Strategic Public Relations

Progressive Insurance PR Crisis & Twitter

The image above makes me assume that, while Progressive Insurance may have a social media policy in place, it does not have a crisis plan. Or at least not a crisis plan that considers social media -- Twitter most obviously. 

With nearly a dozen people designated as Progressive Insurance Twitter representatives, there is a single tweet to deal with a controversy first detailed in this post from comedian, Matt Fisher. A controversy that pulls up more than 5,000 hits on Google News as of this post's writing.

Twitter About Face
The image above reflects an updated account. A picture of Progessive's ad spokes-character, Flo, has been replaced by the anonymous logo. And 16 "robo-tweets" attempting to address the controversy have been removed.

The  robo-tweets in question were a single tweet, posted repeatedly by the social media app Twitlonger. This repetition has come under scrutiny and it also has been deleted and replaced with a single, unemotional statement. All of these actions, along with 11 head shots of Progressive's Twitter Team members, simply reinforces the perception that Progressive Insurance does not really care about this issue or, as a result, it's policyholders.

Sharing's Exponentially Powerful Ability to Distribute a Message
By posting his story on Tumblr, it's already been reblogged on Tumblr more than 11,000 times since being posted on Monday...two days ago. But an article from Daily Dot speaks to even more distribution of this news via social sharing.

"And the flames jumped to the other social media platforms, too. Progressive’s Facebook page has been bombarded with links to the aforementioned Tumblr post. But perhaps the single biggest display of backlash has occurred on Twitter. Mr. Fisher’s story caught the attention of several users with a sizeable Twitter following."

A tweet from actor Wil Wheaton had the potential to reach many of his more than 2 million followers. But more telling is the fact that "Wheaton’s tweet was retweeted 2,624 times."

The Daily Dot also points to a tweet from comedian Patton Oswalt that has been retweeted 6,471 times." And he's all but dedicated his twitter stream to slamming Progressive. And "according to Topsy, a social media search engine, Progressive was mentioned 64,255 times" in the 24 hours preceding The Daily Dot's article.

Progressive's New Approach?
I'm not part of Progressive's PR team, legal team or a member of its Twitter Team. So there are a quadrillion facts I don't bring to the following ideas. And anyone else discussing this crisis should also acknowledge the same.

But with the aforementioned distance from the issue, I'd suggest Progressive spend some money around paid media across Twitter and Facebook to start telling their story. And that story had best be more than a statement from Progressive's legal-bot. It's one small point in a littany of things Progressive is probably immersed in as we speak. Or at least it should be. 

As far as integrating social media into a crisis plan, any plan not acknowledging social media is arguably rendered ineffective. In fact, I've been wanting to address how social media impacts a crisis plan for some time now. To oversimplify my take on the matter, I'll simply say that crisis plans need to build structure wherein a defined approach is established that allows teams to quickly assess and react according to the unique circumstances a crisis will bring. It's not as simple as having a phone tree and dark site in place. OK, it never was that simple. More to come on this topic.

 

 

 

Context + Relevance = An Important Equation

Aside from a low-grade entertainment value, animated gifs seem bent on little more than triggering seizures and furthering memes. One of the only times I've used them in a post was about a month ago. The motion can distract from the point you're trying to make.

When I saw an animated gif on Instagram, I wanted to post it because it was a good use of the usually abused technology. But the factoids in it focus on Facebook's purchase of Instagram. The topic's been covered and I didn't have anything to add to the discussion.

End Factoid Abuse
Regardless of the content, without context and relevance, my post would have been dancing baloney . The following video is a fun examination of how these factoid storms, without context or direct relevance, just leaves you all wet. It's a factoid mockumentary. It's...it's...well, just watch it.

Rolling Thunder 2.0
Back when 2.0 was dot com, startups were trying to flip their company instead of build it. Startups would issue a steady flow of news releases -- whether or not they had news. We called this rolling thunder. Today we all love a diet of eMarketer factoids, made even tastier with Twitter's 140-character menu, infographic eye candy and a culture where sharing content is more popular than creating it.

"Mr. Dugan, your glass house is ready..."
I'm as guilty of this habit as anyone else. Stats comparing  AOL, Facebook and Draw Something's path to reach 1 million users are not only impressive, they have parallel structure! But they're out of context and don't take into account that Draw Something and Facebook benefitted from the path AOL initially carved out for them, not to mention years of technological evolution.

When we look at any research, our first question should always be: sample? From there, anytime we're trying to make a point or we're putting together anything from a tweet to a powerpoint deck, let's take a deep breath and also ask: context?

TidyCat's Social Media Team Stops a Stink Over Its #lifestinks Campaign

TidyCats latest ad campaign spans online and offline to get consumers sharing about what stinks in their lives. But one of their ads created its own stink. To the brands' credit, they were listening and responded in less than 24 hours to stop a possible catfight with consumers.

