I have previously written about selling social media to a company, but that’s only the first step. There is more to be done after completing the initial sale than there was before the sale.

We who do social media full-time forget what a culture change it is for most organizations. Not just for those people in the C-Suite, but for everyone down to, and including, the receptionist. Remember, up until to about six years ago, most employees didn’t have to worry about social media or marketing their company in any way.

“Too often, people from company “A” will recognize great success that company “B” is having by doing XYZ with social media,” Blogger Adam Christensen wrote. “So, logically, they decide to do the same at company A. But the results are dramatically different. Why? Because they didn’t account for the corporate culture variable which is inevitably different between the two companies.”

Christensen is currently the director of social and digital communications and marketing at Juniper Networks in San Francisco. Until April, he worked for IBM in communications and marketing where he led IBM’s social business strategy and execution globally. He worked on projects including IBM’s Watson and Smarter Planet.

So first, what is corporate culture and how’s it formed?

Well, corporate culture is essentially an internal brand. It doesn’t exist until the majority of people at the company buy into it. The company’s leadership and employees who have the same values and assumptions about their place of work create it. Although it can awhile for a company to form a culture, once formed it can be difficult to change.

Why? Because it provides a sense of belonging and safety to the people who work there. Remember, in every company there are the written and the unwritten rules. The unwritten rules are that which forms the culture. By following both sets, especially the unwritten one, an employee can generally minimize surprises and things out of the ordinary.

The problem is that same culture can keep a company from taking the calculated risks they need to stay viable. Consider the bookseller Borders or the video rental company Blockbuster. While I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened to each, I know from being a customer of each that their cultures were wedded to a way of doing business that was clearly no longer viable.

Those examples are not going to stop other companies from making the same mistakes. Staying in one place is usually the normal human state.

So along comes someone like myself telling the leaders and employees they need to adopt social media if they want to remain in business. Yes, they know about Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and the other social media sites. They might even say they want to do it. But it still means a huge culture change.

So what do you do? Well, first it takes an intensive education program. You need to show everyone how social media works and what it can do for the company. You need to show each employee how they fit into the plan.

You also need to get their input. You need to find out what they are comfortable with and what they are willing to start with. As I always say, you have to crawl before you can walk.

Once you and the leadership feels that employees are ready to dip into social media, start out internally. Set up internal blogs, an employee Wiki and other applications. Let as many employees as possible play, learn, grow, build relationships, and develop the needed collective awareness. Once the employees are comfortable with it, take it public. It will work then.

The sites are supposed to help people keep track of their friends and what they are doing. For businesses, the idea is that if you or I see a number of our friends going to eat at a particular restaurant or watching the same movie, we will be inspired to do the same. That is supposed to increase the business’ sales.

It doesn’t appear to me that people are using those sites as their creators’ intended. Two things seem to be happening.

The first is that people are not just sharing a new restaurant or a good movie. No, they are listing everywhere they go and everything they do. Some of the things I have been notified about are that people are going for run, stopping to buy gas, grocery shopping, going to their office, and a myriad of other things. I can literally track some people through their entire day.

The only thing I haven’t yet seen – and I assume this will happen sooner or later – is someone will notify the world they have stopped to use the restroom.

The second thing that seems to be happening is many users seem to be dropping out of the services after they use them for a time. I suspect that people out on a Saturday night just forget to notify everyone where they are and what they are doing. I have noticed that some people used to notify of every step they took (my apologies to Sting) seem to have disappeared.

What is happening to these sites illustrates one of the pitfalls of social media. Some people seem not to have any kind of brake on their postings. They tell the world everything they are doing. I am not a psychiatrist so I cannot give you a professional analysis of why they do that.

However, it does seem to me to be a trifle narcissistic to constantly announce what you are doing and where you are doing it. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I really don’t care if you are at the gas station.

This is causing what I believe is another detrimental effect. I get so many notifications from people that they clog up my inbox. I tend to delete them because of that. I just don’t have time to go through all of them.

That means that if by chance someone does go to restaurant or movie in which I am interested, I am not likely to see it. That’s not good if you own a business. It means your message is getting buried.

Yes, I know that social media marketing calls for businesses to cede control of their brand to consumers. However, if I were a business owner, I would not cede my brand to a bunch of people who spend their time clogging up others’ in-boxes. That would seem to be counterproductive.

That’s just one more reason social media marketing has to be carefully targeted toward and audience and a goal. It should be used as a scalpel, not a meat ax.

Facebook has more users, YouTube has more viewers, Twitter updates more often but LinkedIn is where the people and companies you want to reach reside. As I tell clients, LinkedIn is the adult Facebook.

“ … what businesspeople appreciate and respect about LinkedIn is that is has significant processes and controls that keep it from becoming like Facebook,” writes LinkedIn expert Wayne Breitbarth in his book The Power Formula for LinkedIn Success. Kick-start Your Business, Brand and Job Search.

I highly recommend Breitbarth’s book. I have over 13,000 followers on LinkedIn. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the site. After reading the book, I realized that I knew just enough to be dangerous. Thanks to Breitbarth’s book, I am a much more savvy LinkedIn user.

So the first question is why used LinkedIn? I will let Breitbarth explain. He explains it through what he calls the Power Formula: “Your Unique Experience + Your Unique Relationships + The Tool (in this case, LinkedIn) = The Power.

What he means is that combining LinkedIn with your existing relationships and experiences will give you a decided advantage over your competitors. By using LinkedIn you can develop and refine your brand by a creating strong LinkedIn profile and expanding your network of contacts. Doing those things will help you accomplish your goals for yourself and your company.

LinkedIn is the place to show your experience and your expertise. It is the place where those you respect can state that in an endorsement. It is where you can connect with potential clients and employees. It is pretty much the Swiss army knife of social media sites.

Now there are many ways to use LinkedIn. But use it you must. You cannot simply sign up for it and expect the masses to find you.

The first you have to do is set up as complete a profile as possible. Breitbarth calls the top part where you list your name, title, business and location the “30-second bumper sticker.” The information listed there travels around LinkedIn with you as you post information, join groups, and comment on other’s activities. As Breitbarth points out this is the more important section of LinkedIn. He has found that many people will look no further than that box. Let me add that when I search for somebody, that’s the first thing that comes up on Google.

I also, and Breitbarth agrees, strongly advocate putting a professional looking photo there. To me not including a photo means you are hiding something. I know the argument that many of my fellow boomers make – that people are going to know how old they are if they post that picture. Well you know what, they are going to find anyway. If someone contacts you through LinkedIn for a job interview, what are going to do – have plastic surgery to make yourself look 26-years-old? So just deal with it.

After that, the key to profile to your profile is being as detailed as possible. The last study I read found that 85 percent of human resources people to go LinkedIn first when looking for a job candidate. You want to give them as many reasons as possible to pick you.

The next key is endorsements. This shows what others think of your work. People have been kind enough to endorse my work. It shows potential clients or customers that you are someone with whom they should do business.

Now, I have a firm rule on endorsements. I will not endorse anyone who I have not worked with. It is simply dishonest. How can one provide an objective analysis of work you have never seen. Likewise, I will not ask for endorsement from someone I don’t know.

Now, I have been lucky in that most of my endorsements are unsolicited. I think those are those are the most objective. On the other hand, I can understand asking for them from people who know your work well. I have also done that.

One more thing – LinkedIn groups. I highly recommend joining as many as LinkedIn will allow. That is currently 50. Those are the place to meet like-minded people, share information, get questions answered, and again demonstrate your expertise.

I don’t think there is any social media site that is as complete at LinkedIn. In fact, if you are going to join only one site, make it LinkedIn.

Here’s the first thing that we all should remember – social media doesn’t kill careers, people using social media kill careers. Oh and you can add companies into that also. Social media can also wound them pretty severely.

You must be a monk living in a Nepalese cave if you don’t know what Wiener did. According to ABC News Weiner admitted Monday he had “engaged in ‘several inappropriate’ electronic relationships with six women over three years, and that he publicly lied about a photo of himself sent over Twitter to a college student in Seattle over a week ago.”

The overall lesson in all of this is think before you do anything on the Internet. I am not sure why it is, but many people do not consider the consequences of their actions when posting on the web. I mean does anyone think a sitting US Representative would post a picture of his junk on his office wall? Of course not. Yet when people get on the Internet, they seem to think that the same rules don’t apply. They don’t ask that question I always urge clients to ask before doing anything – “what if … ?”

I don’t get it. Research indicates the average post initially reaches approximately 150 people. If each of those 150 people sends out the same post and it reaches another 150 people each, over 22,000 people will see it and so on. You see how fast something goes viral.

So why do Weiner and others do inappropriate things on the web? I think it is because they don’t understand the power of the Internet. A lot of people don’t get it. They think they are somehow anonymous when they post. Well, they aren’t.

Here’s the second lesson to be learned from this: “three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.” That is one of my favorite Ben Franklin quotes. I use it when I discuss crisis communications.

Weiner has been touted as one of the more Social Media savvy members of Congress. Yeah, and I am scheduled to perform brain surgery tomorrow. Did he honestly think that those pictures would stay private?

It is hard to believe that anyone doesn’t know that once you enter the Social Media realm, privacy is surrendered. Anything you put on the Internet is accessible to anyone who wants to see it. If it is something salacious or embarrassing that pretty much guarantees it will go viral. We humans seem to revel in spreading that around. We really like it when it happens to someone who we feel thinks they are smarter than us.

There is the third lesson to come out of this. This is one is about crisis communications. In today’s Internet-based world, you have about an hour or so to respond to a crisis. You cannot wait more than that to formulate a response to whatever happens. In fact, if you decide to do something stupid like tweet pictures of your body parts to college student females, you had better have your story all set to go before you tweet.

Seriously, companies today have about an hour today to put out the fire. That’s why I always urge clients to have a crisis communications plan in place. They need to be monitoring Social Media 24 hours a day, seven days a week to catch those small fires. Wait any longer than that and it’s too late.

If Weiner had come out right away and said, “yes, it’s me. It was a stupid thing to do and I am sorry I did it” the story would have flared and died. Instead, he waited way too long to respond.

As my father used to say: “there is no sense in being stupid unless you show people how stupid you are.” We Coles are sarcastic people. What the Internet has done is expand the opportunities to demonstrate that stupidity.

Therein lies the conundrum for many of us. We can write compelling blogs, post interesting tweets, make fascinating videos, add to LinkedIn discussions, and draw people to our Facebook pages. But a lot of us couldn’t sell long underwear to Alaskan oil field workers in the middle of a January blizzard. We have forgotten to acquire that the one key skill that ensures that a business or agency will be successful – sales.

I used to be as bad as sales as anyone. I can do everything I just wrote about and then some. But when it came time to convince someone else that they needed to the same to make their business prosper, well just remember that shivering oil field worker.

Just because we know social media is going to dominate marketing doesn’t mean our prospective clients know or care. They need to shown and convinced why that is so. Too often we social media evangelists make the same mistakes other enthusiasts make: we assume that everyone shares our fervor. Well, that just isn’t true.

I have heard many stories of an internal marketing manager or an agency representative charging into the CMO’s office enthusing all over the place about social media. Done that way the usual result is the CMO tells the interloper to clear out and take the enthusiasm with them. Oh they might be polite about it and all, but they never call back.

You can’t go fishing with a shotgun and you cannot convince someone to buy something based on your attitude. Just like in fishing, you have to be patient. You have to have the right bait and you have to convince the prospect to rise to that bait. That is the only way to do it.

Using pull marketing tactics is how it is done correctly. As a refresher, pull marketing is a method in which you give a potential customer convincing reasons to buy something. You don’t force anything. You let them take their time and make a decision. That goes for both external and internal clients.

Second, you have to make sure you are targeting the right prospects. I have seen too many agencies use the “any company is a good client approach.” I know it is tough in a recession not to go after just about any business. But ultimately you will fail doing that. It is much better to pick out a market niche and target it. Set up criteria for which companies within that niche would be your ideal client and go after that group.

If you are inside a company, you have to make sure you trying to convince the people who actually the decisions. Generally, that would be people in the C-Suite. But be careful to pay attention to internal politics. Don’t bypass someone who has the power to stop you from achieving your goal. Rather get them to buy into your idea.

I once had an editor who would almost automatically turn any idea a reporter had. I don’t know whether he was insecure, busy, or just arrogant. What reporters learned to do was have a general discussion with this editor about the area in which they wanted to do a story. They would then let the editor has the “light bulb” moment and assign them the story.

The same tactic can work with the people you are trying to convince. Not that anyone’s superiors are insecure, busy or arrogant.

The bottom line is before you write that blog post or post that video, you have to convince people that it will work. Only then can you get the camera out and start shooting.

What the Brewers did and didn’t do is also a lesson for any marketer who has an idea that seems to be a surefire winner. I am willing to bet no one in planning the promotion that backfired asked “what if … goes wrong.” Until you think something through from every angle, you are asking for trouble. As the Chinese military thinker Sun Tzu said: “The general who loses a battle makes but few calculations beforehand.”

Here’s what happened to the Brewers. As a promotion, the team placed 1,400 statues of mascot Bernie Brewer across Wisconsin parks early Tuesday morning. Some of the statues had a prize attached, including ticket vouchers, player autographs, and merchandise.

The idea was Bernie would tweet clues to the location of each statue so fans could find them. Under the rules, the contest was to begin at 7 a.m. People were supposed to take only one of the statutes. It didn’t work out that way.

Instead, people were grabbing as many as possible. There were reports of people sleeping in their cars overnight near parks where the statutes were to be placed. One woman tweeted she had taken over three dozen. People were trying to sell the statutes on EBay and Craigslist. This caused a lot of angry comments from people who tried to follow the rules.

Clearly no one at the Brewers thought this thing through. This is a clear case I feel of “you know what would be cool?” No one in the meeting asked the “what if fans get greedy and take more than one” question.  It’s a cliché, but it’s true: “hope for the best, but plan for the worst.”

There are hundreds of comments on social media sites posted by angry fans. The story went viral. I read a lot of the comments. People are really angry or laughing at the Brewers. Neither is good. The fact that the Brewers insisted that promotion went mostly okay shows me they don’t understand the power of social media.

Where the Brewers failed was not taking human nature into account. You announce you are giving away for free something people want they are going to find ways to game the system. Once the idea of the giveaway was decided on, the next topic of discussion should have been how to prevent the hoarding.

Brewers spokesman said the promotion went well with the exception of “some isolated” incidents. Wrong. They should have apologized profusely. That’s crisis communications 101.

What should the Brewers have done, or more accurately what would I have done?

First, there would have been no actual tickets, merchandise or autographed items in the statues if I were running things. What there would have been were vouchers for those items. Stamped on each voucher would be the words “One Prize Per Address or Family.” No, it wouldn’t have completely stopped the hoarding. But it would have cut down on it.

Second, I would have implanted a locator chip in each Bernie statue. Once I saw that more than Bernie was in one location, I would have noted the IDs on the chips (yes, the technology exists.) Whoever brought any of those hoarded statues in for redemption would have been disqualified automatically.

Third, to prevent anyone from selling the statutes on EBay or Craigslist, I would make it very public that the statutes can be purchased from the Brewers for $48. That would kill that market.

Fourth, I would have made those statues a heck of lot harder to find. Scavenger hunts are not supposed to be easy.

Now it is true that the people who thought they would corner the Bernie Brewer statue market are not particularly ethical or honest. But that’s human nature.

The failure was with the Brewers and their planning. You have to think these things through. It is why the first thing JJC Communications LLC does with a new client is an analysis what could go right and what could wrong. If you only do one of those, you end up with a lot of angry fans and people laughing at you.

If you want to learn more about how to such an analysis, let me know.

So it would seem at first glance that these companies are starting to embrace new ways of marketing. As most of you know, I firmly believe in melding traditional marketing and public relations with social media. That trilogy of marketing methods is the most effective.

However, I always dig a little deeper. I track these companies’ efforts. What I often find is that instead waltzing with social media, these companies are doing the “Zombie Dance.” All of you remember the Zombie Dance from the first dance you attended. The boy holds his rigid arms straight out and places them on the girl’s shoulders. Because of the distance created by the boy’s arms, the girl is forced to do the same. The pair then moves in a circle, barely lifting their feet off the ground and not bending their knees. It looks like the undead dancing.

