PR News & Opinion

Lessons Learned

2008-04-03T18:48:22Z

Goldman & Associates is fortunate to have worked with clients in the automotive industry for over 15 years. We have witnessed first hand the unique challenges that face auto manufacturers, dealer groups, trade organizations and after market suppliers. The internet has created a new frontier for our automotive sector clients as it has for most everyone. And while, for the most part, the web has improved their ability to effectively communicate with customers, there are times when it has proven to be something of a challenge.

The following lesson comes from an automotive dealer out of Lincoln, Nebraska who is not a Goldman client, but who recently encountered some PR pitfalls while trying to utilize the world wide web. This is yet another example of why all organizations need to be vigilant in dealing with their internet image.

A BMW dealer put a brand new BMW M3 on eBay, without a reservation, meaning that standard auction procedures would be practiced and the highest bid would be honored. Someone wasn’t paying close enough attention to the auction listing and a bidder won the pricey car for $60K. The general manager of the BMW dealership wrote an email to the winning bidder stating that the auction was a mistake, and the car should have never been listed. The winning bidder posted the whole story (including the email) on M3 internet forums, where devout BMW afficionados congregate. AutoBlog, one of the most widely read automotive publications on the net, picked it up and it all snowballed from there. People found the manager’s picture on the company website and began posting new “enhanced” images of him all over the Internet. The manager then wrote the winning bidder again and asked him to have all of it stopped. He is now on YouTube.

Lesson #1-The web can be a cruel place. Especially when not actually required to face a person, there are some who have few qualms about exploiting your faults and making you pay dearly for mistakes.

Lesson#2-Emails can and do get out. Once you click send, you have little to no control over their final destination. When dealing with sensitive issues, better surely to calmly plan your strategy and schedule a call or a face-to-face.

Lesson#3-Things on the internet move lightening fast. This entire scenario played out in just over a week. It’s prudent to have the ability to respond with equal swiftness. Engage. Engage. Engage. Ignoring it will not make the problem go away!

Lesson#4-When things don’t go your way, sometimes it’s best to just bite the bullet and admit that you’ve lost. A small loss in revenue doesn’t seem so bad when compared with loads of bad PR that can potentially cost your business much more over time. Also, it helps to laugh at yourself. The internet offers a plethora of avenues to express your side of the story, to ask for penance when you are wrong and to redeem yourself by adopting a self effacing, but honest persona.

YouTube Announces Awards, Plans Upgrade

2008-03-21T18:09:09Z

YouTube, the web's perennial video sharing powerhouse, recently announced the winner's of the second annual YouTube Video Awards. (We know, it's March of 2008 and the name for the tardy 2007 awards is just dreadful.) The YouTube Video Award nominees were chosen from the site's "most buzz-worthy content" and categories included music, sports, comedy, instructional, short film, inspirational, commentary, creative, politics, series, eyewitness and adorable. With names like "Harry Potter Hand Puppets," "Human Tetris," and "How to Solve a Rubiks Cube (Part One)," this year's winners are a good indication of just how much diversity there is on YouTube. And while both the nominated and victorious videos featured the strange, funny and downright unbelievable (see "The Battle at Kruger"), they also offered some premium publicity for those involved (see "Obama Girl" or winner Tay Zonday's "Chocolate Rain").

In other YouTube news, CNET reports that the company has recently taken steps to make it easier for developers or anyone building a website or creating applications "to upload videos straight to YouTube; let users comment, rate and favorite the videos; and customize and control the Flash player in which the videos are played."

The Digital Divide

2008-03-18T20:06:11Z

This piece, recently published in The New York Times, examines the extent to which Internet companies such as Yahoo, Google and Microsoft are collecting user information to better gauge what types of advertisements to show them. It’s certainly very enlightening from a consumer standpoint, but it also touches on something that PR people are going to have to start coming to terms with, something deemed "the digital divide".

The rich troves of data at the fingertips of the biggest Internet companies are also creating a new kind of digital divide within the industry. Traditional media companies, which collect far less data about visitors to their sites, are increasingly at a disadvantage when they compete for ad dollars.

