Karen’s PR & Social Media Blog

Click on the above picture for the BOBCATSSS 2012 conference in Amsterdam! Congrats to first Monica Colon-Aguirre and the team!

Here is what I am reading today!:

• going viral!

“If you’ve ever been watching a movie or attending a concert and someone’s ringtone interrupts the proceedings, you’ll appreciate this video that’s recently gone viral on YouTube. As Slovakian musician Lukáš Kmit played a beautiful piece on his viola, suddenly the obnoxious Nokia ringtone blasted through the reverie. What a wonderful reaction he had!”

• predicting 2012

“Here’s what your life in PR and social media measurement will be like this year.

#1. You will adapt or you will die, part one.

Flexibility will win out over price of measurement vendors. The ability to adapt to changing influencer lists, media lists, etc., will become a primary differentiator for which companies win contracts.”

• augmented reality and nestle’

“Nestle has made a major change to its market research budget, putting a major focus on contests and games. The famed food company is preparing to launch a new crowdsourced campaign that will help it find four new flavors for their popular Kit Kat brand of candy. The new campaign will reflect the change in Nestle’s marketing focus as it will task consumers with determining what these four flavors will be. To accomplish this, the company is adopting augmented reality.”

• paper business cards? how 2010!

“If you’ve ever returned from a business trip with a stack of business cards, you’ve no doubt wondered — as you’re manually typing in all those names, phone numbers and email addresses — if there’s a better way.”

• mobile aps for entrepreneurs

“Today, mobile apps enable a business owner to manage his entire operation from the palm of his hand. They also allow consumers to interact, communicate and purchase products with ease, something app developers should certainly take note of when developing around trends and needs.”

• social media nightmare for LA Fitness

“Gym brand LA Fitness has suffered a torrid night in the social media-verse after adverse publicity surrounding unwanted membership contracts.”

• the local web

“Today’s infographic emphasizes how a localized online presence affects a business’s growth, suggesting that utilizing social media, businesses are able to cultivate greater customer loyalty”

• a social media command center at the super bowl!

“Super Bowl XLVI host city Indianapolis has concocted a new way to deal with the madness that comes with managing the world’s biggest annual sporting event.

The solution? The Super Bowl’s first-ever social media command center.”

• facebook check ins on Air China!

“Here is a nice social integration campaign from Air China. In order to increase consumer awareness about the airline’s flight services to Sweden and throughout the extended Asian region, Air China launched a campaign around Facebook check-ins.”

• SIGN: “will blog for food”

“Have you ever considered the ways a blog can help you get a job? I meet lots of young people entering the work force and I always recommend blogging as a way to get ahead—in almost any career. Here’s why:”

• how important are bloggers? short answer: VERY!!

Did you know that there are 143 million bloggers on the internet

With every business and company, you have to be aware of all of the potential crises and issues you may experience – even those that you feel have no chance of happening whatsoever.  Not being proactive in addressing these types of behavior can lead to even bigger issues and manifest into a crisis situation.

Papa John’s recently experienced a crisis that could have certainly been avoided.  A customer, Minhee Cho (who is also a communications professional in Manhattan) went to a Papa Johns and made her order, and when she got her receipt, it read that the order was for “lady chinky eyes.” Ms. Cho went and took a photo of the receipt and uploaded via Twitpic – which immediately got thousands of RTs and comments via Twitter.

Papa John’s immediately apologized via Twitter and issued the following statement: “The matter was addressed and discussed immediately with the guests on the spot; and a confirmation was provided that the employee was immediately dismissed for the individual behavior.”

Papa John’s has been very proactive via social media and was considered as one of the top emerging brands via social media just a few years ago. They have done a great job with integrating digital storytelling into their videos via YouTube as well as experiment with augmented reality applications. However, there are other similar incidents that emerged within the fast food industry and other brands that shows the risk of this type of behavior.  Look at what happened with Domino’s and their YouTube crisis – employees across all levels of an organization are the face of the brand and they do represent the overall reputation of the company.

There are several key lessons from this case study.  Employees are part of the brand – so they have to be educated and trained both in their job as well as how they present themselves off and online. Secondly, anyone can post anything online with a click of a button – and what is posted online is for the world to see.  Anyone can create content to upload virtually that can be shared within their community – and impressions are immediately made by the actions taken by the corporation.

In summary, understanding that this situation could have been prevented is also something that should be recognized and incorporated into part of the crisis communications simulation training with new media.  The crisis team for Papa John’s should review this case and adapt their plans for looking for any early warning signs in their various locations (training the managers to monitor employee behavior) and increase the communication and education opportunities internally across the various chain locations.  It will be interesting to see how this eventually plays out – especially since the headquarters of Papa John’s is located here in Louisville.

Hope you all are having a great day.

Best Wishes,

Karen

PLANET EATER cinnamon rolls! CLICK on picture to view recipe!

Here is what I am reading today:

• your on-line reputation!

“Just as important as monitoring what other people say about your business is being mindful of what content your company puts online. To build a good online reputation, you need to have well thought-out blog posts and a smart social media strategy. Set high standards for internal communication as well, since you never know when a jokey all-staff email could end up posted online for everyone to see.”

• lacta chocolate and augmented reality

“Lacta Chocolate have produced some innovative campaigns over the last 12 months, and next up is this interesting Augmented Reality piece that allows you to send love messages that are activated via image recognition over any Lacta Chocolate wrapper. (created by OgilvyOne Athens)”

• pinterest debuts

“Pinterest is a place to organize and share online images that you find interesting or inspiring. Once uploaded or shared on Pinterest, these images become known as Pins, which the user can place on customized, themed Boards. You can create Boards for any topic imaginable, from cats to classic cars to cats driving classic cars. The possibilities are endless. “

• more pinterest

“If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past couple months, you’ve probably at least heard of Pinterest, a social bulletin board where people can easily post visuals they’d like to save and share. Pinterest has built up an impressive following in the stylish scrap-booker set in a short period of time. Marketers and publishers are starting to take notice. “

• how social media is happening in the big 3

“According to this infographic, the top three ways businesses in the U.S. are harnessing new media is through Facebook (71 percent), Twitter (59 percent), and blogs (50 percent). “

• recruiters and spreaders in social media

‘A study has explored the dynamics behind social network sites in recruiting and spreading calls for action that contribute to mass mobilisations in riots, revolutions and protests.”

Professionals today are thinking about ways to showcase their skills and to separate themselves from the rest of the crowd with the use of new media and technology.  First it was to have a presence online with a website and blog.  Then it was becoming familiar with the application and theory behind social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to name a few.  We then saw the boom in mobile technology with applications like QR Code scanning applications or business card applications. All of these elements help establish your reputation and market yourself in your profession.

So, the question you all may be asking yourself is – what is the next big thing for how to market yourself in 2012?  Well, there may be various predictions and suggestions out there – but I would have to say that the role of augmented reality technology incorporated into some of these traditional marketing strategies will be the next big thing.  One of these new ways to market yourself to future employers or others in your profession and industry is to make an augmented reality business card.  Here is a video showcasing how one agency did this to showcase their business real to future clients and network with others:

What are some other things you can embed into an augmented reality business card?  Here are a few suggestions you may want to think about:

• Demo real: Like the example that was shown in the video – you can showcase your video editing skills and photos for the world to see.
• Interview video:  You may want to provide a video intro ducting yourself to the world in a short video clip that could give others an idea of the person and professional you are.
• Videos from presentations and conferences:  Along with the interview segment – you can showcase some video clips of you presenting or teaching to show you on the job and working – another way to present yourself to future employers and network with other professionals.
• Include links to other sites and contact information:  You would want to make sure you highlighted some of the main sites you are part of and make sure to provide a way for others to contact you further on Facebook, Twitter, etc.

These are just a few suggestions – but this new form of technology is going to bring many opportunities to professionals to market themselves in a  new way.  There are some ways to create these cards with augmented reality technology or you can look at how others have done this with their business cards – so it would be good to know how to do this and test it out with your own business cards.  This is definitely something that we will most likely see in the upcoming year at presentations, conferences, networking opportunities, and job interviews.

Hope you all are having a great day!

Best Wishes,

Karen

before there was 911 there was dec 7

Here is what I am reading today:

• 70th anniversary of PearlHarbor

slide show of december 7. CAPTION on above photo: “Sailors in a motor launch rush to rescue a survivor in the water alongside U.S. Navy battleship USS West Virginia after an attack by Japanese carrier based strike aircraft on the Hawaiian port of Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. REUTERS/U.S. Navy Photograph/Newscom/Handout”

• social media checklist for new job

“January is a time for beginnings. For a student, it marks the start of a new year, a new quarter, and also marks the beginning of the hunt for competitive summer internships and winter recruitment. Yes, that’s right—five to six months before school is out, students begin scouring job search engines for that perfect position to add to their résumé.

As a result of the increasing competition for those “hot” internships and jobs, students spend their time over break researching companies and updating their résumés. Due to the increasing importance of social media in the work place, students should think about adding a few new to-dos to their list.”

• augmented reality ad: NYC

” REI have just launched their first store in NYC, probably a weird place to have an awesome, hardcore outdoor store right? Well, not if you can convince New Yorkers that the real outdoors aren’t all that far away, and what better way to do that then tempt with augmented reality ads.”

• social media… noise?

“Are you a curator or a broadcaster? How much social media traffic would be reduced if we stopped talking about social media on social media platforms? I would bet quite a lot. In fact, I would not be able to write and publish this post. But that aside, let me please proceed.”

• hiring for creativity

“In business, and for our purposes, let’s say that creativity is simply finding new solutions to old problems. In that sense, much work — or at least much of the best work — is creative work. Inventing a new product or technology certainly qualifies, but so does coming up with a fresh marketing approach or opening a new sales category. Still, the potential field is not unlimited. Jobs that are heavily structured, with a lot of repetition, generally don’t require a lot of creativity, and filling such positions with creative people can leave them, and you, frustrated.”

they want REAL ads

“I was reading Martin Lindstrom’s new book, Brandwashed, and this quote really struck me as being relevant to digital advertising: “We’re sick and tired of picture-perfect babies and flawless models. Why do we love YouTube videos so much? Because they’re imperfect, amateurish, and the people in them remind us of us.” This is why, in places like Whole Foods, we’re seeing more and more Brussels sprouts and tomatoes still tethered to their stalks, many with dirt still clinging to the roots and leaves still hanging from the stalks.”"