That’s what a lot of social media attempts done by large companies especially remind me of – a stiff-armed dance that is about as a rhythmic as a drunk trying to play drums. These companies just don’t get it.

Now I know many CMOs would argue social media is not as important as search for attracting clients and customers. Current research would seem to back this contention up. For instance Google Inc.’s dominant search engine supplies about 30 percent of traffic to the top news sites, according to a study done by Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. I would argue that same currently holds true for both business-to-consumer and business-to-business sites.

I know when I am looking for something in particular, I usually turn to Google. It is still one of the best ways to conduct research. However, the Pew study also found that “Facebook and other sharing tools, such as Addthis.com, are empowering people to rely on their online social circles to point out interesting content.” Although I do search for news, more and more I find myself reading stories friends have suggested or Linkedin. The same true when I shop. I will now often respond to tweets or Facebook friend pages when I am looking for a particular item.

This is where a lot of companies fall down, I feel. They are not integrating their social media efforts with their regular marketing efforts. Just having a Facebook page is not going to cut it. There has to be integration of all the marketing efforts. In this many companies are falling down.

Facebook is not the be all or end all. Blog, videos, and many other tools have to put to work. Yet which some notable exceptions – Dunkin Donuts and Southwest Airlines come to mind – most companies are doing all they could do. And I think I know why.

At major companies, people look at social media and consider it just too much work. Too many marketing departments are too used to using traditional advertising and public relations. It’s inertia. They want to move out of the ruts they are in. And then they wonder why they lose business to their smaller, more nimble competitors.

Social media is not going away. Quite the opposite, actually. Look at the data Marketing Sherpa collected on marketing tactics for 2011.

“As marketing strategies evolve from outbound to inbound tactics, there is also a shift in the ways in which money and resources are spent. We asked more than 1,100 marketers how they foresaw budgets changing in 2011 for the following marketing tactics,” Marketing Sherpa wrote. This is what they found:

Look at the chart carefully – 1,100 marketers see the budgets for websites, search (search engine optimization/pay per click), and social media increasing by more than 50 percent. That doesn’t sound to me like social media is going anywhere.

In order for any of these marketing methods to prove successful, a company must use the three together.  A company needs a top-flight webpage so potential customers like what they see when they land there. Search engine optimization is key so potential customers find that website. Social media is needed to create the inbound links to the website so search engines find it. A marketing campaign that doesn’t use all three is a like two-legged stool.

So, I am not sure why some people seem to think social media is going away. I do have some hypothesis though.

First, I think many people are comparing Facebook, Google, Twitter, Linked in, YouTube and other social media sites to companies that were created during the dot-com bubble of the 1990s. That rationale doesn’t apply to the current crop of digital companies. What killed most of the dot com companies is that they never made a profit. Plus, their stock prices were widely inflated. When the recession of 2001 hit and the investment spigot was turned off, those high fliers suddenly had the aerodynamic properties of a rock.

There were a lot of lessons learned in that period. Companies just don’t operate like that anymore.

As I said before, I think some people are just trying to be provocative. They want to be contrarians. Kind of like the people of Vermont, who will never do what the rest of the nation does. Those social media contrarians just want to start an argument. They see themselves as loners, as people who don’t follow the crowd. I image their forebears rode horses and used kerosene lamps by choice well into the 1930s.

Finally, I think there are just some people who hate the whole concept of social media. They have been using the old ways for decades, dammit, and those methods work just fine. They don’t want to take the time to learn something new. It is too confusing for them. Before you automatically assume these people are all old, I was able to qualify for an over 55 discount the other night. And I love social media.

I suppose it is possible one of the more popular social media sites will go away. I don’t think that will happen, but one never knows. Things do change. I grew up with one phone company, three television stations, a record player and a typewriter. The companies that produced those items either went away or changed out of necessity. Yes, I know some places are again selling turntables and other old technologies. But some places still sell candles, but I don’t see them again becoming our primary source of light.

However, the functions those old ways doing things performed did not. I think the same is true of social media. If Facebook or Linked in disappear, something will take their place. Social media is just too dominant to think otherwise.

Anticipating how to handle a crisis before it occurs should be a key part of any company’s business plan. The one thing social media has probably made more difficult is crisis communications. A company now usually has minutes, possibly no more than an hour, to prevent a small crisis from growing into a major disaster. A response has to be immediate – within those same minutes of the crisis.

There is no alternative, no other option.

Here in my city of Milwaukee is an example of what happens when the crisis is more nimble than the responders. A suburban mall found itself the victim of what was apparently a flash mob that wreaked havoc throughout the shopping center. Then mall management made things worse by the way it responded

Businesses need planning and practice to be ready for a practice. A business has to have a crisis communications plan in place long before the crisis happens. To ensure the plan works when needed, it has to be rehearsed constantly.

Think about it. Fire Departments, police departments, the military and a host of other agencies constantly train. They do it so when they have to go into action everyone knows what to do.

Here’s what happened to Mayfair Mall in Wauwatosa, WI. I should note that it is one of the top shopping destinations in the Milwaukee metro area and is almost always crowded. In this case, I think the flash mob organizers decided that the crowd of shoppers would be the perfect audience for their “performance.”

For those who have not heard the term flash mob, Wikipedia defines it as a “large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then quickly disperse. The term flash mob is generally applied only to gatherings organized via telecommunications, social media, or viral emails.”

At Mayfair a group of several dozen teenagers raced through the mall, knocking over displays, running up and down escalators, which scared customers and staff. Mall management said the event was too organized to have been a spontaneous occurrence. They suspect it was organized via Facebook, Twitter or any number of other sites. Adding to the commotion was an apparent attempted robbery in the mall parking lot. Authorities have not said if the robbery was related to the flash mob but a shot was fired, which caused even more panic among. Luckily no one was hurt.

Mall management said they monitor social media sites to ensure things like this don’t happen. They said they were able to stop a flash mob planned for two days before Christmas. In that one, a group of high school students was planning on dancing in the mall.

If mall management is monitoring social media, someone fell asleep at the switch on the disruptive flash mob. For something this large, there had to be multiple posts on Twitter and Facebook. That’s how the word gets spread, by constant repetition across the web. Someone should have caught this.

It is possible the word was spread via text message. Unless you work for the National Security Agency, or some other federal investigative agency concerned with terrorism, those messages cannot be tracked. In that case mall management would not have had advance warning.

Even if Mayfair management did not have advance warning, the ball was still dropped after the incident. The flash mob happened Jan. 2. Mall management waited until the afternoon of Jan. 3rd to respond which meant for 24 hours Mayfair Mall lost control of its brand. In social media years that’s a lifetime. The mall was being defined by the hundreds of comments most of them negative made on social media sites and to the local media

When Mall management finally did respond, they did it by issuing a press release. Kind of like using a carrier pigeon to get the message out. What management said was just as bad.

Most of the statement condemned the group who disrupted the mall. It wasn’t until almost the end of the statement that management said: “the safety and security of our guests are always our top priorities.  We will not tolerate any behavior that compromises that safety.  As a result of this incident, we anticipate that there will be operational changes as well as consequences for those involved.”

What the statement should have said was that security was being increased immediately and there would be an even stronger policy governing when teenagers could be in the mall. The mall later did announce that it was changing its policy regarding when teenagers would be allowed in the mall. But that happened after the initial flurry of reports on the incident, which didn’t have the effect it would have had if the mall had made the announcement on the same day as the incident.

Plus Mayfair competitor Bayshore Mall announced changes to its policy for teenager access at the same time. There have been no incidents at Bayshore so that mall looked proactive. Mayfair suffered by comparison.

In other words, management be nimble, management be quick, or the business is going to be burned by something a lot hotter than a candlestick.

Yet, it still amazes me that in this digital age of electronic sharing of everything people have not internalized that rule. It hey did, it would keep them of trouble of their own making. Not following that rule will always lead to public relations problems and a lot of collateral damage.

The latest person to fall victim to a failure to pay attention to Franklin’s aphorism is U.S. Navy Capt. Owen Honors. Honors’ career was derailed because of a series of videos he made when he was the executive officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise. According to the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot newspaper, “The videos were a series of profanity-laced comedy sketches that were broadcast on the USS Enterprise via closed-circuit television.” Some were described as homophobic.

Did Honors think no one was ever going to talk about this to an outsider? But as Ben said, secrets just cannot be kept. In Honors’ case, almost 6,000 men and women who crew the aircraft carrier saw these videos. The odds were better than even that someone was going to talk.

I not am going to talk about the content of the videos or Honors intent in producing them. I am not seen the videos. From everything I have read, Honors was a rising star in the Navy. He apparently was an excellent leader slated to become an admiral. Perhaps he one day would have become Chief of Naval Operations – the overall Navy commander. Not anymore.

This entire situation is about how the videos were perceived and the fallout from their release. There are numerous stories talking about how the videos show the sexist, homophobic culture that the writers claim permeate the military. Again, I have no idea if that’s an accurate picture of our fighting men and women. I would say not from own experiences dealing with our armed forces. I do pro bono work for groups that work with veterans. I married into a military family. I have a lot of experience with our military.

However, truth does not matter, only the perception. I tell this to clients all the time. Perception is reality as far as the outside world is concerned. That’s why you have to be careful because the odds are very good that what you view as an off-hand remark could come back to bite and bite hard.

Remember, this is the era of social media. What once might not have spread beyond a city block will now zip around the world in minutes. Once the problem is out of the box, there is nothing that can be done to put it back.

As Capt. Honors unfortunately found out, it is not just the individual who will get burned. It can be an entire organization.

HowHH

In your hotel that night you turn on the television. For the next three hours, you see political invective spewed of that electronic box. The ads you see tell you how bad the business climate is in that state – poor education, high crime, high taxes, lousy facilities, and a government that doesn’t care. You know it might not be true, but you figure why take the chance? So, you pack your bags and go looking for another state to locate your facility and the jobs it will bring.

Too far-fetched? I wonder.

I live in Wisconsin. We are one of the key states in the 2010 election cycle. Our governor’s office is open. Republican Scott Walker is slugging out with Democratic Tom Barrett. Our incumbent senator, Russ Feingold, is fighting it out with newcomer and businessman Ron Johnson. Plus, there are several key races for House seats and the state Legislature.

We in Wisconsin are being inundated with television advertising, most of it negative. Let’s leave aside the personal attacks the candidates are making on each other. I do have say that if these candidates were five-year-olds, they would be sent to their rooms for the tantrums they are throwing.

The majority of the rest of the advertising talks about how bad things are in the Badger state. Our taxes are too high, our healthcare costs too much, our education is system is falling apart, and there is too much government regulations. Both sides say if the other side is elected, Wisconsin has roughly the same change to prosper as the Titanic did to float after it hit that iceberg.

As I said, if you are a businessperson, would you put your company here after seeing those ads?

It bothers me when one of our own does this. If I am that businessman, I am going to tend to believe the people who live here. If they tell me things are bad, who I am to argue?

Plus, if you are like me, you are cynical about any elected official’s ability to accomplish anything. So why take the chance that things might get fixed?

What particularly frosts me is the outside groups coming in and ripping my state. These are groups run by people who cannot tell you why Wisconsin loves the Packers so much, or what the difference is between a six-month-old cheddar and a six-year-old cheddar. The closest they have ever come to the Dairy State is when they land at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport to change planes.

They don’t care about Wisconsin, its business climate and what they might be doing to it. All they care about is winning. Once the election is over, they are going to forget about us until 2012.

Everyone involved in the election will justify their tactics by saying what they did is for the greater good. They remind me of the Army officer during the Vietnam War who was quoted as saying “it became necessary to destroy the town to save it.”

To me, Martin shows that he doesn’t understand social media when it calls “little more than the newest channel on the block.” Social media is not a channel; it is a whole new way of doing things. I think that’s the problem because advertising people such as Martin don’t understand that.

I could fill this blog with examples of how social media has supplanted and surpassed advertising as the premier method of marketing. Just look at the companies whose primary marketing efforts are through social media: the shoe company Zappos, Southwest Airlines, Amazon, Pepsi and a host of others.

For advertising people, social media is a just another way to talk to consumers. It is not. It is a way for brands to talk with their consumers. As I always tell clients, there is a conversation going on about your brand. You should be part of that conversation, but it is going to happen whether you are in it or not. Advertising agencies think they can control that conversation. They cannot. It can be directed, but it cannot be controlled.

Martin argues “social media is the creation of stories, content, photos, videos, information and entertainment.” He says that it is difficult to create strategically sound, effective content. The people that can do that, he says, work for advertising agencies. I have to disagree. The average advertising agency employee is not equipped in either training or temperament to create the kind of things social media demands. They are used to writing six lines of punchy copy. They are not used to making a coherent argument for why one brand should be purchased.

There are numerous studies that show most people don’t believe traditional advertising. If people wanted to view advertisements, they would ask DVR manufacturers to program the devices do they didn’t skip commercials. Every time I talk to some who has just purchased a DVR, one of the things they rave about not having to watch commercials anymore.

A recent Harris poll found some interesting facts about television commercials. The study, as reported by the Center for Media Research, said that 75 percent of Americans have found a commercial on TV confusing. Twenty-one percent often find TV commercials confusing, while 55 percent say that commercials are not very often confusing. Just 14 percent say they never find TV commercials confusing,. Eleven percent do not watch TV commercials.

So, this is a situation where a third of the audience either is confused by commercials or never watches them. Only 14 percent are never confused by a commercial. That means that the message is getting through to the audience must of the time. Not a ringing endorsement of advertising.

“A commercial’s main focus needs to be selling a product or service,” the Center for Media Research reports that the study’s author says. “If consumers watching these commercials are unsure of that main focus, the marketers are doing something wrong. If the ad is confusing, the prospective consumer may dismiss that product from consideration.”

I don’t think I want the people who are not getting the message across to handle my social media.

Public relations people are the ones who understand how to create the kind of campaign that social media demands. PR practitioners know how to use pull marketing, which is the definition of social media.

Speaking as one who has spent approximately a decade in public relations, I can tell you we understand that we have to talk with consumers, not at them. Prior to switching into public relations, I was a working reporter for over two decades. You learn fast in journalism you cannot make people read any story just because you think it is important. You have to give them reasons to do so.

I also always tell clients that consumers control their brand. Social media acknowledges that and uses it to the client’s advantage. Today’s consumers hate being pandered to or coerced. That’s what advertising tries to do. Social media on the other hand gives people reasons to buy a product, but realizes the final decision is up to them.

That goes back to public relations. Traditional public relations is all about creating content that people want to read. A public relations person has to convince a reporter to do a story, or attend an event. Public relations people are used to creating content that people want to read. The idea is to make the consumer want to engage with the brand.

It is not that much of leap from public relations to social media. The tools are different, but the idea is the same. Public relations is where social media should reside.

Still, although they are late to board, the institutions of higher learning haven’t missed the social media train,  a recent study found.

The study, “Marketing Spending at Colleges and Universities” found that higher education institutions’ interactive and social media budgets are increasing. Between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2009, 55 percent of the institutions allocated more of their budgets to interactive media and 52 percent allocated more to social media.

The study was conducted by the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) and Lipman Hearne, a marketing communications firm with offices in Chicago and Washington, D.C.

“People really want to know what kids are reading and how they spend their free time – what is capturing their attention,” Lipman Hearne’s COO and director of research, Donna Van De Water is quoted in the report. “They’re trying to figure out what kinds of communications should move from print to the web. And they’re wondering what kind of language to use. They’re asking, “Should we use a student voice or our own voice?”

It is important to remember almost college students first used every social media application I know of. Student, for goodness sakes, developed Facebook at Harvard for use by other students.

Yet, colleges and universities are just now catching onto the fact that they need to be recruiting using social media?

Of course, people who demand facts and figures run most universities. They want definite empirical proof that something is working. The study does bear that out. It found that institutions that use social media report positive incomes in website hits, search engine positioning and, most importantly, rates of alumni donations.

