PR junkie

Social media experts interviewed on NPR

2010-03-18T06:17:01Z

In case you didn't hear it, Shel Holtz, a social media consultant and popular Ragan instructor, was interviewed on the radio program "Marketplace," a product of American Public Media, which airs (in Chicago, at least) on National Public Radio. Holtz was joined by Scotty Monty, Ford's social media chief, Brian Lusk, Southwest's communication manager, and others, to discuss how companies are using social media. Here's one nugget from the interview. According to Holtz, people with social media skills are in demand. "If you look position descriptions for companies that are hiring in their communications department, their marketing department," he told Marketplace. "They're all looking for social skills." You can read this transcript or listen to the program here.

Letterman: ‘Top 10 signs you’re spending too much time on Twitter’

2010-03-16T04:54:05Z

Here's a link to the video.

Top 10 Facebook privacy settings

2010-03-11T21:00:00Z

This afternoon, Scott Meis, the senior project and social media director at Carolyn Grisko & Associates, a Chicago strategic communications firm, presented a PR Daily webinar all about how to use Facebook for PR. During the webinar, he offered the top 10 privacy settings for Facebook. Here they are: 1. Use your friend lists. That way, you can group your networks together and create customized lists. 2. Remove yourself—if you want—from Facebook search results. 3. Remove yourself—if you want—from Google search. 4. Avoid the photo/video tag mistake. If you’re out on a weekend night and someone snaps photographs of you (doing something embarrassing, maybe), make sure you remove any tags on the pictures that will then show up on your wall. 5. Protect your own photo albums, that is, keep them private from certain members of your network if you like. 6. Customize your newsfeed. This way, you can prevent certain items from posting on your newsfeed. 7. Protect yourself from applications: Be careful which ones you try out on Facebook. The goofy ones may be too racy for certain members of your network. 8. Common sense: Avoid embarrassing wall posts. 9. Keep friendships private. Are you friends with someone and don’t want other members of your network to know about it? Go ahead and mark a friendship as private. 10. Make your contact information private. Of course, if you’re using Facebook for business only, then this might be a bad idea. You can follow Scott on Twitter and read his blog, Social Media Snippets. If you want to learn more about this webinar—including how to buy a recording of it—shoot me an e-mail. michaels@ragan.com.

Why does the NY Times think Hillary Clinton is a 3-foot angel?

2010-03-05T16:56:33Z

Check out this screen grab of The New York Times homepage on Tuesday: If you can’t see it, here’s a link to a clearer picture. I know Fox News sees Hillary Clinton that way, but The Times? (Thanks to word_czar for sharing this pic.)

Hilarious C-Span video from Second City

2010-02-25T18:24:19Z

From Second City Network: (h/t Mediaite)

How much do you know about Generation Y?

2010-02-25T14:24:39Z

So you were born between 1980 and 1992, technically making you part of Generation Y, the Millennial Generation, Generation Next, the Pepsi Generation, or whatever they’re calling it this week. But do you feel like you aren’t of your generation? Or, perhaps conversely, you were born before 1980, and, given what you’ve read about Gen Y, you feel like, yeah, you might be more Millennial than Baby Boomer. The Red Eye, which is the Chicago Tribune’s free commuter daily, a paper geared towards Millennials, created a quiz to determine your knowledge of Generation Y. (It comes on the heels of a Pew study about 20-somethings.) Give it a whirl. Maybe you know more—or less—about Generation Y than you think. Here’s the quiz. Good luck.

Dallas Tea Party makes splash with low-budget YouTube video

2010-02-24T04:16:13Z

Have you heard about the brouhaha between MSNBC host Keith Olbermann and the Dallas Tea Party? Olbermann attacked the group for its lack of diversity. In response, the Dallas Tea Party created an (allegedly) low-budget video, which it posted to YouTube. (I say allegedly, because these things tend to have backers with deep pockets. Maybe it just appears low budget, so bloggers and news media will refer to it as such.) The video is effective. It features several men and women of color calling out Olbermann and MSNBC for the network’s own lack of diversity. The group then invites Olbermann — and whoever’s watching — to attend their next event. So far the video has more than 100,000 views on YouTube, and it was posted on Monday. On his show Tuesday, Olbermann called the Web site, Mediaite, which posted the video (where I first saw it), “gullible.” Here’s the video — watch for the typo: Did you see it? At 1 minute 16 seconds there’s a photograph of a tea party protestor carrying a sign that says, “I did’nt serve 22 years for socialism.” Ouch.

Hey, Tiger, was that a press conference or a hostage video?

2010-02-19T17:12:58Z

Did you see it? The Tiger press conference? Here was the part that made the biggest impression on me. About 3 minutes and 40 seconds into the press conference, Tiger said, “For all that I have done, I am so sorry.” He then paused deliberately and made eye contact with the camera, presumably to lock eyes with you, the viewer, to really drive home the point. It was awkward, and it felt like one of those hostage videos when someone is forced, at gunpoint, to read a statement damning his or her nation and culture. As I watched, I wanted to say (with a heavy whisper): “Tiger, if you’re in danger blink twice and we’ll send help. “Blink twice.” And here's the video in case you missed it:

Which celebrities are more disliked than Tiger?

