Karen’s PR & Social Media Blog

Go Louisville!

Here is what I am reading today:

• making an infographic REAL

“There’s more to creating a decent infographic than slapping a few stats on a Photoshop canvas and using a jazzy font; relevancy, editing, research and visualization are all key components and getting them right will get your graphic in front of the right people.”

• how to use VINE

“Vine is a mobile app for iOS that allows users to create and share 6-second videos. Acquired by Twitter in October and launched at the end of January, Vine is the newest tool in mobile video.

Vine is like a mixture of Twitter, Instagram, and animated GIFs. Like Twitter, it limits length by design — Vine limits video length to three to six seconds. Like Instagram, it allows users to easily and quickly create visuals and upload them to social networks. And like animated GIFs, Vines continuously loop in the iOS app and web interface and have high spreadability potential.”

• on-line pranks

“Google doesn’t really do April Fools’ the same way as other companies. While most actually try to fool you, Google tries to be entertaining instead and therefore come up with the craziest ideas it can think of. There’s enough from the company to dedicate an entire post to them but here are some quick examples.”

• simply ZESTY

“With Facebook offering greater choices for social ads and Twitter relaunching its business page, Charlie Ardagh, founder and CEO of PropelAd, looks at socially validated advertising and the four main factors driving it.”

• welcome to the Louisville Social Media Team, Scott!

“Scott Sanders studies the development of trust, the evaluation and management of information, and the effect of inauthentic communication within online brand communities. Specifically, he is interested in how consumers evaluate the credibility of user-generated content and how interaction within online brand communities influences credibility, trust, and brand loyalty. He hopes through his research to discern best practices that will allow companies to honestly engage enthusiastic customers and build mutually rewarding relationships. Scott came to USC Annenberg after receiving his MA in communication from the Purdue University where his masters research examined how young, urban Chinese use mobile phones to manage personal relationships. He is active in several research projects conducted by the Annenberg Program on Online Community and likes to mountain bike in his spare time.”

• value modeling, social media and hurricane Irene

“We combined best practices from public relations with value modeling to construct a model for identifying “good” social media crisis messages.

As a proof of concept, the resulting model was tested against social media crisis messages collected during the Hurricane Irene crisis.

Top-ranked social media updates shared a number of attributes, including links to further information, use of strong voice, and multimedia.

A set of best practices was proposed based on the value model.”

• PTCH — sloslam 2013 social media conference!

I had a wonderful opportunity to present at this informative conference!

• what people think about vaccinations on twitter

“On Twitter, a popular microblogging and social-networking service, statements about vaccines may have unexpected effects — positive messages may backfire, according to a team of Penn State researchers led by Marcel Salathé, an assistant professor of biology. The team tracked the pro-vaccine and anti-vaccine messages to which Twitter users were exposed and then observed how those users expressed their own sentiments about a new vaccine for combating influenza H1N1 — a virus strain responsible for swine flu.”

I always thought Cardinals were the original “Angry Birds!”

Here is what I am reading today:

• how to get your social media content MOVING!

“The purpose of social media is to discover and share content you wouldn’t find through normal means. That’s its greatest strength, but the problem is harnessing this power for your own brand. Not everyone has access to a team or budget that the large brands have, but with a little bit of creativity and forward thinking, you can carve out a following and get people talking about your page. Here are some straightforward tips to help you get started…..”

• how brands are becoming di-VINE!

“…Dove has come up with a smart way of promoting its colourful range of shower gels with this Vine offering. The product looks attractive and the clip has a humorous twist, plus they made a bit of a deal out it being their first Vine post, so people were more likely to give it a watch….”

• who can predict behavior of others??

“To completely understand how a living organism works one would have to take it apart, the great physicist Niels Bohr once observed — but then the organism would certainly be dead¹. In general, systems of high complexity, including living things but ranging from the Internet to social networks, are often impossible to track in all their details.

But what if you didn’t have to? Network-theory researchers now have come up with some clever mathematics that reveals complex systems by tracking a selected few of their components.

Say, for example, that you wanted to find a biological marker that identifies people with a certain disease. You can track down all the genes that are expressed differently in people with the disease and assemble a network that shows their interactions, but how do you then pick out those that are specific to the illness?”

• advice from Edelman Digital!

“More friends, more fans, more brands, more stories.

More people are using social media than ever before – and for longer, on an increasingly diverse array of devices. As a result, newsfeeds are cluttered, and fans are more distracted and discerning.

In order to succeed, brands will increasingly turn to real-time creative, analytics and paid media to ensure that high-performing content reaches as many people as possible, at the moment they are most interested, to spark conversations and deepen customer relationships. As media converges, brands will invest in ways to complement original, visual content with fan-sourced creative.

Promoting high-performing content that aligns with new “real content” search drivers will become essential. Brands will host epic social events to excite the base and invest in tools that help them target and engage one-on-one more efficiently. And brands will have a little fun in the process, remembering that brandplay can go a long way to telling their story.

There are 10 social media essentials that can help guide brands to achieve success in 2013. We explore these essentials and case studies of brands in action…..”

• athletes react poorly to social media criticism

“Canadian tennis player Rebecca Marino’s revelations that she’s been bullied via social media has shone a light about how professional athletes react to what’s said about them on Twitter and Facebook.

Marino said Wednesday she felt overwhelmed at times by barbs directed at her following a loss.