The study also found something that should be music to a university comptroller’s ears: moderate-to-heavy users of social media spend less per student on marketing. The moderate-to-heavy users spent an average of $83 per student as opposed to the $121 per student that light-to-non-users of social media spent. In addition, 71 percent of those institutions who invested in market research and strategy reported those efforts have a positive effect on the quality of their applicants.

“Students tend to say that they want to hear the university’s voice,” Van De Water said.  “Students know if they’re being talked down to, or if their own voices are being mimicked. That said they still do want to hear a student’s perspective. So an institution needs to know what its own voice is, yet also allow students to represent the authentic student voice. Alumni want to hear a range of voices: faculty, students, other alumni, and the university’s. They understand and appreciate the complexity of the institution and welcome the various perspectives.”

In addition, the increasing use of social media has allowed colleges and universities to cut the amount of money they spend on traditional advertising. Of those institutions that are moderate-to-heavy users of social media, 42 percent spent less on traditional advertising in fiscal year 2009 than in the previous year. Of the overall survey group, approximately one-third spent less on traditional advertising than in the previous year.

So as I long as I am continuing in cliché mode, I guess it is better late than never.

I had an amazing response to the two-part guest blog on why executives hate social media. My weekly readership more than doubled. I did have a few complaints that it was too long or needed better editing. Both are good points.

Nonetheless, it raised a lot of provocative points about the C Suite and social media. I appreciate that all of you took time to read through it. Plus, I had a lot of comments. It was a good debate. Thank you all.

I’m an executive and I hate social media. There, I said it. It’s finally “out there.” But before you Twitter a flaming flash mob link to assemble pitchfork-wielding Second Life villagers outside my door, I urge you to take a deep breath, put down your double frappuccino, remove your earpiece, step away from your iPad, and set your iPhasers to stun, for I come in peace.  If you’ve ever wondered why your CEO also hates social media, social networking and, well, socializing in general, I urge you to continue reading.

Just as Fox TV’s Masked Magician series demystified the tricks of the world’s most famous illusionists, I offer the following as both a behind-the-scenes peak and a confessional of sorts, into the mind of the executive. For to truly understand the conflicting yet predictable stonewalling in this domain, one must search deep below the surface, plumbing the depths of the executive psyche, motivations, and worldviews, for only then will you be able to “crack the code,” engage us in our native tongue and communicate in a vocabulary and language to which we will respond.  Consider this your own personal backstage pass to the inner sanctum of the Executive Suite.

Executive: More Perception Than Position

For starters, the term “executive” isn’t a title as much as it is a mindset or a set of attributes – often leading to career success and the achievement of such rank – but what might surprise most is that this ambition and executive mentality often begins to manifest itself early in life.  For example, while most were partying and hanging out in high school, we were already taking college-level classes while holding down several part time jobs.  And when most were “finding themselves” in college and still deciding on a major after three years, we were serving in student leadership, doing internships, or doubling up on classes to finish college a semester early. And when most were finally in the workforce, instead of clubbing and playing in multiple softball leagues, we were completing an advanced degree in night school, pursuing professional certifications, and framing out retirement plans.

Executives are high achievers – that’s just how we’re wired. Give me a mountain and I’ll climb it. And if you don’t have a mountain, I’ll find my own mountain and I’ll climb it.  And if I can’t find a mountain, I’ll build one – just so I can climb it. But here’s what most people don’t get about executives. Once a CEO climbs a mountain, he doesn’t feel the need to Tweet to the world that he did it. He doesn’t have the natural desire to blog, “Look what a great climber I am” and include multiple pictures with links to his Facebook and LinkedIn account. He did it because it’s in his DNA. He doesn’t require the attention, approval, or applause of others, and therein lies the fundamental source of the problem – executives are non-narcissistic in a YouTube world. We’re outliers. In a society that brags, blogs, and Tweets about the tiniest personal minutia, we could care less because, frankly, we expect success, it’s normal to us. It’s like Vince Lombardi’s admonition to his running back after an overly exuberant display, “Next time you make a touchdown, act like you’ve been there before.”

Eagles Don’t Flock

Executives are “eagles,” and unlike seagulls, eagles don’t flock. We’re not joiners and we’re not groupies, which is why we overwhelmingly prefer challenging single-person sports like running, cycling, weightlifting, and our one concession to “group sports” – golf (which is still technically a single-person sport, but more fun in groups). Lance Armstrong didn’t win his titles without leaving the peloton,and ditto for greats like Sampras, Tiger, and Arnold. They had to go above and beyond the group to achieve greatness, and for this reason it truly us lonely at the top (not that we mind).

Social Networking: The Problem is “Networking”

The reason we hate social networking is the same reason we hate regular networking. Exchanging small talk for two hours in a room full of strangers, with a drink in one hand and a business card in the other, and a “Hi, I’m Doug” name tag peeling off my lapel, and standing – my goodness the standing – and looking unsuccessfully for any food with some protein in it, and wondering if this guy with the too-firm handshake is going to see if we can “LinkIn” after sharing an elevator ride, before glancing at my watch and counting the minutes until I can leave and get back to work. It’s a nightmare. Why? Because – surprise, surprise – most executives are actually introverts, who value their time and their privacy and are constantly evaluating the ROI trade-offs of every hour of every day. (Quiz:  How many times have you heard a CEO describe himself as a “People Person”?)

To say that we are anti-social would be a huge misrepresentation, but when you combine the word “social” with “networking” – let’s just say it sends shivers up my spine. Do I like the company of others? Sure I do – but I want the time to be well spent. Instead of random, shallow, unfocused small talk, CEO’s would much rather sit around with a small group of peers for 2 hours and discuss BIG specific challenges – and their solutions. In fact, the reason so much business gets done on the golf course is because it’s one of the few places leaders actually congregate and feel relaxed enough to discuss what’s really on their minds.

Social Networking: The Problem is “Social”

The next hurdle for executives with social networking are the implications of the root word “Social”, and, by its very spelling, its association to Socialism. Socialism is defined as, “Any system of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively,” and further, “An economic and political theory based on public ownership or common ownership and cooperative management of the means of production and allocation of resources.” (At least that’s what someone wrote on Wikipedia). The premise and value of the “social media” movement is the power of the collective in the production, distribution, and ownership of goods, and the reason executives resist this model is that it flies in the face of their existing worldview which, quite frankly, has been pretty successful to date. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right? Most of us have a pretty big chip on our shoulders, attributing our career success to the years of diligence, education, ambition, delayed gratification and sacrifices we’ve made to reach the leadership levels we’ve achieved.

Therefore, the anti-capitalistic notion that my work and contributions would be homogenized with the uninspired masses, and that ultimately my value would be determined by the randomness of the collective is a jarring and unpalatable departure. I want to control my company! I want to control my brand! I want to determine my destiny! It’s too important to leave it to chance (or simply be outvoted by the uninformed bourgeois)! Unfortunately and tragically for us executives, the beauty and power of social media is only fully unleashed when we let it go, and that, my friends, is the hardest thing for us to do (…and also explains why we hate checking luggage at the airport).

Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts

Okay, I promised that this would be a confessional, so here’s a shocker. Over time, there is a tendency for CEO’s to get inflated egos.  Now granted, a healthy ego can serve as a necessary defense mechanism to provide protection from the relentless attacks from subordinates, peers, and the media, but too much amounts to just plain pride. We like to think of ourselves as a pretty smart bunch, and our position is such that even if we don’t completely understand something, we often project to our colleagues that we do.

A classic example of this phenomenon transpired during the Enron debacle, where ranks of senior executives refused to admit that they couldn’t comprehend the mechanics of this powerful conglomerate, until it was too late. It’s the same with new advances in technology, which has accelerated during our careers from “hit or miss” to “mission critical,” going from bricks to clicks and from mortar to mind share, while serving as a platform for everything from infrastructure, billing, and product development, to security, scheduling, and sales. The rapid rate of change in digital innovation has caused CEOs to feel extremely vulnerable around technology because it is something on which we have become very reliant, but which we understand and “control” so little, and this vulnerability leads to fear, and this fear to irrational decisions and suboptimal outcomes. When CEOs don’t have the confidence in their staff to delegate, or lack the humility to admit their ignorance regarding technology advances, they get defensive and act out in fear – or fail to act altogether.

Social Media: Justified Fear?

Executives justify their fear of social media by pointing back to a historic drumbeat of disappointment and unfulfilled promises. They recall with vivid detail the never-ending parade of new online engagement vehicles and “paradigms” introduced over the past 15 years by turtleneck-wearing gurus with names like Kip or Seth, which were then propagated by self-proclaimed “New Economy” experts sporting titles like “Chief Innovation Officer” and “Director of Chaos,” and then championed by side burn-wearing hipster foot soldiers who never met a filter they didn’t like. In the 90’s, we were promised that customers would beat a path to our door if we created something called a “web page” and then “posted” it on this thing called the Internet or World Wide Web or something. Then they convinced us to buy electronic lists and send out “Email Blasts” to our target markets, and next it was a website redesign, push technology, pull technology, exchanged links, partner intranets, eBusiness, eCommerce, blogging, webinars, podcasts, search engine optimization, YouTube videos, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, yada, yada, yada. Each time they promised that this time it would be different, and that this new product/protocol/portal/potion would somehow (magically??) drive revenue, increase efficiency, and optimize utilization (or some other buzz word or invented metric). You told me to blog, so I blogged. You told me to Twitter, so I Tweeted. What’s it going to be tomorrow – scan my body into a mashup simulator to create a hologram so I can telepresence myself into sales calls in Madrid via FourSquare using Flickr? All I know is that I’ve spent a lot of time and money on a series of disjointed initiatives and campaigns and so far none have performed as advertised.

Don’t Feed Me Another Fad

Look, executives aren’t that complicated. While I can handle the many nuanced “gray areas” of business leadership, I prefer to see things in black and white; victories and defeats; profits and losses. I don’t mind making significant, strategic multi-year investments and committing to enterprise-wide initiatives which will improve the future performance of my company – in fact, I ENJOY it – what do you think got me to the Executive Suite in the first place? Just don’t insult me. I don’t want to waste any more time or money on the hype of  “the next big thing” or the newest tool or toy, only to be disappointed when the latest flash-in-the-pan fad fades and goes the way of Harvard Graphics. It’s not that I have a fear of commitment – frankly, it’s just the opposite. I have a healthy fear and distaste for doing things randomly just to be doing something; or because someone saw an article in USA Today, or CNBC did a story on it, or out of fear that I’ll be the last one in my circle to “get on board.” (Believe me, the things that keep me up at night can’t be solved in 140 characters or less). The truth is, I would love to commit to social media in a significant way, but so far nobody in my organization has stepped forward with a cerebral, strategic, multi-generational, integrated, systematic, and sustainable methodology and road map for synergistically capitalizing on this medium over the long haul.

Your Network is Your Net Worth

Executives are uniquely conflicted because we know better than anyone the power of relationships, and the truth of the old axiom, “Your network is your net worth,” yet we are inherently introverts, and gravitate towards solitude versus socializing. We understand on an intellectual level that none of us individually are “too big to fail,” and that even the Lone Ranger had Tonto and Batman had Robin, yet we find initiating conversations and exchanges with others to be draining, distracting, and exhausting rather than invigorating and inspiring. Hence we yearn; as a group we pine; for deep within our heart of hearts burns a great bright hope that somehow and in some way this social media movement or platform or culture or whatever could be harnessed and leveraged to cross that chasm and create valuable, authentic exchanges and relevant, real-time dialogue with stakeholders of all persuasions. If we could just develop an all-encompassing framework for how this would integrate into our enterprise-wide strategy, and manage it like a mission-critical project (complete with milestones, deliverables and accountability instead of fuzzy metrics like “buzz”), I am supremely confident that we could achieve escape velocity and – for the first time – truly establish and be able to articulate a synergistic, sustainable, and quantifiable strategy for leveraging “Best-In-Class” social media options to achieve desired corporate outcomes and maximize financial returns.

A Gift From Media To You

You know, it’s interesting. Somewhere in the convoluted catharsis of composing this confessional, I came to a surprising realization.  Maybe I don’t HATE social media after all. Maybe I just hate the Quixotic context in which most social media conversations exist, featuring a perpetually moving target, combined with an obsessive, cult-like worship of the default worldview, “If Something is New = It Must Be Good”, and where subjective criteria like “mindshare” and “impressions” are considered quantifiable deliverables and irrefutable barometers of success.

Come to think of it, maybe it’s high time that a C-level individual engaged this topic, and – once and for all –created a high-level overview and synopsis, crystallizing all of the strategic benefits and critical value streams, and distilling them into a language that speaks to executives everywhere in our native tongue – bottom line stakeholder value.

Part Two will run Wednesday.

So, I was really happy to find out how active FIFA and ESPN were in their use of social media to push the beautiful game in the United States. I think it definitely increased interest in the entire tournament. It was an impressive effort that paid off.

For you non-fans, FIFA is an acronym that stands for The International Federation of Association Football in English. In French it stands for the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, hence FIFA. The word soccer comes from the word Association. The English shortened “Association” to soccer. Don’t ask me why, I’m Irish by descent.

ESPN stands for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network. Enough with the language lesson.

Overall, viewership was up 41 percent from the English-language World Cup telecasts four years ago, according to the WorldCast website. Coverage on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged a 2.1 rating, 2.3 million households and 3.2 million viewers for the 64 World Cup games. The rating was up 31 percent from the 1.6 posted four years ago, while households increased 32 percent from 1.7 million and viewers rose from 2.3 million, the site said.

“Viewership in the U.S. was at its highest when the home team was playing in the tournament,” WorldCast said. “Through the first 50 games, the rating was up 48 percent, households increased 54 percent and viewers increased 60 percent.”

I should note that attracting viewers in the rest of the world is not an issue. According to ABC News 700 million people watched the championship game between Spain and the Netherlands. Show me any American television event that attracts even 25 percent of that kind of worldwide audience.

FIFA would like to make more inroads into the USA. We are, after all, the wealthiest country on Earth. Soccer is growing in popularity as a youth sport. We would seem to be a natural place for FIFA to focus.

FIFA and ESPN are run by very smart groups of marketing people. They knew if they encouraged the use of social media good things would happen. They apparently do not worry about things like trademark infringement. The results speak for themselves.

ESPN’s Facebook World Cup had over 600,000 people who “liked” the page. I know don’t where that ranks among Facebook sports fan pages, but it is impressive number. The Facebook soccer page has over two million fans. I didn’t count because who has that kind of time, but there has to be over a thousand pages of tweets with the hash tag “worldcup.”

Googling the term “world cup soccer blogs” produced 49 million hits. Now, as a blogger myself, I am willing to bet that there are not 49 million blogs about the World Cup. But, if there is even 10 percent of that number, that is impressive.

A quick YouTube search found just over 800,000 videos that somehow mention the World Cup.

You get the idea. As I said in a blog last week, FIFA knows what use to work won’t necessarily work anymore. So it moved on to a new method and it worked.

Although this wasn’t a rant, I do have one note. On Sunday, a friend and I rode our bikes to Port Washington, Wis. – 26 miles north of where I live. We stopped to enjoy that small city’s wonderful lakefront and marina.

Like any public area, there are posted rules of public conduct. What brought me up short was a sign that read: “Violations Will Be Enforced!”  So apparently rule breaking is required?

Let me set the scene for what set me off this time. The western suburbs of Milwaukee were hit hard by tornadoes Monday night. There was extensive damage, but thankfully no one was killed or serious injured.

Of course, the local television stations were all over the story. Although I often criticize local news coverage of weather because it is over-hyped, this is one instance where the coverage was mostly justified. Although at one point last night, I did turn to my wife and note that we wouldn’t know if the US had decided to bomb Iran. The local weather took precedence over all other news.

What set my teeth on edge when one reporter noted that some buildings were “destroyed beyond repair.” Someone badly needs a dictionary. Or when another reporter noted that a building was “totally flattened.” Is there an alternative?

