The TSA's bold move

Posted on February 2, 2008 by Paul

I sometimes tell people, “If your products suck and your customers hate you, don’t start a blog.”

Well, the Transportation Security Administration has gone against that advice. More power to them.

The TSA blog mostly does it right. The branding is subtle; the TSA logo appears only at the bottom of the page. The slogan – “Terrorists Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play A Part” – is meant to invite the public into a discussion about security. I think that’s a great marketing statement. The traveling public feels that security has been shoved down their throats, which is one of the reasons they hate TSA.

And they took the opportunity to express their emotions; more than 700 comments on the welcome post, according to the blog. There’s lots of anger, negativity and obscenity, but also a lot of good ideas and observations from people who clearly know something about security. Give TSA credit. They knew there’d be a firestorm of negativity, they were prepared for it and they responded calmly and constructively.

The blog is written by five people: four mid-level employees and a PR guy. Strangely, there are no photos of the bloggers, but maybe that’s a security measure. 🙂

As a government agency, TSA could afford to ignore the opinions of travelers if it wanted. Launching the blog is a gutsy move my hat’s off to them for it.

And can you believe it? They’re hosting the whole thing on Blogger!

Thanks to Daily Dish for the tip via Alex Howard.

The blog that refreshes: Coke joins the conversation

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Paul

I noted last November that Coke was planning to launch a corporate blog. Well, here it is!

Looks like they’ve done a nice job, too. Clean layout, lots of graphics, design is well-integrated with the Coke brand. The content is mainly historical. A few facts from the press release:

Phil Mooney, Coca-Cola archivist and resident historian, will serve as the blog’s primary author and will solicit questions and respond to reader comments;
Content will include: New products and other marketing announcements, as well as a look at how this news fits into the context of Coca-Cola heritage and lore; future content will also include features on newly uncovered artifacts and the global phenomenon of Coke collecting;
Readers will have many opportunities to engage in conversation: Open Q&As, submitting stories for publication, posting comments, guest blog opportunities and more “Coca-Cola Conversations” will feature photography and video of rare artifacts from the Coke archives, as well as content provided by readers.

Daily reading 01/30/2008

Posted on January 30, 2008 by Paul

Guinness World Records Launches New Online Community – PRNewswire

1. This is going to be one cool social network.

2. This is gotta be one embarrassed PR firm. The URLs in the press release are missing an “n” and leads to a squatter site. The correct link is here.

Daily reading 01/29/2008

Posted on January 29, 2008 by Paul

Facebook-based apps can now run on other sites – Computerworld, Jan. 28, 2008

Facebook’s apps community is one of its strongest selling points and anything it does to extend that franchise to other networks works to its advantage. It’s hard to say how much of a breakthrough this is, but it’s clearly a blocking tactic aimed at Google.

Daily reading 01/27/2008

Posted on January 27, 2008 by Paul

Conversation Agent: Forget Influentials: in Viral Marketing, Context Matters – Conversation Agent, Jan. 18, 2008

Valeria Maltoni analyzes recent work by Edelman to understand the dynamics of viral marketing. Conclusions: It’s the Network, Stupid. In other words, influence has less to do with individuals than with the patterns by which information is spread. Figuring that out will get you farther than understanding who are the top bloggers. Interesting stuff.

Web Ink Now: The New Rules of Viral Marketing – free ebook!

David Meerman Scott has another winner with this short e-book about viral marketing. It’s already been downloaded 20,000 times and once you read it, you’ll know why. No obligation, no registration, just get it.

Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games – Wired, Dec. 20, 2007

This Wired story details Nine Inch Nails’ elaborate viral marketing campaign and a new kind of role-playing-based market. What’s interesting about the approaches outlined here is that they assume that the community will work together to solve the puzzle. Clues may be placed anywhere, and a person who finds a clue may not be the person who figures out how to decipher it. Rather than a player vs. player contest, it’s a group project.

Daily reading 01/25/2008

Posted on January 25, 2008 by Paul

Scrabulous and the New Social Operating System: How Facebook Gave Birth to an Industry – Knowledge@Wharton

Excepts: As of late January 2008, more than half-a-million Facebook users play Scrabulous daily, with four times that number having added the application to their Facebook profiles. Because third-party developers can keep all the revenue they generate, the Agarwallas are currently pulling in about $25,000 a month from advertising, according to Jayant, resulting in a “decent profit” after expenses like hosting, labor and server costs.

