It’s always been true that success in business is predicated
on one’s ability to build enduring relationships. And people’s reputations have always followed
(or preceded) them. But now, as the walls between our personal and professional
lives continue to crumble due to social media, we’re still connected online
socially to people we no longer work with, which makes relationship and
reputation management an ongoing concern.
It’s not only easy to trace a person’s path and network of
relationships online, it’s even easier to draw conclusions about whether to recommend
someone do business with them from how they conduct themselves there.
Take note of people’s behavior online, because according to
a recent study, it's very likely consistent with who they
are offline.
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
The best marketing communications professionals think on their feet, mobilize rapidly and do it in an authentic way that aligns with their brand image and delights their customers. I’m impressed by what the Slurpee team did in the last few weeks with their Unity Tour marketing campaign, which wrapped up a two-week-long cross-country journey from Dallas to Washington D.C. on Thursday.
Here's 6 things they did right with this campaign:
They were nimble enough to seize a great opportunity quickly
The genesis of the tour began during the heated rhetoric of the 2010-midterm elections, when President Obama used an analogy about Republicans sipping on Slurpees while Democrats get the car –aka the nation–out of the ditch. This was manna from heaven for the Slurpee marketing team and they jumped right in to capitalize on it; White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs maintained that 7-Eleven (coyly, I'm sure) "declined to comment specifically that Slurpees were a Republican drink."
They created a campaign that is not only clever but upbeat and positive
The day after the elections, Bloomberg reporter Hans Nichols jokingly asked President Obama if he would have John Boehner and other Republican leaders over for a "Slurpee Summit." The President laughed and then quipped that Slurpees are delicious drinks and that he might very well serve Slurpees during the conversation with leaders from both parties.
Slurpee launched a new grape flavored slush drink to take on a nationwide tour called "purple for the people." The color was chosen based on the idea of mixing red for Republicans and blue for Democrats in hopes the parties would work together in passing legislation on the Hill.
They combined social media and traditional marketing seamlessly
The national tour, documented with video, was replete with special offers, customer interaction, and giveaways, and was complemented beautifully by humorous and authentic social media marketing that represented the latest trends in marketing.
They maintained a strong and consistent brand voice
Throughout the campaign, whether it was on the website, various social media outposts, or in comments they made to the media, Slurpee found exactly the right tone and stuck with it.
They were not afraid to be real
Slurpee gave people an insider look into the tour with some behind the scenes footage.
They made sure the campaign was consistent with the personality of the product
These slightly tongue-in-cheek comments from 7-Eleven Marketing Manager, Daniel May, show how Slurpee doesn’t take itself too seriously. The team knows the product is fun and is willing to take some risks:
"We are hoping there will be a Slurpee summit…The tour has sent formal invitations to everybody and everybody is welcome…We truly hope there is one and if they want Slurpees there, we will make sure to bring them."
All of this obviously caught the attention of the media. Here's video below of some news coverage of the President's comments.
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
Everywhere today, people are acknowledging the fact that it's Veterans Day and talking about how much they value and appreciate the service of the men and women in our armed forces. Everywhere except, it seems, the marketing departments of major retailers. This morning I looked at the top 10 U.S. retailers' websites to see what they were saying about Veterans Day and if they were running any promotions for veterans. Not sales for the rest of us, but discounts that benefit veterans and veterans alone. The results are mostly disappointing and somewhat surprising.
Here's the rundown:
Rank #1: Walmart
No acknowledgement of Veterans Day.
Rank #2: Kroger
There's a clickable link to tell us to remember veterans.
When you click on it, however, the company merely toots it's own horn about what a veteran friendly employer it is. No promotions for veterans.
Rank #3: The Home Depot
The Home Depot does fairly well. When you click on the flag on the homepage it takes you to a page that acknowledges the holiday and thanks veterans for their service. Home Depot has a year round veteran discount program but nothing special for the holiday.
Rank #4: Costco
No acknowledgment of Veterans Day.
Rank #5: Target
No acknowledgment of Veterans Day.
Rank #6: Walgreens
No acknowledgment of Veterans Day.
Rank #7: CVS Caremark
No acknowledgment of Veterans Day.
Rank #8: Lowes
Lowes does well. It's promotion is communicated clearly and it's generous to boot - it's extended to both current military personnel, veterans and their family members.
Rank #9: Sears Holdings
Sears offers a 3 day sales promotion, but it's for everyone, not specifically for veteransand it doesn't thank veterans for their service.