Increasingly, advertisers are less concerned with size, which has typically been measured by unique page hits, and more concerned with substance, increasingly being measured by the amount of information these web companies can learn about internet users. This, of course, allows them to better determine the habits and preferences of consumers and therefore tailor ads to specific desires. So, what does this mean for public relations other than to reinforce the perception that traditional media is losing both its ad revenue and its clout? PR can effectively use this data to do the same thing! As PR practitioners are fast becoming content providers for the web, we too can improve our aim and better target our communications to the intended audience. Better demographic information would allow us to identify those who have similar interests as those already consuming our content. If we can find a way to utilize this data, then perhaps the divide won’t seem so great.

Email Subject Line Key to Capturing Media’s Attention

2008-03-11T15:55:18Z

Newspapers and internet media don’t have headline writers for nothing. It’s a specialized craft within a craft and the key to capturing the reader’s attention. In online public relations, an important tool to gaining the media’s interest is a good email subject line. Many of the same principles for headline writing apply to email subject lines. Putting some real thought into creating a compelling subject line can make the difference between an editor or reporter reading the press release or deleting the email.

To get the most bang for your email buck, first review the release. Think how to best craft the subject line to encapsulate the newsworthiness of the story idea. Writing the subject line sentence in the active tense is usually best for making a point. And a line that is provocative, counterintuitive or contrary will often get the recipient to examine it twice. It’s also a good practice to revisit the line to see if it can be edited to be more concise. While a short sentence line is preferred, it is not always possible, especially when there is a more complex point to be conveyed.

The following email subject line was key in getting the attention of a Los Angeles Times editor and subsequent news coverage for a client in the senior living industry.

Retiree Labor May be Solution to Caregiver Shortage

While not every subject line can be a work of art, it’s good to keep in mind the importance of their impact - or lack thereof.

Why Did Last Night's Starbucks Closure Make News?

2008-02-27T19:26:27Z

Ordinarily it wouldn't be surprising that a HUGE and omnipresent company like Starbucks could, on any given day, land on the AP wires, and in pretty much every major daily across the country. Earnings reports, the departure of a VIP or a large scale product change would all be acceptable justification for major coverage. No such event occurred yesterday. Rather, Starbucks announced that it was closing its doors for a few hours to train employees.

Hmmm. Insert gasp here.

If this "story" doesn't make it painfully obvious that the media covers things of personal interest even when they are not particularly newsworthy, we can't imagine what would! Is there another national chain that would elicit such coverage? We have often thought that it would be amusing to make a list of weekly/monthly PR gaffes, but the hoopla surrounding the three hour closure has led us to think that we ought to create two categories, PR Gaffes and PR Gifts! Starbucks is laughing all the way to the bank, no doubt!

Google News Commenting Feature: Value Without Vitriol

2008-02-22T21:03:24Z

With all the vitriol that is present in the online arena today, it is refreshing to find a cyber conversation where the participants don’t resort to vicious personal attacks or indecipherable shorthand. Perhaps it is an elitist sentiment, but reading the comments on Google News is refreshing in a way that reading comments on The New York Times website or the Huffington Post absolutely is not. We know, it’s ironic that Google claims that the internet is all about openness yet only allows comments from "authority" sources or those who have been mentioned in a particular news article. The difference is that the comments do what they are intended to do in providing alternate or additional points of view that are relevant. Besides, if one really wanted the entire conversation uncensored, they could read the comments from the original article.

For PR practitioners, commenting on an article about your company, client or industry that matriculates on Google News (and they claim to aggregate more than 4500 news sources) is a valuable way to clarify a position or highlight an issue that the original news coverage might not have covered. It lends credibility to an online response in a way that commenting on a blog cannot always do. These comments regarding the recent USDA beef recall are an excellent example of the ways in which Google News commenting feature can be utilized.

