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My politics are best described as "socially moderate, fiscally conservative," which means I've been holding my nose since the 2000 elections... Still, I am first and foremost a patriotic American. I've tried to be careful, when discussing politics in front of my children, to remind them that I may be "against" the current Administration but I am still proud of America and its principles.

Which is why I was kinda' troubled to learn that a Google search on the word "failure" always points to the official page of The President of the United States of America.

I am a huge believer in the quotation, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" (attributed to Voltaire), and in this case I do not disapprove of the message, but the messenger. For a publicly-traded corporation to stealthily editorialize in this way does not seem appropriate. Bush may be a failure but he is still the President of the United States of America. You don't need to respect the man personally, but a public company ought to maintain some public respect for the office.

More importantly, for me this calls Google's vaunted PageRank system into question. Let's see what Google has to say about the integrity of its search results:

"Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search."

I find it hard to believe that the "failure" search result is "automatically" pointing to the President's personal webpage. Feels like a snarky bit of codeplay, to me.

Tags: google, president+bush, pagerank

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

A while back I posted on the imminent danger of misguided corporations trying to "cheat" in Social Media channels.  The post was called, "Boneheaded Moves of the Future" and went on to predict that somebody would try to cheat the system before the end of 2006. 

You could argue that the Edelman/Wal-Mart flogging flap qualified, but a) that example is old news and has been well-documented, and, b) I prefer to take a look at a more pure example of corporate malfeasance (i.e., no agency middlemen are readily apparent).

Imagine my horror to find the one-and-only SUPERMAN to be the latest & greatest example of Social Media abuse!

(I know what you are thinking, my fellow geeks.  "No.  Please.  Not Superman."  I feel your pain.)

I saw this post by Howard Greenstein at the Social Media Club blog and --- stomach churning --- clicked the link that led to a YouTube video that detailed the nefarious plot.  Check it out.

Apparently Superman's handlers at Time-Warner created THOUSANDS of fake YouTube accounts... which were then used to subscribe to the "supermanreturnsdvd" channel that had been posted to the site.  The majority of these THOUSANDS of newly-minted account-holders had never seen the trailer that they "favorited," nor was there any evidence that they were actual YouTube users (no "friends," no other "favorites," etc.).  By being able to claim 8,000+ "subscribers," though, Time-Warner is able to claim that the "supermanreturnsdvd" is among the top-ranked channels on YouTube.

Superman fans are peeved --- but that's to be expected.  More to the point: anyone who believes in Social Media's long-term ability to "change the debate" ought to be royally P.O.'d.  If corporate spammers can blithely abuse the system, the genie could be stuffed back into the bottle.  Social Media's credibility as a content engine and influencer depends on unadulterated authenticity. 

Truth.  Justice.  It's the Social Media Way.

Tags: time+warner, superman, supermanreturnsdvd, youtube, social+media, flog, socialmediaclub, howard+greenstein

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

How am I able to sit in my "Mad Scientist" office (no pictures on the walls ... boxes still packed from my 18-month-old move to Boston) dreaming up zany ideas about how Social Media impacts Public Relations, Brand Strategy, etc.?

I have this luxury because there is a group of 80+ PR rockstars just outside my door, dreaming up ways to make a real-world impact for their clients, primarily by targeting the mainstream media.

In the past week alone, SHIFT clients have seen coverage in the NY TIMES and Good Morning America (Frucall), The San Jose Mercury News (Yodlee), and USA Today (Tumbleweed). And Novell has seen plenty of action, too, of course, thanks to the landmark deal with Microsoft.

As I whiled away the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I could not help but offer up a few million words of thanks to our team here. They are all grokking the Social Media stuff and become ever more eager and enthused as we motivate, monitor and engage in marketplace conversations with and for our clients ... but as much as they "get it" they also "get" the need to keep the home fires burning. Even the clients who claim to "heart" the blogosphere get a special brand of smile on their face when they see their names appear in the mainstream media.

