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…
5 More Reasons Companies Fail at Social Media
Last week, Amy Mengel brilliantly summarized 5 Reasons Corporations Fail at Social Media. Those lessons (which she gleaned at the 2009 Inbound Marketing Summit) are entirely valid concerns for any company that’s navigating its way through the mostly uncharted waters of social media. But, in…
Goldilocks and the 3 Social Media Strategies
There’s been a lot of talk lately about whether or not an external agency should (or even can) manage the social media efforts for a client’s company. Debates abound over efficiency, ethics, customer service and business strategy. To us, the answers are simple: yes, no…
What Companies Fear Most About Social Media
A recent survey from eMarketer outlines both the perceived benefits and the primary concerns that business executives have about social media. Chief among their reservations: information security and employee productivity. Considering that 51% of the survey’s non-social media-using respondents said they “don’t know enough about”…
Since When Does PR Need a Facelift?
In a recent post for Social Media Today (SMT), Tactical Transparency author Shel Holtz makes the case that traditional PR can still be just as effective of a marketing resource as the hot new grassroots options like “trusted peers” and word-of-mouth. The catch? In Shel’s…
A Social Media Article for the CPA Crowd
Yes everyone is writing about social media…millions of articles about how you as a business should be utilizing the social networks…linkedin, facebook, blogging….so now you have heard it, you read it every day, you have tried to get on board but how does it all really…
Blogola: The Nefarious Social Media Vampire That Feasts on Your Credibility
The recent increase in conversations about the pros and cons of blogola — AKA the “grey area” practice of bloggers getting paid by sponsors to write blog posts about those sponsors — highlights the issue at the heart of social media: trust. Blogs exploded in…