By Chris Abraham

My buddy David Gelles is now a Technology reporter and blogger for the Financial Times and I was so happy to see David writing about Twitter PR, something very dear to my heart, Companies use Twitter to pack PR punch, including Scott Monty of Ford as well as the gang from PepsiCo’s Pepsi Max controversy (via Chris Abraham and FT.com)

Companies use Twitter to pack PR punch 
By David Gelles in San Francisco
Published: December 30 2008 19:16 | Last updated: December 30 2008 19:16

Twitter, a booming micro-blogging service, is inspiring business to manage its message in 140 characters or less.

Its streams of short text messages, publicly broadcast over the web, are being treated as the new frontline of internet conversation. Companies including Ford and PepsiCo have been dousing public relations fires with pithy communication bursts to the Twitter community.

“There’s a rapid-fire element to Twitter that causes conversations to go viral when something bad happens with a company,” says Jackie Huba, co-founder of the Society for Word of Mouth, an organisation that monitors social media. “Companies that have a Twitter account are prepared. If something goes wrong they can respond.”

PepsiCo turned to Twitter this month after users began posting criticisms of a Pepsi Max advertisement, which depicted a cartoon calorie committing suicide.

Huw Gilbert, communications manager for PepsiCo International, “tweeted”, or posted a public message, in reply. “Huw from Pepsi here,” he wrote. “We agree this creative is totally inappropriate; we apologise and please know it won’t run again.”

Critics saw Mr Gilbert’s post, with one “tweeting” back: “Thank you?.?.?.?for having the guts to get on Twitter on behalf of Pepsi and give us an update on the suicide ad.”

Such personal interaction from a company representative helps defuse a crisis, says Ms Huba. “People like feeling like they’re being heard,” she says.

Scott Monty, head of social media for Ford Motors, used Twitter to deflect criticism away from the carmaker after it filed suit against an enthusiast website that was selling unauthorised Ford decals. Fans of the site posted angry messages but Mr Monty used Twitter to explain the company’s position.

“Part of my job is to humanise the company – you want to interact,” Mr Monty says.

Starbucks, Comcast, JetBlue and Home Depot are among companies using Twitter accounts to promote products and provide customer service.

Bob Pearson, head of communities and conversation for Dell, said his company had generated $1m in computer-related sales through alerts posted to Twitter.

San Francisco-based Twitter is also becoming a platform for a range of media and social networking start-ups using its tools to develop communities and content rapidly, and at low cost.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008

1 Comment » Posted on January 1st, 2009

By Jonathan Trenn

may as well take a stab at it…

1) The relationship between traditional agencies and clients will strengthen, then start to fall apart

The recession means that marketing executives will be wanting to stay with the things that they’re familiar with…meaning traditional advertising.  This is bad news for many of us who look to make our coin in the online arena.  But in many sectors, the traditionals will not be able to adequately address the then current needs of clients.  Cost inefficiencies and the lack of imagination will combine to force marketing executives to look more and more at social media.  Most traditional agencies won’t be ready.  The changes will begin to be noticeable in late 2009.

2) The conversation is NOT over when it comes to the rules and regulations of social media.  They’ll continue.  As they should.

Chris Brogan’s sponsored post on Dadomatic taught me this:  the guiding principle here will not be what seems to be right, but what works financially.  This will start to change our perception of what “is right”.

Take Izea.  It’s my guess that many of the bloggers that Izea will use will be the same type of person that the Democratic candidates talked about when they were running for office.  Or for that matter, Joe the Plumber.  Soon, many of us could look like snobs.  I mean, who am I to question a mom of three who lives in blue collar suburb of a fading Midwestern city whose husband was recently laid off and who has a son in Iraq, if she wants to write sponsored posts a few times a month to make ends meet?

It may alter the authenticity a bit, at least in theory, but it’s inevitable and we’ll need to accept that.

3) This year we’ll start to see a better balance between transparency and legal.

As we just saw in the Ford/TheRangerStation incident, the big name company isn’t always wrong and isn’t always blind to social media.  Legal isn’t always tone deaf toward the needs of PR.  And we also saw that people will give a company a chance if they feel as if they’re being dealt with squarley.

It won’t always be done that smoothly, but it will be more common in the future.

4) Brand marketing will be more greatly tied into customer experience

We’ll see less fluff and more value.  We’ll see companies working harder for your dollars.  A lot of that will be tied into customer service.  Social media will lead the way on this.

5) Ad strategies will be more directly tied into direct sales

Again, the fluff gets reduced and branding for the sake of branding gives way to direct sales and giveaways.  Companies may not have time to lay down a long term branding campaign.  Those that stress immediate value will win, as long as it’s true.

Many others will try to stress value…but it will be as empty as Motrin’s claim that they “hear” mothers who view babywearing as a fashion statement.

6) Political groups will struggle to find the right balance of top-down

The Obama campaign ensured that politicking has changed for ever.  But to what degree?  Advocacy organizations, consultants, and political insiders will struggle to find the answer.  There will be more slop ups than successes.  That’s because traditional types will try to muscle their way in, and they’ll make stupid, boneheaded mistakes.

Most of the groups will try to install pseudo from the bottom up campaigns.  These will usually fail.  But advocacy organizations nevertheless will NEED to control much of the message as social media strategies find that the variant motives to support a series of issues can create more chaos than that of a singular political candidate.

7) Specialized social media agencies begin to take off

We’ll begin to see social media practices that are more focused on types of individuals.  Example:  women make most of the purchases for the home.  Outreach practices will reflect that reality.  This goes to my thoughts that we need to be engaging people on their terms.  Moms can relate to moms better.

