PR 101

There are two kinds of viruses on the Internet. The evil kinds are those that attacked my blog two weeks ago. It denied my service for about a week until the experts solved the problems.

The second kind, the kind we marketers want, are those of our efforts that “go viral.” In other words, everyone and their brother is watching our YouTube videos, retweeting our thoughts and reading our blogs. That is the kind of virus that can take an obscure issue – such a broken guitar – and blow into a worldwide phenomenon.

Now, going viral is not an easy thing to do. I cannot guarantee the suggestions I am about to make will provide definitive answers on how to do it. It is hard to predict in what people will become interested. But, I have been able to drive traffic to client’s sites by using a combination of tools.

What does going viral mean? It means it is one so good that people pass it on and on and on. It means the person who created the campaign doesn’t have to do anything but sit back and watch.

According to Advertising Age, these the top viral campaigns in 2009:

What they all have in common is good production values, a compelling story, and a willingness not to talk down to the viewer.

Good production values are key. I always tell clients if they want to go viral, it pays have a professional make the video. Yes, I have watched many of the videos made by amateurs. There are compelling to watch. But they are not trying to sell anything. I firmly believe that anyone offering a product should do everything thing possible to make their product look good.

A compelling story is very important. You can have the greatest production values in the world, but if no wants to watch, what’s the point? I also like campaigns that do one of two things – make me think or make me laugh. Those are the ones that grab and hold my attention.

Not talking down to viewers is very important. I hate it when a campaign assumes I am not very bright. That’s why I immediately turn off any ad that makes the father look stupid. I like campaigns that treat me as an equal that knows what he wants. Granted I do this for a living, so I am probably more critical than the average person. But I have never like it when a campaign makes fun of someone.

As I said, I cannot guarantee those ideas will work for creating a campaign that will go viral. However, they cannot hurt.

I want to again apologize the erratic posting of late. I cannot stand it when a blogger doesn’t stick to a schedule. Unless I want to be a hypocrite, I have to hold myself to the same standard. I will be going back to a consistent schedule.

That being said, there will be no positing Monday, May 31^st, because it is a holiday in the United States. PR 101 will resume Wednesday, June 2. Thank you for your support and patience.

So, after unplanned week off from blogging – more about that later – I sat at my keyboard trying to come up with a topic for this week’s blog. I realized I have a lot of items that wouldn’t make up an entire blog, but are still things I want to put out there. So, here are some of them.

Apple Inc.’s Marketing

Whether you are a Mac or a PC, you have to admire the way Apple markets itself.  The phrase I used to start the previous sentence is an example. Apple has become an iconic product. It’s marketing is transcending its market and becoming part of the general conversation. Which frankly is genius.

Of course Apple runs television advertisement for its products. However, those commercials are just one leg of the centipede that is Apple’s marketing plan. I cannot think of another company whose products go viral faster than Apple. They are word-of-mouth geniuses. You gotta admire that.

BP and The Oil Spill

That would make a great name for a punk band. In the real world, it has been an unmitigated disaster for British Petroleum on so many levels.

If you remember, last I blogged about the need for a crisis communication plan. That plan cannot sit on the shelf and gather dust. Just like every other part of crisis planning, a crisis communication plan has to be practiced. In that way, when the real thing happens, the communications team will know what to do.

I have to say that if BP did have a plan, it ain’t working. They have so ham handed about the way they dealt with the media. Their people actually got testy about what the company was doing. Bad idea. That just leads to more bad press.

The only way to act when there millions of oil that will potentially damage eco-systems from Louisiana to Florida and beyond is contrite.

Ford’s Advertising Campaign
Ford Motor Co. clearly gets it when it comes to telling the public about their products. Their current ads are the firs I have been in a long time that actually talk about their product’s attributes. That is a good way to get consumers interested.

If you watch television commercials for automobiles, you will notice that the ads rarely talk about what’s in the car. Most of the time, the commercials are trying to sell image. The one exception to that are truck commercials. The people who buy trucks want to know about horsepower and payload. They don’t care about image. They care about owning a tool that will get the job done.

Ford seems to have transferred that idea to car advertisements. The commercials for such things as the Ford Fusion or the Escape SUV talk about cargo space, gas mileage and horsepower. Those are thing I want to know about when I look at cars.

The Internet

I never realized how much I relied on the ability to use the Internet until part of it was taken away from me.

As I am sure you all noticed last week PR 101 was attacked by a virus. It was part of a larger attack on WordPress Blogs hosted by Go Daddy. I eventually had to take the blog down to protect all of you from getting infected. It took awhile, but the viruses were eventually flushed from the system. I have to give kudos to the Go Daddy customer support for helping me.

I also have to give a huge thank you to Joao Moraes of Sao Paulo, Brasil. Joao is the man who designed this blog and maintains it for me. It was he who helped me work my way through all of the issues a virus attack presents. If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t have a blog.

I also have to thank of all of you readers for sticking with me. I appreciate it. Thank you.

So on Monday I laid the beginnings of my writing primer. Today, I want to talk about actual writing. I could fill another 20 blogs on the dos and don’t of writing properly. Obviously, I am not going to that. I do want to cover some of more of the basics of good writing.

First, one of my favorite statements on writing – it comes from Mark Twain – is:  “I notice that you use plain, simple language, short words and brief sentences. That is the way to write English – it is the modern way and the best way. Stick to it; don’t let fluff and flowers and verbosity creep in. When you catch an adjective, kill it. No, I don’t mean utterly, but kill most of them – then the rest will be valuable. They weaken when they are close together. They give strength when they are wide apart. An adjective habit, or a wordy, diffuse, flowery habit, once fastened upon a person, is as hard to get rid of as any other vice.” Letter to D. W. Bowser, 20 March 1880.

That first sentence is the key to all good writing. Keep it simple. Twain also once noted he got paid the same amount for using the word cop as he did for using policeman. It is a good lesson. Too many people think that their writing had to be full of long words and even longer sentences. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Simple is always best.

The other author I suggest most writers emulate is Ernest Hemingway. Here from “Ernest Hemingway on Writing” – edited by Larry W. Phillips – are the best writing tips I have ever found. I follow them religiously. I give them to you because I cannot do any better. They are:

• Start with the simplest things.
• Boil it down.
• Know what to leave out.
• Write the tip of the iceberg; leave the rest under the water.
• Write what you see.
• Listen completely.
• Write when there is something you know, and not before.
• Look at words as if seeing them for the first time.
• Use the most conventional punctuation you can.
• Distrust adjectives
• Learn to write a simple declarative sentence
• · Tell a story in six words (Hemingway did just that. The story is “For sale: baby shoes, never used.”)
• Read everything so you know what you need to beat
• Don’t try to beat Shakespeare
• Accept that writing is something you can never do as well as it can be done.
• Don’t drink when you’re writing.
• Finish what you start.
• Don’t worry. You’ve written before and you will write again.
• Forget posterity. Think only of writing truly.
• Write as well as you can with no eye on the market.
• Write clearly – and people will know if you are being true.
• Just write the truest sentence that you know.
• Remember that nobody really knows or understands the secret.
• And the best tip of all – go fishing in summer.

If you follow what Twain and Hemingway have to say, you will turn out good copy.