Fun Friday: Proof that PR Geeks Will Do Anything for a LIttle Attention

It is certainly the case with @joePRguy.

Did he really do this video for @skydiver (Peter Shankman)? Nah! -- or to get a little attention for his upcoming venture? Absolutely!

JoePRGuy is planning to star in a reality TV show in the fall that has unemployed creative types living together in Pheonox in luxury (uh-huh) digs while taking on charities as clients.

What? No party planning?

In any case, this is a fun video. (I found it on PROpenMic)

Reality Check: Vote on Which Media Are Most Important to Your Business

I was just wondering which media people are most interested in attracting at this point. There is a lot of talk about the death of media, but I suspect it is still pretty important to most businesses, PR practitioners and agencies.

Take this poll and let's see where the readers of this blog are hoping to get their news seen.

Online Surveys & Market Research

By the way, I created this poll with a handy tool called Visu. The cool thing about this tool is that you can drop your poll on multiple sites and the answers are aggregated together. Many thanks to Melissa Shea (@irondaisy) for turning me onto this tool.

Amazon + Zappos: Trust Us, Nothing Will Change

 

 

"Some see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not." -George Bernard Shaw

 

via @Zappos (Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh) the day before the purchase of Zappos by Amazon was announced.

 

Photo provided by Shutterstock.com

10 Opportunity Costs and Risks of Ignoring Social Media

I wrote a comprehensive post a few years ago about the risks of blogging. You could just rename it 10 Risks of Social Media because they are the same ones. But I missed one important risk.

Opportunity costs.

There is a steep downside to not participating and these factors should be weighed as seriously as the risks of participating. Given the quick adoption underway and subsequent maturation of social media networks, the costs become more pronounced with each month that passes.

If you are a company wondering if you should get involved, or an employee, consultant or agency trying to verbalize why a client or boss should consider social media, this list is for you.

10 Opportunity Costs of Ignoring Social Media

1. Competitive disadvantage: More companies are incorporating social media into their communications arsenal every day. If your competitor does this before you and does it well, they will enjoy a significant bump in perception.
   
2. Rumors and innuendo: Some of the most harmful attacks a company could encounter include out-of-control rumors and false information. Rumors are much easier to correct when caught early. Being in social networks is a quick way to set the record straight.
   
3. No platform to respond in crisis: When there is an outcry in social media channels, a pre-existing presence in social networks give you an advantage.
   
4. Employees talk: With 35% of people that use the Internet saying that they use social networking sites, it is a given that a large percentage of employees have one or more social profiles. Moreover, It is likely that they will occasionally talk about their job. By giving these employees guidelines, companies can harness positive word of mouth, avoid inappropriate comments and have reasonable consequences in place.
   
5. Opportunities missed: One of the unintended benefits for companies that participate in online social communities and blogs are the opportunities that unexpectedly present themselves. Just by participating, a company sets itself up to be recognized in a positive manner by the community. These are as important to consider as the downsides (negative comments, etc.).
   
6. Silence can equal guilt: By not being present in social networks, it would take an unacceptable period of time to respond appropriately, causing a company to seem silent when it simply is out of touch. In social networks, response must happen in hours vs. days.
   
7. Lost search benefit, search engine optimization: Regularly updated information, such as a blog or news site, would help to raise the profile of of a company in search engines. And as it has been said, Google is the new corporate homepage.
   
8. Defined by others: The issues important to a company– and which impact its overall reputation – will be defined by others if you don't take a leadership position.
   
9. No early warning: Monitoring social media channels often reveals potential problems that could break out into a broader media audience. By not being involved, companies are missing out on this early warning system.
   
10. No direct channel: Social media provides a means by which you can reach out directly to your stakeholders without having to rely on the media to deliver the message. It is an important part of modern communications planning.

What other opportunity costs that you can think of?

UPDATE: BlogTalk Radio interviewed me about this post. You can listen to the interview here.

Related Articles:

• 10 Risks for Corporate Blogs (and Social Media Efforts)
• Beth Kanter, What's the opportunity cost when a nonprofit blocks employees from using social network sites during work hours?
• Jeff Molander, Convincing the Boss to Invest in Social Media (interview with Sam Decker Bazaarvoice)
• Katya Andresen, publisher of Getting to the Point, Guest Post: How to convince your skeptical boss social media has merit

I am Not Buying It! Why Twitter 'Media Value' Numbers are Rubbish

 

Sometimes there are things that just deserve a little extra attention, especially when they take your breath away with their audacity.

 

Like this tweet by Bill Sledzik:

 

 

I being a measurement geek immediately followed the link and was met by the following headline on this Ad Age article:

 

Twitter Generates $48 Million of Media Coverage in a Month

Oh, really?

 

After I caught my breath, I tweeted that this was "bogus old media measurement applied to new media."

 

The article goes on to point out that there were 2.73 billion impressions which, as Bill rightly points out, would put the value of a mention at 1.75 cents on average.

 

The story then takes another detour and compares the "media value" (Advertising Value Equivalency) of these mentions of Twitter to the marketing spend by Microsoft on its new search engine, Bing.

 

One would think that Microsoft will get a much better determination about how well that marketing spend impacts traffic to Bing than some arbitrary value that is assigned to media coverage.

 

What WOULD be valuable is to align these appearances of Twitter in the news media with the number of new users of the service. That would be of immense value to potential investors, sponsors or advertisers -- once Twitter comes up with a revenue model.

 

Funny thing is that all of this data is available and the calculations could probably be done, but it is much easier and sensational to say that the coverage was worth some astronomical dollar amount that no one would have spent anyway.

 

But people insist on using these bogus Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) measures because they seem important and useful. Moreover, they are easy to do, require little thought and are hard to discredit; even though the math is clearly fuzzy (aside: was that an oxymoron?).

 

Of course, this "measurement" was done by VMS and while AVEs are their bailiwick; they do not tie mentions to business value. Maybe they should have just stuck to monitoring, but that wouldn't have made headlines.

 

What do you think?

What Makes a Video Go Viral?

It's the holy grail. Just this week a client asked me, "What makes a video go viral?

Everyone wants to know the shortcut to a super-popular video.

Heck, I want to know myself.

One company that probably has a better idea than most is Visible Measures, a company whose business it is to measure viral video. They have a case study or two that you can read to give you a more scientific view of how stuff goes viral.

I think that the key is to be remarkable, emotional, or very funny. You have to move people to say, "Wow, I have to share this with my friends." Then you have to launch the video in such a way that is has a good chance of being seen. A popular blog is a great place for a video to take off, and don't forget links sent via e-mail.

A couple of years ago Dan Akerman wrote a compelling "how to launch a viral video" guide on TechCrunch that included some questionable practices, but he also peppered in some good ideas.

I picked three very different videos here, one is a commercial that is very funny and odd, which makes it fun; the second is a video put together by a patient at the Mayo Clinic that is both fun and heartwarming; and the third is a very lighthearted and funny video about how United destroyed one of its customer's guitars. What they all have in common is that they have that special mojo that sent them viral.

Let's hear from you, what do YOU think made these viral videos runaway hits?

Enjoy!

THE COMMERCIAL

Evian Rollerskating Babies - as of today, 5.9 million views

CAUGHT ON VIDEO

Mayo Clinic Couple, as of today, 4.1 million views

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THE SPURNED CUSTOMER

United Breaks Guitars, as of today 3.2 million views