Social Networks and Open Source Technology Aid Search and Challenge Marketers

2008-02-19T13:57:40Z

Bill Tancer, of Time, recently wrote a really enlightening column about the future of internet search. He suggests that, given the astronomical increase in traffic, traditional methods of search such as Google and Yahoo, which are initiated by the user and utilized in an on-demand sort of way, could eventually give way to a more fluid search process based on social networks such as Facebook or MySpace. Increasingly, he suggests, rather than typing a word or phrase into the Google search bar and populating a list of links to wade through, users will just post a message on their Facebook page and wait for a more personalized answer. It’s an interesting concept for advertisers and marketers, because the challenge becomes determining the best way to communicate with or be-“friend” people who have insulated themselves somewhat from the greater sea of web users. We don't see traditional search going away. Rather, we see giants like Google and Yahoo adapting their tools to allow users a social networking experience.

Additionally, he touches on “open source search”. I recently visited the new Wikia search engine that Tancer mentions. Wikia is an open source site that allows users to create and edit search results. Out of curiosity, I typed in the name of a local military base and received 20 results, including the homepage to the base, local weather, city government websites, and real estate information. Not bad. I typed the same search term in Google and received 109,000 results (the first page was of equal quality to the Wikia results). The real difference was that there was a message to me, the user, on the Wikia site...

“We do not have a mini article about "Norfolk naval station". Improve the search results for everyone by starting this article!”

Upon further inspection I found that since the project is still in Beta, one can currently create an article, but it will not yet be included in the search results. From a public relations standpoint, the possibilities are quite exciting. Essentially, you can create a “Mini Article” about yourself, complete with your key messages and critical information. Granted, there is no guarantee that another user couldn’t later change the information. This is why businesses have to be engaged in social media. If you are not providing information about your company, there’s a chance that someone else is. It’s one of the cardinal rules of good PR, stay in control of the message. That’s difficult to do if you don’t know what messages are out there. Open source technology coupled with what is generally accepted to be increasing public reliance on internet search ensures that there is opportunity for businesses that choose to engage.

Writer's Strike Comes to an End

2008-02-13T18:11:41Z

Here's a link to the L.A. Times coverage of the deal recently made between the Writer's Guild of America and Hollywood studios. The new media issues that the writers were concerned about were resolved...sort of. Writers will be given some residual payment for shows broadcast on the web, but studios still don't have to pay up if they stream their shows on the internet within a few weeks of initial broadcasts (which, of course, is when most people download repeat content). The biggest winner seems to be the union as writers creating web content will now officially fall under their jurisdiction.

"Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as TV migrates to the Internet and platforms for new media are developed," said Patric M. Verrone, president of the WGA, West.

As Newspapers Transform, Online Readership Increases

2008-02-07T21:03:19Z

Here's another article illustrating the transition that newspapers and consumers are making to the web. It generally reaffirms findings that the AP reported on a couple of weeks ago, but interestingly, also discusses the spike in online readership that occurred just prior to the holiday season. Increasingly, this type of detailed traffic information will be useful for those creating an annual PR plan.

Our Team Won the Super Bowl...and We're Not Talking About the NY Giants

2008-02-05T18:54:21Z

What a super Super Bowl! The football was all right too, but have you seen the Nielson numbers? 97.5 million viewers tuned into the game (and even more watched the ads if you can believe it) last Sunday. Of course we've long known that the Super Bowl is like a coming out party for advertisers, a coronation of sorts, where a 30 second spot runs $2.7 million and is thoroughly dissected the next day around water coolers (and in newspapers) the world over.

Our point, and the reason we as PR practitioners are claiming a share of the victory, is that the Super Bowl really has become a premiere Public Relations event. The stories and hype surrounding the big game go on for weeks and give PR folks the perfect opportunity to showcase their people and products on a HUGE stage. We have, in recent weeks, read literally hundreds of articles regarding the advertisements, products, promotions, places, websites, parties, and celebrities associated in any way with the Super Bowl and conversely, probably only dozens about the game itself.

Corporate America, advertisers and public relations practitioners may not get a trophy, but they certainly have something to celebrate after Super Bowl XLII.