Flack's Revenge

Blogging for a Free Iran

I have heard about a number of BlogCatalog "Bloggers Unite" campaigns. They seem to be worthy causes, and I decided it was time to jump in and participate and am doing so in honor of today's event, Bloggers Unite for a Free Iran.

Some may wonder what my blog, which generally focuses on tech PR, marketing and social media has to do with Iran.  Well, one of the luxuries of running a blog is that I decide what to write about.

But anyway, one does not have to look too hard to find a tie in, at least in terms of the power of social media.  It became pretty clear during the unrest following the questionable election results that online rallies can be as potent a force for change as taking it to the streets (see my Tweet on the topic: Twitter as a tool for revolution; what we have learned so far via NYT http://is.gd/1a7xj).  Bill Maher suggested in one of his recent shows that the US should be actively promoting the use of Twitter and blogs abroad, to help foment change in oppressive countries.

I think people deserve to have the government and society that they want.  It has become pretty clear in recent weeks that the Iranian people want change.  I truly hope they get it, and that the social media campaigns of which I am now part of help them in this goal.

So how can one find out more, and get involved in blogging for a free Iran?  See the following link.

Jamming the Frequencies: Fear, Loathing and How to Keep a Secret at Apple

One of the laws of buzz is scarcity.  Things that are in high demand but short supply tend to score well on the buzz index.

This relates to information as well.  And, on that note, you have to admire Apple Computer, one of the most admired companies and the envy of tech marketers everywhere.  Apple is famous for its ability to build a mystique around its brand and generate buzz.  They cloak their product plans in secrecy and stage roll outs that dazzle and capture our collective attentions.

Their ability to do this is even more impressive given how hard it can be to keep a secret these days.  Could Apple be the exception that proves the rule about the need to "just let it all hang out" in this blog-driven age of transparency?

Or perhaps the strategy is starting to backfire.  The NY Times had two stories yesterday that tacked negative; one, about potential issues regarding the disclosure (or lack thereof) of the true state Steve Jobs' health.  The second story covers the company's fabled ability to keep a secret.

According to the latter article:

Secrecy at Apple is not just the prevailing communications strategy; it is baked into the corporate culture...

“They don’t communicate. It’s a total black box,” said Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray who has covered Apple for the last five years.

Mr. Munster said he jokes with other colleagues covering the company about how Apple routinely “jams the frequencies,” or gives them misinformation to throw them off the scent of a new product or other news it hopes to keep confidential.

I thought I would help readers who might be curious about how Apple can achieve this secrecy by distilling tips from the article and including them below (in Apple's defense, it is hard to judge the veracity as most of the sources are anonymous).

• Monitor the workplace with security cameras
• Hide top secret projects behind a maze of security doors
• Require complex combinations of badge swiping and numeric code entry to gain access
• Cover products under development with black cloaks and signal their unveiling with red warning lights
• Discover who is leaking info by spreading false information to insiders, tracking where the false info appears, and connecting the dots
• Lawyer up and sue bloggers that trade in rumors
• Limit communications with the media, shareholders and the public

New eBook on Market Positioning

At Fusion PR, we have teamed up with Silicon Valley tech marketing and strategy guru Rebel Brown on many successful product launches and company rebranding/turnaround efforts.

I am pleased to let you know that Rebel's new eBook It’s Not About You Anymore, P.S. It Never Was is out now (free download, no registration required).  It describes her approach to developing positioning that works.

According to the book:

Buyers do not use marketing propaganda to make decisions – whether they are consumers or B2B buyers. Buyers want credible evidence – and they don’t necessarily view vendors as the best source for those credible facts. Besides, B2B customers can find out every 'truth' they want to know about you. Give them a search engine and they are off and running on a factfinding frenzy. And thanks to social media – not all they learn will be facts. They’ll learn how others feel about your business. Market perception is more important than ever before.

Rebel reminds us that every position needs to be unique, discusses how to develop a positioning matrix, and explains the importance of focusing on the "pivot points" regarding your market, company and solutions.

The book offers great advice for anyone involved in tech PR and marketing, I strongly recommend it.

Promoting Your Business with a Unique Logo

So you thought you knew everything there is to know about the most basic of marketing accessories, the logo?  Guess again.  This guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design shares some good advice.