The reporters go on and on like this. I could listen dozen of other examples. As I said, I am not looking for Shakespearean actors here. I just want someone who knows how to put six words together into a sentence.

While I am on the subject, another reporter asked a person whose house was damaged by the storm how they felt. That almost made me throw something at the television.

Now, for those of you don’t know, I spent 26 years as a print reporter. I covered plane crashes, major car accidents, multiple murders, all kinds of natural disasters and even ship sinking. Not once did I ever ask someone how they felt. It might be the dumbest possible question any reporter can ask. How does one feel after finding out a relative was dead or having a home destroyed? What do they expect people to say?

“Well gosh Biff, I feel great that Aunt Henrietta got swept away by the storm. We are in the will. We can pay for that trip to France we always wanted to take.”

Of course, what television people are looking for is emotion. Tears look much better on the evening news than someone dispassionately discussing how they are going to rebuild their lives.

I could go on with this, but you get the idea how I feel about reporters who don’t do their jobs.

I am not so happy to see the records BP is now setting in the Gulf of Mexico. We have seen a whole of series of dubious achievements since the explosion April 21^st explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico. Since I am public relations and social media person, I am going to focus on one area in particular. British Petroleum has perhaps done the worst job of crisis communications in the modern history of public relations. I cannot think of another incident that has been handled worse than the Gulf oil spill.

This should be a lesson to every company. A disaster can happen anywhere, anytime for any reason. It takes about five minutes to destroy a reputation and turn the public against you if it is not handled correctly.

“BP is going to be first and foremost in people’s minds when it comes to poor crisis planning and response,” said Timothy Sellnow, communication professor at University of Kentucky and author of several books on public relations in a crisis told the New York Times. “They’ve surpassed Exxon.”

You know that old saw that goes if you locked 100 monkeys in a room with laptops eventually one of them would come up with Macbeth. Well, I think one monkey could come up with a better way to handle BP’s crisis communications that the company’s leaders.

To talk about all of the public relations things BP has done wrong during this crisis would take more space than I allocate for this blog. Let me put it this way – I cannot think of one thing BP has done right since the explosion. Every time a BP executive or spokesperson opens their mouth they make things worse.

The New York Times reported that Public relations experts say it appears both BP failed to follow the first rule of crisis communications: having a plan in place to deal with a potential disaster, .

“BP never had a plan in place for the worst-case scenario or they would have put it in place,” Kathleen Fearn-Banks, communications professor at University of Washington and author of the book “Crisis Communication, A Casebook Approach” told the Times. “I don’t think it’s a question of money. … They absolutely don’t know what to do at all.”

This should be a lesson to every company whether it has five or 50,000 employees. I constantly hammer on this with clients. A company needs to have a crisis communications plan. It needs to update the plan to reflect changing environments.

Most importantly, it needs to rehearse the plan constantly. Part of that rehearsal means media training the company’s primary spokesman. BP CEO Tony Hayward is a classic example of what happens when that doesn’t happen. If I had been BP’s spokesman when Hayward said he “wanted his life back” I would have resigned on the spot.

Hayward suddenly became the poster child for every out-of-touch CEO on the planet. Whether he meant it or not, he told the people of the Gulf Coast that he was more important than they were. In one five second sound bite, he destroyed any goodwill the company had. Any good leader knows his needs always come last.

BP has done a host of other things wrong, such as trying to ban the media from public areas; not accepting help from the fishermen who know the area best; and making promises they just cannot keep.

It is amazing to me just how inept this multi-national company has been. Let that be an example to every company. Be prepared or you will go down the same road BP is traveling on.

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.

However, what these students don’t have is much social media knowledge. That surprised me.

In fact, in the last week it has been driven home to me how many people either don’t know, or don’t want to know, about social media. That was my awakening. It isn’t just students – it people at every level of every organization. I feel like these people are standing at the bottom of a mountain with their backs turned. The social media avalanche is roaring down and about to engulf them. Yet they can’t, or choose not to, hear the rumble of the approaching change.

The rate that social media is taking over is like an avalanche. I could give you numbers about how fast it is growing, but I am going to save that for another blog.

Curious about my metaphor, I did some research on avalanche survival. One of the things that experts advise is to swim in the flow if you get caught. The key is keeping your head above the snow. That’s good advice for people who about to be engulfed by social media – start swimming with the flow.

I do not include most students among that group. They clearly want to learn. That’s why I was asked to come and speak at UW – Whitewater.

When the conference’s student organizers first approached me, I assumed they wanted me to talk about social media marketing. I have met many Whitewater students. They are bright and committed. They also have never known a time without the Internet and computers. In contrast, I have known a time without push-button phones and cable television. Yes, I am that old.

So, I assumed they would know more about the various social media applications than I did. I figured these students didn’t need me to tell the basics. The two women organizing the conference gently disabused me of that notion. They told me students wanted to hear the basics. They wanted to learn about Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube and all of the other social media applications.

Now, I know UW-Whitewater Public Relations Instructor Ann Knabe is drilling her students in social media. I have heard from the students about that. Ann, who is a friend, is very good instructor. However, I guess the students want to hear from someone else who is actually doing it on a day-in, day-out basis.

As I said, I think a lot of people out there would like to know about social media and how to use it. But, they don’t understand the implications of social media taking over marketing. Or, they are just too embarrassed to admit they don’t know what to do.

That second point was brought up at a meeting I was at last week. I am a member of the Southeastern Wisconsin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America’s social media committee. (Say that five times fast.) At a recent meeting another committee member talked about his experiences teaching social media. He said he runs into many adults who are afraid to admit they don’t know what they are doing.

Another thing I like about working with students is that they much higher embarrassment threshold. They are not afraid to admit they don’t know how to do something.

I think that embarrassment is why many companies are not moving faster to integrate social media into their marketing. But, hey get over it. There is nothing wrong with asking questions and admitting you don’t know something. So let this be your awakening. Doing nothing will get buried in the coming avalanche.

All of that effort would have gone nowhere if the people charged with integrating social media didn’t take the company’s culture into account, Tim Blair, IBM’s vice-president for Marketing and Communications said. Blair spoke at the PR + Social Media Summit held at Marquette University in Milwaukee, WI. Marquette and a number of Wisconsin companies sponsored the summit.

I wanted to hear Blair speak because IBM has a reputation in the social media world of being one of the most open companies when it comes to social media.

What makes this particularly interesting is that IBM is almost a century old. This is a not a Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, or Zappos. Those companies are all fairly new. Their corporate cultures are still forming, so it would seem to me to be easier to incorporate social media.

IBM, on the other hand, used to be known for its rigid corporate culture. When my late brother worked there in the late 1960s, the standard uniform was a white shirt, subdued tie, and gray suit. You did not deviate from that.

For a company such as IBM to change its culture to allow its employees to act as individuals is a stretch. It impressed me that such an institution is willing adopt a new way of doing things. It reminds of how the U.S. is also willing to stretch its culture to allow its members to use social media. The company accomplished because people such as Blair understood what would it take to make the change.

“Social media needs to be derivative of business model and corporate culture,” Blair explained. “Culture always wins. You have to figure out to stretch the culture. Not changing the culture, but stretching it. Social media needs to be a derivative of the business and corporate culture.”

The first step in moving into social media is knowing where a company wants social media to take them. There has be a definition of the destination, Blair said.

“You need to know where are going or you will fail,” Blair said.

Stretching means working to ensure social media becomes a part of it. It is almost impossible to change a corporate culture, Blair said. If you try to do that, you will fail. What needs to be done is to demonstrate how social media will fit into what the company is already doing.

“Social media does fundamentally change how you manage communications,” Blair said. “When I arrived at IBM, communication was very linear. But social media has helped flatten that out.”

IBM now uses social media for internal and external communications, Blair said. It has three primary uses within the company: to flatten communication channels, to help employees learn and to influence the conversation going on among all of IBM’s stakeholders.

As example of internal use, Blair cited the company’s management training program. IBM used to fly all of its managers into its Armonk, N.Y. headquarters for training. It now trains them via the Internet. The training is as effective ever and it saved IBM money, he said.

A key to using social media is empowering employees, Blair said. IBM does not lock its employees out of the Internet. That would be counterproductive, he said.

“At the end of the day, we want to empower everybody, Blair said. “Our brand is experienced by the expertise our employees in the field have with customers. We have to trust those employees.”

Every IBM employee is seeped in the company’s values. That’s important because it ensures those employees will hew to those values when they use social media, Blair said.

In fact, the company’s social media policies – first created in 2005 – were created by the employees. There are now 17,000 blogs written by IBM employees, he said.

There was a learning curve for senior executives, Blair said. They had to shown why it was important to deal with bloggers whom they had never heard of before. It took them awhile to understand the influence bloggers could have, That doesn’t mean the company ignores traditional media, he added. Engaging with the traditional outlets is still important, he said.

As I said, it was impressive. I think a lot of companies can learn from the computer giant did.

When clients hire me, the first thing I tell them is that I will help do everything possible to convince potential customers to come through the client’s front door.  That might mean blogging, it might mean using Twitter and Facebook, or social bookmarking. I also might encourage them to use traditional public relations tactics, such as issuing press releases or a media event to gain coverage in the local press and on television.

All of that should be done, but none of it will complete the task. As I said, it will get that potential customer into your lobby. But, that’s as far as it will take them. The next thing that needs to be done is for you to come out into that lobby and talk to that person. I mean that literally. You need to be in the same room to close the deal.

Any number of anthropologists and social scientists have documented the importance of face-to-face meetings. Much human communication doesn’t include talking. Gestures, facial expressions, eye contact, and posture are all important.

In doing the research for this particular blog, I found a report from the Harvard Business Review Analytic Services that explained it well. In a 2009 survey of 2,211 Harvard Business Review subscribers, 95 percent those responding felt face-to-face meetings were the most important part in their efforts in establishing long-term relationships. The survey found that “across the board, face-to-face meetings were seen as the most effective method for conducting business with key stakeholders, compared with videoconferences, teleconferences, and webinars.”

A note on the study – it was commissioned by British Airways as part of its campaign to get business people traveling again. However, I feel the results are still valid.

Those responding to the survey said that people-to-people meetings were seen as most effective for:

• Negotiating contracts (82 percent)
• Interviewing potential staff (81 percent)
• Understanding customers (69 percent)

Face-to-face meetings are how I prefer to find new clients. I do a lot of networking. I belong to several groups where I can meet those who might need my services. That’s not the only reason I belong. I also do it because I can learn things by attending meetings.

One thing about joining groups – I belong to my professional association, the Public Relations Society of America. However, that is not a place where I try to, or expect to, find clients. These are people who do the same thing I do. I belong for professional advancement and to advance my profession. Plus, it’s good to talk to people who do the same thing I do.

For networking purposes, join groups such as your local Better Business Bureau or Kiwanis or the Lions or some other group. However don’t join just for picking up new business. You are there to contribute and learn. Other members are going to quickly figure out you don’t have any real interest in the organization if all you are doing is trying to sell yourself.

To bring this full circle, personal meetings in this setting are a lot like social media. You want to give people a reason to consider hiring you or your company. Saying “I am the best there is, hire me” is not a reason. You have to demonstrate why hiring you makes sense. Pounding your chest is not going to work. In fact, it will make most people head in the other direction.

Remember, social media is about having a conversation. That means you to listen to others, be it at a group’s meeting, or with a client. You need to hear what they are saying. How else are you going to learn what their needs are?

The ultimate goal is creating good word-of-mouth about you and your company. That will lead both to more business and good relationships. I can tell it has happened to me because I follow what I preach. Do what I do and it will happen for you also.

As a note, the Southeastern Wisconsin Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America put on the panel discussion. I am a member of the Milwaukee-based chapter. I am also a member of the chapter’s Social Media Committee. Many of the chapter’s of the members are beginning to explore social media. A few, like me, have jumped in headfirst.

The presentations were well done. As I worked in the Milwaukee media market for two decades, I know those people. The panelists were from the local NBC affiliate, two local business publications and a completely on-line entertainment and music site.

However, as I sat and listened to my former colleagues, I was struck by something. Do we really need those outlets anymore? Do we need any media outlets anymore? Or has Social Media taken over completely?

For me, this was a very radical thought. I spent 26-years as a print reporter. I decided to be reporter when I was 12-years-old. That’s true. One night in the pre-cable television days, I saw a movie about newspapering called  “The Front Page.” It was original 1931 version starring Adolphe Menjou. I was hooked. I followed that path until seven years ago when I saw how the business I loved was sinking. That’s when I made the jump to marketing and public relations.

Now, I wonder more and more if we need the my old avocation. The television reporter made the argument that we do because we need someone to filter and interpret the news.

I know that a lot of people on both ends of the political spectrum think there is come of big conspiracy to make the news favor a particular point of view. That’s what they hear when someone says “filter and interpret.” It’s not true.

All good reporters have a b.s monitor. When someone tells them something, they filter the information through that monitor. Many times, the needle points to the b.s side. Plus, any good reporter tries to put information into context. What does it mean when a government body announces cuts of $10 million to its budget. The reporter’s job is to provide a context, an interpretation, for that budget cut. How many jobs will be lost? What programs will get cut?

However, I am not sure that people want that service anymore. If someone who uses the Web, as the primary source of information is a fairly smart, they are going to check more than one source for their news. If you read two or three online reports, check the blogs and follow the Twitter feed, you can develop a pretty accurate picture of what is the real story.

I have often written about how social media is cutting out the need to advertise in the traditional ways. If the marketing program is implemented correctly, traditional media only has to be a small part of the effort.

Now, I wonder if the same thing is happening to news reporting. Twitter seems to be taking over the  “breaking news” reports that radio and television do. Bloggers are filling the gaps left by publications that have cut their staffs and space they devote to news. Sites such as the Huffington Post – which is both blog and news site – are now viewed as players in the media world. I don’t know about other such sites, but the Huffington Post staffs White House press conferences.  That’s acceptance.

There is nothing to indicate this trend is going to slow down. If anything, is it going accelerate. Maybe there will be a time in the near future when traditional media is no longer relevant.

This is one topic I really curious about what you all think. Please comment and let me know.

So while you can consider this a rant, it is also a warning and a how-to. A rant about why organization and the people who run them don’t try to head off crises; don’t realize what will happen if there isn’t a crisis plan; and a how-to – perhaps avoid the problem.

There are three kinds of crises:

• Immediate crises: Most dreaded type. Happens quickly and unexpectedly. Little time for research and planning. Includes such things as earthquakes, fires, plane crashes, product tampering, workplace shootings, and death of a key officer
• Emerging crises: Allows more time for research and planning. May erupt after festering for long period. Includes such things as sexual harassment, substance abuse, overcharging on contracts. Key is to convince senior management to deal with the problem before it explodes.
• Sustained crises: Problems that smolder for long periods of time, despite best efforts to put out the fire. Rumors go viral, getting reported in the media, tweeted about, posted on Facebook, written about by bloggers and other social media sites. Examples include P & G being in league with Satan, that fluoridated water is dangerous or that some childhood vaccines lead to autism.

Obviously, there isn’t anyway to anticipate the sudden crisis. But that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be a general plan – a framework – in place to deal with it and whatever happens. How many companies have you seen scramble in the first hours after a crisis happens? It doesn’t have to be that way.

Planning for a specific crisis is not possible. Planning on to handle crises is and should be done.

That’s why I am always amazed when I see a company like Toyota get in trouble. Here is one of the smartest marketers on the face of the planet. Yet, they create a crisis because they don’t listen to their customers’ complaints. Clearly they didn’t have a crisis communication plan in place. That’s just dumb. The list of companies that have done the same thing would fill two blogs.

What all those companies lacked was a scout, someone whose job it was to keep his or ear to the ground (and Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, etc.). If you keep any eye on what’s going on out there, you can avoid a lot of problems. The idea is to identify the grass fire and put it out before it becomes a forest fire.

Sometimes crises happen despite an organization’s best efforts. That’s when the plan comes in. Knowing what to do is half the battle.

Remember, as Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower said: “The plan is nothing; planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of ‘emergency’ is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning.”

First, Happy St. Patrick’s Day. As my Irish cousins would day:

May the best day of your past

Be the worst day of your future.

