PR in a nutshell

FutureWorks PR pro Brian Solis wrote this paragraph below to describe the work of a public relations/communications awareness building professional. Fantastic. His blog post is worth reading all the way through, a fine counterpoint to the NY Times article "Spinning the Web: P.R. in Silicon Valley" from over the weekend.

Brian wrote:
"It’s our responsibility to identify and prioritize all important categories equally in order to run both a top-down and bottom-up communications program that increases visibility, demonstrates awareness and empathy, offers solutions, and inspires champions who can help us extend and scale explicit benefits for particular groups of consumers. In doing so, we can create a series of concentric circles that, when nurtured individually, resonate and extend until they collectively overlap and form a topography of collaborative, burgeoning and overlapping conversations and communities that extend the reach of companies to cultivate dedicated channels."

[NOTE: Other local PR folks writing today about the NY Times article include Slipstream Labs' Bob Wallace and ValleyPR Blog's Linda Vandevrede.]

Barcode art

If you're looking to put a bar code on your next product, think about adding a touch of whimsy or artistic interest with it. Nationwide Barcode can help you.



Nationwide Barcode will take your UPC number and create the graphic, while constantly printing and scanning the barcode to make sure that this newly created art piece will work for the client and the retailer. I like it.

Did you read a printed newspaper this weekend?

Hope your 4th of July/Independence Day weekend was terrific. Did you follow any news via a printed paper this weekend? It seems fewer and fewer folks are.

Today's Silicon Alley Insider lays out the numbers behind the 'news that's fit to print' - here's a snippet below - Much more insight at the link.

So far this year:
105 newspapers have been shuttered.
10,000 newspaper jobs have been lost.
Print ad sales fell 30% in Q1 '09.
23 of the top 25 newspapers reported circulation declines between 7% and 20%.

What happened? The economy collapsed and advertising budgets went with it, accelerating a process already underway: the Internet's erosion of the entire newspaper industry.

One of the comments positioned the doomsday scenario for papers this way: "The 400 year era of any company packaging a group of stories that its editors hope can satisfy all people's interests is effectively over because the people now have radically more choices available and are making use of that." Amen to that.

Social Media - Midweek Roundup

Here's a check around the Internet-O-Sphere for solids stories and interesting posts to help you get your work done better today:

- GREAT post from Olivier Blanchard's The Brand Builder Blog, which asks "Is Your Social Media Director Qualified?" - fantastic indictment of the players who are bluffing their way into these new roles and how to spot the difference between someone who knows it and can work it for your organization, and someone who's making it up as they go along. "Two conclusions: The first is that the qualifications of Social Media Directors may not be entirely clear to the folks interviewing and hiring applicants for those positions. The second is that as a result of this, confusion, we are now looking at three distinct types of Social Media Directors/Managers scampering about in the corporate world, some good, some okay, and some really bad."

- Got too many social media profiles? Put 'em all together in one place - like at GizaPage. Read this fine ReadWriteWeb overview of the GizaPage service.

- BlogWorldExpo writes "Why it Pays for Brands to Monitor the Social Networks" - "Businesses shouldn’t ask why they need an online presence. The should be asking why they don’t have one already. If their customers and users are important to them, they need to use the social networks as a way to reach our to their community and ensure their happiness."

- IsaacYassar writes about Twitter as a Business Tool - "So why would companies be interested in Twitter? Because they know that conversation is a powerful, persuasive business tool and right now, Twitter is where the conversation is happening. Here are some recent stats about the micro-blogging site from Nielsen:
* Twitter is fastest growing community site on web
* Twitter experienced 1,382% growth in the 12 months to Feb 09
* The largest user group on Twitter is 35-49 year olds.

- For these types of stories and more, visit Social Media Alltop

Twitter Spam - A Pain in Our Twit

I've stumbled across more and more Twitter spam lately, enough to warrant interest in a blog post.

Mashable has warned about the growing use of Twitter spam, classifying the spam content into three categories - Twitomercials, Straight Cons, and Clueless Cons.

"The Twitomercials, Straight Cons, and Clueless Cons that are already here on Twitter are just the tip of the iceberg. Anything online scammers and cons have been doing on e-mail or the web will shortly be adapted to Twitter — and any other popular new medium that could yield profits. So in the coming year, Twitter will have a real spam problem. Unless they do something about it, these profiles and scams are bound to grow."

Blogger Ryanjin posted how he clicked a link or two and ended up at a site that was actually showing an AdSense for content link for Twitter, clearly a fantasy today.

And TechCrunch wrote back in April about two services that might help with Twitter spam:

"There are a few Twitter applications that let you flag possible spam, but none are tied to the Twitter desktop clients, like Seesmic Desktop or Tweetie. Topify, a nifty service we reviewed recently, gives you a more comprehensive version of the standard New Follower email offered by Twitter, by providing the user’s Bio, Follower or Following numbers, the user’s most recent tweets and the ability to block and unfollow potential spammers directly from the New Follower email. Twerp Scan scans through your followers and flags Twitter users who could be potential spammers. You can control the filtering options that determine who is a spammer (i.e. number of followers vs. following). But Twitter may have to develop or license its own spam blocking software if the problem becomes more prevalent."

What have you seen in your Twitterverse recently? Mention it below in the comments.

AZ Media Buzz Mixer tonight

A group of AZ Media-PR-marketing folks are gathering tonight at Sidebar in Central Phoenix to kick off a Media Buzz Mixer, which has been a fun networking happening in other cities. [I'd like to go, but shame I'm already booked from 5pm onward at a cocktail reception and evening event.]

Here are the stats:

*AZ 06.25.09
AZ Media Buzz
SIDEBAR PHOENIX
1514 North 7th Avenue, Phoenix
6 to 9 p.m.
We know you don’t need any reason to attend AZ Media Buzz beyond a cool location (SideBar Phoenix), and your favorite network of regulars and rookies, but if you do, how about happy hour prices until 8 p.m. exclusively for AZ Media Buzzers? We thought that would do the trick.

Seen Your Family Lately?

Is social media, Internet time and laptop addictions (the web kind!) cutting into your family life? The Annenberg School for Communication put out a report last week that showed growing movement in that direction.

(From a Forbes article...)

"American kids and their parents are now spending more hours huddled alone around computer screens and cell phone displays, seriously eroding the amount of time families spend together.

In a new survey from the center, researchers found that in 2008, 28 percent of people said that being wired has resulted in them spending less time with family members, a threefold increase from the 11 percent reported just two years ago, in 2006.

This is certainly not the first time researchers have sounded an alarm about Internet use and even "Internet addiction." Other studies have suggested that online usage has significantly disrupted the lives of millions of Americans."

I suppose Americans are looking at their glass screens a bit more - I mean, that's where all the fun and action and adventure are these days, right? But parents certainly need to carve out their kid time. I do. I make time to throw the ball to the kids, swim with them and hang out and talk about Bakugan Vestroia or Barbie Diamond Castle. It's all relative. We don't watch much TV in my house, but we do a lot of creative online and offline activities.