Billboards localize the campaign by referencing what stinks in each market. I'm imagining traffic in Los Angeles, rain in Seattle and there are plenty of opportunities for the NYC subway. These examples are all harmless, even humorous, locally relevant and make TidyCats' point that #lifestinks.

Don't Trash the the Nati
If you were cooking up the ads for each market, would you make a joke about a city's neighborhood? In this case, a Cincinnati neighborhood that Wikipedia will tell you:

• has a rich history
• serious art community
• the most Italianate architecture in the United States
• and has been compared to Greenwich Village, NYC; Savannah, Georgia; Charlseton, South Carolina and New Orleans French Quarter?

As a proud resident of Cincinnati, I'm one of more than a few locals that aren't happy about the billboard. Tony Blankemeyer tipped me off to this bad ad on Friday night. And while the ad clearly sucks, I'm pleased to note TidyCats is taking steps to rectify the situation. After more than a few comments across Facebook, Twitter and the TidyCats campaign site, the brand replied less than 19 hours after I first saw the billboard.

"We appreciate your comments, Kevin. Our billboard mentioning OTR was meant to be humorous. We understand that to many of you, it wasn't. We will be taking fast action to correct our error. Please accept our apologies. - TidyCats Team "

Listen, Learn and Build Loyal Fans
This is a reminder of the importance of social listening and having a response plan in place to engage with consumers and address any unforseen concerns. It doesn't matter if social media is part of a brand campaign. In this case, it was an offline billboard that drew well-deserved ire. Social media is simply where the complaints took place.

TidyCats showed they were listening and taking action against a campaign that was raising a serious stink with Cincinnatians. And in in doing so, they stand to create more friends than foes. Full Disclosure: I'm a dog person. But I'm a fan of TidyCats now based on how this misstep was handled -- and over a holiday weekend no less.

Consumers will still vent their frustrations. But by acting quickly, TidyCats avoided consumers getting organized and the resulting brand pile on that can take place. It makes it much tougher for a brand to change the tone of the conversation.

Facebook: Will You Subscribe?

Despite this post and my last parody post, I'm NOT trying to be the Weird Al Yankovic of social media (emphasis on trying).

But I was thinking about the new subscribe feature on Facebook. And thinking about "I will subscribe" reminded me of "I will survive."

So apologies in advance for all of the various federal and international laws of good taste I'm breaking. Just do me a favor and hum the song when you read the lyrics? Trust me.

** "I Will Subscribe" **
First I was annoyed
I got snarkified
Kept wondering why Facebook changed
its interface design
After I spent so many nights
Making custom Facebook tabs
They looked wrong
But iframes forced me to carry on

And now you’ve changed
You’re all f8
I just logged in for Spotify and
Scoble’s timeline’s in place
I want to cancel my account
Praying 750 million leave
But who are we really kidding
I meant the g-damn site is free?

Go on now Zuck, walk out the door
Take Parker with you
Cause you’re not welcome anymore
Weren’t you the ones making friend a four-letter word?
Our cookies crumbled
Web browsers laid down and die
What can I do?
I will subscribe
It’s the one big change they made
Keeping my Facebook love alive
I’ll get on my wall to moan
how the old design did pwn
But I’ll subscribe
I will subscribe.

If you thought I was mad
about the new design
Just wait till Apple fan boys
see the iPhone and say “SQUIRREL!”
and they'spend oh so many nights
just sifting through the iPhone pr0n
That phone may pwn
I’ve already got my own
and you see me
with iPhone 4
Chained to another contract
some time before I’ll renew
Until then I’ll save my hipster angst
for one more site tragically free
In fact I may unleash my snarking
for someone on Google+

QR Codes: Marketing Hero or Zero?

ComScore's latest piece of share pr0n** focuses on QR Codes, serving up the headline: "14 Million Americans Scanned QR or Bar Codes on their Mobile Phones in June 2011."

Is that a lot? Well, It depends on whether your glass is half-empty or half-full perhaps. For context, I'll note there are approximately 312 million people in the U.S., so that translates to four percent of Americans.

But if you look at the 78.5 million smart phone users in the U.S., this percentage climbs to about 18 percent.

Ben Kunz, breaks down ComScore's math on his blog. He notes "the odds of any individual holding a smart phone actually scanning your code on a given day are 1 in 244. 

Hero or Zero: It's Usually Somewhere In Between
It doesn't matter if 14 people or 14 million people scanned a QR Code in June 2011. The question to ask is: "did MY customer scan a QR Code in June 2011?"

To ComScore's credit, they speak to this question, noting the 14 million are: "more likely to be male, young to middle-age and upper income. Men were 25 percent more likely (index of 125) than the average mobile user to scan QR codes, representing 60.5 percent of the scanning audience."