Rank #10: BestBuy
No acknowledgment of Veterans Day.
While it's not in the top 10, Kmart is another notable offender who cynically offers sales for the rest of us (with no words of thanks), but nothing in particular for veterans or their families.
It's hard for me to believe that there isn't money in these retailers' budgets to offer some sort of promotion for servicemen and women. I'm also pretty sure that their marketing communications staff could be nimble enough to add something to their websites today so that, at the very least, they are acknowledging today's significance to their customers; many of whom, I'm sure, are military families. So I'm nonplussed. What a missed opportunity to strategically drive sales and simultaneously improve their brand images while strengthening relationships with their customers.
Schools are closed, government workers are sitting at home in their fuzzy slippers and National Parks have opened their gates to the general public. A day off from work or school or a chance to visit one of the country's most beautiful spots is great for those of us that can benefit from it, but many of our vets are still going to work today because they have to put food on the table. And for some, that can be a real struggle. Is Veterans Day really about veterans or is it more about the rest of us? In this economy especially, doesn't it make sense that marketers should offer veterans something to acknowledge their service that will impact their pocketbooks?
UPDATE: At least some of the restaurant sector seems to get it. Allison Linn offers a list on her blog over at MSNBC of some major restaurant chains that are offering deals and giveaways to active military personnel, veterans and their families.
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
When I was a kid, it was practically impossible to get away with being naughty and even harder to lie my way out of it when I'd done something wrong. My grandmother, who babysat me after school while my mom was at work, would knowingly say, "the truth always finds it's way out", and my mother, ever her daughter, would build on that with, "tell the truth, because you’ll be found out eventually." My husband’s mother always told him growing up, “don’t do anything that you wouldn’t mind being splashed on the front page of your local newspaper.” Wise women–all of them. And now, more than ever, aphorisms to live by.
Social Media makes it hard to get away with anything. It's in our nature to want to exaggerate or pretend to be something we aren't to advance an agenda, but today’s world is a tricky place to do that. Both individuals and organizations need to be careful what they disseminate on websites and other outposts because people are paying attention, and, let's face it, most of us dislike being lied to. It's human nature to want to call out falsehoods when we see them and social media gives us the perfect outlet to do that. I think we feel just as strongly, if not more, about hypocrisy, lying's ugly sibling. So why then, aren’t people more careful about what they do behind closed doors or about representing themselves to be something they aren’t?
I am convinced that most people–regardless of their age–haven’t fully grappled with the reach of the Internet yet. Social media is still fairly new and technology in general is moving faster and changing our lives in more ways than we can wrap our heads around. (It might even outpace us soon; Kevin Kelly's latest book What Technology Wants has great insight into this.) Attitudes, while slowly changing in regards to what’s acceptable to publicize and what isn’t (and what it all means about a person’s character), still haven't adjusted to the reality of the information age in which every detail of our lives is suddenly fair game.
A large part of the job in communications used to entail controlling the message and the public personae of the leaders that we represented. Thanks to the explosion of social media, reputation management has become somewhat more challenging. We are all now public figures–the CEOs of our own lives and reputations–even when we're not officially working, and it can be difficult to keep things off the record. Anything we say or do in private can easily be used to besmirch us.
The people who are struggling the most with this are the boomer and x generations. Millenials, on the other hand–who aren’t running the world yet, but soon will be–have grown up with technology and have much different attitudes vis a vis their privacy and what is acceptable to be made public. They may face judgment from hiring managers as they navigate the shoals of today’s workplace but that will most certainly change over time as they and their peers move into management positions. All in all, it's not really an issue for them. They just don’t criticize others’ “off the clock” behavior as harshly as previous generations. Consider for a moment that Bill Clinton had to deny inhaling, yet it’s common knowledge that Barack Obama, who enjoyed large amounts of support in the last general election from young voters, not only smoked-but publicly enjoyed-marijuana and cocaine.
Speaking of politicians, it's only a matter of time once someone announces their intention to run for public office before something gets surfaced from their past and splashed all over the Internet; social media is amplifying the reach and impact of our desire to throw stones at people who live in glass houses.
