Category

Public Relations

Jul 11
Love0

Morgan Stanley Advisers to Start Using Twitter, LinkedIn: Fair Warning

By Public Relations, Social Media

In May, financial industry giant Morgan Stanley decided to allow its brokers to begin using social media in the course of their jobs. Since the use of social media tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and even Facebook have become mainstream methods of doing business for most industries, the financial industry has, somewhat understandably, been dragging its feet.

According to Reuters, and based on a memo released from the company:

Next month, a test group of 600 Morgan Stanley Smith Barney advisers will be allowed almost full use of LinkedIn, the professional networking site, and restricted use of Twitter, the micro-blogging service, according to an internal memo obtained by Reuters on Wednesday.

Within six months, the program will be expanded to the firm’s entire force of 17,800 advisers.

“The emergence of social media has changed the way in which people communicate with each other and companies interact with clients,” Morgan Stanley Smith Barney U.S. wealth management boss Andy Saperstein said in the memo. . .

Morgan Stanley is not allowing full use of social media. The freewheeling nature of social networks — letting users link to other websites, spread messages and images — has made them wildly popular but a source of anxiety for brokerage compliance officials.

The company will use social web monitoring software to keep tabs on and collect all activity, but look for brokers to make mistakes as they navigate unfamiliar waters.

I’m terribly curious about what “restricted use of Twitter” and “almost full use” of LinkedIn means, exactly.

I’m also terribly curious about what kind of training the 17,800 advisers are completing between now and November. Former financial advisers from other companies have shared with me the “social media guidelines” handed down from their corporate offices. To sidestep proper use of social platforms, the companies have given advice to the advisers that goes against the grain of the entire Internet culture. In short, cold calling, based on scraped contact information and relationships gleaned from prospects’ social networks. Mark my words and put a note on your calendar for November 2011; expect to be contacted by someone you don’t know via a social network, reaching out to help you with your financial needs.

Every Morgan Stanley adviser should know this: don’t engage if you’re not 100 percent sure you understand the culture of social media and where the culture and the rules of your company (and compliance standards) intersect.

Hey Morgan Stanley — if you’re listening, and I hope you are, I’d really like to know how you’re helping your advisers adjust to the new culture. And while you’re waiting for that flip to be switched in November, take a look at some of my recommendations of how your industry can be using social platforms right now, and in the future.

Jul 06
Love0

How to Handle a Client that Won’t Take Your Counsel

By Public Relations, Social Media

My friend Ken and I were chatting via instant messenger while working last night. An excerpt of our conversation follows:

Ken Mueller

Ken Mueller and his mom in a recent photo

Sent at 8:00 PM on Tuesday
Marijean: so serious question
when you have a client who WILL NOT DO what you recommend and it’s obvious
do you:
a) dump the client
b) make sure no one knows they are your client
or
c) let people know they’re a client and let the cards fall where they may
(maybe this is a blog post?)
Ken: hold on
mom
Marijean: HI MOM!
Ken: ha
Sent at 8:04 PM on Tuesday

Our conversation was delayed while Ken talked to his mom on the phone and I forged ahead turning my question into this blog post. I’m curious what other PR people and social media professionals think about this. What do you do when it’s really evident that a client you’re working with is NOT taking your counsel? It’s embarrassing, right? Clients can’t change overnight, obviously and sometimes behavior or cultural changes must happen before client communications are up to snuff . . . but while they’re getting up to speed, what’s your approach?

Thanks in advance for the input — and everybody, say “Hi!” to Ken’s mom!

 

 

Jul 05
Love0

The Chez Stands Alone

By Communications, Public Relations

He was the incredibly handsome (or so my revisionist history would have me believe) older brother of my college dorm-mate. We met at a party and went on a couple of casual dates before the incident that would forever mar him, flipping him from the “possibility” to the “unthinkable” pile.