2010-02-18T23:27:10Z

When the world learned last November that Tiger Woods is a philandering sex maniac, the golfer went from being a hero to a zero. And that’s not a subjective observation. According to the Davie-Brown Index, which tracks America’s sentiments for celebrities, Tiger Woods fell from No. 9 to No. 2,411. There are 2,449 celebrities on the Index. That means Americans dislike 38 celebrities more than Tiger. On Thursday morning, I called Matt Fleming, a senior account manager at Davie-Brown. The Wall Street Journal cited him when mentioning Tiger’s slide on the Index. I want to ask Mr. Fleming to identify these 38 celebrities. (I can’t find the Davie-Brown Index for free online. Maybe it's just me. If you have it and would like to share it, please do.) I left Mr. Fleming a message, and by end of the day Thursday he had not yet responded. So, I thought I’d just speculate on which celebrities are more disliked (or, if you prefer, less popular) than Tiger. Here are 38 candidates (in no particular order) that could make the list. Thanks to all the Raganites—and my lovely wife—who chipped in on this one: 1. John Mayer 2. O.J. Simpson 3. Jessica Simpson 4. David Hasselhof 5. Kim Kardashian 6. Ann Coulter 7. Paris Hilton 8. Daryl Hall 9. John Oates 10. Carrot Top 11. Jon 12. Kate 13. “Speidi” (Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag) 14. Molly Ringwald 15. Adam Sandler 16. The Octomom 17. Larry the Cable Guy 18. Celine Dion 19. Don Imus 20. Chuck Norris 21. Rush Limbaugh 22. Steve Guttenberg 23. Yevgeny Plushenko 24. Martha Stewart 25. Giuliana Rancic 26. Howard Stern 27. Keith Olbermann 28. Chris Brown 29. Eliot Spitzer 30. Tila Tequila 31. Glenn Beck 32. Billy Bush 33. JWoww 34. The L.A. Lakers 35. Sean Hannity 36. The guy who played Screech Powers 37. Jay Leno 38. Sarah Palin What do you think? Who would you add to the list?

To promote stimulus act, Democrats create lame iPhone spoof

2010-02-17T17:22:02Z

A recent poll showed that most Americans believe the Obama administration has wasted half the money in the stimulus package. Many observers—perhaps most notably Time's Joe Klein—claim the White House has poorly communicated the stimulus to the American public. Well, today (February 17) is the anniversary of the signing of the Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus, and Democrats are out touting its effectiveness. To assist this PR push, Deomcrat-controlled Committee on Education and Labor created a 30-second video spoof of the popular iPhone commercials, “There’s an app for that.” This video is called, "There's an Act for that." Good idea, bad execution. I hope they didn't spend too much (taxpayer's) money on this video that only tells me someone on the committee really loves his or her iPhone. Here’s the video: (h/t to Chicago Sun-Times Washington correspondent Lynn Sweet.)

Southwest hits PR turbulence after dust up with too fat to fly director

2010-02-15T22:51:49Z

Tough President’s Day for Southwest Airlines: The Teflon brand, which has successfully thwarted several PR flare ups, is smack in the middle of the debate about airlines’ treatment of overweight passengers. As you probably know, a Southwest pilot asked the movie director, Kevin Smith, to leave a flight Saturday night, claiming Smith was too large—or as many media outlets have put it, "too fat to fly"—and insisting that he buy a second seat on the airplane. Southwest has a well-established policy of asking people deemed too large for their seats to purchase a second seat. Smith directed cult classics, like Clerks and Mallrats, and stinkers like his last three movies.* For the last 48 hours he’s directed a social media assault against Southwest, with tweets about the incident flowing minute-by-minute. Here are two back-to-back tweets he sent around 5 p.m. ET Monday. I put them together as one sentence. “Everyone’s so scared to admit to fault/f***up, for fear of getting sued. In front of y'all, I say this: I'll never sue @SouthwesternAir, no matter WHAT facts may emerge. I don't want any @SouthwestAir $$$, I want south western justice! You should get that, as you guys are Texans!” As you can probably tell, @SouthwesternAir is Southwest’s Twitter feed. In typical fashion, Southwest jumped all over the problem. By Sunday afternoon, the airline had addressed the issue on its blog, Nuts About Southwest. “First and foremost, to Mr. Smith; we would like to echo our Tweets and again offer our heartfelt apologies to you,” Southwest spokesperson Christi Day blogged. “We are sincerely sorry for your travel experience on Southwest Airlines.” According to Day, Southwest attempted to call Smith to apologize personally. Day explained the incident in the blog post; Smith spent Monday insisting that aspects of the blog post are untrue. For instance, the blog post said, “Mr. Smith originally purchased two Southwest seats on a flight from Oakland to Burbank—as he’s been known to do when traveling on Southwest.” Outraged, Smith said on his Twitter page that he does not regularly purchase two tickets on Southwest and, if even if it were true, slammed the airline for sharing personal information about a customer. This whole Smith incident is a problem for Southwest that could last longer than the usual whiplash-inducing news cycle. Here’s why: 1. Smith is a movie director. You know the saying about never picking a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. Well, what about a guy who buys celluloid by the metric ton? Southwest could become the butt of jokes in Smith’s future movies. 2. Smith is promoting a movie, Cop Out, right now. That means every reporter he speaks to will ask him about the incident. Judging by Smith’s reaction to the incident, he’ll be all too happy to respond. 3. Smith is social media savvy. The airlines is praised often—by Ragan maybe more than anyone—for its social media chops. And rightly so, the company has tackled many high-profile PR problems with its blog (remember the skirt incident?). However, Smith is an avid Twitter member with more than 1.5 million followers. Southwest has slightly more than 1 million followers. 4. Smith is representative of two-thirds of America. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 67 percent of U.S. adults, older than 20, are overweight or obese. (I can’t say how much Smith weighs, but in 2008, Smith told The Los Angeles Times that he planned to take a break from directing to lose weight before it compromises his health.) 5. Smith received a personal apology from Southwest. This is probably the biggest strike against the airlines. How often does the company personally apologize to all the other people it asks to buy two seats on Southwest flights? *Zack and Miri Make a Porno was pretty good.