Christine O'Donnell seems to be this election cycle's poster child for negative press. Why? Ms. O’Donnell has been very public with her views in the past and there's lots of fodder available to lampoon her with when human nature rears it's ugly head. Consider the most recent story that Gawker published about Ms. O’Donnell’s antics at a Halloween party a few years back. Whether or not you agree with their approach, it's clear what Gawker's intent was behind publishing it: they saw it as an opportunity to call out hypocritical behavior. (Plus, Gawker was very upfront about their profit motives–no hypocrisy there.)
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for the media strategy session regarding this incident, especially since Ms. O'Donnell's communications team should have known that there is footage of her (courtesy of Bill Maher) saying explicitly that she doesn’t celebrate Halloween because it’s a paganistic and satanic holiday. Team O’Donnell’s response–that Gawker was being sexist–was a red herring that just added lies to the hypocrisy (Gawker has lambasted many male public figures for their regressions too and can hardly be called sexist).
People make choices that others question, or that they regret, or they change their positions over time. I’m not saying that they shouldn't run for elected positions because these facts may come to light through social media; we'd be hard put to find applicants for the job if that were the case. I’m merely pointing out that it’s more important then ever to be honest about who you are, and what you've done, as the truth will eventually find its way out. At the very least, you should fess up when it does and not try to detract from what’s really going on. Social media shines a light on authenticity, or lack thereof.
Which brings me to my final thought. I wonder how my colleagues in PR deal with the challenge of managing the reputations of politicians who run on public platforms that are disconnected from their private actions and behavior. There seems to be lots of them on both sides of the aisle. If I were Ms. O'Donnell's Communications Director, I'd have wanted to know the truth ahead of time so I could figure out how to spin it in a way that didn't make her look even less credible.
But then, I'm not Ms. O'Donnell's Communications Director.
UPDATE: Wisconsin voters are sending 39 year old Sean Duffy, a contestant on the sixth season of The Real World, to congress. NY Mag wryly points out:
Kids, take this as the inspiring lesson it should be: Don’t let anyone scare you into thinking there are embarrassing things you can do on television that, given the right amount of time and effort, you can not live down.
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
While I was in art school, one of my professors said something that stuck with me: when viewing a piece of poorly executed art, the average person cannot articulate why or how the perspective is"off" but they always pick up that something is not quite right. Their eyes, and thus their brain, knows that the world they are seeing reflected in the painting or illustration shouldn't really look like that.
Our professor cautioned us that we should either be able to draw perspective well enough to "get it right", or intentionally skew things in an unexpected way so that the audience would get our intention, and the piece would invite further evaluation. If we didn’t do either of those things, and were lucky, our audience might forgive our mistake and appreciate what we were trying to do. Most likely though, he said, it would turn them off to the work.
The same holds true in some ways for marketing communications. The average customer or member doesn’t question how they are being communicated with when things are humming along and it's business as usual, but they immediately notice when something is off; which can create negative perceptions towards the brand they're interacting with. Depending on the audience demographic, communicators have few chances to make mistakes. Older customers tend to be loyal to brands or organizations once they’ve committed to them, but younger customers are notoriously fickle and have little patience for brands that don't hit the right note in their communications.
Conversely, customers notice when something happens that goes above and beyond their expectations. It's my birthday in a few days and I've plugged my date of birth into online forms countless times so it's always interesting to see which companies and organizations that I’ve done business with reach out to connect with me on my special day. I could be jaded and unmoved by an email wishing me well as I get another year older, especially since I know the mechanics and intention behind it, but a personalized email–even if it is automated–still means something and I appreciate the effort that went into it. Someone, somewhere, understood that sending out a birthday email makes a difference and had the thought that it was worth taking the time to program the system to shoot out that email. And when they had the thought, they told someone, who told someone, who actually took the time to make it happen.
Granted, these types of emails are a little self-serving and they're not always completely personalized (I got the birthday email above from the Marine Corps Marathon a full three days before the actual day of my birthday, for example), but they still add a personal touch that I often don't experience from many organizations. If some of the non-profits that I support thought to send me a birthday card expressing gratitude that I am still alive and kicking (and therefore able to continue sending them money) then maybe, just maybe, I'd be more inclined to write a larger check when it came time to solicit my annual donation. Or perhaps I'd be more willing to volunteer my time to help move understaffed projects along. There's no guarantees of course, but for those non-profits who want my continued patronage it's a small investment of time and should be worth a shot.
Furthermore, if executed really well, personalized birthday emails can communicate generosity to a customer; how nice that The Marine Corps Marathon reached out, connected and acknowledged me without needing anything. Now that's intentionally skewing my perspective of their brand, in a very positive way. (Note to non-profits: please don't ever insult your constituents when celebrating them with an ask for money in a birthday card. Same applies to thank you cards and holiday greetings too.)
Getting that birthday email made me feel good about the organization and in turn I spent some time on their website checking out their charity partners. They piqued my curiosity which took my relationship with the organization to a whole new level.
So, is your email marketing interesting your customers or turning them off?
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
In the last few weeks three of my friends announced they were pregnant. One called me on the phone to tell me and two updated their status on Facebook.
Which experience do you think I was the most delighted by?
Natalie Zensius is a marketing communications strategist with experience in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Learn more about Natalie at http:www.linkedin.com/in/nzensius.
As Jason Linkins over at the Huffington Post almost gleefully points out, there's been a lot of rubbernecking on the web in the last few days about the tense exchange between Laguna Honda Hospital and Rehabilitation Center spokesperson Marc Slavin and Bay Area ABC News reporter Dan Noyes. In case you haven't seen the video, it's below.
I received a link to the video from friends and colleagues in PR via 3 different sources yesterday: it was shared on Facebook, discussed in a LinkedIn group I belong to and emailed to me and many of my PR colleagues in a group email.
I should give full disclosure that I have worked with Mr. Slavin in the past as part of a communications task force for Laguna Honda's soon to be open new hospital building; I always found him to be extremely respectful and professional. Was Mr. Noyes aggressive? Undoubtably. Was Laguna Honda administrator Ms. Hirose flustered and unprepared? Yes. Could Mr. Slavin have handled this situation with Mr. Noyes differently? I'm sure. In fact I'd bet that he has probably replayed this incident over and over again (if not in his head, on his computer screen) wishing for a different outcome.
We all have days or situations that are better than others and that we wish we could do over or forget about completely. (I'll leave specific commentary about what Mr. Slavin did, and the debate on how he could have handled such a situation differently, to the millions of people who are discussing, commenting and dissing on what Gawker called the best local news video this year.) Point being, when we have these types of situations, we have to deal with the consequences. Unfortunately for Mr. Slavin, his bad day quickly became that much more public thanks to social media sharing tools such as Youtube, Digg, Twitter and Facebook, (to name a few), that spread this video across the web like wildfire, only amplifying those consequences.
The Huffington Post, like many other news outlets, helpfully displayed some other places on the web, including twitter that this story was getting play.
and provided the requisite social media tools to share the video.
Note that there were 536 comments on the video on the Huffington Post website alone. 321 people tweeted about it, their followers retweeted and so on, ad infinitum. (Guy Kawasaki, who has almost a quarter of a million followers, tweeted this story. Imagine his reach!) A quick google search for it produced more than 37,000 results–many in languages I couldn't understand.
Painfully, Mr. Slavin can not only replay the video but spend countless hours scouring the web to see comments people have made– about him personally, his professional demeanour and the organization he was representing. He is now an integral part of the new story and as a result has spent many hours I'm sure he didn't account for answering inquiries from all fronts about the incident. This video is a great example of how quickly content can go viral and create bad PR for an individual or organization.
So what's the takeaway here? Being on the front lines, sometimes in tense situations, is nothing new for PR professionals. We know this and develop thicker skins the further we advance in our careers. What is a fairly new development is how social media adds yet one more layer (or many, depending on how you look at it) to managing an organization's public image and can make our jobs (and us) even more visibly and inextricably linked to that image. Is this being talked about when we train up and coming PR professionals? How about when we do speaker training and crisis communications? Prior to the advent of web 2.0, this video would have aired on TV in the original newscast and been posted on the ABC 7 website. Some people would have emailed it to their friends but it most likely would not have gained enough strength to become the tsunami it did in such a short time.
The fact that our words and actions can infect the web like this, doing damage to companys we represent and to our own reputations is something we should all be acutely aware of.
One of the questions I am often asked by non-profits when we're discussing membership engagement beyond donating money is how to reach out to members (typically older) who they think are not using tools like Facebook and Twitter. Since the Facebook 55+ audience grew a whopping 922.7% in 2009 (source: 2010 istrategylabs report), I answer that it's becoming more and more likely that older members will have a Facebook account. Twitter? Maybe not so much. Why and how non-profits should gather accurate data on their constituents and not rely on anecdotal evidence is a whole separate conversation (and a different blog post).
