Welcome to Friday and another edition of “The Summer Week That Was.” Aren’t we lucky to work in a profession where news is always plentiful? Here are this week’s top five news stories:
5. Shannon Eastin To Become First Female NFL Referee With An Asterisk
Everyone knows that the NFL is practically bending over backwards to appeal to their female audience. Can we attribute the decision to put the first woman referee (well, technically she will be a Field Judge) on the field as part of their massive and well-targeted PR campaign to women? Or is the decision to let Shannon Eastin participate due to the NFL referee lockout caused by a collective bargaining agreement dispute? I suspect it’s a little bit of both. In my opinion, a savvy PR move by the NFL.
4. CIOs reject social media for news gathering
Hold up there social media cowboy (or cowgirl). Are you telling me that IT-decision makers, a demographic you would logically think gathers information from social media resources, considers other sources outside of social media to be more valuable for news gathering? Looks as if this survey may turn conventional wisdom on its head about the shift towards social for information and research prior to making a purchase. At least for some demographics.
3. How Twitter talked about the Olympics (Infographic)
Holy rapid fire tweets. There is no doubt that Twitter has stole the show as the social media platform darling of the 2012 London Olympics. 2,000 tweets per minute? Over 28 million total tweets about the games? Insane numbers. And the 2nd half of the Olympics is just getting into full swing.
2. Alaska Airlines responds to ‘worst of humanity’ viral backlash
I thought this was an interesting story not from the perspective of how quickly Alaska Airlines responded to the criticism, not because social media fanned a firestorm of complaints and negativity for the brand and not due to the fact that an airline ranked #1 in customer satisfaction can experience a problem of this magnitude. My interest was how people flew off the handle without knowing the whole story and how industry regulations and gut perceptions that consumers are unaware of often drive decisions. Before you complain about something, make sure you know both sides of the story.
1. Rover Curiosity Sticks the Landing for NASA’s Public Relations
In case you hadn’t noticed, NASA has sort of become the red headed step-child of taxpayer angst over government spending. Mired in a two year slump and with a dearth of projects on its plate coupled with public disdain over its budget, NASA needed a little PR shot in the arm. They are after all, more focused on successes than PR campaigns but at this point in their history, they needed the Rover Curiosity landing to pump up perspective, which as you know, is the bread and butter of PR.
That’s it for us on this Friday afternoon. Enjoy the weekend and do something fun with family or friends. Before you know it, the sun will be going down at 5pm and we will all be slogging through the dreary winter longing for days like this where the warm sun shines and the ice cream tastes just a little bit better.