PR_2_RP

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In the age of on-line though leadership it is vital to understand the type of ‘casting’ you will be using to engage with your audience. Who do you want to reach and the content of your message which should be in line with the Branding strategy.

With the ease of content distribution and aggregation comes the need to determine how the message will be channelled through.

Equally important is the need to monitor one’s presence in an environment that content can travel at high speed. Customer services is back on the corporate agenda now that open conversational channels allow for great content sharing facilities.

On a recent article, PRWeek magazine reported on some companies and how they are monitoring their on-line environment. there are several agencies offering services for on-line monitoring as well as software applications providing monitoring and analytical tools.

In the social web, either by knowledge or by instinct, companies mostly involved in four levels of engagement: broadcasting, socialcasting, narrowcasting and egocasting.

Successful on-line reputation management process should start with an in-depth observation of the company’s on-line positioning argument (target group, on-line market segmentation, type of business…) which consequently will enable management to decide on the appropriate choice of communication approach, including the allocation of a participatory percentage to each type of approach. Management efforts should seek scout the social web, tracking critical comments and spots of negative publicity, thereby helping them to improve customer relations and overall community engagement and participation.

Fancy your Blog on your Mobile?

Now you can have you blog as you go.  Got that from Chris Brogan’s blog and am now playing around with it. Great Stuff!!! Why don’t you have a go at it??? Now for the new iPhone 3G, we in Europe might have to wait until October (if you haven’t already got the new 3G)  – see here full post!.

iPhones 3G is out of stock at O2 stores throughout the UK too. No worries, even if you don’t have an iPhone you can still use this great feature. When you add your URL to Mofuse.com, it should then syncs it up to you blog and voilà, you’ve got a new pretty version of you blog as you go. Hello world on your blog!

Blogging after Uni…

I Have just come back from visiting my mate’s blogs from Uni and left comments on the ones who have taken the time and the effort to keep going. I know, I know, it’s hard to keep going when most of us are so busy and completely tied down with our dissertations and final project works. One thing I noticed was that most of them have links to my blog pointing to this page instead of my main home page, I wonder why? Huh?

Now after we all have finished the course and the assignments have been marked, some of us are still blogging and I was really impressed with the quality of the posts and the depth of thoughts. Specially a couple of them I really enjoy reading mostly because the subjects are normally closed to me. Overall, well done to you all guys!

Although I’ve been really busy I have not stopped my blogging life, rephrasing it: “my new social media life style”. I’ve been actively reading and commenting on great blogs out there, Twittering, on LinkedIn, YouTube, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Pownce, Skitching (love this one!), now on Flicker too.

It has been a great learning curve and an overwhelming experience, as Fred once sang in “I want it all”:

“I’m a man with a one track mind, so much to do in one life time (people do you hear me)

Not a man for compromise and ‘wheres’ and ‘whys’ and living lies, so I’m living it all (yes I’m living it all)

And I’m giving it all (and I’m giving it all)
Yeah yeah yeah yeah
I want it all all all all”

I am sure we are all giving it all and wanting it all!!! Let’s keep on Blogging and Rocking the boat!

Twitter – Incognitus Ominous or Triumphus Logica?

Everybody talks about it, some love others hate, both use it; but what is Twitter? It has already broken out the realm of ‘early adopters’ landed the realm of the ‘mere mortals’ opinion followers. Some are antagonistic about it, some others are completely addicted to it. Some are sceptical about its future as profitable business model. The truth is that Twitter as a social utility platform (social networking or micro-blogging, you choose!) keep growing and aggregating legions of followers.

I have just read a great post written by Alex Howard on Twitter. So rather than spending hours here attempting to write and explain the phenomenon, I will invite you to go and read this great post direct on its source – What is Twitter?

In his post you will be able to go to dozens of others links on Twitter. Quite a comprehensive list of applications and possibilities to enjoy Twitter. I did not see twittearth though?! Could I have missed it amidst so many links.

Today I found out about another one similar called Plurk, it came from another twitter user who seems to be using this one also. What is the difference? I do not yet, but have no time to investigate it now. I’ll leave with you, Good Luck!

