Spotlight on the Google Doodle

One of the best things in life is change, and even better, innovation. There is something exciting about  coming to the same place every day and having something new and fresh pop up, just to teach you something, or just to make you smile.

Isn't Google awesome? Their Google Doodles are simply brilliant. By re-configuring their masthead in simple yet fun ways, they keep millions of cyber residents coming back, just to find the answer, not to their random questions which they eventually type into the Google search engine, but to a more burning question - What's today's doodle?

"Having a little bit of fun with the corporate logo by redesigning it from time to time is unheard of at many companies but at Google, it is a part of the brand. While the doodle is primarily a fun way for the company to recognize events and notable people, it also illustrates the creative and innovative personality of the company itself." - Google

The Google user experience is enhanced and user participation is encouraged, with users encouraged to submit doodle proposals to Google. The zipper doodle came out yesterday, celebrating Gideon Sundback, the guy who invented the zipper. Quite a random promotion, I agree, and not a fact I would have been able to blurt out on cue. I bet if you ask anyone today who invented the zipper, more than a few people may be able to at least give you a first name.

Doodle 4 Google also allows students to submit their own Google Doodle - a competition they have been hosting since 2008 - and recognising that "this crop of students will be tomorrow's leaders and inventors".

Google is truly living up to its brand promise of being an innovator, being on trend and being fun. A lot of oodle around the doodle from Google...and users love it.

Check out past Doodles here.

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Has Branding Gone to the Dogs?

Boo and George Stephanopoulos

I am obsessed with Boo. Not just because he is cute as a button, but he is a perfect example of the amazing effects of viral marketing and how it can create buzz and online engagement. Boo is a dog, for crying out loud – but a dog with over 3 million followers on Facebook. He is a social media darling! He simply had a case of knotted hair, needed a buzz-cut and the photo of the result went viral. Now with excellent marketing and promotion, “Boo” has articulated his popularity into a coffee table book, a stuffed replica of himself, appearances on morning talk shows, and endorsements, as well as lent his fame to good causes such as Operation Smile. What’s next for our four legged pal? Movie? The Presidency? Who knows? But Boo is testament to what great content can do for one’s brand. He is the Kardashian of the canine universe! Just way cuter (and less annoying).

If a dog can do it, why can’t your brand?

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Social Media Crib Sheet

Too funny not to share. A great crib sheet for the social media virgins. But all jokes aside, some people may REALLY find this useful. I think I am going to print it and share it at the office.

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Pinterest – Playing with the Big Boys… and Winning

Pinterest fever -
Photo credit: Pinterest

I resisted Pinterest initially as I thought it was pointless. Then I started using it and realised it was a great concept. Here it was, I could not only bookmark “stuff” but I could also bookmark my blog and drive traffic to it. I was a pinner!

Now Pinterest is showing Google and Twitterthat it has the chops to be a major player in the social media space.  

A new study from content-sharing firm Shareaholic has revealed that the social sharing platform Pinterest, which was established less than two years ago, is now the fastest-growing site for referral traffic - (read more...)

Brands can definitely explore the thousands of possibilities from the ability of customers to pin products or content that they like or want, and have their pins, re-pinned, liked and shared across multiple networks.  I will, of course, keep on pinning! Are you pinning yet? And…is your brand pin-worthy?

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Avoiding the Employee Engagement Rubber Rat!

The boring staff meeting

This article about employee town hall meetings where sitting was banned is great. On first reading that line, one might say – what a horrible organisation. However upon closer inspection, you realise that it is not as mean as it may sound.

How often have you been dragged away from your desk and from the productivity the C-Suite keep harping on, to sit in a meeting that drags on for hours? While I am all for engagement and especially where leadership is concerned, some meetings – and note I say, SOME – do not use time effectively, nor do they add value. They simply run the risk of aggravating the audience and in their minds, “wasting time”.

Engagement is important but it should also be effective. Many of us work in a fast-paced environment, and increasingly, our lives shape the way in which we communicate. We now communicate in a world of 140 characters, status updates, and short and succinct videos. Conversations do not always have to be epic. The best messages can get lost in the mire of sluggish corporate speak. The challenge for internal communicators is finding the best way to convey these messages so that 1) they are well received, understood and the receiver has good recall of the message;  2) do not head into the sphere of information overload.

