It started, as these things tend do these days, with an innocuous tweet; the tweet in particular was about Twitter lists. After a torrent of @ replies and emails, it was determined I needed to flesh out a post for a newly formed blog focusing on public relations as, it turns outs, there are some things that cannot be described in only 140 characters. And thus, my entry into the world of competitive blogging organized chaos.
That was a year ago. A complete revolution around the sun has come and gone since I first submitted a guest post to PRBC, a post in which I subtly make fun of both the blog and a little less subtly, the narcissistic nature of social media. As regular readers of this space, or even naturalized citizens of the world wide web, you know that not much has changed. Sure, there are more people coming here to read their daily fix of public relations banter, and sure, there are more people using social media, but what’s changed? Continue reading →
You’ve seen Terminator 2. And if you haven’t, stop reading this post. We are not friends. Watch the movie, then come back here, so we can resume our regularly-scheduled friendship.
Hint: If you haven’t seen the movie, this is where you should say “Stay here, I’ll be back.” I’ll wait.
Now that we’re all on the same page (and friends again), you are quite familiar with Judgment Day, the day where the robots take over and life as we know it ends.
Catastrophes and crises happen, especially in the PR world. Every publicist has a “war story.” Or ten. Some of the juicier ones I’ve been a part of: a mall fired their Santa, 90% of media passes were revoked by the client 24 hours before a major-name hiphop/R&B concert, and a basketball team’s two biggest stars basically sat out a full-season injured. Oh, there are more. Continue reading →
It’s one of the most defining questions facing the PR profession: How do we ensure our voice, our insight, our expertise, is given its proper place among C-levels in our company/organization? In some cases, this very question can define a professional’s entire experience with a company.
So big, in fact, is this question that the PR profession has been debating the topic for years. A recent interview series on public relations ethics from PRSA’s Public Relations Tacticsmagazine shed some light on how some industry thought-leaders view the balance professionals face between being an internal adviser/counselor and an external communicator. One point, in particular, I was motivated by came from Keith Mabee, APR, vice chairman of Dix & Eaton:
We have to be organizational boundary riders with one foot in the inner sanctum of the C-suite and the boardroom and the other foot out there in our constituency environment. A lot of it has to do with having the courage of your convictions, adept interpersonal skills and the ability to communicate your breadth and knowledge of the business and the industry you’re operating in. Continue reading →
Last week, the University of North Carolina rolled out a new social media. Instead of increasing access to student athletes, the policy has coaches and/or administrators serving as the social media director for their team (read more here & here). Seems a bit extreme pulling folks more astute with X’s and O’s and game planning to monitoring 140 character messages.
Aside from tapping our resident sports guys, we also tapped into the psyche of a pair of UNC alumni to see what they thought of this new plan. For those of you counting at home, there are four contributors to this post, a first for PRBC.
True Engagement Rebecca Denison – Class of ’09
I spent four years walking around campus just hoping I’d get to catch a glimpse of guys like Tyler Hansbrough and Danny Green. At Carolina, tests and presentations were often rescheduled because the team had made it to the next round of the tourney. I will forever bleed blue and cheer for Roy’s boys.
When guys like Marcus Ginyard started to join Twitter, I was thrilled because it was probably the best way for me to get to know UNC players and show the team support. Censoring and monitoring these guys only takes away the authentic interaction they have with fellow classmates who may not get the chance otherwise. Yeah, that sounds a bit lame, but wouldn’t you want to interact with a basketball legend one-on-one if you could?
Beyond this loss of authenticity, the spirit behind the new rules is also an issue. UNC’s undergraduate journalism program is considered one of the best in the country, and to have the school’s athletic department enact a policy like this is just plain embarrassing.
Unofficial Ambassadors Aven James – UNC Class of ’06
UNC recently unveiled an updated social media policy that has been called “harsh” – and while the UNC alum in me might agree, the B2B PR pro has to admit the policy just makes good business sense. And let’s be honest – isn’t college athletics really a business these days?
Though I admittedly haven’t seen the whole policy, it addresses a number of issues we’d advise a client to touch on:
● Responsibility & Good Judgment: Student athletes, whether they like it or not, are representatives of their University. As such, they need to exercise good judgment when posting on public forums and refrain from comments that could negatively impact the “organization.” And the “organization” needs to pay attention to what’s being said.
● Audience: Students and fans are an important audience for UNC athletics. They’re the “consumer;” the buyer of UNC’s “product.” Therefore, UNC has a responsibility to consider what posts/comments might alienate its fan base.
● Consequences: A sound social media policy should address the consequences for “bad behavior.” UNC has experienced first-hand the risks associated with social media and they’ve created a policy that, they hope, will mitigate them.
All that being said, the devil is always in the details. With the ability to monitor and even remove posts, UNC could take the policy too far – and if they do so, miss out on an opportunity to engage its fan base via social media.
Pro v. Student Mike Schaffer
Congratulations, NCAA! The University of North Carolina has helped you further blur the line between enrolled student and paid employee. In Chapel Hill a coach or administrator will be monitoring players’ social media accounts for violations. Yes, that’s a public university chipping away at the students’ individual rights – sounds a little fishy to me.