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That’s what I am talking about!

Sir Alan Sugar’s The Apprentice series finished tonight on BBC1. After 12 weeks, 13 ‘YOU’RE FIRED!’ and growling calls from ‘flinty-gaze’ multi-millionaire entrepreneur Sir Alan Sugar, a deserved winner shone in the board room against all the odds, school drop-out Lee McQueen managed to convince Sir Alan to hire him against another strong contestant Claire Young.

Many back stabbings later, one would never imagine who would be finally crowned the sole winner of series 4, mainly after ‘prolific’ Raef Bjayou was fired by Sir Alan in a controversial and contested decision by public opinion. His undisputedly fame for hard, harsh and unforgiven decisions came under scrutiny after he decided to keep puppy-face-half-Jewish board room useless Michael Sophocles. Well deserved winner Lee is clear an ‘apprentice’, a raw talent, good motivator and great salesman. He has got what Sir Alan is looking for.

What amazes me is that before it all started, from their personal statements in the beginning of the series they seemed to know even more than Sir Alan and to be the best in what they do. After 20,000 candidates you still can see a huge amount of business gobbledygook, rubbish management decisions and terrible team building skills coming form the lucky top 16 winners, it’s just unbelievable! Surely they would get the best out of the huge crowd applying for the job?!?

It is definitely amusing to watch and it’s worryingly to think that such a bunch prepared to work in a multi-million business would go so low to achieve their goals. Business Ethics, good human relations, integrity and honesty… ‘ah we leave it out there only to pick them up again after we got the job’. It’s sobering when one stop to think that most of these people are already in the marketplace; some of them on six-figure salary jobs, making key decisions and managing others.

If such behaviour is mirroring the overall attitude coming from real life marketplace business relations, one should really worry that we are still living like our pre-historic ancestors, with the difference of now being well-groomed ‘caveman’ or ‘cavewoman’. If that’s the case we have not much to hope for when it comes to business ethics and corporate reputation.

To quote Lee, ‘That’s wot I’m talk’n about!”.

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Still not convienced about Twitter?

Then check out the following link -Power-Tweeting: 101 Everyday Uses for Twitter.

Todd Mintz brings us good examples taken direct from ‘twitterers’ all over the place, it shows how they are using the social utility. I hope you enjoy it or at least have a laugh.

Why not to try out these fancy applications on Summize too?

Then get Twittering….

Twitter calling Houston

Blogosphere is now sharing space with Twitterland, with new twitterlanders joining the social network to the thousands every day. Twitter is more and more popular, it’s fast and there are loads of applications you can now add and use.

I have recently asked a MD of a UK top Advertising and PR agency after his CIPR lecture, why he had not included twitter in his presentation about social media? Since he had so prolifically mentioned blogs, Facebook, RSS, Youtube and everything else, why not Twitter? The answer: “I don’t see how Twitter can be used by PR practitioners”. Er…hellooo? Am I missing something here? Public Relations is about being PUBLIC (concerning the people as a whole), and RELATIONS (The mutual dealings or connections of persons, groups, or nations), ok, why not Twitter then? Both fundamental premises can be found in Twitter. Jim Horton produced a paper last year about PR practitioners and what they could be doing with it.

Today I was checking a blog again from a guy called Hugh MacLeod. He draws cartoons on the back of business cards, great stuff! oh yeah, he does some marketing work too. I found really interesting that his Facebook status was saying: “Prefers Twitter”. What is this thing about Twitter that people are getting hooked up?

There is a blog called Twittown where you can check out great news/stats from all of us ‘twittermaniacs’ who are alive on Twitterland, actively twitterring by the second, boosting the profile of this brilliant social network – Twitter is kind of addictive, I must warn you.

Applications such as twhirl, twittearth (love that!) and twitterrific are absolutely ingenious. Even Darth Vader has a twitter profile one can follow, or why not to Borat? Yes, the infamous journalist from Kas… well, he said that not me. I am now following Mr. Barack Obama, I know I am not a voter, I could not resist though. Well if it’s not about PR why is Mr. Obama there then???