While the rubber rat concept may not work for your organisation, other techniques would be more relevant – be it desktop or mobile video, internal social networking platforms or simply, better structured, better managed face-to-face meetings. 

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Season's Greetings!!!

Have a great holiday season everyone. See you in 2012!!!

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Caribbean Digital Expo: Crisis Communications 2.0

Caribbean Digital Expo 2011
Photo credit: Caribbean Ideas/CDX 2011

Finally, Caribbean professionals had a chance to discuss social media in their own backyard!

The Caribbean Digital Expo was hosted by Caribbean Ideas on Nov 22 in Port of Spain, Trinidad. Aimed at providing a Caribbean-centric forum for discussions around social media and other forms of digital media, the conference looked at digital media as the future of marketing and communications across the Caribbean.

While there were many examples and discussions of how brands are using social media, the panel discussion on crisis communications and social media was timely, especially as many social media proposals stall in the board room amid fears of negativity and fallout in such a wide, open and very public forum. The idea of reputational risk building and growing faster than the blink of an eye does indeed instill terror in the hearts of executives, but as with anything else in business, there has to be a strategy and a clear road map for practitioners to follow in order to manage issues and prevent or successfully defuse crises.

Thus even when pitching a social media proposal, one must be prepared to also discuss the flip side of social media – issues and crisis management. Being prepared from the get-go is the only way to meet any negative reactions or events head on.

Thus it is important to be aware of what adverse impact may affect your brand online. Alec J Rosen’s presentation was quite comprehensive in outlining the steps in managing crises online.

In order to stay ahead of the curve, scan the cybersphere, and assess the impact of social media activity on your organisation and go through the various scenarios which may impact organisational reputation online.

Preparing social media mitigation tools, both online and offline, for example a dark site for activation in the face of a crisis, an 800-number for crisis management and feedback, cross functional teams within the organization, and an ongoing cultivation of friends and allies who will prove to be exceptional brand evangelists in the turning tide.

Scanning the social media landscape for issues
and in order to manage crises
Photo credit: ActiveMetrics

Identifying the crises, whether they be sudden crises, or slow to develop crises is also important.

The response, whereby there are not only regular updates but conversations. Thus meetings with the crisis team and internet searches. The importance of being searchable will prove to be very important during a crisis, in order to monitor what is being said, where and by whom.  This is when you can activate one’s crisis management plan, and I love how Judette Coward-Puglisi of Mango MediaCaribbean, mentioned “holding tweets” in addition to the more traditional holding statements. Traditional crisis response tools such as press releases can and should be augmented by tweets, Facebook updates and I would suggest as well well-crafted video responses. Having a clear online response balances the negative reactions which will ultimately live online.

Rosen also pointed out that communication must be proactive. It must be open, it must reach and influence the various audiences, it must be multi-channel, and of course, it must be factual and clearly on message.

And of course, the E word that everyone loves to hate but which is so important in every aspect of communications – evaluation.  One must evaluate the outcomes and review key learnings which will influence the crisis management plan going forward.

This was the most useful part of the expo for me. Much of it also seemed to indicate that organisations still think social media is a "nice thing to have" as a lot of the questions/comments seemed to suggest. But great start!

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Why Corporate Doesn't Get It - Diversity and Marketing

Who came up with this?
An entire room of people approved this and thought this was cool?
Did they test this concept with a cross section of the population? 
Did noone think this was a bit...off?
Are they completely and utterly daft?

I am sure you have seen a poster or an ad which made you ask a variation of one of the aforementioned questions. I have. While the target market for a product or brand may have specific characteristics, does that exclude consideration of the wider issues within the society, from cultural differences, ethnic variance and gender or sexual orientation, among others?


I thought this was an amazing presentation on diversity and cross cultural communication from a corporate perspective, from Sacha Joseph-Matthews, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the Eberhardt School of Business at the University of the Pacific (and yes, she is Trinidadian). 

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Can Banks be Social?

HSBC as part of the skyline - China

I read an article yesterday about global financial services provider, HSBC's plans to implement a Facebook-type interface for customers.


...Britain's biggest bank is planning to create a new online platform catering for customers' non-financial needs. One industry source said: 'They want to set up their own version of Facebook.' - PR Week


Is this a step in the right direction? Financial services is one of those sectors which still have not really "gotten" social media. A lot of this has to do with the nature of the industry, which is highly regulated. During one discussion I had with a PR executive in a FTSE-100 listed financial services organisation, this was clear:


We’re not quite sure what we can do with these parameters cause as a company selling financial products, you can’t be seen as giving advice and therefore, there is a fine line. If we’re responding to somebody, are we advising them or are we just giving them information? 

In the case of HSBC, they are avoiding this proverbial fine line and hoping to use this interface for non-financial services and information, which they hope will differentiate them from their competitors.


‘Moving away from direct sales, we will build a distinct digital offering centred on customer’s future needs financial and non-financial. We will simply ask our customers to share their needs, and we will then feedback where possible to help people fulfil them [...]The social media strategy will be instrumental in not only raising awareness, but also in building the primary platform(s) for which customers will engage with the campaign. It will attract new customers while further engaging existing ones. - PR Week

HSBC is looking for agency support for this strategy at the moment, but is there any hope for success? If the company is looking to engage customers outside the parameters of what financial companies can and cannot communicate vis a vis industry regulations, then it is a good start. However, as the author of the article commented


The odds are certainly against it. There is very little historical evidence for any consumer appetite to mix financial and social activity. The dynamics of the relationship between banks and their customers are almost entirely functional and based on rational criteria.

Having had the experience in trying to mix financial and social activity for a customer base, I agree it is often challenging but certainly not impossible. Relationships do not have to be strictly "functional" or based on the necessary logistics. Customer engagement is just as important in such an area as in any other, especially when it comes to developing the overall face and brand of the organisation. And as the brief says, the company wants to gauge customers' needs. One cannot assume that they don't have other needs besides dollars and cents. Who knows what they may want! The jump off point may be a bit ambitious - a whole new interface built from scratch - but the rationale is indeed commendable.

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Social Media Pre-Nups and the Question of Social Media Ownership

Are brand-associated social media channels
trade secrets?

I have been following with great interest the debate about who owns social media followers. First, we have the case of Laura Kuenssberg who left her job as chief political correspondent at the BBC and moved on to rival, ITV on its business desk, taking over 60,000 Twitter followers with her. And it was as simple as changing her Twitter name and moving from @BBCLauraK to @ITVLauraK.

And most recently, there is the case of PhoneDog versus NoahKravitz in a battle to the death over 17,000 Twitter followers that the company asserts were “stolen” from them, when Kravitz, upon leaving the company, changed his screen name from @PhoneDog_Noah to @noahkravitz.

One may argue that the question is who has ownership of your voice but it is also a wider issue of how one chooses to brand oneself within the social media space and how this ultimately affects the entire question of who owns what.

Both Kuenssberg and Kravitz built massive Twitter followings using their employers’ names as an extension of their brand. And while social media is about humanising a brand and having real people, with their own tone, passion and je ne sais quoi, one also has to question whether most followers are subscribing to the person or to the brand. 

@ITVLauraK - Laura Kuenssberg's Twitter page

In Kuenssberg’s case, were followers really that interested in business news from ITV or did they specifically follow her because she “represented” BBC’s politics desk? There is a very murky grey area around the whole issue and one that many organisations may now wish to address in a more formal way.

When leaving a job, you are obliged to relinquish tangible and intangible ownership of perks to the position – personal computers, mobile phones, vehicles, representation. Now one also has to consider the protection of social media capital. Is a Twitter password, really a “trade secret”? If the company’s brand is clearly stated and it is not just an employee lending professional opinion from a personal account, what steps should be taken? The Drum cites the opinion of attorney, Steve Kuncewicz:

“… the best thing for a business would be to include a clause in their employment contracts requiring that anyone who tweets on their behalf should do so using a username that incorporates a brand (as ITV and PhoneDog did) - this way they can look to take action under Twitter's terms of use to force that user to close down the account for the unauthorised use of or suggestion of a continuing connection with that brand when they leave. Trying to work in any kind of clause which confers ownership of the existing following of a high-profile employee joining the business will be difficult if not impossible, so starting as you mean to go on is the best way of keeping hold of followers in this kind of situation, along with including a clause which prohibits the employee from making an announcement on their work-profile that they're leaving in an effort to move followers to their new account.”

So, while subscribers ultimately have a choice between the person and the brand, it still comes back to the need for brands to have a clear and strong social media policy – a social media pre-nup, as it were – about, among other things, who gets the “assets” when the marriage is over.

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Caribbean Digital Expo

My first post since I gave the blog a much needed overhaul! It's like Christmas over here!

So having just finished a year-long tour of duty as a postgrad student/expat in London, I am excited to be heading back to work soon. And I will be hitting the ground running. There are many exciting plans ahead and excited people make me excited as well. To sweeten the pot, I was silently hoping my boss and I shared the same vision and passion, and he would surprise me by signing us up for the Caribbean Digital Expo which would be on the second day of my new job. I came home and heard all the buzz around it and wondered how I would make it work.

Gold star to my boss! I will be there and I am excited that such a conference is finally taking place in Trinidad and Tobago. With speakers from amazing organisations such as Facebook and RIM/Blackberry, as well as case studies from local companies, it should be a fantastic day of networking, exchanging of ideas and experiences and brainstorming.

Here is my former boss, who will be one of the presenters, and who also was as excited about digital in our last roles, as my new boss. Like Danielle, I don't think any part of my life is un-social. Business has to not transform people, but it is clear that people and technology have also transformed the way we do business!

Thank God for progress! 

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A is for Apple (Not the Fruit)

Earlier this year, I read an article about a recent study that showed kids between the ages of 2-5 are more likley to be skilled in in the ins and outs of a smartphone, than they are with the ins and outs of tying their shoes, which in past generations was a learning/development milestone.  So when I saw this image this morning, I chuckled. Signs of the times!! How ancient our childhood joys must now seem!

The 2011 method for teaching kids their ABCs?

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The Evolution of Evaluation...or is it?

On 21 April 2007, GlaxoSmithKline started a communications revolution when the pharmaceutical giant became the first company listed on the FTSE 100 share index to send a tweet.

Eight months later, on 5 December 2007, Carnival Cruises set sail on its Facebook adventure, becoming the first FTSE 100 company to establish a presence on the social networking site.

Today, 67 members of the FTSE 100 index are actively engaged in social media. 

three [d] Digital and Social Media, www.threepipe.co.uk

edit: *I spoke to the Digital Communications Manager at GSK who indicated that from "a corporate standpoint, GSK was not the first FTSE 100 company to tweet back in 2007, as we did not own any Twitter accounts then."


In an earlier blog entry, I decided that PR evaluation is often overlooked in theory and in practice and thus came my topic for my Master's dissertation. Organisations are using public relations (PR) as part of their “problem solving and change processes” (Broom, 2009, p. 285), and while many practitioners are implementing a myriad of campaigns by which to do this, there is still widespread debate about PR, and its effectiveness and value from a business perspective.

Amidst the continuing debate about the evaluation of PR, the rise of new media technologies, notably social media, offers a new challenge to PR practitioners as it relates to evaluation. Many trade associations such as the CIPR, the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC), the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and the Association of Measurement and Evaluation for Communication (AMEC) have consistently been asking the question, “How do you get started in measuring social media and what are the relevant metrics?” (CIPR, 2011).

My study will explore what PR practitioners across the FTSE 100 companies expect to achieve by integrating social media into their ongoing programmes and campaigns, and more importantly, how well they evaluate these objectives and what are the prevailing metrics, methods and tools used across the industry.


I have already had the opportunity to interview a few PR practitioners from large UK companies and gained some fantastic insight from them. 

----
References cited:

• Broom, G.M. (2009) Cutlip & Center’s Effective Public Relations, 10th edn. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc
• CIPR (2011) Social Media Measurement Guidance. Available at: http://www.cipr.co.uk/sites/default/files/Final_Social_Media_Measurement_Guidance%20_March_2011.pdf (Accessed: 2 April, 2011) 

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JetBlue Continues to Differentiate its Brand

With the simple tagline of "If you wouldn't take it on the ground, don't take it in the air", JetBlue has been attempting to differentiate itself from its competitors.

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How Do You Measure PR?

PR Measurement is critical and not an option!

I have found recently that in doing assignments, with limited word counts, that one of the shortest sections, if not the shortest section is usually the Evaluation and Measurement section. Much goes into the strategy and tactics sections, with details going into the appendices, but the poor Evaluation section suffers.

In real life, it shouldn't and it is the reason I have decided to look at PR measurement, specifically social media in PR measurement for my dissertation. Evaluation is nothing new, but with all the buzz about social media, all the hype and gloss, many people are interested in the question - how do we measure this thing? I am interested in it.

Advertising Value Equivalents (AVEs)
have no place in PR measurement

There are still so many nebulous areas where measurement is concerned and not enough standardisation. PR Week recently announced it would not considering AVEs as a measurement criteria for its annual awards. The Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC) has also been steadily campaigning to do away with the AVE as a standard for PR measurement.

Evaluation and measurement of PR is nothing new, so why has the PR industry taken so long to make its own mark on evaluating what it does, rather than using metrics from other disciplines as a benchmark? And like my assignments, why do we shy away from research and evaluation, while paying a great deal of attention to tactics? I would think that one would lead to the other and to the other - A to B to C.

And now with social media, which may still come across as fluffy stuff to some senior executives, that we have now really been focusing on proving its value and showing how it can be evaluated, the whole question of measurement of PR in general seems even more critical. The Barcelona Declaration of Research Principles was released in June 2010, and for the PR industry, it is a good first step:

1. Goal setting and measurement are fundamental aspects of any PR programme
2. Measuring the effect on outcomes is preferred to measuring outputs
3. The effect on business results can and should be measured where possible
4. Media measurement requires quality and quantity
5. AVEs are not the value of PR
6. Social media can and should be measured
7. Transparency and replicability are paramount to sound measurement.

So it is in honour of my abbreviated evaluation sections over the past few months, and out of a genuine interest to see what my peers are doing in real business cases, that I will be pounding the library and the doors of industry to find out, what are we doing, how are we doing it in terms of PR/social media measurement.

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Rock the Red Pump

I ran across the Red Pump Project a few weeks ago while blog hopping and thought it was such a fun and creative way to get women talking about HIV/AIDS. I mean really...what do most women love, if not shoes? I think having an excuse to wear a pair of red heels is great on a normal day. Wearing your killer ruby reds to raise awareness about how HIV/AIDS affects women and girls around the world is just a fantastic idea. It just takes the standard red HIV/AIDS ribbon to another level - reaching out to women using what is most familiar to them. Not to mention most fierce.

Every year, the United States recognizes March 10th as National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NWGHAAD). It’s a nationwide initiative to raise awareness about the increasing impact of HIV/AIDS on women & girls and encourages ladies to take action. While progress has definitely been made in the areas of AIDS prevention and treatment, women still represent 27% of all new AIDS diagnoses, with African-American women accounting for 66% of that group. This year focuses on this statistic, “Every 35 minutes, a woman tests positive for HIV in the United States. - Rock the Red Pump website

March 10 is Red Pump Day, so ladies, if you have a pair of red pumps, tomorrow is a great day to take them for a whirl around town. The group will also have a Twitter townhall starting at 1.30pm CST and you can follow them - @RedPumpProj and join the conversation by using the hashtag #redpump.

I just love this idea and love that groups are being creative with the ways in which they support causes such as HIV/AIDS awareness, because the reality is, to stand out among the clutter of messages out there, one really has to be. Good luck, Red Pump ladies.

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Master's Dissertation and the Increasingly Vast Communications Word Cloud

So you've gone through one full semester and part of a second and you have been exposed to theories and case studies and group projects and brainstorming. You have gotten excited over parts of a module and depressed over an entire module and it all leads up to one defining moment.