Pragmatic QR Code Conversations
I've written about QR Codes before and for every smart use of a QR Code, you can probably find at least three bad examples. We'll always see good and bad uses of the shiny new as we test and learn (which can turn into crash and burn).

But I'm not saying don't use QR Codes. There are a variety of applications where an element of utility, instant gratification or discovery makes perfect sense and a QR Code can be the best path to that goal -- assuming your audience falls into the smart phone user/scanner profile. Don't forget to track and analyze how the codes are being used.

Stop, Breathe, Think
Via Google+ Kunz nails the point in all the ComScore-fueled discussion. "Stats are good, but they need context and critical thinking."

And that sums up where I'm at with QR Codes, most any shiny new marketing technology and even sites like Klout. But that's another blog post entirely.

**To be clear: ComScore, its practices and its published work are all good stuff. I'm taking issue with the  knee jerk sharing that takes place when people see a stat that supports their assumption. It's that behavior that also makes me skeptical about the wisdom of the crowds.

Cross-Posted at my work blog. 

Making Sense of Social Media's Speed (aka: Not So Fast Google+!)

Brian Solis recently posted a factoid on Google+ that looks to be pure powerpoint pr0n.

Number of Days to Reach 10 Million Users
Facebook: 852
Twitter: 780
Foursquare 730
Google+: 16

And Google+ is already closing in on 20 million users. Impressive statistics. But after resharing it on Google+, two people were quick to qualify this milestone.

Brad Marley: Solis' numbers are pretty mind-blowing. But to be fair, Facebook only allowed users with .edu email addresses (at first). We can't say for sure if allowing anyone to sign up would've quickened the rise, but I think that has to be considered. And the proliferation of mobile devices has to be taken into account. 

Serena Ehrlich: Registration is one thing, adoption is another. Plus the email address situation that Brad mentions. The question will be how quickly can the every day user get used to the new format. But even if it took a year, that would be amazing.

To which I added: Not to mention, ALL of the pre-G+ services from Google helped with the quick sign up of users. It was uber simple to connect if you already had a google account, yes?! And Facebook, MySpace and Friendster before it all helped raise awareness that was applied to Google+. This gave Serena Ehrlich some additional ideas.

Serena Ehrlich: I think once the brands come on board, adoption will increase and the use patterns wil become more defined. In some ways, this is a mix of Facebook, Twitter and Iolcatz - but if the video aspect (hangouts etc) take off, and the space becomes a platform for brands to interact directly with consumers, adoption will increase. Video ranks high in search results. Hmm, I wonder if you can record a hangout?

We stopped there. But you get the point. And others on the original thread have also
joined in the qualification process we started in the above post. Factoids on a slide sound amazing. But don't forget to ask some questions and consider the bigger picture before you liquidate all of your assets to go worship full-time on the Googleplex lawn.


Photo courtesy of Fotolia

Top 5 Social Media Inspired Names

Mashable points to a couple naming their newborn "Like" after the one-year-old Like button on Facebook.

They join a couple that named their child Facebook.

Is this one of the seven signs that preceed the end of the world? No, it's not end times. It's just pop culture at it's best...or it's worst depending on your outlook.

So from the home office in Cincinnati, Ohio, here are

The (worst) Top Five Social-Media-Inspired Names:

5) Retweet** -- It's arguably not even that original. Remember Rerun?

4) Poke -- Again, unoriginal. A Pac-Man fan wouldn't blink(y) twice upon hearing this name

3) Tumblina -- Tumblr would be cool with it. But I'm not sure if the kid would grow into it or not.

2) Fail Whale -- You're pretty much guaranteeing the kid a life of therapy.

1) Viral -- Oh sure, the baby vids might rack up the views on YouTube. But try scheduling a play date for this kid. Srsly.

Honorable Mentions: Hulu/Boxee, Wiki/Widget, Meme, Geo, Bebo/Blip, DeviantARTIST, Orkut, Plaxo, Vimeo, Yelp and Micro-Blog

Care to add to the list? Comment below. But no celebrity baby names accepted.

**Hat tip to Chuck Gose for inspiring this post.

867-5309 -- Facebook you've got my number

Tommy Tutone - "Jenny (867-5309)" 

With apologies to the classic song shown above: “I got it, I got it! I got your number on the Facebook wall!”

News that Facebook will make user phone numbers and addresses available to external sites is generating an understandable and expected outcry. 

“The plan to open up users' address and phone numbers to third-party sites and services marks the latest frontier in Facebook's often controversy-fraught efforts to encourage users to be more liberal in sharing their data and online activity.” Via HuffPo 

Facebook’s continual nips and tucks to its privacy policy are accompanied by the usual reactive approach to user awareness. We’ve seen this play out more than a few times during the six year old site’s existence. It’s consistent if nothing else. 