Twitter is very fast and offers readers instant updates from what is going on around the world, linking people, ideas, technology, latest blog posts, comments, views, profiles and everything else from everyone you choose to ‘follow’. You also have your voice and can say whatever you want to say, you can build your own audience of ‘followers’.

From Twittown – “There is also a stats page that says that 368,103 posts have been indexed, there is an average of 16,500 tweets / hr and a summary of the number of tweets per day (90,000 on mondays!)”

Twitter can also be added to Facebook where your status is updated both sides. It’s a really helpful application to use, it can be added as Twitter application or as twittervision. As Jim mentioned Twitter’s not meant to be a standalone tool, you use in combination with several other social media tools. But it’s no doubt the cooler in my opinion! Well BBC is on it, other media and news channels, companies and CEOs, marketing gurus and ordinary folks alike. No use for PR practitioner then??? Why not??? It’s challenging no doubt and you have to be able to think outside the box.

PROpenMic – for marketers too..

…Why not? I have just joined the PRopenMic social network created by Robert French. I can definitely say that it’s a great initiative and it’s not only for ‘PR folks’. I am not a PR student, well, I guess I might have a ‘PR soul’ though, but it doesn’t really matter.

You can give it a go: http://www.propenmic.org/

Go on… why not to show that you have what it takes to be among ‘PR guys’ and still shine as a marketer… The whole thing about Marketing x PR for me is nonsense, just a masquerading fear motivated but a self-preserving instinct, probably from both sides. I am really happy to read those guru folks writing about new media and Web 2.0 saying that these two disciplines are joining hands on-line and converging. PR_open_MINDS TOO, believe me!

Around the World – YouTube for ‘political freaks’ like me

I recently got involved in a polite political argument with someone in America over a Red Hot Chilly Pepers video called “Around the World”. I understand that I should have listened it all before jumping in the give my opinion (stupid I know), but I could not resist the temptation, it was just to ‘chilly peppery’ and when I realised it was too late. Great song though, do not get me wrong.

Next morning my Google mail had a fresh ‘response’ from the other side of the Atlantic. Yes, I would not disagree they are a powerful nation but hey, should they not learn from history? The very country they have invaded, which is now nearly all desolated and in ruins was once one of the most powerful empires on earth – the great Babylon. And what about the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans. More recently the Ottoman, the Spanish and British and where are they now???

It’s so regretful that the ‘pursuit of happiness’ and ’security’ of some signify the obliteration of many other innocent people “Around the World”.

America is a lovely place and I deeply admire their heritage and why not friendliness and compassion. My dear friend is proud to be American, and rightly so, as I am just happy to be a human being living on this planet, learning from different cultures and trying to understand what is to be truly human and truly love people.

My point is that all this new media development had enabled us to be closer, to connect, to exchange opinions, to learn from each other. To look stupid, to apologise (why not), to grow and hope for a better future. Learning from the past, making wise choices in the present and embracing tomorrow.

“There’s a better place out there, everything changes you will be amazed what you find…” Phil Collins, Look Though My Eyes.

The man behind “The Mask”…

Coming back to celebrities and the media subject, I read a great article this week about one of my favourites actors: Jim Carrey (46).

While I was preparing to write this post I read one of my friends’ blog about the bad PR stunt Jim Carrey got himself into on the account of his new movie Horton Hears A Who! He looked really ‘goofy’ and made himself a ‘jerk’ as one would expect him to look when showing up in public. Few could get away with such a bad publicity and left unharmed.

But, is he like that all the time? What about the man behind the stardom mask? Carrey suffers from a long term depression. In his own words “I am not as crazy as people think”. Again, what shines in the media does not necessarily portrait the truth inside the individual. One’s insecurities, fears, doubts, anger, frustrations and a whole universe of feelings.

Why on earth someone famous, good looking, wealthy, talented would suffer from depression??? He has battled depression for years seeking at times relief in Prozac too. I do not fully understand depression and I wish I could since it affects more and more people everywhere and those close to me too.

The Media has the seducing ability to transform everyone and every situation into a glittery aura of blissful libido. The limelight metamorphosis that changes ordinary people into STARS or CELEBRITIES!