Now onto the rant. In this one, I am channeling my former colleagues in journalism. Some of them read Monday’s blog on press releases. They contacted me and asked to add some other things about press releases. Most of their requests covered the same things I used to complain about. Some things never change.

So, let’s cover them:

• Make sure all of your information has been proofread. There should not be any typographical errors, the names should be spelled correctly, the times should be right and none of the addresses should be wrong. Reporters and bloggers are very sensitive about putting mistakes into print, onto the Web or on the air. Sure, they can later explain it was your fault. But, people usually don’t remember that. The reporter will get blamed. By including that error, you have made the reporter look bad. Think that person is ever going to trust you again?
• Along those same lines, make sure every piece of information you provide is accurate. Have the experts check whatever you write. Same reasons as above. Plus, if you don’t want it made public, do not put in anything that will go to the press. Once it is in the release and winging its way to the media, it’s too late. There are no do-overs in something like this. Calling up a reporter or a blogger and asking them not publish something pretty much guarantees it will be.
• In particular, make sure the contact information for follow-ups is accurate. In addition, realize reporters work different hours than most people – other than the police and nurses – do. A number should be listed where you can be reached after so-called normal business hours. If a editor has a question at 9 p.m. and the reporter doesn’t know the answer, that writer has to be able to reach you to get the answer. If you cannot be reached, a story might not run.
• Make sure when you send the information out there is a headline that clearly says what it is. Don’t get cute. If a blogger, reporter or editor cannot figure in about 30 seconds what the press release is about, odds are good it will get deleted. That goes for social media releases also.
• Make sure your sending the traditional or social media release to the right reporter. Do your research on who it should go to. That’s very important. Read the paper or the blogger so you know what they write about. And make sure you are targeting the correct publication. Do your research to ensure the place you are sending the information to cares about the topic.
• I always advise calling the reporter or blogger before you send the information to gauge their interest and to give them a heads up. If they are not interested, they are not going to change their minds. I promise you that, so don’t send it anyway. If one reporter or editor rejects your information, don’t send it to someone else at the same publication. It ticks them all off. No means no.
• If they do say yes, ask them when you call back to see if they have any questions. Again, if they say they will call you back, let them. Don’t become a pest. What’s important to you might not be as important to the reporter.
• As for embargoes and exclusives, I have mixed feelings.
  • On embargoes, most publications will honor your request to use the news until a certain date. Unless an editor thinks for some reason the competition has the story. Then it will run. Or the editor decides for competitive purposes to break the embargo. You are basically powerless in this unless you live in a very large city with multiple media outlets. If you don’t, you need the media more than they need you.
  • On exclusives, I was the recipient of some and my competition was the recipient of others. What happened when my papers didn’t get an exclusive was that we would often try to shoot the story down. Then you are responding to a skeptical journalist who is mad is at you. Not a good situation.

I hope this helps in your press relations. If you have any more questions, email me at jjccole at jjc-communications.com.

For the past few years, I have thought the press release was an outmoded way of getting the word out. From my own experience as a reporter, I know how little time reporters have to read all the stuff they get daily. However, the old fashioned released has morphed into a social media release. It is press release on performance enhancing drugs. I am starting to see how effective that kind of release can be.

When I was a reporter, press releases were a fact of my workday. Before the Internet, dozens arrived daily in the standard number 10 business envelope. As a young reporter, I dutifully read through each and every one of them. I thought it was the right thing to do. Who knew, maybe the key to next Pulitzer Prize was in the one of those envelopes.

Reporters get a lot of mail from every imaginable source. Not just press releases, but letters from convicts who feel they are wrongly accused, happy readers, angry readers, story ideas written on pencil on legal paper and a lot of other stuff. That avalanche of envelopes is what stopped from reading every press release. I just didn’t have time to weed through them every day. I would quickly sort through the pile, keeping only the ones with return addresses that told me the company might have to say.

The people I dealt with soon learned the best way to get my attention was to call me. We would discuss a potential story and if I was interested, I would request more information. Even then, I didn’t want a press release. What I wanted was background information that provided basic facts – things such as the size of company, number of employees, annual income, size of the project, that kind of stuff.

I don’t think I ever missed a story by not reading the press releases. My sources knew if they gave me a good story, I would fight like hell to get it into the paper. I was usually a pretty good salesman.

When I switched to public relations seven years ago, I brought the anti-press release attitude with me. Because I spent 26 years as a reporter, I have great contacts all over the U.S. and even some internationally. Reporters used to be professional nomads. We would continually switch jobs, always striving to get to a bigger paper with a larger circulation. You make a lot of friends doing that. So, if I had a client who needed a story placed, I could usually reach a person who could make that happen.

Even when I didn’t know somebody, I was pretty skilled at getting a story into a publication. I speak the language of reporters. I know what gets them excited. I know the first four words you say to any reporter when you call. I should make this a quiz, but I won’t – the first four words are: “are you on deadline?”

That’s all changing with the rise of social media and the shrinking of regular media. There are fewer reporters chasing more stories. They need stuff they know is accurate and can access quickly.

As I said at the start, enter the social media press release. What is it?

As I also said, it is press release on steroids. It is so much more than the old paper press release. When I set up one up for a client, I include pictures, background material, contact information, video, links to my client’s website, their Twitter feed, their Facebook fan page and the LinkedIn pages of key executives. It is so much more complete than the old ones.

And sites such at Pitch Engine allow you to send links to the information out to just about anybody to whom you want.

What I usually do is call the key contacts I want to receive the information to give them a heads up that it’s up. Then I email the link so they can access the data. I have found universal acceptance for this.

Reporters and bloggers seem to love it. At one of the click of the mouse, they get anything they need for their story. It makes their job easier, which makes them happy, which means they are more likely to a do a positive story. That in turn makes my client happy, which makes ultimately makes me happy.

So, you see, while the traditional press release is going, going…. , the social media release is on its way. Once again, social media takes a traditional method of doing something and improves it.

When I first met my doctor almost 30 years, I walked into his office, sat down and asked him: “so, what was your grade in anatomy?” He laughed. I asked the question again. He saw I was serious. He pointed to his medical school diploma that was hanging on the wall behind me. It said he had graduated summa cum laude. I was satisfied.

Why did I ask? Because as the joke goes: do you know what they call the medical student who barely passes? Doctor.

You should be asking the same kind of questions when you decide to hire a social media agency. Too many times, I see people and agencies pass them selves off as social media experts when in reality, all they have done is signed up for Facebook and have a Twitter account. When you ask if they use social bookmarking, or how they measure ROI, their eyes go blank. Or, they give you some gibberish about how ROI is difficult to measure.

The agency you want to hire should have a solid grounding in both traditional marketing and public relations and social media. They understand how to use both, how to meld them and how to measure results.

Social media as a method of public relations and marketing matured about four years. That’s when broadband became widespread. Broadband is necessary to run most social media platforms.

Because it is so new, there are not yet any solid standards for determining who’s an expert and who’s a pretender. I have studying and using social media for about three years. I started doing podcast scripts and moved on from there. I have been doing it long enough that I know what I am talking about.

What distinguishes one agency from another is how long they have been using social media, their level of commitment to it, and how successful they have been.

So, if I were looking to hire a social media expert, here would be the questions I would ask:

• How much experience with social media have you and your agency had?

You want to know if they attended a couple of webinars, maybe have a Facebook page and Tweet and now think they are an expert. That does not make them an expert, not by a long shot. Ask to see their blogs, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn usage, Facebook pages, and YouTube posts. This shows they are experienced users. Ask if they use Digg, Stumbleon and other social bookmarking sites.

• Where did they learn social media?

This shows their level of commitment. And also ask how they stay on top of the changing trends in social media. That’s important.

• Ask for the names of clients for which they have run successful campaigns. You want to be able to check on what they did and if it worked.

• How do they view social media – as a tactic, a strategy, or an entire new way of marketing?

The answer is the last one. Social media is not a one-off. It requires a commitment of time and resources. I would argue that it is more effective than traditional marketing, but it takes knowledge to do it right.

• How do they integrate traditional marketing and public relations efforts with social media?

Traditional methods definitely still have a place. Often there is a melding of the old and the new. Many journalists now use Twitter for instance. You need to make sure that traditional methods are not neglected.

• Who handles social media in their agency?

You want to know the senior people are committed to social media. You don’t want to find yourself working with some junior assistant account executive that got the assignment because he or she has a Facebook page.

• How do they measure Return On Investment (ROI) for social media?

There is no one method to do it. Personally, I believe it can best be measured by increased website traffic and sales, but there are other ways. Make sure the agency has a method for measuring ROI.

Those questions you should get started. Next week, I am going tell you about to set up a social media campaign.

And as for Wednesday’s rant: well, I am going to give you my take on NBC’s decision to interrupt the Olympic closing ceremonies.

Last Wednesday, I said Toyota was slow out of the blocks to respond to the various crises it has faced of late. I think I was blogger 10,143 to state the obvious. However, I also said the company is showing signs of regaining its equilibrium.

Note: I drive a 2000 Camry. Both my children drive Corollas.

The company is running ads in every print and broadcast outlet it can find – including a lot of radio. It has shown pictures of its idled factories to demonstrate how serious it is in identifying the accelerator and brake issues. It also has a very active presence on Facebook.

Still while this is a good start, I think the company could do more. I think they if they handled it as I suggest, they would turn a negative into a positive.

Do What Datsun Did

The first thing Toyota’s C-Suite executives should do is plan road trips to every dealer in every country where Toyota is sold. The road trippers should be Chairman Fujio Cho, Vice Chairmen of the Board Katsuaki Watanabe and Kazuo Okamo, President Akio Toyoda, and in North America, Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA. If there are people who hold the same positions as Lenz in Europe, Asia, South America, the Middle East and Africa, they should also pack their bags.

They need to take a page from the handbook of retired Nissan executive Yutaka Katayama.  It was Katayama who made Datsun (which later returned to its original name of Nissan) into the first Japanese automobile success story in the United States, according to the late journalist and author David Halberstam. It was Halberstam who detailed Datsun’s success in “The Reckoning” – his account of the rise the Japanese auto industry.

Katayama lived in the United States. He traveled constantly around the U.S., meeting, customers, dealers, reporters and anyone else who talk to him. Halberstam explained that Katayama made Datsun a powerhouse because “he (Katayama) was a rare man. He brought a face to the Japanese mercantile presence; meeting him, Americans felt they knew, understood and liked the Japan that was behind his products.”

This is what Toyota’s executives should be doing. Going to every place in the world where there have been problems. Once there, they should personally apologize to their customers. They should be interviewed by the media in each city and repeat the apology. They should honestly answer the tough questions about what they knew and when they knew it. They should be speaking to every group that will listen. There should be town hall style meetings at dealerships for the customers and the general public to air grievances.

These public appearances will, in my opinion, do much to quell the anger and rebuild trust. Most people are willing to forgive a mistake, as long the one who makes the mistake sincerely apologizes.

Cut Prices

Second, a simple thing to do would to be slash prices on all models. Not a token five percent cut – a real one in the neighborhood of 25 percent. For those who have a car with a defective accelerator or brakes, give them a new car. I would throw into five years free maintenance for every car sold. Not just for oil changes and other minor things, but for all repairs from replacing a headlamp to replacing a transmission.

More Social Media

Third, I would make better use of social media than they are. Both Cho and Lenz should be blogging every week. Craig Newmark – the Craig of Craig’s List does, as does Jonathan Swartz, president and chief operating officer of Sun Microsystems and my personal favorite CEO blog, that of Southwest Airlines Gary Kelly. It has helped all three companies when they have hit rough patches. Explanations sound so much better when they come from the person in charge.

Finally, there are many, many people out there who are still strong Toyota supporters. Anecdotally, I know that because as Chester the Wonder Dog and I walk each day, I talk to Toyota owners. I have yet to find one who would get rid of their car.

I have also been on the Toyota Facebook page for U.S. owners. The level of support is amazing. Toyota needs to get those people more organized around company support. Most kind of companies would kill for that kind of support.

Put this all together and I think Toyota will be just fine.

I have been watching the debate over Royal Caribbean’s cruise lines decision to continue to cruise to its private beach. I have been thinking about what I would tell the company’s leaders if I was the company’s media and marketing maven. So, here it is:

From: Media and Marketing Maven Jeff Cole

To: The Royal Caribbean C-Suite

Re: Again cruising to our private beach at Labadee, Haiti

There has much internal debate about whether we should again take our cruise ships to Labadee. I have read the memos about going back. Frankly, there is not one argument that convinces me that this will not be an unmitigated public relations disaster.

My concern is that our thinking is too short term. We need to think how this decision will look five or 10 years from now. Yes, people will forget much about the incident in a few years. But, it is selective amnesia. What they are they liable to remember is that we cruised to Haiti during a disaster – not that we donated money and brought relief supplies.

So, let’s look at the current arguments for cruising to Haiti and my responses:

• The Haitian government has asked us to continue our cruises because we provide a valuable source of income to their country. First of all, I would question how much thought the government of Haiti gave to that invitation. They have much more important things to worry about. And even if they did, we have to consider how the people of Haiti will view a bunch pasty white tourists frolicking while they are burying hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens. Governments and attitudes change. The next government could use what they view as our callousness to kick out us and turn the Labadee over to a competitor. Do we really want to lose that access to for good?
• We employ several hundred Haitians at Labadee and support hundreds of others by allowing them to sell their wares to our passengers. We provide a valuable source of income for those people. So, why not pay these people to help in the relief effort? Continue their salaries, but allow them to go to Port Au Prince to help.
• Many of our cruisers are taking the cruise of a lifetime. They are honeymooners or elderly couples who have saved their pennies for years to make this trip. We would destroy their dreams. You mean to tell me we couldn’t simply reroute the ships to not stop at Haiti? We have other private beaches in the Caribbean.
• All those people who would be angry they didn’t get the trip they wanted will sue us. First, don’t we have insurance for that kind of thing? Second, I would urge if that happened that we post the name of every person who sues on our website. We send a press release to their hometown newspaper and television station announcing the lawsuit. We state in that release we decided helping Haiti was more important a vacation. Who looks callous then?
• We are a giving a $1 million to the relief effort. Ladies and gentlemen, I can hear Dr. Evil saying: “$1 million dollars” and the UN snickering. Our net profit in fiscal 2008 – our last complete year – was $573.72 million. Granted, it has been a tough five years. But, we could at least give say $5.73 million, which is only one percent of net.

Now, for some positive public relations idea:

• We have a deep-water port at Lababee that can handle our ships. I assume that means it could also handle relief ships. Why not turn Labadee over to the United Nations for say six months? Let them use it as a staging area. We could make it a condition that the UN hires the people we employ to aid in the relief effort. That’s another way to negate any loss of wages caused by the ships not coming.
• In addition, allow an organization such as “Doctors Without Borders” to set up a hospital at Labadee. As I understand it, Labadee has better infrastructure than 99 percent of the country. It is a perfect place for such a facility.
• If there is still insistence on going to Haiti, charge a $25 a head “relief fund surcharge.” Have the company match whatever is raised. With approximately 12,000 cruisers a week going there, we would be contributing $600,000 a week. Think about how much money we would raise in a year.
• Instead of carrying some relief supplies on each cruise ship, each week designate one ship as a relief ship. Pack it to the gunwales with everything and anything Haitians need.

These are my ideas ladies and gentlemen. I think you will agree we can turn into a winning situation for both Haiti and Royal Caribbean.

Print publications are still a viable way to spread the news, a trio of business editors said last week. Print is still a vital to tell people what’s going, the three argued in a panel discussion held before the Southeastern Wisconsin chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

“We are bullish on print,” Mark Sabljak, publisher of the Business Journal of Milwaukee. “Some people still enjoy a print product.”

All three seemed to be cautiously embracing electronic media. Salbjak seemed to be holding out the most. For instance, he noted he said in 2009 there would no blogging at the Business Journal until the paper found a way to make a profit on such an effort. The paper’s is now blogging because it has found a way to monetize the effort.