Posted by Todd Defren at 02:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Catching up on my reading, I noted (a week late) the Big Deal between Reuters and Pluck (of BlogBurst fame).

This is a Big Deal, truly. If I understand it correctly, Reuters --- a major news distributor --- will run relevant blog posts from their BlogBurst network in a contextual way, alongside Reuters' own original content. Here are the key points from the press release:

"With BlogBurst, publishers can present the most relevant and useful blog posts alongside related stories covering a variety of topics including news, politics, sports, health, fitness, technology, gadgets, travel, food and entertainment. With thousands of approved bloggers in the network, the BlogBurst service ... connects high quality, provocative voices from the blogosphere with mass market news and information."

Somebody pinch me. I can't help but think that this is a Good Thing. Certainly it cements the relevance of The Bloggers in the evolving media mix.

Many people turn to blogs --- purposefully or not (thanks, Google!) --- to gain additional context on their search terms and areas-of-interest. This deal streamlines the process. Reading an article about D.C. politics in a Reuters article? --- Maybe you want to hear voices from the Far Left and Far Right weigh in on the same topic? Bingo.

One can't help wondering about how a deal like this might impact the A-list bloggers. Surely most of them are already affiliated with BlogBurst (or could be, in a snap). A deal like this could vault them to ever-higher fame, and make the Z-lister feel like an even bigger zedhead. A deal like this might also motivate bloggers to more carefully scrutinize "what it takes" to make the cut at BlogBurst, and evolve their sites from "personal rants" to "thoughtful musings."

The Professionalization of Blogging. You knew it was coming.

Tags: pluck, blogburst, reuters, a+listers

Posted by Todd Defren at 09:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's been an extraordinarily busy time at SHIFT; I hope ya'll have enjoyed the long, slow posting schedule here at PR-Squared. I am hoping to re-energize Ye Olde Batteries over the holiday and resume a more rigorous schedule of bloggy brainspasms.

Meanwhile, may I rant? It's always fun to read about other folks' travel-related nightmares, right? But I am hoping to make a bigger point about customer service along the way.

I've been traveling quite a bit lately, which I normally don't mind, but lately I've been boggled by the poor customer service found at some of the airlines.

Last week I was trying to get from Philadelphia to Boston. My team and I were booked on a 3:30pm flight. We arrived at 2:57-ish. Most of the self-service kiosks were either in-use or (worse!) Out-Of-Service. By the time we could man the kiosks, it was 3:01pm. "Sorry --- you have got to be there 30 minutes beforehand if you want a boarding pass!"

No amount of pleading (nor pointing to the non-existent line at Security) would bend the rule. We literally watched our plane board, just 20 yards away. We could have easily gotten on the flight if someone at US Airways had the power to bend by an inch.

So, we're booked on the 5:30pm flight in consolation. Let's go eat? Better confirm with the gate agent that we're definitely on that 5:30pm flight. "Yup, you're good," we were told.

But we return from the airport's bar&grille at 5pm in order to be told by the new gate agent, "Sorry, you're not on this flight." We were holding tickets, which had been booked and subsequently confirmed by two separate US Airways agents! --- But "we're not on this flight?!"

For the first time, ever, I lost my cool at the airport. Many #%$&*#@ were blithely slinged throughout the gate area.

Thankfully, my cool-headed colleague finagled us to the head of the standby line, and we were admitted onto the flight. But not before the gate agent pulled me aside to scold me: "It's not about the job; it is about how you treat people. The job is nothing."

The warm-n-fuzzy Social Media Advocate in me empathized. But the guy who'd been jerked around for several hours disagreed:

"Actually, it is about the job. If the employees at US Airways had competently handled their jobs, if they had treated us like customers instead of ##s, I'd be home right now, eating dinner with my kids. I apologize for yelling at y-o-u, if it makes you feel better, but you're on the front-lines here, and you would not acknowledge --- nor showed much willingness to rectify --- your organization's incompetence."

Sometimes it's not about The Conversation --- it's about making sure that The Conversation never happens.

Tags: US+airways

Posted by Todd Defren at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I finally had a chance to listen to the 10th NMRcast (NMR - New Media Release) featuring Chris Heuer, Shel Holtz and Brian Solis. Good stuff. Among the topics discussed was "metrics." Ahh, metrics! --- the age-old bugbear of PR.

"Measurement" has taken a bit of a backseat in the PR 2.0 era. Companies have been more concerned with buzz, with conversation and community-building, than with Return on Investment. It's been a refreshing breather but no doubt we'll be grounded at some point when a CMO or CEO asks, "How can you prove that a million 'friends' on MySpace will improve our business? How will we know that this Second Life campaign has been a success? If we don't get any more 'hits' for a Social Media release than a traditional release, why should we do it?"

As more case studies for successful Social Media efforts rise to the surface, it will be both harder and easier to make the case for 2.0-style thinking. Just as the Tylenol Scare (and the drug-maker's wonderfully transparent response) made the case that corporations need to plan for crisis, the PR industry is now on the look-out for success stories that will "prove the case" for social media planning.

Meanwhile, however, Social Media successes could be just as often outgunned by failures and flame-outs. Bloggers, YouTubers, vloggers, citizen journalists, stealth marketers --- we're in a new Wild West.

Maybe we'll wind up focusing more on community-building than revenue-building? With every consumer empowered to make/break corporate reputations, maybe PR will be measured by its ability to keep the genie in the bottle? Perhaps we'll be lauded for ensuring that every article and blog post cited legitimate data sources and multimedia? Or maybe we'll get more credit for coming up with ideas that empowered consumers to re-mix our clients' brand in their own image?

I've been a long-time advocate of the concept, "Reputation Drives Revenue." It's our agency's tagline! I'm no stranger to Excel spreadsheets. But I also won't miss 'em when they're gone.

Posted by Todd Defren at 06:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

At a recent Boston-area PR/media event, one of the reporters mentioned that they really like the newfangled Social Media News Releases.  That's heartening to hear.  While one of the major goals of a SMNR is to increase news distribution into the blogosphere, it's never been anyone's intent to bypass traditional media: all SMNR advocates have been crossing their fingers that the "new" press release will, as hoped, make life easier for journalists and be embraced.

The reporter's comment led me to wonder about other journalists' reactions to the dawning standard (above and beyond Mr. Foremski's own advocacy).  If I could turn the tables on a number of respected journalists and ask them a few questions, here are a few that come to mind...

• "Why might a social media news release make life easier/harder for a journalist?"
• "What aspects of a SMNR are most/least useful to a journalist?"
• "Would a journalist like/dislike the inclusion of del.icio.us links to outside data sources and articles, to facilitate research (or would they view it as an attempt to subvert their own research)?"
• "Would a journalist be inclined to add an RSS feed specific to industry issues vs. company-specific news feeds?"
• "How much/often are you using Technorati and/or memetrackers like Tailrank or PopURL, to look into trends bubbling up in CGM?"
• "Are you using social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us to save story ideas and research notes?"
• "Digg: budding competitor, or, story idea generator?"
• "How would you feel if you rejected a story idea based on a news release, but subsequently saw that it had been 'digg'd' hundreds of times?  Would it make you more/less likely to reconsider your decision to write a story?"

If you are a journalist, or are friendly-enough with a kindly reporter to send these questions along, I'd love to hear some responses.

In other news, I was interviewed recently by Farrell Kramer of the "Talking Communications" podcast.  If you're looking for a basic primer on the "what's" and "why's" of SMNRs, have a listen.

Tags: hrelease, social+media, social+media+news+release, social+media+release, pr+2.0, public+relations, farrell+kramer

Posted by Todd Defren at 05:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

I observed the mid-term elections with fascination.  I applaud the return of "check and balances" to the U.S. Government, and I've been impressed so far by the kitchen-table issues that seem top of mind to the incoming Democrats (as opposed to shrieky self-congratulations and deluded calls for impeachment).

But what really revved my engine was learning that Pelosi & Pals went outside the Beltway for inspiration during the lean years since the 2004 election.  Specifically, the Dems realized that they had a MARKETING problem and sought the counsel of legendary marketer Jack Trout, among others.

There's just a tidbit about this interaction in the new issue of NEWSWEEK, but it was a telling lesson in basic marketing.  Trouts advice hinged on differentiation.  As the GOP sank into the morass of false morality (Hastert's tardy recognition of Foley's inappropriate activities), corruption (Abramoff! DeLay!), and Iraq (bad entry chasing a bad exit), Trout urged the Democrats ...

"...to take advantage of the weak points in Karl Rove's base-driven Republican strategy.  'You've got to go the opposite way,' [Trout told Pelosi].  'It's Marketing 101.  Say 'We're about good governing for all, not a privileged few.'  Bring back the Big Tent idea..."

The strategy of fomenting conflict between the "have's and have-nots" is a tricky one: it led candidates under Bob Shrum's one-note tutelage to lose 2 presidential elections in a row.  But what DOES work is differentiation.  As the GOP dealt with false morality and corruption, the Dems talked about recharging the flaccid Congressional Ethics Committee.  As polls showed that the Middle Class felt overwhelmed by the stressful, confusing responsibilities (and expenses) of Bush's "ownership society," the Democrats talked up Middle Class pocketbook issues. 

The Democrats triangulated in classic Clinton style, too.  As the Republicans vilified the Democratic Party for weakness, the Dems offered up Iraqi war veterans and conservative-leaning candidates.  And while the GOP harped about the liberal goofiness of Howard Dean, the DMC chairman made a show of asking for people's votes in all 50 states, because (as I heard him say on Jon Stewart's Daily Show), "It shows respect for people, when you ask them for their vote."  How civil. 

Lastly, echoing FDR's "100 days" approach (and more interestingly, the GOP's own brilliant Contract with America from '94), the empowered Democrats have come up with an inspirational set of Everyman issues that they want to tackle in "the first 100 hours" of the new Congress.  Catchy marketing, and, using 100 hours vs. 100 days shows an acknowledgement of our high-speed culture.

The Democrats have taken a lot of well-deserved heat in the past for being a crazy-quilt, incoherent collection of special interests vs. a true, national party.  Hopefully the discipline they've shown in their pre-election marketing and in the aftermath of the election will bode well for their future prospects.  And for us all.

Posted by Todd Defren at 04:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A fair number of Social Media News Release "101" questions have cropped up lately. That's a good sign! It seems every time I turn around, I hear about a new Social Media release. Thankfully, most of these are success stories. But there are many "basic" questions that still crop up, in the blogosphere and in my in-box. (And some not-so-basic questions, too.) Luckily I am not the only fella with answers, musings, and advice.

Christie Goodman of the San Antonio Byline Blog recently asked several good, basic questions about SMNRs. A few of the questions she's asked are reflected by recent inquiries in my in-box, too, so I thought I'd use this forum to answer some of these questions. (Where I did not know an answer, I'm borrowing input from the smart folks who hang out at the Social Media Release Google Group.)

Once you figure out how to set up the DiggIt link, how can you test it?

Using the URL "http://www.digg.com/submit" is the safest, dummy-proof way to do this. Anyone who chooses to Digg your SMNR needs to be logged in to Digg, anyway. If they are already logged in, this link will ask the user to paste the hyperlink into the required field. Services like PRX Builder will do more sophisticated coding for you, as will the wire services (PRN, BW, MarketWire, et al.)

There is probably a better answer to this question. Any brainiacs wanna help out?

How do you set up a purpose-built Del.icio.us page or tags?

Go to del.icio.us. Set up an account. Keep in mind that the account name is based on your user name. So, if you are setting up a del.icio.us account for a client, use the client's name as the account's username. Then any tags you create are assigned to that account.