Lost your job? Get a free six-month membership to Ragan Select

2010-02-12T20:47:02Z

My boss, Mark Ragan, told me about a special offer Ragan Communications announced today: A free six-month Ragan Select membership for communicators and PR pros who have lost their jobs. Here’s the scoop, from a letter that Mark wrote for Ragan.com:

This [offer] will give you access to our searchable, 15,000-article database of best practices in the industry. It will also give you the deepest discounts to any of our conferences or networking events.

Finally, you'll now be able to attend our free Ragan Select webinars, which we host throughout the year.

…

Ragan is offering these memberships on the honor system. We're not interested in you providing proof or letters stating your job status. We trust you.

Here's the link to sign up. While this offer currently applies to out-of-work communicators, Mark told me that he’s received a number of e-mails asking if the company will extend the offer to small-agency owners and independent practitioners struggling through the Great Recession. Many of you haven’t lost your jobs, but you have lost clients and are struggling to keep your doors open. Mark said to expect an announcement next week on whether this promotion will be extended to these communicators and, if so, how it will work. You can contact Mark Ragan directly with your questions or comments at ceo@ragan.com.

Where are all the weather pitches?

2010-02-11T02:46:25Z

As many of you who write press releases know, a national event often creates a flurry of freshly written press releases. For instance, the death of Michael Jackson generated dozens of pitches that opened with word of the King of Pop’s demise. But those were kind of weird, and gross. Which isn’t to say that press releases based on a hot news item are bad. On the contrary, they’re often effective, as long as the PR pro isn’t trying to back a truck into a cat’s ass—as my grandpa use to say. (No, he never said that. I just made it up.) I received one e-mail pitch about a special deal on press release distribution that talked mostly about the snowy conditions in Baltimore. But the actual pitch was an unrelated post script. I didn’t really get that. And that was it. I only received, or saw, one pitch based around the weather. I’m surprised. Maybe the wintry conditions cause a snow day in the PR world, too,

On comeback trail, Mel Gibson calls reporter an ‘a**hole’

2010-02-03T14:01:26Z

As you probably know, Mel Gibson is making his comeback—or trying to—after very public blowups involving his drinking and apparent anti-Semitism. Last weekend, his new movie, The Edge of Darkness, debuted at No. 2 at the box office, behind Avatar, and he’s been making the media rounds. And thank God for that, because if he wasn’t we wouldn’t have gems like this. Gibson did an interview live via satellite with Chicago’s WGN TV’s Dean Richards. During the interview, Richards—being a journalist and all—asked Gibson if the public perceives him differently because of personal problems. Gibson doesn’t like this question. The interview gets weird. You must see for yourself. (Beware, Gibson swears, once.)

J.D. Salinger worked in public relations, briefly

2010-01-28T23:25:23Z

As you know, reclusive author J.D. Salinger died. But did you know Salinger also worked in PR? According to one timeline of his life, he did PR work in the Army. Here's the scoop. He was drafted into the Army in 1942, after first receiving a medical deferment one year earlier due to a heart condition. In 1943, Salinger was promoted to the rank of staff sergeant and transferred to Patterson Field in Fairfield, Ohio, where he performed public relations work before joining the Army's counter-intelligence unit and heading off to Europe to fight in World War II. This timeline tells the story of Salinger’s days in the service.