Category

Media

Mar 15
Love0

You Can Pry My Facebook Password From My Cold, Dead Hands

By Media, Social Media

There was an amazing article posted last week that reported a new and highly disturbing trend. Here is a recap. Apparently, more and more employers, college admissions offices, and even sports coaches are under the mistaken impression that they have the right to request or even demand login and password information to potential employees or applicants’ Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube accounts so they can browse them for potentially damaging information contained in posts.

I’m sorry, but I think that’s completely, totally, heinously inappropriate. Not only is it a serious invasion of privacy, highly presumptuous, rude, obnoxious, patronizing and potentially illegal, but it probably won’t work. Any player, student, or applicant worth having will probably run away from these opportunities because they will see this amazing privacy breach for what it is, a serious overreach. In other cases, they will simply conceal their true identity with dummy accounts designed to retain the privacy we all know is our right. Others will simply close their accounts, if the job is serious enough.

My problem is that I don’t think anyone should have to choose between employment, education, sports, and privacy. Last time I checked, it was an inalienable right. I can see certain industries, like national security or defense, requesting accounts to be closed or suspended, but I cannot advocate requiring actual access to personal account information as a condition of anything valid or legitimate, ever, nor can I condone forced friendship for “monitoring purposes.” What happens in the public area is fair game. Scrutinize all you want any thing I post for public consumption. But my friends, my data, my private time outside of areas I agree to share are just that–MINE. You can pry them from my cold dead hands. If you dare.

Thoughts?

Jan 12
Love0

8 News Values: How to Tackle Media Relations and Keep Your Credibility

By Media, Public Relations

The media (and the world at large) would like your help. Understanding the difference between what’s news and what’s not is super important. As users of smartphones, blogs and YouTubes we are ALL the media. As consumers of news, we, through consumption, sharing and engaging, determine what’s interesting to the masses.

Ah, such responsibility!

As a business person, marketer or communications lead for a nonprofit it is critically important to fully “get” the eight news values, and to understand that your “news” must fit into one of these buckets and you must have a pretty clear understanding of how to articulate that fit. If you can’t, and keep wondering why the media “never” covers what you pitch, you might take some time to seriously consider whether what you’re sharing is really even news at all.

I’ve been using the following list to help pitch news, create client editorial calendars, teach public relations students, mentor people in my industry and keep my own public relations on message for many years. As a special bonus, I’m offering you the workshop handout, Is it News? from Jaggers Communications to download, print, post above your desk and on your refrigerator, at the end of this post.

8 News Values You Can Use

1. Proximity — is location a factor? What’s happening right in the client’s back yard?

2. Prominence — has someone famous aligned themselves with the company?

3. Significance — is this the first of its kind anywhere in the world? The biggest?

4. Timeliness — is there something happening “today only” or for a limited time?

5. Human interest — is there a story to be told about the owner of the company, its employees or its customers? There’s potential for a whole series of stories here.

6. Unusualness — what makes this story or this client really different from its competition? What is happening that rarely happens anywhere?

7. Conflict — this is not always the direction you want your news to take, but if your client has come into conflict with a customer, local authorities or a competing entity, the story may become that news rather than the news you want to share.

8. Currency (newness) — the value in news that is new lasts about two seconds in today’s speed-driven communications. It’s tricky to get in front of a story and share something that’s new, and it won’t be news unless you’re the very first to break it.

Now . . . go forth and be newsworthy!

Get the handout — Is it News? From Jaggers Communications

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Dec 16
Love0

333 Reasons to Use Video to Market Your Small Business

By Communications, Media, Social Media

My friends at Nest Realty launched a video campaign “Live where you love; love where you live.” I was delighted to be included, along with other small business owners in Charlottesville, Va. including Liza Borches from Volvo of Charlottesville, Will Richey of Revolutionary Soup. The approach of featuring real people in a community to share the genuine stories of our love for where we live is pretty compelling. Take a look and tell me what you think — (by the way, 333 people have watched this video at this writing — all probably convinced to drop everything and move to Charlottesville, Va.

 

Oct 24
Love0

Zombies and Marketing: How to Make Use of the Walking Dead to Boost Business

By Communications, Media

Zombies are hot. Vampires and werewolves are yesterday’s news. If you’re a marketer, or own a consumer business, you may not be giving a lot of thought to zombies.

Photo credit: Yahoo advertising blog

THIS MAY BE A HUGE MISTAKE.

Westlake Ace Hardware stores in Omaha has brilliantly optioned zombies to help boost sales, offering a Zombie Preparedness Center.

The Centers for Disease Control, let’s face it — not an organization known for its sense of humor — has formed a Zombie Task Force, as a vehicle for education on crisis response and preparedness as well as bioterrorism.

Danger. Zombies. Run! Is a 5K event taking place in Charlottesville (and other versions of it happen in cities all over the country) mixing the zombie craze with fitness. Not to be outdone, our local ice park is hosting Danger. Zombies. On Ice. 

Could you be using zombies in your marketing efforts? How? Here are some ideas:

  • Create a news release announcing your preparedness plan for the zombie apocalypse;
  • Design a service for zombies-only (dry cleaners? hair salons?) and announce special offers for the undead;
  • Own a shoe store? What are the best shoes to outrun a zombie in? Or, if you’re a member of the walking dead, what shoes will hold up to your tireless trudging in search of people to eat?
  • If you have a restaurant, consider a special zombie menu featuring brains; and
  • Hire a few zombies to entertain customers (or scare them to death) —  not recommended if your customers are primarily children.

Don’t wait — the zombie timeline runs from now till Halloween, otherwise the trend may be, well, dead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sep 28
Love0

The State of Social Media: 3rd Quarter, 2011

By Communications, Media, Public Relations

Listen to the full interview with Coy Barefoot.

State of Social Media on Charlottesville Right Now

Nielsen has published its third quarter, 2011 report on social media usage in the United States. While may of the results are unsurprising to those of us working in media or communications, there are highlights from the report worth mentioning and worth the particular attention of certain industries.

The study, and the overall results are of interest to any marketer or business owner as they dramatically impact the way we do business, attract and keep customers. Some highlights to consider:

More women view video on social networks, but men watch longer.

If you’re using video in your marketing, how does this change the way you’re creating and sharing video? Are men or women your primary audience?

You can scoff at online games all you want; the figures speak for themselves. Internet users are spending more time playing social games than they are spending on e-mail. 

If you’re a marketer or responsible for the marketing success of your business, paying attention to the significance of gaming is important. It may be more effective to gamify your content than continue sending e-mails to your customer base. What does that mean for your promotional structure? How do you make a game of your customer interaction? Have you ordered Domino’s Pizza online? Buy a pizza and experience what a successful social gaming promotional campaign looks like. (The pizza’s gotten a lot better recently, too.)

Another particular point of interest to marketers and business owners:

When compared to the average adult internet user, active adult social networkers are 47% more likely to be heavy spenders on shoes, clothing and accessories.

If this is what you sell, knowing who the social networkers are in your community is critical.  We also know that social networkers are influential offline as well as on; creating value for this audience is important to your business as its revenue.

If your business is a late adopter, or still dabbling without a specific online strategy, get in this game now, before you’re left in the dust.

What highlights from the Nielsen report resonate the most for your business?