Alternately, you could create a del.icio.us account called "ChristieGoodman" and tag entries related to your client using their name as the tag. Thus, a "purpose-built" del.icio.us account is created, with the URL, del.icio.us/ChristieGoodman/CLIENTNAME. The "tagonomy" (vs. taxonomy) begets the customized URL.

What are the pros and cons of using a purpose-built Del.icio.us page or tags?

Please review this post. (It's a PR-Squared "Best Of," so you know it's gotta be good!) It should tell you what you need to know...

If you don’t have a blog but you do have a web site, do you still need to include a list of tags on the release?

This is a critical point that I need to blog about some more. The purpose of adding Technorati tags is NOT to "post" your press release to T'rati. T'rati does not even crawl the newswire sites! No, the purpose of adding T'rati tags is to put your SMNR into CONTEXT; to give the SMNR reader a sense of tangential conversations around your topic, even if those conversations have nothing at all to do with your news release!

If you distributing your release yourself rather than using a wire service, do you really e-mail the whole thing?

First, never email a release to a reporter who hasn't asked for it in advance. To do so is mere PR spam. Rather than email a SMNR, why not post it to your website's press section (it is so visual, and doing so helps SEO anyway!), and just provide the reporter with a link to the news release? Keep in mind that one of the core reasons for the development of the SMNR is to take advantage of the fact that 99.9% of reporters are familiar with the Web and use it as part of their daily work. A link should work just fine.

I hope this answers some of your questions, Christie (and everyone else)! Keep 'em coming.

Tags: social+media+news+release, hrelease, smnr, chris+heuer, tom+foremski, brian+solis, dave+evans, christie+goodman, social+media, public+relations, pr+2.0

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

According to an AP story from November 7th:

"In the first official communication posted to a blog by a chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox said he was intrigued by the idea of letting companies use Weblogs to disseminate important corporate information." Sweet!

It's important to note that Chairman Cox has not yet made an official ruling as to whether blog-based disclosure fulfilled the requirements of Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure), but the winds are clearly blowing in the right direction. It's amazing that a government entity is ahead of the times, for a change. Only about 30 companies from among the FORTUNE 500 now maintain official blogs. Some of the issues that have delayed their entry into the blogosphere no doubt stemmed from concerns about the SEC's disclosure rules. Perhaps Chairman Cox's comment on Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz's blog will spur ever-greater numbers of heavy-hitters to consider the benefits of direct interaction with their stakeholders.

Come on in, the water's fine!

Hat-tips: Chris Heuer of Social Media Club has a great analysis of this event, and I owe a hat-tip as well to Kevin Dugan, whose post first alerted me to this news.

Tags: social+media, blogs, kevin+dugan, chris+heuer, sec, jonathan+schwartz, christoper+cox

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:22 AM | Permalink

The old chestnut, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em," is probably the best way to describe recent announcements by both Gannett and the NY Times that these august news organizations will be restructuring themselves and their content engines to take advantage of consumers' growing interest in the creative process.

At the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, NYT publisher Arthur Sulzburger, Jr. noted the difficulties of vetting the work of amateurs. True enuff. The credibility of the Gray Lady is at risk with every line of text that's allowed on its site. The content produced by "amateurs" may be valuable, and it certainly engages the passion of these citizen journalists (passion which drives increased page views, which drives advertising revenue), but, it can be difficult to manage the quality, credibility, authenticity, and volume.

As described in this article by a Gannett exec, a great example of both the benefits and challenges of embracing citizen journalism occurred this summer, when The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL) asked its readers to investigate complaints of exorbitant fees being charged for connecting newly-constructed homes to water/sewer lines:

"The response overwhelmed the paper ... Readers spontaneously organized their own investigations: Retired engineers analyzed blueprints, accountants pored over balance sheets, and an inside whistle-blower leaked documents showing evidence of bid-rigging ... For six weeks the News-Press generated more traffic to its website than ever before ... In the end, the city cut the utility fees by more than 30 percent, one official resigned, and the fees [became] the driving issue in [an upcoming]."