For the sake of this discussion, let's assume your members don't have a Facebook account. Three-quarters of the United States population is using the internet and, according to this AARP article, a recent survey indicates that senior citizens in the U.S. regularly go online for a variety of reasons, including using email, and reading news. So it's fairly safe to assume they are surfing the web at some point during their day or week. Encourage them to use some of this time to spread the word about your work. It's a way to make change that doesn’t cost any money at all. Here's two ways to do it that are quick, easy and free, yet cumulatively can make a big impact.
1. Comment on newspaper stories
Even if Twitter and Facebook is lost on them, many of your members get their news on the web from online newspapers, websites and blogs. The internet was born as an interactive medium and has facilitated chats, discussion groups and blogs for years. Recently, the largest newspaper sites have enabled readers to comment directly on their stories.
Whenever they read a mission-related article in any of the major local, regional or national newspapers online, your members can take some time to comment on the article in the "comments section" (usually found below the article). Depending on the publication, they may have to create an account to do so. While commenting, they should always paste in your organization's website address as part of the comments and let people know why they should be aware of, and support your organization.
How It Helps
It lets the publisher/writer know real people, like your members, read the story and that the issue is an important one.
It adds dimension to the story and creates further discussion.
It drives traffic to your organization's website and eventually other media outposts to produce more page views and ultimately more members.
It shows the world that your organization's membership is active and engaged in the issues.
Be sure to warn your members, comments are not always pretty. In fact, for many stories about politically charged issues, it can sometimes get downright ugly. But it can also be constructive and energize your most passionate members to enjoy a level of engagement with the issues and others who hold opposing views they may never have had before.
Once they’ve commented, it's important that they check back on the story for additional comments from others. As in any conversation, once they’ve stated their point, someone may respond to their comment and they might feel the need to reply.
2. Pass it on.
Encourage your members to send URLs of articles they're reading and commenting on to their friends and colleagues so that they can add their comments to the article too.
Here's a few tips for the best way for them to do this:
They should send the email to themselves only and blindcopy their friends so they're not giving out friends’ email addresses without their consent.
Send only URLs – no attachments– so people don't feel they are being spammed. Plus, it’s easier to read an email and click on a link from a smart phone than open an attachment.
How It Helps
It creates a groundswell of opinion and support. Elected officials and large corporations typically invest a lot of time and money in their “spin machines” and have the lobbying power and access to the halls of power that a small non-profit will never be able to match. Encouraging members to voice their opinion lets those who are monitoring the stories (such as elected officials’ staffers who like to take the citizenry's pulse on many issues, and the PR professionals on corporations payrolls)know the public is aware of and cares about the issues.
It improves SEO for your organization as comments that show up in search engine results.
It's good practice to encourage all of your members, regardless of their level of internet savvy to engage in this kind of viral activity.
Written well, bios make a targeted, persuasive argument about what to think about someone without being unsupported self-praise or too salesy. Sometimes I write bios from scratch for people.When that's the case, I keep the finished bio to one page or less and write the biography in the third person. Mostly though I have to take disparate bios and rework them to create consistency in length, tone and voice.
In either case, I always ask people to make sure their bios contain these essential elements:
Description of their business in brief.
Not only do website visitors want to know what people do, they also want to know who people have worked with. I ask them to include a sentence or two about their business niche (or niches) as well as the types of clients they serve. Sometimes a modified version of their 30-second elevator pitch works perfectly.
A list of any awards they have received.
Names of the organizations, clubs, or associations to which they belong.
Any professional certifications and designations they hold.
I have them make sure they write out their names in full, rather than use abbreviations. Not everyone might know what an acronym stands for and in a different discipline, it might represent something else. If they no longer hold a particular designation, but it has played a major role in who they are and what they do, I make a reference to it. I don't include abbreviations of college degrees, like MBAs as it looks unprofessional. The only exception to this would be for a Ph.D. designation.
Places they've been published.
Self-published or not, their works add to their level of professionalism and credibility. If they've written any articles, books, e-courses or e-books I showcase them.
Media mentions.
Have they been a guest on talk radio or television? Were they or their business featured or even mentioned in a newspaper article? If so, I include it. Again, these types of "mentions" add to their credibility and presence.
A sentence or two at the end about their personal passions and their relationship to the organization.
This may or not make it into the final bio, depending on the organization, but it's always useful to have on hand.
Two headshots.
One professional, and one casual (which should still be a headshot and be a good picture). I ask them to make sure the headshots are as hi-res as possible.
