there is so much that could be done
Hmmm Dexter and CSI Miami are often filmed in my city.. wonder if I should hit their PR about a campaign about the next season of Dexter ..Lila showing up from Paris to reach out to dexter and maybe the kids with Dexter’s girlfriend would have been a good addition

However Jonathan’s suggestion to AMC and vetting out the person is correct. As a fellow id theft victim, it ain’t pretty and a lot of work.

But the legal department and marketing could have partnered up with Twitter to get these characters to cooperate. would have been HUGE for Twitter who also dropped the ball in not presenting AMC with the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg for both sides

I think they should have contacted the people behind the characters and basically said “Look, we want to work with you because we see potential in this. But we have to vet you on some things to make sure you’re not a whacko or something”.

Then they could arrange some sort of legal arrangement whereas the character could be reclaimed if the person behind it started using it inappropriately. The people behind the characters could get a stipend and even a free trip to meet the characters.

Companies have to protect their brands, but they can engage those that want to enhance it online.

As far as taking over a character, I’d say that we all have to be careful - I’ve been a victim of identity theft - and it sucks.

If an agency creates one for a client…that can get tricky. Twitter is very personal and relationships build. If you’re doing it for a client, then it’s best to just use it as a notification platform like @BarackObama.

I can see disasters happening where a “friend” or “follower” ends up meeting a person and thinks that the celeb type person will know them. So the client must be kept appraised of what’s going on and perhaps should be a part of it.

It’s still an ethical question, but it’s also more procedural.

What these people did with Mad Men was fine. Sure, they got caught. But it seems they had good motives. The characters themselves were fictitious, so it wasn’t as if there was someone out there being impersonated.

One point. About vetting. Necessary. It could be like someone impersonating a cop. Or the person involved could be someone undesirable in some way. Have some sort of police record. But AMC should have given these folks a try.

Jonathan, what is your take on Personal Twittering/blogging here?

And you’re right that it would have been great if AMC embraced the fans who were doing this. They kept in character quite well, and it could have opened up a whole slew of new marketing opportunities for AMC, not to mention continued cultivation of a highly enthusiastic fan base. I’d hazard a guess that AMC has no idea how many people talk about Mad Men on Twitter on a regular basis, nor how those fans feel about the show.

Missed opportunities all over the place!

To be honest, the very-same people who can rock a Web 2.0 software application oftentimes really suck at shameless self promotion, effective marketing, innovative publicity, or recognizing when something will go viral or blow up in their face.

Arrington wrongly sees PR as press responders.

Actually, what startups often need are oveall marketing consultants that can give the lay of the land. Again, many people behind startups think that it will easy sailing once they’ve gotten (and I’m thinking mostly of tech startups) their code functioning and that they’ve got one connection to a client, it’s all smooth sailing. They don’t realize that they’re battling for mindshare with a hundred other things.

Oddly, the fact that Arrington starts out by saying that PR firms are turning away clients should tell him something. That means that PR firms recognize that a lot of potential clients don’t have a story to tell.

What most organizations and companies need from us at Abraham Harrison is path-finding. In fact, there are lots of examples wherein these companies may have the bandwidth to be able to handle the volume but really don’t know how to best go about it, don’t know best practices, and — the most important part — don’t wanna.

I don’t know about other firms, but we’re happy to expand and contract based on what our client needs. If our client just needs advisement and support in her efforts, we’re happy to do that, too.

I love listening to the Podcast, Inside PR — those cats are solid. The biggest lesson I learned from their hundred-or-so podcasts is that PR professionals are not news release monkeys or flacks, PR professionals are consultants and should be retained and maintained from the start of a project as opposed to after the shit hits the fan or “until the volume of inbound requests by press are simply too much to handle without help.”

But that assumes that all a PR firm does, all a PR firm is good for, is handling “inbound requests by press.” Sure, many PR people get by just fine by providing that as their key service, but so many more PR people do so much more than that.

Mike Volpe of Hubspot has some great insights on the value he, as a PR services buyer, sees PR firms providing. Perhaps of additional value for many people, he’s specifically addressing the value a PR firm can provide to even a Web-savvy company (as his is):

http://tinyurl.com/5d3gv2

Up until a year ago, over 14,000 followers presumably thought that Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert was @stephencolbert https://twitter.com/stephencolbert. (In case you’ve not heard, @stephencolbert was a fake http://tinyurl.com/5hmwl7).

The fake @stephencolbert was fun. But the fake @ExxonMobilCorp http://tinyurl.com/6×6aco was picked up by the mainstream media as valid.

Flogs are just another form of identity theft.

my podcasts have discretion– my discretion.
. it’s all about what the other person says– and I do edit (as Chris well knows)..
It’s a conversation that reflect who the person on the other end is– it’s not about me. It’s about them

relationships– isn’t that what life is about? relationships with other people?
flogging — never going to get away from it..

A blog about flogging.

A discussion about relationships.

A podcast with no discretion.

Social media is so cool..

Ignorance is no longer cute - right on!

I should start a series of flogs about dating. Get everyone riled up. I’d be killing two birds with one stone.

How’s that interpretation, Stevie?

I think what not gonna say is saying is that the living up to certain ideals may not result in desired results. If flogging becomes inevitable, it means it’s effective. So it will happen. Those who provide certain social media marketing services have to take this into consideration. Otherwise they won’t get hired. The other firm will.

As for dating, yes, at certain ages people often put too much emphasis on the wrong things and deal with negative consequences. Evaluate and adjust to the reality. But be true to yourself.

I was simply pointing out that staying true to certain types of idealism can lead to unintended consequences.

For the record, I’ve had many women tell me that when they were younger they went for the bad boys. As they got a bit older, and sick of that, they changed their outlook.

And if Chris’ old firm did no stealth or black arts marketing, it wouldn’t have grown into a powerhouse.

You don’t have to change your nature, you need to learn how to apply it more effectively.

I give people all the time in the world to be who they are . Nice is just one of those wonderful characteristics that I now appreciate so much .

Real, honest, straight-forward, confidence, real security, and real gentle niceness is always rewarded.