“The hurtful ones kind of stick with you a little bit more,” Marino told reporters Wednesday during a conference call. “I was getting some messages saying I should go die, that I should go burn in hell, that I’m a dumb-ass, that I’m an idiot, that I lost them money.”

We will never be out of work!

Here is what I am reading today:

• analyzing the super bowl ads

“Baking Social Media into classic TV ads is now a common practice, particularly during the Super Bowl. On Sunday, half of the ads that aired during the game mentioned a hashtag. The purpose of doing so in Super Bowl ads is to spark conversations on social networks and eventually extend the reach of the ad itself.

Because hashtags are a core feature on Twitter, many people took to the micro-blogging network to share their opinion about the ads. But what place did Instagram have in all this?”

• SEO and social media

“Mention the term SEO and what do you think of? Websites? Blogs, Google? They’re all correct, but what most people don’t consider is that it’s not limited to just sites. Social media profiles and pages can be optimised as well. We put so much work into them that it’s easy to forget that there are many other little things that improve the chances of your page appearing in search engines.”

• crowdsourcing

“In early January, Verizon announced a new sustainability project called Powerful Answers. Created to raise awareness of the wireless network’s new 4G service, the centrepiece of the project is a $10m (£6.3m) challenge for entrepreneurs, individuals and companies to generate innovative ideas in the healthcare, education and sustainability sectors.”

• association for psychological science convention

Interestingly enough, “Team Freberg” ( a name others call us) will be presenting in Washnigton, D.C. again this year at the wonderful Association for Psychological Science! In true form, we are a multidisciplinary team!

• The great applebee meltdown

“Hell hath no fury like a Facebook scorned. In today’s digital age, most of us assume everyone understands this fact. But every now and again, people surprise us. An ever-increasing element of this reality is that the hounds of Reddit, the Twitter armies, and Facebook vigilantes are more than willing to remind people that we live in a publicized world. You can’t hide behind privacy statements or legal jargon or appeals to company policy to pacify an Internet mob. Once you cross the line of Internet etiquette, the people of the World Wide Web will hunt you down and do their best to ruin you forever.”

• your “SOCIAL ID”

“How much value do you place on your social media profiles? For all the time and effort we’ve invested in them over the years, it’s perhaps fair to say that they provide a relatively accurate picture of who we are and our temperament. We tweet friends, we post status updates expressing our opinions, we make jokes and we communicate what’s happening to our friends and followers.

Since we’ve become more savvy with the online world, the majority of us treat what we say on social media just as seriously as we would if it was said in real-life. So how far away are we from these identities being treated the same way as a passport or an ID?”

Nothing to be ‘Angry’ about… vacation is almost here!

Here is what we are reading today:

• Dr. Timothy Combs wonderful presentation “Order from Chaos!”

“Driving questions• What is a social media crisis? – What does it mean to use social media in a crisis?• What are tactical implications for crisis communication?• What are the strategic implications for crisis communication? “

• anatomy of a social media crisis

“Social media crises are on the rise, but 76% of those that occurred since 2001 could have been diminished or averted with the proper social media investments, according to a report by Altimeter Group released on Wednesday.

For the report, entitled “Social Business Readiness: How Advanced Companies Prepare Internally,” Altimeter Group analyzed 50 social media crises that have occurred since 2001 and found that those reaching mainstream media have risen steadily through the past decade, with just 1-2 incidents per year in the first five years and a total of 10 social media crises last year alone. The report also sheds light on exactly how social media crises arise and how companies can avoid them.”

• AC Nielsen’s 2012 Social Media Report

What drives social media?

• SOCIAL SLAM 2013 — the evolution of digital media for business

I will be presenting at next year’s Social Slam… it will be quite the ‘happening!”– Karen

I am writing this as I make my way to Melbourne, Australia for the World PR Forum! Wish me luck!

Here is what I am reading today:

• tips to engage the community

“The advertising landscape has changed drastically over the last few years as the popularity of social media has boomed and created new tools for businesses to share their brand and their ideas over the internet….”

• social media at the Center for Disease Control (CDC)

“saving lives… protecting people”

• the many facets of the future of mobile

“The proliferation of mobile has spawned a revolution in website design. Now people view content on screens of all sizes among a range of devices, a movement that requires adaptive new design.

At the Mashable Media Summit on Nov. 30, Mashable‘s founder and CEO, Pete Cashmore, will speak about the future of mobile, social and design, and how the intersection of these three pilars will dictate some of the biggest trends to emerge in 2013.”

• 2012 world pr forum

“This year the Public Relations Institute of Australia will be hosting the World Public Relations Forum in Melbourne over 3 days, from the 18th – 20th of November. Find out what “Melbournites” love about this city, consistently voted one of the most liveable in the world, and learn more about what you can look forward to if you are lucky enough to be visiting Melbourne this weekend.

• is social media changing journalism?

“….It is just the latest example of the frontier world of social media finding itself being picked up by the state sheriff. But can the law keep up with the countless tweets, blogs, Facebook posts and similar which can seemingly publish allegations and rumour which would land more mainstream outlets with a libel writ?”

• On Social Media, a Nightmare Commute from New Jersey

“WSJ readers were invited to tweet their thoughts on their commute from New Jersey to work in New York City using the hashtag #njrush. WSJ staffers contributed via a live stream, describing signal problems and four-hour long traffic jams. Below are some reader contributions. Staffers will continue describing their commute during Monday evening’s rush hour and again Tuesday morning. To contribute your own stories, use the Twitter hashtag #njrush.”