“I know so many venture capitalists and CEOs who play Scrabulous. It’s a new form of golf. Maybe you don’t have time to play nine holes, but you can socially interact and challenge one another via Scrabulous,” says Rumford, CEO of the Solana Beach, Calif.-based Gravitational Media and publisher of Facereviews.com, a review site for Facebook applications.

“The main selling feature of Scrabulous for me is the fact I can play it within Facebook. If it was on an external site, I would have to search for my friends all over again, and I don’t think that would work, and I don’t think people would sign up for it.”

A few major brands have made it big on Facebook, like Red Bull, the energy drink produced by Austria-based Red Bull GmbH, whose Facebook application “Roshambull” offers an online version of the classic children’s game “Rock-Scissors-Paper.”

Online dating is another area where big players are lagging. Like the Agarwalla brothers before the f8 launch, Cliff Lerner ran a website, in his case called Iamfreetonight.com, an online dating site owned by the Manhattan-based eTwine Holdings. After the Zuckerberg announcement in May, Lerner recalls, “We decided to stop working on Iamfreetonight.com for a couple of weeks in order to write a dating application for Facebook.” The result was an application called “Meet New People.” “In no time we had more users on the app than we had on the website. And we didn’t spend a dime on advertising the app — it was all viral.”

Why you should never give an unrehearsed demo to a journalist with a video

Posted on January 23, 2008 by Paul

Scott Kirsner blogs about a disastrous live demo by an executive at Nuance Communications, one of the biggest players in speech recognition. The demo went so badly that the exec posted a follow-up on YouTube explaining what went wrong. A lot of reporters carry video cameras these days, so know what you’re doing before you agree to let them switch those devices on!

Daily reading 01/20/2008

Posted on January 20, 2008 by Paul

ScrabbleWars: P For Piracy, Or E For Extra Exposure? – Media Post, Jan. 18, 2008

tags: facebook, social_media_useful

Here’s an example of a corporation fumbling a viral marketing opportunity. Instead of taking advantage of the positive publicity that a knockoff Scrabble app has generated on Facebook, the company is threatening to sue! What a perfect opportunity to tap into buzz created by somebody else! What a dumb move by Hasbo!
Other interesting facts cited in the story:
“As with music or video, free exposure can be invaluable in building
fans. In 2006, shortly after CBS made clips of TV shows available on
YouTube, the network said that ratings increased. “The Late
Show with David Letterman” drew 200,000 new viewers, a 5% increase,
after CBS placed clips of the show on YouTube, while “The Late Late
Show with Craig Ferguson” increased its viewership by 100,000, or 7%.”

– post by pgillin

A welcome measure of relief in endless metrics debate

Posted on January 19, 2008 by Paul

It has become almost cliché for media professionals to complain about the lack of measurement tools for new media campaigns. The Internet is the most measurable medium ever invented, yet marketers continue to squabble about which metrics are most meaningful.

So it was a pleasure to read Katie Paine’s newly released book, Measuring Public Relationships. Paine is one of the acknowledged gurus in this area, and her opinions command widespread respect. The reports and tools that her team produces on the Measures of Success website make it a must-bookmark for PR pros. In this compact (204 pages), readable book, Paine gives us her best stuff. After reading it, you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about.

Paine boils down the issues to a few key factors. Outputs are the results of publicity efforts, such as clips and blog mentions. Outtakes are how people think as a result of experiencing outputs. Outcomes are how their behavior changes. All are measurable, she argues, so once you decide what tools you’ll use to measure them, the rest is just execution.

As Paine works through the various audiences that PR people must satisfy – journalists, bloggers, event audiences, local constituents and even internal employees – she uses repetition to drive home the point that measurement is all about sweating a few basics. Decide who’s important, figure out how you want to measure the results of your actions, set baselines and benchmarks and choose measurement tools. Although there’s good advice on the pros and cons of various online metrics, this book isn’t about page views vs. unique visitors. It’s about choosing the right metrics for your situation and then applying them in a disciplined manner.

Measuring Public Relationships brings welcome clarity to a debate that has become bogged down in complexity and minutiae. Read it and then pass it along to your boss.

paulgillin.com

Social Media and the Open Enterprise