Free Sites and User Entitlement
Users spending more time than they care to admit on sites like Facebook tend to develop a sense of entitlement. “I’m storing MY data on this site, Facebook owes ME.” And while I can understand this sentiment, I don’t agree with it. Facebook owns the site. Read their terms of service and learn what else they own. And with more than 600 million readers and display ad revenues that will eclipse Yahoo in the coming year, they’ve also got gravity. 

Consumers need to take greater personal accountability for their personal privacy. I say this as a fellow consumer and not a marketer. As a marketer, I see an opportunity that has NOTHING to do with the user data Facebook is making available.

Proactive Privacy: Marketers stand to earn a lot of consumer trust if they sound the alarm on these changes. Facebook is not doing it. Legal would plotz if they thought I was trying to make a brand accountable for Facebook with their customer base. I’m not saying they should and need to think through this point. But as marketers create in depth customer profiles that include social data, we should understand the implications Facebook creates and identify opportunities to help our customers do the same. 

What does privacy mean to YOUR consumer? This should guide your decisions on how much you should become involved in privacy issues and trends. At a minimum brands need to be aware of them. 

Personally, I’m wondering if I don’t have a startup opportunity here. Consider a company that can help consumers easily centralize and note the various data they’ve shared with sites and, more importantly alert them to changes in the terms of service for those sites. A Google search may show me it’s been done, but there’s some value to a company that can help consumers become aware of the byzantine morass of privacy details and their implications.


Cross-posted to my work blog.

Killer App Lies & Convergence Rants

We keep hearing the tech press refer to one technology killing another. I get it -- if it bleeds, it leads. But it oversimplifies the discussion. And over time it sets everyone up for disappointment -- killer, victim, media and most of all users.

Four Launches, No Funerals 
Remember how FriendFeed was going to kill Twitter? More recently Google Buzz was dealing the final blow to our 140-character-friend. Facebook's Placesz-Z-zzzz was going to kill Foursquare. And before Facebook's email news was even announced, it was deemed a Gmail killer. But I thought email is already on life support?

I refer to the killer, uh, overkill as The Highlander Complex. It's a nice, neat way to wrap up news into a classic story format of protagonist vs. antagonist. But history shows us it doesn't work.

Social Entertainment = MySpace 2.0
AOL and MySpace are two examples of "platforms that would (not) be (THE) king." And while they may have lost their respective battles for the crown, they're far from dead as a quick comparison of uniques between the two sites, Facebook, New York Times and MSN shows us.

Dave Knox walks through some great points on why MySpace's new deal with Facebook and a new focus gives the site a serious second wind. 

Attack of the Killer App
With apologies to Futurama, the term Killer App is actually well-intended. There's always room for innovation. But let's be realistic about it, not bombastic. Instead of obsolescence or sometimes, more specifically, disintermediation, we're usually talking about convergence.

kthxbye /rant

PRSA International Conference Gets Us All Atwitter – Over a Hashtag?!

Twitter does many things, but not *every*thing. IMHO, Twitter earns its reputation during live events as they unfold. From extreme but historic events like Iran’s Presidential Election Protests and the death of Michael Jackson to less substantive events like World Cup and just about every conference I’ve attended since early 2007, they all show in real time how useful and impactful Twitter can be.

The common discussion just before and at the beginning of an event is “What’s the Hashtag?” It’s the common thread that turns Twitter into an event communication channel, promotion tool, recording device and more for attendees, organizers and folks following from afar.

Just this post finds us spending more time than we’d ever imaging discussing event hashtags. It’s not rocket science. Is it an art form? I’ll argue it’s more of a detail than anything else.

“Hashtag Confusion”
It has also become a topic of conversation for the Public Relations Society of America this year as their annual, international conference gets underway. Why? Their hashtag is less than intuitive with an _underscore_ (one of the more dreaded characters to hit the Internet): #prsa_ic.

It has 2.0 practitioners like Kami Huyse asking valid questions while most folks are adding #prsa_ic and #prsa10 and others are just wondering wtf instead of wth. According to What the Hashtag, the official hashtag is gaining more traction. But I have to believe they’d benefit from an easier, more intuitive and shorter hashtag.

In fact, why not just use #PRSA? Twitter generates 12 terabytes of data – every day. 12TB! So Google telling me that Twitter search keeps tweets about a week starts to make sense. My point is, by the time PRSA11 rolls around, the only trace of PRSA10 tweets will be in a dusty stack at the Library of Congress.

This post is not intended to to be a Saturday morning, snark-injected rant towards PRSA – far from it. It’s inspired by a quote from the legendary basketball coach John Wooden:"It's the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen."

Wooden is right. The simplest answer is usually the best one, per usual. Now get the tweet out of here! No hashtag for you!


Hashtag Nazi taken by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid