The Day Oprah Tweeted

I'll admit, I'm not a huge fan of Twitter on a personal level. I understand its marketing potential. In fact, one of my clients uses Twitter to keep people updated during races and events to great effect. So it certainly has its purpose.

My issue with the service is that, like every other "hot new trend" in social media, once a few "gurus" start talking about how incredible something is and the masses flock to it, the results are rarely good in the long term for the platform. Need I remind everyone of the original uber-social media site, MySpace, and what happened in the months after Rupert Murdoch's NewsCorp purchased it. They sold ad space to any corporation willing to write a check, made the site clunky and slow, and it has now lost the war with Facebook (badly) and just lost its CEO.

So with that in mind, everyone is Tweeting... even people who probably shouldn't be. Ashton Kutcher and CNN had a race to one million followers, and everyone's favorite cougar-bait beat the news network handily. The true winner in that battle, however, was Twitter. The race gave the site major mainstream media coverage - enough that Ms. Oprah Winfrey herself jumped into the Twitter fray.

Oprah's first tweet was less than stellar (in all caps no less... reminds me of a former boss who send every message in all caps, fully knowing it meant he was screaming). It was the Tweet heard 'round the world, and according to HitWise, the site went bonkers. Below is the percentage of internet users on Twitter and what happened the day Oprah logged in.



That's a 24% increase in ONE DAY! Crazy, right? So does this mean Twitter is the next big thing? Sadly, yes... until the general public gets so wrapped up in it that blundering, irresponsible corporate communicators jump in, handle the campaigns poorly (a'la Myspace, see above) and turn off the influencers. Then they'll jump ship for the next thing, and the cycle will repeat.

In the meantime, some advice:

If you decide to sign your company up for a Twitter feed, keep it simple and relevant. No need to send everyone an update every time you get gas or buy a candy bar. Share images. Keep it interesting. Content is always king, especially when you have to compete with Oprah.

Social Networking = Increased Business

This is an interesting article at MediaPost about how the majority of marketers are now using some form of social media to promote their business, but the majority of those people have been at it for less than one year. Some other interesting stats:

Key survey findings about specific application show that:

* Small-business owners are more likely to use LinkedIn than employees working for a corporation

* Men are significantly more likely to use YouTube or other video marketing than women (52.4% of all men compared with 31.7% of women)

* For those just getting under way with social media marketing, LinkedIn is ranked as their number-two choice, pushing blogging down one notch

* Among those who have been using social media for a few months, Facebook is in second place. This group also has more Twitter use

* Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs. This group also endorses online video significantly more than the other groups

72% of marketers say they have either just started or have been using social media for only a few months.

Ford Tops First-Ever Automotive Social Media Rankings

Virtue is a Social Media Marketing agency that handles some pretty heavy accounts, including AT&T, Pepsi, MTV and more. They're quite fond of lists, and they just released one ranking the car companies by social media activity. The brands were measured by their Q1 '09 "chatter" across social media sites like Facebook and myspace, as well as viral video and photo sharing sites.

Here's the list:

The Vitrue 20 Top Social Auto Brands

1. Ford
2. Lincoln
3. GM
4. Honda
5. BMW
6. Mercedes
7. Dodge
8. Ferrari
9. Toyota
10. Suzuki
11. Jeep
12. Nissan
13. Cadillac
14. Audi
15. Porsche
16. Kia
17. Subaru
18. Chrysler
19. Volvo
20. Chevrolet

Interesting stuff. I have no doubt that a Ford's top spot ranking is due to the conclusion of it's Fiesta Movement viral video contest, where people were asked to submit videos about why they deserve to drive a new Fiesta for six months. Out of 3,000 submissions, 100 were chosen... including our friend Davey Johnson, who submitted this fantastic brown-car-focused, Streets of San Francisco homage:



So Ford is rolling out a tiny economy car, yet by offering creative-types the opportunity to drive one for a six months they get thousands of viral videos posted all over the interwebs tagged with their product name, creating huge buzz.

In the meantime, Chevrolet - which has a hugely important new product hitting showrooms any day (2010 Camaro) is at the bottom of the list. Someone as Ford deserves a bonus.

Dominos Pizza YouTube Fiasco: A Lesson in Online Crisis Management

For those of you who don't follow Digg trends or pay attention to the latest viral videos spreading like wildfire on YouTube, an interesting PR situation developed this week.

Two less than intelligent Domino's Pizza employees shot a handful of videos at work, where they did some pretty disgusting stuff including purposefully sneezing on pizzas, shoving ingredients in their nose before placing them on the pizza and even cleaning the pots and pans with a sponge they used to clean their, well, nether regions. Then they put it on YouTube. Brilliant move. Here's a clip... beware, this is pretty gross:



The video was posted on April 13th. Within 8 hours, it had racked up over 100,000 views, local news stations were running the story and several people reported that franchise to the health department. What did Domino's corporate communications do? Well... nothing. Not at first.

Their initial reaction was to say the video was a result of a few bad employees at one franchise location, and that an official corporate reaction would "be akin to putting out a candle with a fire hose." Translation: They didn't understand how quickly viral video can damage a brand, and sticking to traditional PR tactics they didn't want to legitimize the scandal by recognizing it.

Within 48 hours the video had hundreds of thousands of hits, the franchise was shut down by the health department, and the video was making national headlines. YouTube pulled the original down and the employees were fired (they also fled the area), but the damage was done. Several people re-posted the vid on YouTube, and as the story picked up steam, the google searches and YouTube views for the videos intensified. These are NOT images Dominos corporate wanted in people's heads when they contemplated ordering a pizza.

So... two days later the Pizza PR team posted this video, featuring Dominos President Patrick Doyle:



So let's brake down the video and do a little scoring:

- He's clearly reading off a cue card. Mr. Doyle appears properly briefed about the YouTube process and how this all went down, but by not looking in the camera he doesn't necessarily come off as genuine as he could. -1 point

- One of the first things he does is thank the online community for alerting Dominos to the situation. He doesn't blame bloggers for re-upping the videos, as previous execs have done in times for PR crisis. +2 points

- He explains it was an isolated incident and that the "team members" claim it was a hoax. Doyle goes on to state that they have been dismissed and that the company takes this very seriously. He also claims that there are "felony warrants out for their arrest." Not sure if that's true (sneezing on pizza is a felony?), but it stretched credibility. 0 points

- "There is nothing more important or sacred to us than our customer's trust." - said with sincerity. +2 points

- Admits that this has caused major damage to the brand, and that 125,000 employees will be impacted by a few individuals. Thanks customers for "hanging in there with us." +1 points

Conclusion on the video response: They Domino's PR team could have reacted faster, but all-in-all they got a relatively well-done response piece up on YouTube and began heavily promoting it within days. They also got major news outlets to run a follow-up story on their response, framing the company as the victim and the incident as an isolated one.



Is the damage already done? You bet, but they reacted fairly quickly. So the lesson to be learned:

- If a negative video about your brand makes it's way onto the internet, react SWIFTLY with a genuine response. TRUST the public enough to know that they'll understand that some people are idiots.

- Thank the online community for calling attention to the story, DO NOT blame them.

- Have your PR team focus news coverage on the damage done to the good employees, and brand the perpetrators as the bad guys. Single them out so they take the brunt of the bad PR, not the brand.

- After the initial response, weather the storm. Let the story blow over when the next online story hits. Continued responses will perpetuate the story.

- Don't do what Domino's Australia did and use the scandal as an excuse to make a rambling video about new products and thicker rubber gloves. It totally kills credibility:

Excited

Sorry... I know this isn't directly related to PR or Marketing. But I must share this.

If a PR Flack Tweets and Nobody Listens, Does it Make a Sound?

I have mixed feelings about Twitter. I know its the hottest, latest, greatest rage in social media. Personally, I don't use my account, as I feel like a good ol' fashioned blog (that sounds weird) is the best method of broadcasting my thoughts about this crazy ever-changing industry.

As a professional communicator, I think Twitter can be an incredibly effective PR tool as it allows individuals and companies to broadcast updates to the adoring masses on a regular basis. The mainstream media are no longer gatekeepers, no we can relate directly to the actual public. And that's what scares the hell out of me.

There are some that feel that Twitter is the savior of PR. As newspapers fail, magazines slowly tank and TV becomes more fractioned, this is a direct channel into the mind of the consumer. I agree on some levels. The technology can be incredibly effective in the right hands, but it's not for everyone. I have one client in particular that uses Twitter to keep people updated on race results live from the track, broadcast pictures from cool events, and generally share a random assortment of fun little mini-stories. People like it, and respond well to the updates. I have other clients that have no business using Twitter. Screaming into the void accomplishes nothing if nobody is listening.

Here's my quick checklist to determine whether or not your company should Tweet:
5. Do you have a dedicated in-house marketing maven that can tweet daily?
4. Does that person write clean, compelling emails that leave you wanting more?
3. Do they have a sense of humor?
2. Is your company progressive enough that its day-to-day operations are interesting to the general public or people within your industry?
1. Do you have a social media platform that will support and take advantage of increased branding/traffic from a Twitter campaign?

If you answered no to any of these questions, you should seriously consider building a solid social media foundation before jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.

Businessweek: AP to take on Google

According to this story in Businessweek, the Associated Press is taking its fight with search giant Google to an interesting new level. For those not familiar, the AP is suing Google for using its news content without permission. Since that's not going anywhere, not they've decided to build their own search engine that will simultaneously give readers a way to access and search AP content quickly and easily, while also blocking Google spiders from tagging their stories.

I have a feeling this is as much a defensive move in response to lost income from failing newspapers as it is a genuine beef with Google. I love the AP, and some of the most well-written and thoroughly researched international news stories come out of that agency. It makes me a little sad that the prevailing minds at the country's biggest print news agency are taking the same path as many of the papers they serve: fighting against google rather than embracing it.

If they worked out a content sharing program that used adsense to monetize their content rather than blocking the number one aggregator's access to their content, it would probably work better and would certainly deliver more eyeballs to their content.

I'll keep you posted on developments.