However, social media is changing the way news is being covered, said Steve Jagler, executive editor of Biztimes Milwaukee. Sites such as Twitter are not competition, he explained. Rather, it is helping the paper extend its brand, Jagler said. Social media amplifies the paper’s ability to report the news.

“We have a staff that understands the possibilities of social media,” Jagler said.

Social media has turned newspaper in 24-7 operations, said Chuck Melvin, assistant managing editor/business for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The paper now has new ways to deliver the news. The paper is not longer just print-based. It now uses Twitter and other services to disseminate its stories.

“We are not just print-based anymore,” Melvin said. “Social media is a new way of delivering the news.”

Social media has actually improved the Journal Sentinel’s ability to cover news. By using blogs, the paper can pay more attention to niche markets. He cited reporter Tom Daykin’s real estate blog and art critic Mary Louise Schumacher’s blog on the Milwaukee art scene as two examples.

“I see a lot of growth in our blogs,” Melvin said. “We are also working to add more video to our website. It adds a lot of value to the reader experience.”

All three editors said the key to a successful story pitch is keeping it simple, providing relevant information and making sure the proper journalist is targeted. It is important the person making the pitch is talking to the right reporter. That means knowing what people cover and what their interests are.

“Make sure you know the media company’s mission,” Jagler said.

All three also said it is still okay to over an exclusive story to one publication.

“It is the same situation as it has always been,” Sabljak said. “It is more challenging to get one in these days of 24/7 news coverage. But, my reporters are paid to get exclusive stories.”

The increasing dominance of technology has made the role of the public relations practitioner more important, Melvin said. A good P.R. person can play a vital role in telling reporters what’s going on. I would add that because there is so much information being circulated that no one person could ever keep track of it. A good, targeted pitch probably has a better chance than ever of getting a reporter’s attention.

While acknowledging that the need to get the news out faster than ever can be strain, all three also said that hasn’t made their staff’s lose perspective.

“We have not lost the ability to do the in-depth story,” Melvin said.

NOTE: Before we get started, I would like to invite you to join myself and five other social media experts to listen to our Blog Talk Radio show Wednesday at 8 p.m. (GMT -6). We will talk about social media and how you can use it for 60 minutes. Please join us. Just click on the link.

So let’s get to using social media in your business, as I promised last week.

The thing you should know is that social media is not a burden; it’s a gift. That’s not me talking. It comes from Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines. Berg is manager of Emerging Media for the Dallas, Texas Airlines.

Social media is also going to make corporate websites largely obsolete, Randy Sprenger, Harley-Davidson’s manger of electronic advertising and direct advertising.

Okay, let your eyebrows go down now. Both Sprenger and Berg are veteran users of all forms of social media. They work for established companies who wouldn’t involve themselves corporately in something unless they were convinced it was here to stay. Both have seen the value of marketing their companies using social media outlets such as YouTube, Facebook and blogs.

Berg and Sprenger were two of a number of speakers at the Public Relations & Social Media Summit last Wednesday (Oct. 14) at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater. They are were a lot of fine speakers, but these two are the most relevant to what most companies today should be doing.

As an aside, I enjoyed the conference greatly. For anyone diving into social media, I recommend going to such conferences. The learning doesn’t just take place in the sessions. It also happens in the hallways, over lunch, and in the bar after it ends. You are going to get a diverse people at such an event. It is great way to meet people, trade information and learn how to solve social media problems.

From my research, I have to say that Southwest Airlines and Harley-Davidson are two of the best U.S. companies in applying social media tools to their businesses. That’s not to say that other companies are not doing very well also. But Harley and Southwest have leaped into the social media pool with both feet. They are doing this everyday and offer some valuable lessons for companies thinking about starting down the social media road.

Southwest ran a very successful fare sale using only Twitter, Berg said. Harley has its own YouTube channel for riders and would-be riders.

“My honest advice (to anyone getting started in social media) is to go home, grab a bottle or two of wine, and just sit in front of your computer for a night or for a weekend and figure it out,” Berg said after she spoke. “It is not difficult, it just takes a little bit of time. Get your rhythm and see how things work. That’s what I did. It’s taken me pretty far.”

Southwest has been using social media on a regular basis since 2006. The most important lesson Southwest has learned in using social media is speed, Berg said. Social media moves at the “speed of light.” A company using social media cannot wait, it cannot reactive, Berg said. It is important for company to get out ahead of issues with good information, she said.

Southwest has one of the best corporate blogs in the business, in my opinion. I read it as often as I can. I don’t know for sure, but I think it is one of the most popular corporate blogs. The company uses it for many things – communicating with customers, crisis communications, and as a brand platform to name some examples.

Berg said the blog taught the airline another lesson – customers want to engage with them. That’s something I tell clients all the time – their customers really want to talk. Not yell, or scold, just talk. People want to know they are being heard. As Berg pointed out, it can also be a lot fun. One of aspects of social media is breaking down barriers. It can be fun to actually to your customers or clients in a more informal way.

Harley-Davidson’s motorcycle riders have been socializing for almost as long as the company has existed, Sprenger said. That’s part of the lure of owning a Hog – the chance to hang out with people who have the same interest. Harley riders see themselves as individualists. One of Harley’s social media goals to join in with that, he explained.

“Harley-Davidson is just now adopting social media,” Sprenger told the group. I work in advertising, but I do a lot with social media. We have done a lot of leveraging of outside resources, social media agencies and search agencies.”

The motorcycle company’s first foray into social media was when an advertising agency suggested that Harley create a “Biker Claus” channel on YouTube, Sprenger said. He explained it was kind of takeoff on 2003 movie Bad Santa.

“The thing was, they wanted to do just that channel for a campaign,” Sprenger said. “A lot of advertising agencies are like that. They want to use social media as a tactic. They don’t see it as a bigger solution.”

Harley’s owners are already among the most fervent in the motorcycle world. I know that from personal experience. I live in Milwaukee, Harley’s headquarters city. I have many friends who work there and many more friends who ride Hogs. Social media is another way to link those dedicated riders. It allows them to evangelize for the brand in a larger forum.

That’s key for the motorcycle company. The average rider is aging. The company wants to lower the average age of its riders. Social media is a way to reach out to the group – mostly younger – who have rejected traditional marketing channels. So for Harley, social media is not just a tactic. It is a strategy to reach out to potential customers.

That’s what led Sprenger to decide that corporate websites are going to fade away.

“Traffic at corporate websites is trending down,” he explained. “People are no longer going to websites for information. They are using feed readers, Facebook and blogs. People will go to product pages.”

Which hammers home a point I make often, social media is changing the way marketing is done. Berg and Sprenger made the point better than I ever could.

Note for my readers: I am considering giving away five half hour social media, public relations or marketing consultations. That’s right, a free 30 minute discussion about something that will help your business. Doesn’t matter where in the world you are – Skype is a wonderful thing. If you are interested, please leave a comment.

When coordinating news coverage of the war in Afghanistan, ensuring bloggers get the information and access they need is very important to U.S. Air Force Captain David Faggard. To Faggard, bloggers have the same status as any reporter from a traditional print or broadcast outlet.

A blogger himself, Faggard feels that “we have to focus on bloggers. They are an important information outlet. They are kind of like Ernie Pyle in World War II. They tell the personal stories. ”

Faggard heads up the Air Force’s media relations in Afghanistan. Based at Bagram Airfield, Faggard’s official title is Chief, Public Affairs for the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing. He was the Air Force’s first designated point man for social media working for the Secretary of the Air Force’s Office of Public Affairs in the Pentagon before deploying to Afghanistan.

Talking to Faggard was an “aha” moment for me. I know many companies around the world are turning to social media to get their message out. I knew that the military services were dipping their toes into the social media pool. But, I had no idea that the bloggers are now essentially war correspondents and the Air Force is reaching out to them. Bloggers are now on equal footing with any other reporter.

“I have been working with bloggers for about a year-and-half,” Faggard said. “When I was last at the Pentagon, I worked with the approvals to arrange for a blogger to go out with the Hurricane Hunters out of Biloxi, now I’m working a blogger flight to bring average bloggers to the war.”

“Over the last couple of years, the armed forces have tried, in fits and starts, to connect more with bloggers,” Wired Magazine wrote in January. “The Army and the Office of the Secretary of Defense now hold regular “bloggers’ roundtables” with generals, colonels, and key civilian leaders. The Navy invited a group of bloggers to embed with them on a humanitarian mission to Central and South America, last summer. Military blogger Michael Yon recently traveled to Afghanistan with Defense Secretary Robert Gates.”

The Air Force senior brass is still working to decide how to approach and use social media, Faggard said. Still, he says he has a fair amount of leeway in deciding what is okay and what is not. He said he is making strides in convincing his superiors that social media can be a valuable tool for the Air Force.

“In my personal opinion, the military is still trying to figure it out,” Faggard said. “Of course, anyone talking to a blogger, or writing a blog, cannot violate standard Air Force rules. You cannot talk about war plans for instance or about operational plans.

“We are at a crossroads in social media. It is time consuming for a lot of people, but I could see it pushing out the smaller brands of traditional media.”

Like any good officer, Faggard has changed his tactics as the situation changed. He chuckles when he notes his Air Force public affairs training consisted things such topics how to run a press conference. But, he has dealt with bloggers on a regular basis and uploaded videos to YouTube.

“I have never held a press conference in Afghanistan,” Faggard said

There has been a major debate in the Air Force over social media. There was an “old-school mentality” over its use, Faggard said. From talking to Faggard and reading about the Air Force’s social media efforts, I think the senior commanders are having had the same debate many C-suite executives are having. The Air Force commanders are in their late 40s and 50s. They grew up reading newspapers and watching television news. In their worldview, those mediums still dominate. They are not sure about social media, what it is, and what it can do.

(In the interest of full disclosure, I am 55-years-old. But, I do get it.)

Part of the Air Force’s concern is the same thing that concerns many chief executive officers – giving up control of the brand. It has been my experience that is the hardest thing for anyone in a position of control to do. Controlling the message on social media can very difficult. It takes savvy and acumen. Knowing that has to be hard for anyone in a military organization where control is imperative.

However, Faggard and other young officers seem to be making progress convincing their superiors that they need to be part of the social media movement. After meeting with Facebook executives, the Air Force now has a page on the largest social media application. It has a channel on YouTube called AFBlueTube. When I checked, it had almost 250 videos on it. Individuals, such as Faggard and his Pentagon-based commanding officer, are blogging and using other social media applications.

There are rules, of course, but they didn’t strike me as any tougher than those at many U.S. companies. In the Air Force, anyone using social media has to be careful to say whatever they say or write is their personal opinion. Many companies don’t allow their employees to state their own opinions. The Washington Post – a newspaper of all things – just banned its reporters from tweeting their own opinions.

The military has to trust its lower echelon people, Faggard said. When anyone can buy a digital camera for $100 that takes pictures and video, it is probable the average enlisted man is going to use that camera, he said. Those people can be a powerful public relations tool for the military, but showing what is being done in a way no newscaster or reporter ever can.

“We entrust 18-year-olds to fight and die for their country, we can trust them to blog.”

“Of course, people have to know they have to stay in their lane,” Faggard said. “They cannot do something that would endanger their buddies and their unit.

“Of course, if they are the kind of people who break the rules, we don’t want them in the Air Force anyway.”

The Air Force is showing it trusts its people. It now allows them to comment on blog posts. It seems to realize its personnel are best defenders and best ambassadors.

To show their people how to do that, the Air Force now has a “counter-blogging” flow chart, Wired also reported. It is a template for Air Force personnel to respond to negative blog posts and comments. Frankly, I think it would be valuable for a lot of corporations to borrow what the Air Force has done. Rather than ignore negative comments, the Air Force would like its personnel to respond. This is the important part – they want their people respond to comments about the Air Force, especially negative ones. The flow chart is template on how to do that.

Air Force Blog Response Template - Courtesy of Wired Magazine

“The chart was designed to encourage Public Affairs Airmen to engage inaccurate information, just has been done with journalists in the past,” Faggard explained. “There was a feeling that since it was online, we didn’t have the ability to correct the record. This was designed to encourage Airmen to fix the facts.  There are no ulterior motives here; it’s simply to correct the record.”

There is an axiom among military experts that generals always prepare for the next war as if it was the last war they fought. So, what usually happens is the junior officers who are on the ground, such as Faggard, are the ones who convince those generals to make the needed changes. The Air Force’s adoption of social media is a good example of that.

Irina Sharma carried her passport everywhere during the first days of a public relations campaign for Durex condoms. The campaign had been planned and implemented by Sharma’s agency – the Dubai-based eKadaa PR. She was being cautious. It is possible that the Emirate of Dubai would decide she had crossed a line and would deport her. She wanted to be ready if she was hustled onto an airplane.

I had coffee with Sharma last week in the Milwaukee Hilton Hotel. I wanted to talk to her because I am convinced she, and public relations professionals like her, are the future of global public relations. Those of us who practice in the Western world – and think how we do things will work everywhere – should heed the lessons Sharma can teach us.

Sharma founded eKadaa PR in 2003. She went into public relations after a career in broadcasting. That broadcasting career included a stint as an intern with Howard Stern. eKadaa is a full-service public relations agency whose current clients include Lufthansa German Airlines, German National Tourist Board, Canon, National Geographic, Clinique, Crocs, Swarovski, Technogym and many more.

Sharma was in Milwaukee due to the efforts of Ann Knabe, an instructor in communications and public relations at the University of Wisconsin – Whitewater. Knabe is an accomplished public relations practitioner in her own right. When she is not teaching at Whitewater, she is a Lt. Col. in the U.S. Air Force Reserve where she handles public affairs. Knabe has served as a public affairs officer for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for the war court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and most recently in the Pentagon. She also holds the prestigious Accredited in Public Relations designation from the Public Relations Society of America.

Knabe met Sharma when she traveled to Dubai in May to study public relations there.

Irina Sharma (left) and Ann Knabe spoke to at the University of Wisconsin - Whitewater about global public relations.

Dubai’s diverse, international makeup is ideal for global business and is “absolutely open to the U.S. and its business and practices,” Knabe told the Milwaukee Business Journal. “To many Arabs, Americans come off as a culture of ‘know-it-alls. But continued efforts on education can help change that perception.”

Why do I think Sharma, and those like her, are the future of public relations? Because to use New York Times columnist Tom Friedman’s metaphor, the world is flat and getting flatter. Global communication and global business are now almost instantaneous.

But every country has different rules and mores that need to be respected. Campaigns have to be tailored to fit those rules. The problem is that in many societies, the rules are unwritten. These may be countries that have deep broadband penetration and whose residents wear Nikes, but there are still lines that cannot be crossed. You can complain about how unfair that is, or how backward the society may seem. Tough. It’s their playing field and they get to decide how the game is played.

“For instance, Saudis don’t feel comfortable talking to women,” Sharma explained. “In Dubai, I can wear a dress that exposes my shoulders. But, if I go 20 minutes away to Sharjah, I have to cover up.”

The Durex campaign was done without mentioning sex because that’s taboo in the local culture. Sharma explained at all times the cultural, traditional and religious values were respected. The campaign focused on HIV-AIDS prevention and education. I suspect that many Western account executives would insist on somehow including sex. The mantra for many is sex sells. From what I gather, mentioning sex in many cultures can get you deported. In some countries it can get you jailed.

The culture mores in the Middle East are very different than what most Westerners are used to. While Dubai is a cosmopolitan, international city of expatriates from all over the world, the United Arab Emirates is an Islamic country. Sharma knew she had to walk carefully along the mountain ridge in publicizing an item in such a culture.

“I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be,” Sharma said.

That Sharma was able to lead an English company along the ridge also without stumbling speaks to her abilities – and is a key point we in the West need to learn. The key to any public relations is knowing your audience. As I said, we in the West say we understand that. Too often, we look at the world and see ourselves. We think what works in Peoria will work Abu Dhabi or Kuala Lumpur or even Dublin. As Sharma will tell you, that isn’t so.

“You cannot just cut and paste a campaign,” Sharma explained.