The selection of a dissertation topic.

It is probably the single most stressful moment of your academic career. And while you know you must select a topic that you are interested in or passionate about, there is also the other side - how much literature is available around your passion? Do you have a firm jump off point? What is already known about it - where are the areas of debate? And of great importance to an already stressed out student - what are the likely problems one can anticipate in planning to explore this topic?

My dissertation word cloud

There are a lot of ideas swirling around my head - a couple core concepts that I am exploring. Getting feedback from others is always a great way of drilling down from the general to the specific. The communications word cloud is expanding every day, challenging established theories and creating new modes of doing things. It's exciting as a practitioner, and maddening as a student on the brink of selecting a topic for a Master's dissertation. My personal word cloud - my dissertation word cloud - looks like this, and I need to drill down and be both passionate and practical. Easier said than done.

I am still soliciting feedback and suggestions, based on the topics floating around there in my word cloud. I have been reading and contemplating and speculating and planning and lots of other -ings. It should be pretty demanding and exciting to say the least. But should also include tonnes of learning.

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Lights. Camera. Fashion. And the evolution of media relations

Photo credit: AP Photo/Andrew Burton via Yahoo News

Hair. Makeup. Couture.
Press. Publicists. Bloggers.

New York Fashion Week is on and what I love about this is how the media landscape has changed from a few years ago to what it is now. Social media has changed the face of media relations across the PR industry. Gone are the days when having a by-line in a newspaper made you the most important dude to a PR exec. Now with a laptop and an opinion, you can catch the attention of PR teams, whose eyes now have to scan new forms of media to gauge opinions about their brands and to build their brands.

Photo credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer via Yahoo News

I love that Tumblr has sent 24 of its fashion bloggers to NYFW. Just regular people with a love for fashion, who have a great following and who have the power to influence their readers.Great strategy for Tumblr, which is a favourite platform for photogs and fashionistas.  One of their Tumblrs is only 16 years old - from Devon, England. She will be rubbing shoulders with Oscar de la Renta and top fashion editors, and "reporting" live from one of the premier fashion events in the world. A 16 year old can open up the world of high fashion to an audience that may yet be untapped by traditional media. It's pretty damn awesome.

Media ownership now goes way beyond conglomerates. It lies in the keyboards of the citizens of the world. Media relations strategies now have to include and consider social media influencers in promoting the personality and image of the brand - making brands so much more accessible to so many more people. It's really fantastic how quickly things have changed.

I regularly follow one of the 24 Tumblrs - Jessica Quirke - and she is having a remarkable experience. She and the 54,000 people who follow her religiously. Amazing.

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Valentine's Day - 2011 style

I found this great video by the always great Socialnomics, and it was too cute not to share.




Also a rewind to the past.

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Public Relations - Does it Make Cents?

While doing research on a project over the past week, I realised that the question of budgets for PR was a nebulous one in the literature. So of course I went to the real world via Twitter and the feedback was not that surprising.

In my own experience, over the course of a few different jobs in both the private and public sectors, the process around PR budgets varied. In one role, we had a flat budget annually. There was no negotiation - take it or leave it. Somehow we had to make this stretch across advertising, stakeholder engagement, CSR activities, internal comms activities.

Most of the time though, the budget process was simply around what I call "submit and pray". You planned the year's activities, plotted the financial resources required for said activities, submitted the budget and hoped to God the powers that be would see it your way. They often never did. Budgets came back slashed by 30, 40, 50 percent and still you were expected to make the organisation and its brand shine like a new shilling.

And between reponses from my Twitteratti like "what budget?", "PR what?" and "Budget? LMAO", I realised that the PR professional in many cases suffer the same fate I did, in that somehow the PR budget is at the bottom of the cash money food chain. Even in my last job, most of the money we eventually got, was pillaged to get advertising spend.

So what is the reason for this? Is PR still the bastard child of the organisational family? It really all comes down to how PR positions itself within the organisation and how valued it is, how valued its people are. It's a circle of life that starts with people and power and perceptions. Until those things are in alignment, then the tweets like "PR budgets exist?" will continue and then that is truly a blow to the work that we try to do.

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