How much control over a person does their university have over them? Should they have access to student-athletes’ social media accounts, as the policy demands? And why just student athletes? What about student government, student media or student workers? Seems like the college is flexing their muscles to protect their revenue generating assets.
Do you actually think the star point guard will be judged on the same scale as the back-up women’s coxswain?
I’m all for educating players on how to be on their best behavior online, on the field and in daily life. However, the UNC plan, as it’s been presented, is all about “Big Brother Watching.”
Learning is Learning Jeff Esposito
It may sound crazy, but this policy is a good thing. While my co-contributors raise some valid objections, they are missing the silver lining in this grey cloud. College is a place for kids to get an education and foundation for a future career. Sure some of the players affected by this new policy will play with balls for a living, but the vast majority of the student athletes will not.
Either way, they need to learn the professional implications of being a dumbass on social media. We’ve all heard horror stories of people getting fired and some of us even monitor what is being said about a company online and may see dumb things posted co-workers.
Sure getting to know these athletes may be cool, but they are representatives of a brand. How many brand reps do you know that really give 100% behind the scenes access? Twitter is big business and if that means some big brother so be it.
The athletes who do turn pro will have stricter regulations from their respective leagues. Just as Chad Ochocinco how much a tweet can cost.
Well there you have our in-house experts’ perspectives. What do you think of the issue?
Aven James
Rebecca, Mike, and Jeff are PRBC regulars. You can get their contact info and details, as always, right here. Aven James, a first time PRBC contributor, is a Senior Account Executive at Bliss PR (yes, Elizabeth Sosnow’s firm – another PRBC regular) where she focuses on media relations in the B2B and professional services sector.
As the role of communications and public relations professionals continues to evolve, PRBC bloggers Keith Trivitt and Danny Brown examine an offshoot of the profession, the community manager. Used by many websites, message boards and blogs to manage online engagement, relations and communications with key audiences, the role of a community manager is one cloaked with some confusion, particularly on the executive level.
We welcome your thoughts on the evolving role of community managers in the comments below.
Should community managers be forward-facing managers of a company’s online customer service, or should their roles evolve into more of a strategic position? In other words, are community managers anything more than glorified customer service reps? Continue reading →
We’ve all gotten them – those dreaded auto direct messages – Those automatically generated messages that you get as soon as you follow a new person on Twitter. I am guilty of having used them for about a week around 18 months ago, until I realized it was a pretty crappy way to interact and didn’t actually save me any time or anything else.
Yet, no matter how much we all complain about them they seem inescapable. Hoping to cast a spotlight on this wretched behaviour I’ve compiled, with the help of some friends, some of the most rude, bizarre, and simply unexplainable auto-dms we’ve received — all neatly categorized for your reading pleasure…with the occasional editorial comment from me… Continue reading →
I recently read a blog post from Dave Fleet that really put words to something that I had been pondering for a bit. The piece was entitled Are you creating social media scorched earth? It focused on companies that burn bridges with customers with one-off social media accounts.
There is no question that social media is the hotness for the 2010-2011 fiscal years for companies. Communications and customer service folks have been utilizing tools and building communities and brand awareness while driving revenue as a secondary benefit. The dollars brought in from people who are generally not seen as revenue drivers has given marketers a set of green blinders. You know the ones, where money clouds one’s thoughts, especially when the entry point into a medium is virtually free and is a direct outlet to customers. Continue reading →
Through all of these changes, I’m still very optimistic that the profession is progressing along the right path; that we’re taking strides toward becoming more transparent, more focused on helping companies build their businesses (rather than building our own egos) and more in line with the goals of our clients and their key audiences and constituents.
My optimism is enhanced by recent anecdotal evidence noting how others, many of whom were once staunch opponents of the value of PR, view the strategic value of retaining PR counsel. Specifically, a post on blogger relations by Gizmodo UK editor Kat Hannaford, and another post by Jennifer Walzer of Backup My Info! leave me with the impression that our profession, as a whole, is beginning to learn from its mistakes. And while we certainly have many areas in need of improvement (media relations, agency turnover rates, mentorship, etc.), I feel we are beginning to see the hard work of many to reshape the public’s perception of the value of public relations taking hold. Continue reading →
Remember when you were a kid and had all these aspirations of success when you grew up? An astronaut, the president, a chef, a cashier, the sky was the limit. However, it really isn’t until the senior year of high school where reality sets in and you have to figure out what your path will be. Lucky for my generation and future generations we have something called “Reality Television” which can give us good insight to what we want to do. From Ice Truckers to Cake Boss, there are reality shows for almost every profession these days.
What was my calling? Powergirls. Remember that show? The show of a small PR Firm in NYC run by Lizzie Grubman? What a cool job they had. Planning events, hanging out with celebrities, always around pretty people…I would fit in so well. I was too short to be a model, so I decided to become a publicist and declared my major. Continue reading →
It started, as these things tend do these days, with an innocuous tweet; the tweet in particular was about Twitter lists. After a torrent of @ replies and emails, it was determined I needed to flesh out a post for a newly formed blog focusing on public relations as, it turns outs, there are some things that cannot be described in only 140 characters. And thus, my entry into the world of competitive blogging organized chaos.