A basement coffeehouse, less than a mile from my first university, was being discovered by my fellow students in the pre-hipster era. A cult classic for my crowd (the writers) the spot was favorite for (bad) poetry readings and offered overstuffed couches, board games and shelves of books long before Starbucks locations sprang forth from Seattle into the mainstream. My freshman fiction writing teacher introduced our class to the joint and we, the pre-emo, indie/cultish writer-types considered it “ours.”

I have, as you may have guessed, a long history of love affairs with words and their writers.

The Chez (which, to my shock, still apparently exists, 21+ years later) was the first coffeehouse I ever frequented, before I was a coffee drinker; before laptops; before the Internet; before, in short, everything I take for granted today.

The cute boy who captured my attention was not a writer. He was a jock. So when he suggested one evening we go to a new place he’d heard of called “The Cheese” I was momentarily confused. And then I understood . . . my beloved haven was not only being mispronounced but maligned by someone who couldn’t possibly understand its charm. I mean, this was not a place one could get plastered on cheap beer drunk from a plastic red cup.

It’s one memory I have of misused language significantly affecting my impression of someone. Shallow? Maybe on the surface, but it was all that misunderstanding implied that made me rethink any future with this guy. Have you ever had language affect your impression of another person? Was it intentional or a misunderstanding?

Jun 27
Love0

React and Respond: Letters to the Editor and Online Comments Get the Job Done

By Public Relations

One of the more eye-opening moments I had as a young PR intern had to do with letters to the editor. A naive idealist, I thought all letters to the editor (LTE) were written by earnest citizens, penned by hand and mailed with a stamp. While some surely are (I hasten to add, for you, the Easter Bunny believers), many are not.

Now, all LTEs are signed by earnest citizens. All are sent by or delivered to publications by those putting their money and hearts behind the sentiment in the aforementioned letters, but LTEs are often suggested, originated, drafted and refined by people just like me: Public Relations professionals.

Publications worth their salt (or the paper on which they’re printed, in the case of those who still follow this process), follow up with those who have signed the LTEs and ask them to verify that they, indeed, have lent their name to the letter and the words within are theirs.

(Am I really telling a trade secret here? Or are you all nodding the head bob of the cynical with me?)

Today almost everything printed or broadcast is also found online, allowing for a faster reaction and response and, fortunately the speed-of-light submission of e-mailed letters to the editor and of course, the online comment, appearing just below the original article, to which the comment or letter reacts.

It’s a gift to the PR industry, actually, to be able to respond so thoroughly and quickly in this way. The opportunity for a client to correct misinformation in a very visible way, or to defend itself in a public forum is extremely valuable and clients always appreciate the opportunity and support to get the job done.

Chiming in is important, and it’ s been part of my job for more than 15 years to monitor the news on behalf of my clients and alert them to opportunities to react and respond. My favorite of these are those that offer controversy, stir up emotion or even allow for a crisis to potentially be averted. Few activities in the PR practice are more fun for me than crafting the crisis message and response. The current speed of news is the most challenging to stay on top of, but I enjoy watching and listening, and making the recommendations to get into the conversation when it’s appropriate for my clients to do so.

Have you ever written a letter to the editor? Is this information news to you?

Jun 20
Love0

Color me Doubtful: Barack Obama to Tweet “Personally”

By Public Relations

Barack ObamaAfter what already seems like a long summer of mis-tweeting politicians and executives, the news of our most senior executive composing his own tweets seems out of place. Obama for America has been managing the president’s Facebook and Twitter accounts, but now, going into the 2012 presidential campaign, President Barack Obama will contribute to the Twitter timeline signing his personally authored tweets with a “– BO.”

Now, I may be a jaded, cynical public relations person but my gut tells me this is not so. Would the leader of the free world really be allowed to update Twitter personally? Will Barack Obama be allowed to DM? To use hashtags, to Twitpic and @reply? Will he get to add new users to follow — or, better yet, choose who to unfollow? What if he makes a mistake? What then?

What do you think? Is there anyway the Twitter account @BarackObama would ever be tweets straight from the man himself?

[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/BarackObama/status/82505176849711104″]