The reason I think is that many Americans have problems understanding this is because we often suffer from the malady known as culturus blinderus. I am always amazed by Americans who don’t speak a second language (Spanish, in case you are wondering), don’t make an effort to learn the cultural mores of the area in which they are traveling ,and are mystified why when they ask for pepperoni in Italy, they get little peppers, instead of sausage (Quite tasty, actually).

Irina Sharma is the kind of public relations person who knows these things. (Well, I am not sure about the pepperoni thing. I didn’t ask) She is also the kind of public relations person that is going to eat an American agency’s lunch when it comes to doing business outside of North America. Perhaps inside North America too, when it comes to representing overseas companies in the United States.

Smart marketing U.S. marketing people should be watching and learning from Irina Sharma and those like her. She and those like her are the future of global public relations.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. Myself and five  other social media acolytes are doing the second round of a our Social Media Book Club on Blog Talk Radio We are giving away an EBook written by social media guru Simon U. Ford. Ford sold several thousand of the books for $47. However, we have permission to give it away for a limited time.We also will be holding a series of four virtual “book clubs” to go over the book. Between the book and the four of us, you will receive a comprehensive overview of social media. Because we want to provide the best possible training, there are only be 50 spots available for the book club. For more information, go to the Social Boomers site. The first show will be Wednesday, Sept. 23 at 8 pm CDT (GMT -6). The URL is bit.ly/Y253H.

If you would like a copy of the book, email jjcole54 at gmail.com. It is helpful to have.

There’s a song by the late Jim Croce where the refrain goes:

“You don’t tug on Superman’s cape.

“You don’t spit into the wind.

“You don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger

“And you don’t mess around with Jim.”

© 2007 Ingrid Croce

The point of the song is that you don’t stupid things – or mess with things you know nothing about. I think that last line could be to paraphrased to: “And you don’t mess around with social media.”

ESPN, a number of pro football teams, some college football leagues, and a number of companies are messing with social media. The companies and leagues are banning fans, players and employees from using social media during games and work hours. In fact, the web security company ScanSafe has found that more companies ban the use of social media than ban weapons, according to a study it released Aug. 19.

According to Scan Safe’s study: “An analysis of more than a billion Web requests processed by the company each month confirms a 20 percent increase in the number of customers blocking social networking sites in the last six months. Currently, 76 percent of companies are choosing to block social networking and it is now a more popular category to block than online shopping (52 percent), weapons (75 percent), alcohol (64 percent), sports (51 percent) and Webmail (58 percent). Surprisingly, employers don’t take the same stern approach to online banking and less than half (47 percent) of our customers block this category.”

So, there are companies that allow their employees to drink and pack heat, but not update up their Facebook page. ScanSafe opines that companies think social media reduces productivity. Frankly, I think a three martini lunch will have a much greater effect on productivity than tweeting about what one’s dog did on his morning walk.

As for blocking social media use on the job, it is harder than it seems. While a company will know if an employee is using a company computer to access social media – what are they going to do about smart phones? If it is not a company supplied smart phone, how are corporate executives going what their employees are doing? More and more social media apps are moving onto smart phones. How is a company going to know what an employee is doing on their own smart phone?

Plus, I would want my employees to access social media to talk about my company. Several studies have shown that employees are  the best brand ambassadors. If the price to be paid for employees talking up a new product is having them look at their Facebook pages once in a while, so be it. Remember, social media is about a building a community. That community building should start with your own employees.

On another front, the NFL has banned coaches, players, other personnel, or anyone representing them, and journalists from updating their status on Twitter, Facebook or other social media during games and up to 90 minutes before and after, according to TechDirt. Referees are banned from ever using social media while the league employs them, the site said. Apparently, this stems from an online apology from a ref over a blown call. We cannot have the refs admitting they are human, now can we?

I am not sure if this applies to the NFL itself, as it has its own Twitter account. The ban does not extend to players and other personnel when they are on their own time. The NFL is understandably trying to protect its lucrative broadcast outlets. Frankly, I happen to enjoy seeing a player tweet during a game. To me, it’s better than some sideline interview done with the coach where he hands out canned responses.

(On an unrelated note, just once I want to hear the coach of team who won by a huge margin not say something like: “the game was closer than the score indicated.” What I want to hear them say is what I suspect they are thinking: “what was that other team thinking even being on the field with us today? We wiped the turf up with them.”)

What is particularly troubling to me is banning journalists from using social media during a game. A very long time ago – when print media ruled the world – sports reporters would do inning-by-inning updates of the game they were covering. These updates would be read on radios and posted in newspaper offices for people to see. If it was particularly big event, say the Dempsey-Firpo fight in 1923, a newspaper might print extra editions to tell people what was going on.

No one had a problem in those days about giving out information during a game. The practice lasted until television came along. Then there was no need for it because everyone had access.

Now, with more and more sports events moving to cable and pay-per-view, many people no longer have access. Social media is way for fans to stay in touch and feel connected to their teams. Don’t teams want people to stay in touch? Fans are no longer willing to wait until the next day – or even until the late evening news – to find out what happened.

I think this policy is going to backfire on them – as it has with so many other companies.

Companies from Comcast to United Airlines have found out the hard way what happens when you mess with social media. I think a lot of other organizations are about to find the hard way they are in a fight they cannot win – just as Big Jim Walker found out when he messed with Willie McCoy. Big Jim thought he was the toughest man on 42^nd Street, until he ran into Willie. A lot of organizations are liable to find themselves in the same fix – in a figurative way – the Big Jim did.

And when the cuttin’ were done

The only part that wasn’t bloody

Was the soles of the big man’s feet

Yeah he were cut in bout a hundred places

And he were shot in a couple more…”

So, you get a call from a Fox News producer – Bill O’Reilly wants you to appear on his show. Or you pick up your phone to hear a print reporter ask why your company is dumping toxic waste into the Old Mill Stream. Finally, the worst situation of all, you are watching a television show or reading a magazine story or a blog when you discover your company is the middle of a crisis because some advocacy group painted every company in your industry with the same brush.

In my over two-decade career as a reporter, I made some of those calls. In my somewhat shorter career as a public relations and marketing professional, I have responded to situations where an entire industry was painted with the same brush. In the later case, I was part of a team of three that crafted the first response to the first outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy or BSE, in a cow in the state of Washington. We successfully showed that our client, Smithfield Beef, was doing everything right to ensure no cow with BSE would ever enter its slaughterhouses.

Incidentally, I just demonstrated the first rule of responding to a hostile situation. Many people called BSE “mad cow.” We never, ever used that term – even during meetings in the office. “Mad cow” conjures up images of some Holstein frothing at the mouth, chasing Old McDonald around the fields. BSE is the scientific term and more accurate. We determined the terms of the battle before it was even joined.

The second rule we demonstrated was we responded within hours of getting the news about the BSE discovery. We didn’t wait to respond to someone else’s announcement. Now, we got one break. The news of the BSE-infected cow broke on the morning of Dec. 24, 2003. Because it was a holiday, most of those who would have attacked the meat producing industry were not in their offices. We essentially had the playing field to ourselves for about 48 hours – we were able to present the issue on our terms. Two news cycles passed before the Chicken Littles got revved up. By then, we had shaped the issue and the debate into what the meat industry was doing right.

Something to remember. An announcement like that of the cow infected with BSE is a neutral event. The government officials who usually release such news generally play it right down the middle. So, it is up to you to tell your side right away.

Another thing to remember – if you have genuinely made a mistake, admit it. Don’t try to spin it. In the case of the cattle and meat packing industries, the discovery of the infected cow showed what was being done right. The cow was found before it got into the system. It showed that the proper checks were in place. We didn’t need to spin anything. We just needed to get our story out before it got buried in the noise.

Trying to spin a mistake just gets you into more trouble. The media and bloggers will usually quickly pick up on your attempts. They will trumpet your efforts to hide what you did. You or your company will end up looking worse than if you had just said, “yeah, we were wrong. We are doing everything we can to correct the error.”

Now, being preemptive works very well when there is an event that could turn out bad. Handling a Sean Hannity or a Bill O’Reilly is done somewhat differently. Remember, you are playing by their rules. This isn’t neutral ground. What you are hoping for here is a draw. Not losing is the same as winning.

First, watch as many of the shows as possible before going on. Make sure you know what the topic is and do your research. These shows have a rhythm. They start out seemingly being neutral and then move into questions designed to do one thing – make the interview subject look bad. Objectivity is not their strong suit.

Here’s the key thing to remember when you find yourself the subject of one of those “interviews:” stay calm. Don’t lose your temper. They want you to get upset. It makes better television. Angry people don’t think and spew out the wrong kind of answer.

What you want to be is calm and boring. Boring makes lousy television. Answer the question, but don’t elaborate. If the interviewer tries to go off on tangent, don’t let it happen. Go back to the main subject and stay there. Give short declarative answers.  Keep it boring.

Finally, you find there is the situation where find your company being criticized in the media and the Internet – and you had no idea it was happening. In this case, the blame is internal. You should have known that you had enemies out there. Most companies monitor conventional news outlets. Where they fall down is monitoring social media outlets – blogs, videos, etc.

Think that’s it’s not important to monitor those sites? Ask United Airlines about the country group Sons of Maxwell and its lead singer Dave Carroll. United baggage handlers broke Carroll’s $3,000 Taylor Guitar. Frustrated that the airline would do nothing to remedy the situation, Carroll recorded and posted a video on YouTube about his experience. As of Sunday, Aug. 16, the video had been viewed just under five million times. Now United did eventually step up and pay for repairing the instrument. It also said it wants to use the video in its employee training.

Still, think about the notoriety United gained from that one video. How many people chose to fly a competitor after watching that video?

United is just one example. Comcast, Proctor & Gamble and several other companies have felt the wrath of angry bloggers.

As I tell clients all of the time: “there is a conversation going on right now about your brand. You should be a part of it and leading it. But no matter what you do, it is going to happen anyway.”

Now, if it does happen, what to do is get involved in the conversation, quickly. Engage with the bloggers, talk to them and find out what the beef is. Proctor & Gamble was initially blind-sided by the Motrin Moms. But within 48-hours, the company had dealt with the problem and ended the furor.

In all these cases, the key is engagement and preparation. Do those things and at least you will never be surprised. And being ready is the most important thing to do.

Note: Check out my company’s new and improved website at JJC Communications.

This sight could soon be a thing of the past.

I hate it when I agree with press baron Rupert Murdoch. But The Alien (as the late, great Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko called him) is correct. Newspapers should start charging for their online efforts. However, Murdoch’s suggestion is half-uh, planned. In my view, newspapers should stop printing completely and go exclusively on line. Think Kindles and IPods. Throw in a heaping helping of social media and I think newspapers would again be successful. I feel it is going to take something that radical to save quality journalism.

What’s killing newspapers is that the so-called Millennials get their information from the Internet – primarily from social media. They make decisions on purchases by reading other customers’ online comments, and get their news from sites such as Google News, Twitter, Digg and Facebook and go to Craigslist for classified ads. Their lifestyle does not lend itself to reading a newspaper as they sip a cup of coffee at the breakfast table.

Editors around the world have tried valiantly to reach out to those readers. Hiring younger reporters, creating special sections aimed (hopefully) at younger reader’s interest and sponsoring concerts and other events. None of it has worked.

Newspapers need to survive. I could talk watchdogs and the Fourth Estate, Thomas Jefferson and others. But, for the Internet generation, I will provide a major reason. Where do you think all of the aggregated content on news sites comes from? It comes from journalists around the world gathering that information. Who will provide that if news organizations go away?

As marketers, we still need news outlets. It is still one of the best ways to reach potential customers.

“By undermining the financial viability of traditional media, marketers are jeopardizing the only viable means currently available for reaching mass audiences,” Karlene Lukovitz wrote in the Aug. 4 issue of MarketingDaily, “That’s the core premise of “The CMO’s Dilemma: Can You Reach the Masses Without Mass Media?,” a new white paper co-authored by John Rose and Neal Zuckerman of The Boston Consulting Group. Rose and Zuckerman argue that it’s critical that marketers, agencies and media companies start addressing the issues surrounding this dilemma together.”

So, what to do? Well, I would scrap the presses and everything else physical used to produce a newspaper. In their place, I would provide every reader with a Kindle or IPod. I would sell subscribers the electronic reader at a reduced rate and then provide everything from breaking news to crossword puzzles on the Web.

“Wireless can offer newspapers a distribution platform that can provide a new source of revenue, as well as replace revenue loss from a readership transitioning from a physical to a digital product by providing enhanced value,” Mark Desautels, of The Wireless Association wrote in an NAA blog.

I agree and it also would save a lot of money for newspapers, I think. I could not find an aggregated figure for newspaper production costs. But, the Business Insider estimated it costs the New York Times twice as much to print the paper as it would to give all 800,000-plus readers a Kindle. The blog estimates the Times spends approximately $644 million a year in production costs – that’s printing and distribution.

It currently costs $680 a year to subscribe to the New York Times, according to its website. According to Amazon’s website, a Kindle retails for $299. When I was a reporter, it was assumed that four people read each paper. So, the Times would need to procure 200,000 kindles, give or take. I am willing to bet Amazon would discount the price for buying in that kind of bulk. And that’s a one-time expense.

So, the Times cuts $644 million in expenses by going to an electronic only newspaper. It also has the means to reach out to all those Gen-Yers who wouldn’t be caught dead getting newsprint all over their fingers. This is a generation who gets its information from the Internet. So go where they are and give them the news by sending out The Electronic Gazette.

My Electronic Gazette would send out news 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week. There would be podcasts and video. The advantage it would have over current Internet news sites is that it would be news geared toward where it was based. That’s key. It’s easy to get national and international news. What’s hard to find out is what is happening in your community. As newspapers have made cuts, one of the things that has been thrown over the side is in-depth coverage of local news.

It is well documented that newspaper websites are recording millions of hits. The market is already there. It just needs to be monetized.

“Surprisingly, research conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates in June indicates that consumers are willing to pay for access to the content they enjoy,” Lindsey Schutte wrote in the Aug. 7 edition EngageGenY, a Media:Post blog. “In fact, members of Gen Y are more likely to say they will spend money than Gen Xers and Baby Boomers.

“For instance, 80% of Gen Yers say they would pay for music, whereas only 52% of Baby Boomers say the same,” Schutte wrote. “Sixty-nine percent of Gen Yers would pay for professionally produced television programming, whereas only 51% of Baby Boomers say the same. The gap narrows when it comes to news and information, 43% of Gen Yers say they would pay versus 36% of Baby Boomers — but the gap still exists. Paying is defined as exchanging money; it does not include accepting ads for content.”

Social media would need to be part of the mix. I think electronic papers could drive circulation up by social media. If I were the publisher of The Electronic Gazette, I would make sure links our stories were tweeted, Dugg, and were on Friendfeed. I would invite bloggers to link to our site. Facebook would be a big part of my effort. I think social media would deliver the so-called “golden readers” advertisers want: the 18- to 25-year-olds who do not yet have much brand loyalty.

What this would do would be to create a community around the newspaper – the same has been built around Apple or Zappos shoes. Once that happens, newspapers might actually survive.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. This is the last week I will make this offer. Myself and some other social media acolytes are giving away an EBook written by social media guru Simon U. Ford. Ford sold several thousand of the books for $67. However, we have permission to give it away for a limited time. In addition, you get five free podcasts. We also will be holding a series of four virtual “book clubs” to go over the book. Between the book and the sessions, you will receive a comprehensive overview of social media. Because we want to provide the best possible training, there are 25 spots left. For more information, go to the Social Boomers site. That’s right, we are actually marketing to Boomers – and anyone else who is interested.

So, you call the CEO’s secretary to give her the head’s up. She tells the boss. The boss is so happy he calls to congratulate you. As you are talking to your leader, you suddenly realize this person couldn’t put five words together in a coherent sentence if he had a gun to his head. Or even worse, he won’t be quiet. He just talks and talks and talks.

I had this situation once with a company executive who just didn’t know how to be quiet. I cannot tell you the company – confidentially and all that. There was a great deal of concern about what he might say in the interview. Remember, I said the interview is not over until the interviewer leaves the building. When I was a reporter, I often got my best stuff after I put the notebook away.