Carrey had a very difficult childhood and has spent most of his life trying yo make people happy. Now after many love delusions he has finally found solace with partner Jenny McCarthy (35) – Scary Movie 3. An it’s her autistic son who is helping Carrey to deal with his depression.

We all come and leave this world exactly in the same way, we are all humans and subject to the same passions, traumas and suffering (truly a pleonasm for passion). The media masquerades and artificially usurp the real character behind the ‘personality’ in such that many in the world would aspire the same stardom life-style and would make anything to grab a piece of the action. See the success of YouTube!

“In case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening and good night”

PR.I.P.!

Is PR dying? and what if it is, death might not be a bad thing after all. David Meerman Scott in his Book The New Rules of Marketing & PR affirms that “Something is very wrong in PR land”. Tom Foremski called for the death of Press Release in his post DIE PRESS RELEASE, DIE, DIE, DIE where he categorically affirmed that press releases are nearly useless and is used to manipulate the public opinion or consumers with cleverly devised messages to create a great amount of spin.

He said that “Press releases are created by committees, edited by lawyers, and then sent out at great expense through Businesswire or PRnewswire to reach the digital and physical trash bins of tens of thousands of journalists”.

In fact, wherever you decide to turn you will be hearing something along those lines, the current PR Zeitgeist. It could be dying or evolving, it could be both. All changes are motivated and provoked by changes in human behaviour, if PR is dying, changing or evolving is doing so because of the human forces driving the changes.

Congruently advertising, marketing or any other business discipline are being forced to a new evolution, management is not and will ever be the same again, people have changed, the world is mutating still . It’s natural then to think that PR will see the same fate, it might die and then reborn just like the Phoenix, which fiercely burns itself and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix arises…

While thinking about this phenomenon and the ‘Darwinic’ evolution in PR it occurred to me that there are much we can learn from science and the world around us. See for instance Lavoisier’s Law of Conservation of Matter which evolved from previous observations and scientific thinking and was amended by Einstein after due to the discovery of E:m.c2. “matter is neither created nor destroyed…”

It offers all of us a great opportunity to see something new sprouting… perhaps only a little shoot now… and then back from the ashes…

Yes, Yes, Yes…

To jail!!! OK I Confess I like Amy’s music and loved her last Album, but her personal behaviour is absolutely outrageous, the way she “treated herself”. Celebrities behaving badly on the media has hit the United Nations when its drug control agency warned that the lenient treatment of drug abusing could be sending a highly damaging message to young people.

The soft approach by police and the courts to the some of them are seriously undermining efforts to reduce drug abuse and diminishing public confidence in the legal system. If I use it I will go to jail, if the use it time after time they may go to rehab or do something “good” for the community.

Why is that? Why are they treated differently?

In the INCB (International Narcotics Control Board) annual report published yesterday said that “Celebrity drug offenders can profoundly influence public attitudes, values and behaviour towards drug abuse, particularly among young people who have not yet taken a firm and fully informed position on drugs issues”

it also states “Cases involving celebrities drug offenders can also profoundly affect public perceptions about the fairness and proportionality of the response of the justice system, especially if there is a less lenient response to similar or lesser offences committed by non-celebrities”.

I have personally lost a close friend who use to play with me in the same band. He was found dead in the hotel room just before the gig, it was horrible and I was shocked for days! Someone of a rare talent and a whole life ahead of him.

I guess the media should put more pressure on that kind of behaviour and should not praise any talented person who’s involved in such activities. There are mixed feelings and different opinions in the press, that’s one of the reasons.

Hit Me Baby one more Time!

Why is that the media has the reputation to reward terrible behaviour, or at least to cover it with such a great undying enthusiasm?

We have seen in the last years so many celebrities who have been acting badly, shamefully and immorally, have been featured on the media worldwide time and time again. Not only that, they have been awarded music and film awards, have more than double their revenue, sales, image and personal publicity. Names such as Britney Spears, Kate Moss, Peter Doherty, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton to name a few.