Sounds amazing, right? Power to the people, yea! This was good news for The News-Press, too --- the passionate response drove far greater readership than normal.

But there are dangers to be concerned about:

• Amateurs are still amateurs --- the rules of professional conduct, sourcing, attribution, and ethics do not apply to Joe Sixpack, no matter how well meaning he may be as he engages in quixotic quests for truth.

• There's no consistency to consumer passion --- a lack of reliability that limits any traditional newspaper's ability to completely re-architect its business model in favor of Social Media. (Sure, passions were enflamed by the malfeasance of Fort Myers officials and contractors. But would those same thousands of volunteers have shown up to cover a town council meeting?)

• If the "mob" was dead wrong, whose reputation would suffer? What if 20 out of 1,000 of the citizen journalists in the Fort Myers episode had found evidence that those outsized fees were within industry norms? Would their evidence have been swamped by the mob? What if a dirty contractor enlisted 50 cronies to post bogus research? Would the The News-Press have the resources to assign professional journalists to look into these counter-claims, despite their paltry signal:noise ratio?

I applaud the embrace of consumer-generated content by America's leading publishers. It's a welcome sign that they have taken a hard look at how to boost revenues and achieve sustainable relevance. I would just caution anyone who relishes in this trend to remember ...

The more open we become, the more open we become to hard-edged, noisy special interest groups and spammers of all stripes. The mainstream media has always served as a sensible filter against zealotry, and that's one role that cannot be abdicated.

Tags: nytimes, web2.0conference, arthur+sulzburger, wired, infoworld, social+media, cgm, news-press

Posted by Todd Defren at 12:46 PM | Permalink

I felt the need to post about the Lessons Learned from last week's brouhaha. Not everyone agreed with that choice. What do you think?

Please note --- this is the first time I am trying out a Quimble poll, and my tech guy isn't here to guide me... Right now I've got fingers crossed that this works! If it does not work, please feel free to "vote" in the Comments section. I am curious about your thoughts on the matter. Should PR agencies strive to be more transparent? Is there more at stake?

We have a client who was obsessed with getting their new 2.0-style company featured in TechCrunch.

We approached it the right way, through the right channels, with respect for the people and processes at Arrington's gig. We tried. We failed. It happens. Otherwise, the early reception in other media has been good.

But the client was obsessed with TechCrunch. Without consulting their SHIFT team, the company's founder left a critical comment at TechCrunch. The client basically questioned Arrington's integrity. This comment got picked up by ValleyWag. Which got picked up by Digg. Which led to Mr. Arrington posting at-length in defense of his integrity.

Some of the reader comments and blog posts that emerged in support of Michael Arrington questioned our client's PR counsel. Perfectly understandable. If a SHIFTer had given our client the advice to "piss off Michael Arrington," rest assured that that employee would be raking leaves right now.

In fact, though, our advice to the client PRIOR to the incident was, "Your judgment is impaired. Step away from the keyboard. Leave TechCrunch alone. Let Arrington run his blog, you should go run your business." The client agreed, but later suffered a late-night spasm of righteous indignation --- near an Internet connection. That's one of the dangers of working with entrepreneurs. "Passion" is a double-edged sword.

Our advice AFTER the incident was, "Apologize. Publicly. Now. Then, step away from the keyboard. Throw yourself on the mercy of the blogosphere and cross your fingers."

We'll see what happens.

Written from the SNCR conference --- where I am sitting in on a session on corporate blogging practices!

Update, 11-03-06...

FYI, if you choose to comment today, you should know I'll be away from the computer most of the day, so your comment might not show up til later tonight or over the weekend. I ain't duckin' this one!

Tags: michael+arrington, valleywag, techcrunch, digg

Posted by Todd Defren at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)