How to Find the Right (and Wrong) Employees to Represent Your Brand
One of the hardest lessons for businesses to learn about social media is this: Social media is a multi-way conversation. This differs from more traditional messaging. Ads are a one-way street. PR is top-down spin. And customer service is a function, not an opportunity. But…
A Case Study: What Happens When Business and Politics Mix?
Politics — and political correctness — are tricky things. Everyone’s entitled to their own beliefs, but when a business becomes associated with a political sound bite, those beliefs can create a PR problem. (See our previous post about what PR can’t help you do in…
Stop Selling Spin: Why Facebook Won’t Save You in a PR Crisis
This week, the mainstream media has been blanketed by news coverage of BP’s oil spill off the US gulf coast. With ecological, economic and political repercussions being hotly debated, Erik Sass at MediaPost capitalized on the zeitgeist by turning it into a social media case…
Defending Your Brand: How Some Companies Are Setting Themselves Up for PR Problems
Not every company feels compelled to use social media. But those who haven’t at least moved to establish their own online presence may be in for a surprise: it’s incredibly easy for someone else to do it for you — and not always with the…
Using Social Media to Manage a PR Crisis
If there’s one recurring reason companies are reluctant to embrace social media, it’s that “something could go wrong.” But when something else goes wrong in your company, are you prepared to use social media as a way to steady the ship? Eileen O’Brien has an…
Letting Go in the New Year: What Is YOUR Company So Afraid Of?
The Buzz Bin’s Mike Mulvihill kicks off the new year with an excellent observation about social media: the way companies obsess over “controlling the message” is strangling the industry. In Mulvihill’s own words (emphasis mine): I’d love to see a survey of how many of…
AT&T vs. Verizon: Why Bad PR Is Still Good for You
In Andrew Cherwenka’s recent case study, he explains how AT&T used Facebook to defend themselves against Verizon’s claims of a better 3G network, and how that plan backfired when the very customers AT&T expected to rally to their defense instead fell silent while the conversation…
3 Social Media Case Studies, 1 Central Lesson
Your social media presence is only as useful as the change it triggers in your business. To that end, here are 3 recent case studies we’ve found, along with the lessons explained (or implied) by each: The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) called in its bloggers…
Your Social Media Strategy Says a Lot About Your Company’s Character
Heidi Sullivan’s* recent blog post about “the Amp app” makes a valid point: “Don’t alienate your customers.” She also gives credit to our client, Bigelow Tea, whom she cites as a positive example of a brand adapting its messaging after discovering its social media audience…
Finding the Right Voice(s) for Your Brand
One of our clients, Ouidad, has ventured into the world of web video with a trio of hair care tips for the terminally curly. Each video has a different focus — beauty & empowerment, hair care on the go and 4-minute curls — which means…