Snorting cocaine, binge drinking, driving illegally and the bill goes on… Cynically and ironically because it pays their salaries and because people are obsessed by celebrity behaving badly, we are attracted to it in a rather funny ludicrous way, I can’t just figure it out.

Shouldn’t they be silenced, forgotten, penalised for their irresponsible behaviour? Are they partially responsible for the poor behaviour and violent attitude seen in most of our teenagers today. they look up to their idols and try to emulate their life style but without the veneer of glamour and luxurious life-style, leaving them with permanent scars, families in distress and the society asking why?

Come on, hit us one more time, and then again and again, we quite like it!

Isn’t it time for the Media to act responsibly and stop reporting on them? Or at least, to expose them to shame, abhorring their behaviour publicly and then closing the media channels to people acting immorally.

What you think?

The Dark side of Social Networks

Social Network sites should be a place to socialise, have fun, meet friends, and why not to celebrate life and share community values. Lately social networks have been under scrutiny and investigation after several deaths have been linked to morbid messages found in site and chat rooms ‘romanticising suicide’ and encouraging people to do it. (BBC News)

Surely some one should be monitoring this sites and their contents, can’t they be taken off-line? 17 died in a city of 40,000, that’s horrifying, and most so when you think that it could be linked to the way the Internet is being used, specially by young people. A police officer claimed that it is not the Internet but the way the media is reporting the news, most parents or victims relatives would not agree with this statement.
The popularity of social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, Urkut and others are phenomenal. It allows users to create a profile about themselves, connect with friends on-line, share photos, videos, music and interests with a network of friends.

Curiously, the majority of them do not protect their contents or do not know how use the privacy settings available. I believe that more should be done to warn people from the dangers and pitfalls of social network sites. Caution when sharing and opening secrets, accept invitations and subscribe for certain interest groups.

Web 4.0 – welcome to the virtual ‘Nirvana’!?

Right… I had barely finished to digest this whole concept of web 2.0 when by one of life’s misfortunes I bumped into this book from Larry Weber’s “Marketing to the Social Web”. On its very last chapter Weber introduce us to the notion of Web 4.0, and that it is according to him, “Right around the corner”. Well, I reckon that I guy with this surname has got to have something to say about the web, furthermore his got over three decades in global communication mileage.

His argument is that the web 1.0 (89-95) was about writing with HTML, web 2.0 started with the appearance of the browser, (hum?!) what allowed people to surf and get about their business in the virtual space. During this period, according to Weber we saw the rise of Yahoo (probably the downfall too) and Google.

See this, he does not agree with the notion of web 2.0 being the ’social’ web, but rather it just planted the seeds for the so called social web. Now then, Web 3.0 is the real social web and as preceded by Amazon.com and eBay. He is building our expectations to launch us into the unknown and unheard of concept of Web 4.o, which is for me at least more metaphysical (better than speculative) than tangible and realistic, at least at this point in time.

He calls it the most compelling release of the web – Web 4.0, the emotive web! (I can’t barely hold my tears). What makes it particularly emotive are the personal and business sensations which, following the path laid by Weber will offer not only emotions such as joy, curiosity, disgust, happiness plus a sense of bliss and fulfilment.

Then I asked myself, is this the virtual ‘Nirvana’? Is it possible that we are about to achieved on-line, what according to some, it would take so many different lives to reach?

And then from there it will alter the way we do marketing, the way television works, and the internet will not be seen as part of the computer screen but as another way to broadcast. He cites apple iTV for instance, which is already broadcasting direct to the TV.

A bit ‘high-fly’ nonetheless stimulating… Weber is without any doubt a visionary, an explorer offering us a glimpse of what may be ahead of us. Perhaps he and few others have got there already and are transmitting from the future to us here in the past, who knows???

What is certain is that the internet has changed the way we do marketing and will continue to change and shape the whole universe of marketing. The implications are enormous and the segmentation widely subjective and vague at this point in time. Weber suggests that marketers will have to consider how consumers are managing their time and mobility, since they will be carrying devices all the time with them. Exciting days ahead…

So next time you log in, take a deep breath, in…out… Welcome to the virtual ‘Nirvana’, or Web 4.0!