8) It will no longer be quaint to play the role of the technoboob

CEOs and other business leaders can no longer position themselves as aged idiots.  Not funny, not cool, not good for business.  John McCain needed help answering his email…John McCain is still a senator from Arizona.

The emergence of India and China will make this a necessity.  No more patience for the technoboob.  And I can be a bit of a technoboob myself.

9 ) There will be more dumb marketing mistakes by major companies

Plenty of fodder is on the way.  Just wait and see.  Social media consultants don’t have the stature - yet - of preventing overly produced, overly promotional efforts.

10) Social media on the local level begins to emerge

People will begin to connect locally at a much higher rate than before.  Smaller, local companies will need to reach them in some way.  Whether it is sponsoring local meetups or conducting localized blogger relations campaigns, it will be a trend.

I could go on and on an on…

1 Comment » Posted on December 27th, 2008

By Jonathan Trenn

In one business day, Scott Monty showed us why companies still own their brand, why PR still matters, and why he’s a top notch social media strategist.

TheRangerStation.com, a 10 year old fan site for Ford Ranger owners and enthusiasts, had been selling unliscenced Ford merchandise with the Ford logo on it.  This caught the attention of the Ford legal team who promptly sent TheRangerStation a cease and desist letter.  When TheRangerStation’s owner went public about the letter, chaos began to ensue as the owner conveniently omitted the fact that he had been selling counterfeited material.  This began a backlash from many online where they bought into the idea that the little guy was being knocked around by the huge company.

Scott asked his many followers on Twitter to hold off judgment.  He had established credibility with many over his active years in social media, and many did hold off.  When Scott then divulged that the site owner had been selling counterfeited items, the attacks began to recede.  He and the legal team used normal conversational explanations to tell all of us what the reality was.

For a better and deeper explanations, Shel Israel has a great post here and John Bell has one here.  Or you may want to take a look at this presentation by Ron Ploof.

Besides the fact that this shows me that Scott Monty is a top notch professional, it shows me several other things.

Companies are still in control of their brand.  As they should be.

I’ve always thought the declaration that companies are not in control of their brand anymore was relative nonsense.  While it’s true that absolute control is nevermore, the nexus remains within the companies that produce the brand.  And while there will be missteps and outright boneheaded mistakes, social media won’t change that.

What social media does is allow consumers to have greater affect on the brand and it allows companies to redefine the brand to this new reality.

Will there be exceptions?  Of course.  But relatively small faux pas will pass, especially within our 24 hour news cycle.

Public relations is still a very much needed profession.

I reread The Cluetrain Manifesto over the past couple of days and began to grimace over Rick Levine’s over hyped trashing of PR.  He was proved wrong on a larger level - it takes professionals who know what they’re doing to forestall a fiasco like this.  Therefore PR is needed.  Levine was correct though in how it should be carried out.  First you build trust and then you tell your side if need be.  What Levine didn’t get is that it’s PR’s role to do just that.  A ton of PR people in PR aren’t the snake oil salesmen like the way he describes.

Online relationships matter.  Trust and integrity is essential and carry influence.

The reason Scott Monty was able to hold off the lynch crowds the way he did was because he had built up the credibiity that’s needed to work with followers on Twitter to friends on Facebook and to colleagues overall.  It most certainly was not mostly about Ford.  How we carry ourselves online is what we become in the perception of others.  Scott’s acting as a conduit between legal and different online communities should be a great case study for years to come.  For both those of us in online marketing AND legal departments.

No Comments » Posted on December 27th, 2008

By Chris Abraham

I posted version one of this article on my blog already. I showed it to Matt Creamer, my editor over at AdAge, and he told me he didn’t care if I had already posted it but that I would need to add a couple primer paragraphs to bring people into the history behind the Whopper Virgins controversy. I wrote a couple-few paragraphs and submitted and Matt posted it yesterday, One Whopper … and Hold the Ugly-American Sauce:

Read more…

No Comments » Posted on December 23rd, 2008

By Chris Abraham

My one question is whether or not authentic cultural garb was procured for these taste-testers. I hate to burst your bubble but Bucharest, Romania, is a proper city with a major university. I have a friend who has her Masters in genetics and her Ph.D. in immunology. She almost never dresses in these Romanian costumes. Wait, actual never. Not only that but this McDocumentary (sorry McDonalds) should have been edited because the open and honest interviews with the ugly Americans is appallingly insensitive and disgusting.

This documentary reveals as much about the provincialism of Americans as it does possibly about the “primatives” they’re documenting. Besides, the American obsession with the Noble Savage is so eighteenth-century. And this sort of untoward behavior is the furthest thing from Noblesse Oblige. They are neither being noble nor are they honoring any sort of moral obligation.

So, tell me, are those traditional cultural costumes authentic or monkey suits? Was this the decision of the bonehead producer, the director, or did this crisp, minty fresh garb just happen to be what these folks were wearing? Were they just aching to be used there in the back of everyones’ closet? Or, was this the regalia these test subject were wearing when and where they were discovered? I really want to know!

The most deplorable part of this documentary is the critique and un-self-aware commentary of the way these test subjects took to the burger, along the lines of, “these people are so authentic because they don’t even know how to eat a burger to say nothing of a sandwich.”

I am actually deeply appalled and embarrassed to be an American at just about now.

Egad!

(via “Chris Abraham)

6 Comments » Posted on December 21st, 2008

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