If you have been in business for any period of time  I am sure you have grown to appreciate the importance of your logo.   If you are new to the business world it is important for you to understand the integral role a unique logo can and should play when it comes to promoting and marketing your business.

This article offers an overview for tips for utilizing your logo to best promote your business.  Armed with this information, you will be able to develop a plan of action to help you make the greatest use of your logo.

Your Logo, Your Marketing Essential

Your logo really is the fundamental foundation of your overall marketing and promotional efforts for your business.   It can be utilized in a variety of basic and essential ways.   This includes using your logo as a focal point on letterhead, business cards, product packaging and so forth.

Of course, it is impossible to underestimate these basic uses of your logo; you need to keep in mind that a business logo can be utilized in many other very important and effective ways.  These alternative and yet dynamic uses for your logo are further discussed and explored in this article.

Your Logo and the Media

In this day and age, during these complex and complicated economic times, all responsible business owners are seeking ways to expand their market reach without overextending their advertising budgets.  One avenue that many a wise business owner is pursuing is to take advantage of free media opportunities when it comes to promoting a business.

If you are inclined to take advantage of free media opportunities – through press releases, media coverage and so forth (both online and in the brick and mortar world) – your business's logo can be a crucial element of these efforts.

By promoting your business through news releases and related activities you can make prominent use of your logo.  In fact, when you are using the Internet as a means of distributing and highlighting your press releases and related announcements you will find that it is very easy to include your logo in this process.

Your Logo and Your Marketing Collateral

In addition to the steps outlined thus far, there are many other ways in which you can and should incorporate your logo in your other marketing, promotional and advertising efforts.  

Examples of collateral uses can include the placement of your logo on such items as shirts, pens, cups and the like.  Through this type of effort you are able to provide consumers with practical items that they actually can utilize on a regular basis.  Each time they use one or another of these items they will be exposed to your logo – be exposed to your business and the products or services that you are offering in the marketplace today.

You need to be very careful while ordering your promotional material.  The quality of material as well as the printing quality will ideally leave a positive and lasting impression on all your potential customers about your company.  In fact, all the collateral used for promotion will represent the quality of product and services being offered by you.

Final Lines

By considering all of the options that are available to you when it comes to the use of a custom logo for your business, you will be opening up brand new horizons in regard to your endeavors.  With consistency and right use of your logo, you will be able to obtain maximum marketplace exposure for your business ... and will see an increase in your revenues and profits well into the future.

This is guest post from Ben Johnson of Logoinn, custom logo design service provider based in UK.

Don't Become Social Media Roadkill in Your Organization

In my post Is ROI Overrated?, I advised against getting caught up in planning paralysis when it comes to social media

If you are only just now contemplating a social media strategy, you may well be part of a big company.  Change often does not come easily to large organizations.

Perhaps it has become a political football of sorts.  Some wonder where on the organizational chart social media should belong.  Who should "own" the social media effort?  The communications department would seem to be an obvious home for it.  Then again, social media involves technology, so shouldn't IT have a say too?

If you have been charged with trying to help your organization get its collective arms around social media, I advise a word or two of caution that might seem at odds with my earlier post, but really isn't.

This advice is based on my experiences with social media and my long history helping companies adopt and implement technologies, including marketing systems and what could arguably be called the first social media platform, Lotus Notes.  Before I got into PR I cut my tech teeth on IT consulting.

The caution can help you avoid having a great big target painted on your back that could arise from social media not being well understood.  Political footballs and investments come with risk.

Even when it is understood social media can be amorphous.  Like a Rorschach test, people see different things in it based on their perch in the organization and might have divergent expectations, as examples:

C Suite:  We must do it now!  Everyone's on Twitter! The CEO at X company has a blog! Where are we?
Legal team:  What about the risks?
Marketing:  Great!  One more place to plaster our messages!
Everyone else:  Don't bother me with this now, I already have too much on my plate.

Without taking this into account, and setting the right expectations, you could wind up at the center of an effort doomed to failure because it was not properly conceived, budgeted and implemented.

So how do you reconcile my advice to not get caught up in planning paralysis with these words that urge you to go forward in some kind of methodical and rational way?

Stay tuned for my next post, I will share some practical tips.

