaboration Gains Momentum
BtoB Magazine
At the height of the recession when companies were forced to do even more with less, use of social business software (SBS) started to gain momentum. The economy brought about a swell of early adopters using SBS to build internal communities and solve traditional business problems in a more contemporary way, leveraging social media metaphors developed by companies such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. Many employees preferred to work within these dynamic community environments rather than traditional, archaic enterprise software packages; and with employee engagement and a return on investment, an internal community made business sense.
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BuzzFeed Partners With Rdio As it Pushes Into Music Space
Ad Age Digital Next
BuzzFeed has rapidly built up content verticals around everything from food to politics to celebrities — and now it’s pushing further into the music space, attempting to become a hub not just for “14 Beach Boys album covers,” but a place for music-sharing and discovery. In partnership with streaming-music service Rdio, the site has added reaction buttons that allow users to react to stories with a song. So for example, if you’re looking at a story about Lana Del Rey being the new face of H&M, you can, in addition to commenting or reacting with an “OMG” or “LOL,” scroll down a bit further and react with a song from a customized playlist by BuzzFeed music editors. But perhaps more interesting is that with Rdio, BuzzFeed is going to start using both the music channel vertical as well as its homepage as a place where readers can discover new music or hear popular songs through sponsored Rdio posts and units.
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Consumers Think Online Advertising Doesn’t Work, Study Reveals
Business Journals
A digital advertising study done by Adobe Systems Inc. says that consumers think online advertising is ineffective and annoying. Two-thirds of respondents found television commercials more effective than online advertising and no respondents liked advertising in an app, according to the study from San Jose-based Adobe (NASDAQ: ADBE). “Likes” by friends on social media are a way that 29 percent of the study respondents “check out” new products, according to Adobe, but only two percent consider brand information from a company’s social media sites “credible.” User-generated content was considered the “best form of online advertising” by 28 percent of consumers and 27 percent of marketers.
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