Spanning Time with Facebook

In crafting this post I was reminded of a scene from the great independent flick Buffalo '66.  The degenerate played by Vincent Gallo is posing in a photo booth with his waif girlfriend, played by Chrsitina Ricci.  They are rehearsing the story they will tell his parents about their relationship.  Here's an excerpt from the script:

We're taking pictures
like we're a couple.
Like we like each other.
Like we're husband and wife.

We span time together.
We span time together as a couple.

'Cause we're a loving couple,
spanning time.

These photos are us in love,
spanning time.

I have written about Google's ability to span time.  I thought I'd share some recent time-spanning miracles enabled by Facebook.

• Former neighbors and friends from grade school some 40 years ago (who I did not keep in touch with in my adult years) reached out to me via Facebook expressing interest in reconnecting.  They invited me to a 30 year high school reunion picnic.  The gang from the old neighborhood (including my first girlfriend from 6th grade) met there and had a blast.
• My father-in-law Richard divorced my wife's mom when my wife was young, and lost all contact with us shortly before we got married some 19 years ago.  He never met our two beautiful kids.  Richard reached out recently on Facebook, first to cousins and uncle, and then friended our kids.  He extended a friendship invitation to my wife - who accepted after some angst and soul searching.
• My mom lost her three sisters over the course of a couple of years.  Their families do not live close by and we have not seen them much over the years.  My brother posted some pictures on a Facebook group set up by the cousins showing the entire group in front of our house circa 1971.  The cousins chimed in like excited kids and posted some 50 comments sharing memories.

As I said, truly miracles, and I expect the stories will continue to grow.  Do you have any to share?

Tips for Staying Grounded Amidst a Turbulent Sea of Change

There has been  a number of posts and articles recently questioning the continuing relevance of blogs, and the staying power of Twitter and social networks.

Handshake 2.0 blogger Anne Giles Clelland called my attention to this post, which predicted that people would tire of social networks like they have of blogging.  The same post linked to this article in the NY Times, which highlighted an apparent decline in blogging.

Some have suggested that Twitter will suffer the same fate as Second Life - which was all the rage not long ago but not buzzed about quite as much today.

Which leaves one with the question - how do you handicap the social media horse race and decide which tools to bet on?

In ClickZ Experts, Robin Niefield recently wrote in her story Social Media: Seduced by the New?:

We've been privileged and challenged by a steady stream of new and hot technologies and communication channels in digital marketing. Each new star garners outsize attention from the media as marketers, educators, and agencies desperately try to stay abreast or get ahead of yet another new opportunity.

For that brief shining moment, both fads and legitimate strategies and tactics can take on celebrity status while other, equally legitimate strategies and tactics are temporarily displaced. But "hot" shouldn't be a factor in rationale decision making or budget allocation unless it's the kind of hot that creates audience momentum and true marketing opportunity.

....Admittedly, making rational decisions amid the hype and without experience to guide efforts is difficult. Each brand's case is unique, requiring a customized analysis of opportunity, environment, resources, competition, and a host of other factors. New tactics are often missing the guidance of relevant history and example.

On the topic of Twitter (Hot) and blogging (some say decidedly Not), I have offered this advice.

Above and beyond, I think it helps to heed a few tips:

Whatever communications mechanisms you use, tell a good story - This almost goes without saying.  It is like a kind of info Darwinism - the fittest, or most interesting stories will climb the buzz heap and survive; the rest will whither on the vine and be ignored.

Some hear the advice "Tell a good story" and immediately think of the old adage "content is king."

Content is no longer king.  Amidst an explosion of content choices, attention (or the ability to capture and keep it) is king.  Which leads us to the next point.

Think "pull" not push - Where are the eyeballs of your customers today - and how can you get in front of them? How is this changing?  E.g., while Twitter was formerly the fun toy of the techies, it is now becoming much more mainstream.  Facebook was once for the college set.  This is obviously no longer true.

Know your stuff - Today the market quickly separates clueless shills from their credibility.  People are called out and shamed with brutal efficiency - and this info lives forever online.  Stand behind your pitch, understand your space, and seek to have intelligent dialog.

Study how information flows online - How doe information flow and get discovered online?  This is constantly evolving and you need to become a student.  E.g., see my earlier post, in which I discussed the growing role of social networks for content discovery..

Blogging still counts - It may no longer be the cool new social media plaything but does enable easy Web publishing and can be a core component of a content marketing platform (I described this in last week's post.  Also, see my post on Fusion PR Forum: Crossing the Blogging Chasm).

As long as people go to blogs and read them they are still relevant.  The above tip regarding your audiences should be a caveat for this rule.

Moment of Truth for PR

What are the perceptions of the PR profession's "brand" and reputation?  How should the field evolve to meet the needs of today?

Read my post on Fusion PR Forum to find out more.

Is ROI Overrated? Don't Underestimate Soft Benefits of Social Media

There can be good reasons for diving headlong into a social media strategy and arguments for hedging bets and proceeding carefully.  I would venture to say that the greater danger is to sit on the sidelines and be too deliberative.

I attended a session at the Conference Board's Corporate Communications and Web 2.0 event several weeks and was amazed to hear how the social media effort has grown organically at IBM (a company that many might assume is slow and bureaucratic), without lots of of fanfare or centralized planning.  Moderator and IBM social media manager Adam Christensen mentioned that the company's blogging policy was launched long after the company encouraged people to blog (there is now a veritable army of IBM bloggers).

People cite good reasons for delaying.  They want to avoid risks and see that there will be a business benefit, and some path to ROI for time and money spent.  This post that ran on the Comet Branding blog implores people to first have their proverbial ducks in a row.  Here's an excerpt:

Before you break your back doing the heavy lifting of researching and planning out your social media strategy, save yourself some heartache and hassle by first doing a posture check to gauge your organization’s social media readiness. Here are 8 questions to consider as you prepare to dive into the social mediasphere...

Far be it from me to say that things like metrics, ROI, and preparation are unimportant.  At the same time, I am reminded of my early days in tech, doing missionary selling work for some of the first CRM systems (called sales force automation then, back in the day of DOS and 24 pound luggable laptops).

Customers pushed for ROI, and we had some equations which seemed to do the trick as far as reassuring sales prospects that there was a road to payback.  More often than not, companies proceeded on faith - the common sense that maintaining an electronic customer database that is shared is just better than a stack of index cards or Rolodex.  You could also say the same thing for desktop productivity tools.  Is there ROI in word processing or spreadsheet software?

So, for all the well-intentioned and reasonable efforts to measure social media, control it and tie it back to business results, consider some simple facts:

• People are buzzing about your brand right now, online as we speak.  Don't you want to be part of the conversation?
• If you are not monitoring your brand and engaging in online dialog, can you afford to wait much longer?
• Do you really need a study to tell you that the ways people get the information they need for purchasing decisions is much different today than it was even just a few years ago?

As I have said, and as the IBM example validates, social media can blossom without lots of central control or planning and to a large extent success means letting go.  There are typically many people who will gladly help in your extended community - your loyal customers, employees and their networks - if you give them what they need, encourage them and then just get out of the way.

Blogging and Twitter: a Powerful Combination

There has been lots of buzz recently about what I see as two different sides of the same coin.  Some call it "content marketing", and say it is the New PR.  Others use the term "inbound marketing."

In either case, the objective is to get people to find out about your company, product or service by publishing compelling content.  Content marketing in the online world translates to inbound marketing through links that direct the reader inbound, i.e. to your website or blog (as opposed to outbound marketing tactics like telemarketing or advertising).

Blogging combined with Twitter can work together and comprise pillars for a powerful content marketing system. Your blog offers the persistent content hub, while Twitter provides a platform for quick, conversational updates - some of which include links back to the blog.

I find that many are enamored of Twitter.  It is the shiny new social media "toy".  Clients often ask me how to get the most out of social media after being infected by the Twitter buzz - but before they have committed to an effective blogging strategy.

As Heidi Cohen wrote very eloquently in yesterday's ClickZ piece Use Blogs to Extend Social Reach and Drive Online Sales:

While not as sexy as other social media formats, blogging can effectively utilize text, photographs, video, audio, and PDFs to fuel other social media interactions, most notably Twitter and social bookmarking. By using other communication channels, such as RSS and e-mail, to distribute blog content, you can extend your reach. To be effective, blogging requires ongoing work, commitment, and time to yield benefits.

Now, after hitting the "Publish" button, I will promptly issue an update via Ping.fm - which will in turn update my Twitter and social networking accounts - which will no doubt result in some traffic to this blog and demonstrate content marketing in action.