So, what to do? Media training is the solution. Anyone smart enough and savvy enough to run a company is smart enough to learn how to be interviewed. That’s where people like me come in. We train executives how to handle questions, what to do when a tough question is asked, and what to when the interviewer is openly hostile.

So, how does one media train a chief executive officer? Well, the first thing is to make sure the individual wants to be trained. The most dangerous person to deal with is someone who has not been trained, or at least reviewed by a professional. Some corporate leaders are naturals when it comes to be interviewed. They are well spoken; never more volunteer more information than asked for, and never get ruffled when asked a tough question. May you be blessed with such an executive.

However, most executive are not like that. Their training never prepared them for being questioned by someone who is trying to dig out information. They don’t know how to properly answer a question. When confronted by a tough interrogator, they get angry and lash out, start sweating, or just spew more and more things out. This is an interviewer’s dream. It is a public relations person’s nightmare.
So, what to do? Here are my suggestions on how to prepare your corporate leader for being interviewed.

One note before I start. It is impossible for some people to learn how to do this. I know of chief executive officers who have gone through media training half-a-dozen times. It never took. It those cases, gently suggest some other senior person handle the interview. Better a bruised ego than a depressed stock price or a competitor learning  a company secret.

If the leader won’t listen to reason, someone else has to be in the room to monitor the interview. This person has to be senior enough to be able to monitor, prompt, and cut the leader off if necessary.

Back to my suggestions:

• First the general rules to teach the executive:

1. Remember, Cole’s rule #1 – the reporter only provides the rope. What the executive does with it is his business. It is your job as the public relations person to keep the executive from fashioning the noose and slipping it over his neck. Make sure the executive understands this.
2. Only provide the information asked for, do not volunteer anything. In volunteering lies trouble. You might give the reporter access to a whole line of questioning that did not occur them.
3. Nothing can guarantee that the executive will not be misquoted. However, the odds can be lowered. Speak in short, declarative sentences. Ask the interviewer if they understand the answer. While most interviewers will not let you read the story, or see the videotape, most will review quotes before broadcast or publication.

• Do not wait until an interviewer calls to set up a meeting to start media training. That’s a time to review what has already been learned.

• Block out at least an hour, preferably longer for each training session. Note that I say each training session. Most people cannot learn this in an hour. How long will it take? That’s impossible to say. It depends on the pupil. I generally recommend planning on at least eight sessions.
• At the first session, conduct a mock interview. Someone who has done interviewing professionally should do this. If you have spent your entire life in public relations, you are not going to do it as well. I am sorry, but only someone who has actually grilled people for a living can act the part well enough. If you can, find a public relations person who was a journalist. They know both sides of the aisle.
• The first interview is to determine the executive’s strengths and weaknesses. It should be videotaped. Show the tape to the executive. Review it, discuss the strengths and weaknesses the person demonstrated. Reinforce one, work on the other. In fact, tape every session so progress can be reviewed.
• Remember, a broadcast interview is different from a print interview. A television interview is different from a radio interview. A newspaper interview is different from a magazine interview and a blog interview is different from all of them.
• In a television interview, the interview subject has to remember to watch out for non-verbal cues. Don’t let them hunch their shoulders, look around the room or turn away from the camera. The best way to handle a television interview is to look straight into the camera and answer each question clearly and concisely. If this is not in a studio, the cameraman will move around to get different shots. In that case, look right at the interviewer.
• In a radio interview, body language is not as important. No one is going to see the CEO obviously. However, still answer the questions clearly and concisely.
• In both television and radio interviews, keep the answers as short as possible. It makes it harder to cut down the quote and shade its meaning.
• In a print interview, assume everything is on the record. Again, answer clearly and concisely. Do not assume just because the notebook has been closed and the pen put away that the interviewer is not listening. Anything said could end up in a story.
• Magazines interviews tend to be the longest because magazine stories tend to be the longest. It is not unusual for a magazine writer to do three or more interviews with the executive. This is a time to be careful. By that third interview, the executive may relax a little too much. He or she might start volunteer information because he now feels he know the interviewer. Very dangerous. Make sure you are in the room.
• Bloggers often has a point of view. Many are more akin to editorial writers. Many are also not professional interviewers. So be very, very careful. There is a strong possibility that the quotes will be taken out of context.  Make sure the executive understands that.

Those are the basics. Obviously there is a lot more to media training. However, if you use what I have written, you will probably keep your executive out of trouble. Good luck.

This week, however, I am going to write what I feel is one of the most important topics of all – the importance of newspapers and why they have to survive. Frankly, a society without newspapers, without watchdogs, scares the heck out of me.

Now, I could write about how crucial newspapers are to the survival of the Republic, but I will leave that for smarter people. What I want to talk about how important newspapers are for those of us in the marketing and public relations business. Without them, our job would be a lot harder to do.

Full disclosure: I spent 26 years as a working reporter in Peoria, Ill., Little Falls, N.Y., suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I left the business seven years ago because I wanted to do something different.

Newspapers are still important. That’s a simple fact. It’s true that more and more people are turning to the Internet as a source for just about everything. I don’t have to list all of the items people now buy on the ‘Net.  It’s also a source of news about all kinds of things. You are reading this blog on the net.

But, here’s the question – where do you think most of that news and information comes from? You guessed it, it comes from print sources – or least former print sources.  Now, they are online news and information gathering information sources. The same function, just a different way of delivering it. Go to Google News and look at the sources of the stories posted there. All of the stories are from professional information gathering organizations.

That’s the key takeaway for those of us in public relations and marketing. We still should be pitching newspapers, magazines and television with our client stories. At the very least, the story will be put on the Associated Press story list. That gives every newspaper a chance to use the story. Google News will pick it up, guaranteeing a potential audience of millions.

A second reason we marketers still need newspapers is the medias’ ability to aggregate knowledge. Newspaper websites usually contain a lot of information, especially in their archives. It is usually much easier to find information about a particular subject on those websites. Trying finding a particular piece of information on the web. Not easy, is it. Now, think about client’s customer trying to do the same thing.

There is another, even more practical reason. The average of an American chief executive officer was 56.2 years old in 2008. This is a group that is still used to getting their information from the Wall Street Journal, Business Week and other business publications. The person in any corporation who ultimately has to like what you are doing is the CEO. And this group of people likes to see results printed on a piece of paper.

In addition, the professional media is trained to filter knowledge, to know what’s important and what’s not. I value blogs greatly, but I worry sometimes that bloggers don’t always understand don’t have that filter.

Let me deal another issue that often comes up in the discussion: public relations versus advertising. I have heard many marketing professionals say that advertising is just as effective as public relations, maybe more so. Even if newspapers die, we can still advertise on television, the radio and the web. It is just as effective, they argue. All I can say to that is balderdash.

First, free media has much more credibility, as any number of studies have shown. MBA student Idris Mootee demonstrated.People haven’t believed advertisements for a long time. Don’t believe me? Take this simple test I use when clients muse whether public relations or advertising would be better to build their brand platform:

Think about your favorite television advertisement. Think about why you liked it. Got it all? OK, here’s the first question: what was the product being advertised? If you remember, here’s the next second question: would you buy that product?

In the five years or so that I have giving that quiz, I have one person say they would buy the product based on the advertisement. Granted this “study” is anecdotal, and hardly scientific, but I still think the results are significant.  The rhetorical question I respond with is: what’s the point of spending millions and millions of dollars on an advertisement with expensive actors and high production values if it doesn’t exert any influence.

And don’t bring up those cheaper, “home-made” advertisements. They are so bad I cringe. There are products I will not buy because I assume that if the company is not willing to spend money on decent marketing, how good can the product be?

Contrast that with the effects of public relations when it highlights third party endorsements. “Results suggest significant main effects for … endorsement … with endorsement affecting perceived quality, uniqueness, and esteem,” a Sept. 22, 1999 article in the Journal of Advertising said in summarizing the results of a consumer study.

So where do people read about those third party endorsements? Yes, the Internet is certainly an important source. But, I don’t know about you, but I am always a little suspicious of online rankings. I always wonder if the agency or the client had their friends and neighbors respond to the survey. Agencies have been caught having employees fill out surveys. In my career, I have been directed to do that.

Although I know many of you will debate this, most outside writers make every effort to be objective. Most consumers know and take that into account when checking something out. Yes, I know what some studies say, but I still hear people talking about the story from the New York Times they read on line yesterday.

Bottom line, we need newspapers. They provide the kind of outlet we are not going to get anywhere else.

I post this blog every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’ a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I am currently running training courses in new media. I am also available for speaking on media relations and marketing. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or emailed at jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

What does this have to do with your company? How the people of the village, and all the various emergency personnel, dealt with the dozens of reporters and cameras that descended on their community is the best example of I have ever seen of crisis communications. Did they have a crisis communications plan? I am sure some of the emergency responders – the Red Cross, the Wisconsin National Guard, and other agencies did. I am just as sure that Barneveld’s residents – and the hundreds of their neighbors who rushed to help – did not. Yet, they did a masterful job.

By the way, it is still better to have a plan. It is even better to rehearse that plan at least once a quarter. The people of Barneveld were extraordinary under pressure. Don’t ever count on that. Be ready instead.

I speak from personal experience. I was one of the first reporters on the scene. I spent almost week there, doing story after story.

I learned a lot there about dealing with a crisis. The things I saw put into action apply to how your company should deal with a natural disaster or some other crisis caused by an outside agent. The people who dealt with us media types did a fantastic job under the worse of conditions. As a result, the story turned from a village destroyed to a village rebuilding. It went from a negative to a positive.

That’s the goal in a crisis. This is your chance to show how your company functions in extreme conditions. It’s simple really: anyone can function when things are easy. The real test comes when things are tough. That’s the true measure of a company.

A side note: when I was in Barneveld, I had no thought that one day I would be doing public relations and marketing. But, for some reason, I kept some of my notes from that story. There’s a lesson in that for all of us – you never know when a piece of knowledge will be useful.

Remember, crisis communications is like a battlefield. A badly handled crisis can severely wound, even kill a company. There are no do-overs – you have one chance to get it right. Get it wrong, and if you’re lucky, you might restore a reputation in a decade or so.

As I said last week, the overriding rule in any crisis is to immediately communicate your concern – for the stock price, the injured people, the effect on the environment, whatever. It is also important to communicate as fast and as accurately as possible.

I saw that those two rules put into action in Barneveld. A command post/media center was set up in one of the few buildings left standing – a farm implement dealer’s storage shed. The various agencies coordinated their press relations so they spoke as one. The information was always timely and accurate. Besides regular press briefings, there was always someone on hand to provide whatever information the press needed.

That is key. Make sure everyone is informed, especially your employees. If there’s an accident in a factory, make sure your employees have the full story. They should because they are most affected. Your employees should always be the first one told about what’s going to happen next. They are going to be understandably concerned about their injured friends and the company’s future. Make sure you do everything possible to quell their fears.

Also, it is inevitable the media will interview some of your employees. That cannot be prevented. So, it’s better they have the entire story.

A note about that: the media demands first person accounts of any disaster. Their viewers or readers expect it. It adds immediacy to the story. So, they are going to try and talk to employees. If the company has done its job in taking care of those employees, those interviewed will say so. That kind of third party endorsement of the company is the best kind of public relations.

Do not try to control an employee interview. If you feel the interview should be done in a controlled circumstance, such as the company’s offices, go ahead. If you want a public relations person in the room, that’s fine also. But, let the employee talk. The public relations person should be there as a resource, not a controller. The media is very suspicious of anyone who appears coached or appears not to be saying anything. It will look like you have something to hide.

As for empathy – every leader from the governor and a U.S. Senator down to Barneveld Village President did two things: walked around the village to talk and hear stories; and saw to it every kind of assistance needed was provided. All those leaders demonstrated something else: actions speak louder than words. Yes, it is a cliché, but it’s true. They were not there just for photo opportunities; they were there to offer genuine assistance. That made a big impression on those directly affected.

Here are other lessons I learned:

Be as open as possible with the media. Do not hold anything back. Of course, you do not want a victim’s family to find out from a news report that a family member is dead. But as soon as possible after the family has been informed, release the names. The media will find out eventually anyway.

Give the media has much access as possible. Provide updates as soon as you have new information. It is human nature to try and fill a vacuum. That’s how rumors start and spread. The media can be your ally. If they are reporting the facts, rumors will get quashed.
Next week, I will be discussing what happens when crisis is caused by something a company does. That’s the most difficult of all crisis communications.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help companies with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link.

I am available for speaking on media relations, or counseling your company on that or on your other public relations needs. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.

In this lesson, we are going to talk about going off the record. Same rule as the first two – don’t do it. The corollary is there is no such thing as off the record.

I will repeat this in every lesson. Reporters are not your friend or your enemy. They have a job to do, that’s all. When I was a working reporter, I used to say I will hand you the rope, but what you do with it is entirely your business. I hope these blogs keep you from hanging your self.

Okay, let’s talk about off and on the record. A reporter or blogger is interviewing you. That person asks a question you don’t want to answer. You don’t want to lie or say “no comment.” But, you also don’t want the answer to be made public.

So you think, “I know, I will answer the question, but I will say it’s off the record, so the answer can’t be used.”  Well, you just stepped on a land mine and it’s about to blow.

To paraphrase the late Ohio State Coach Woody Hayes: three things can happen when you go off the record and two of them are bad.

Let’s talk about them in order. First, the good thing:

There is a chance, albeit very, very slim, that the reporter will respect your request. It does happen. I can think of two times in my 25-year-career when I agreed to do that. Both times, the person requesting it was the relative of a murder victim who was grieving and traumatized. I always cut those people some slack. Plus, what they asked me not to report was not at all germane to the story. If it had been, I probably would have not honored the request.

One other thing if you think the blogger or reporter is going to honor your request to go off the record: the rule is that you must state that something is off the record before you rely information. You cannot request to go off the record after you make your statement. To use a playground statement, no take-backs.

Now, the bad things:

More often, I would ask the person telling me something was the off the record why they were telling me. What I would say went something like this: “I am a newspaper reporter. I am paid to put things in the paper so people can read it. Why are you telling me this? Here’s what I am going to do – I am going to start calling around until I find somebody who will say on the record what you just told me.” I always did. So all you have done has ensured that what you wanted kept secret is going to be made public.

I will give you an example. I apologize for not naming names, but I promised to honor these people’s request for to stay unidentified and I keep my promises. It doesn’t matter that it was 20 years.

At any rate, I was interviewing an attorney about a court matter. He went off the record to tell me about an upcoming bankruptcy of a Milwaukee-based retail chain.

Side note: It wasn’t the P.A. Bergner and Co. bankruptcy. I am going to blog later about how I broke that story.

I looked at that attorney when he made that statement. I asked him if I could use the information. He said no. I said: “you know the drill. I am going to try and find out from somebody who will talk on the record.” I proceeded to do that. It was a good story about a large suburban company who unfortunately went out of business.

Some reporters and bloggers will simply not honor an off-the-record request. They might tell you they will, but they won’t. They will put whatever you say in the paper or their blog no matter how you cast it when you make the statement.

Something else to consider: often times a reporter will go back to their editor and tell them about what you said on an off-the-record basis. Don’t be angry, that reporter works for that editor, not you. The reporter is usually more concerned about keeping their boss calm than your happiness. The editor might order the reporter to put that off-the-record comment into the story. Again, the editor is the boss.

If the reporter and editor have a good relationship, the reporter might be able to negotiate something – such as calling you to give you a chance to rephrase what you said. But, don’t always count on it. The reporter might argue to the editor that using the information means losing a valuable source. Editors sometimes understand, but not always. There is just no sure thing in this.

Veteran reporters have learned not to tell their editors anything more than they think the editor should know, including off the record comments. Now I can hear my former colleagues sputter that isn’t true, but it is. But, don’t count on that either.

As for bloggers, most are not professional reporters. They often have never studied and practiced the rules of journalism. Whether that’s good or bad is argument for another blog. But, that means they might not have any understanding of such things as off-the-record. I would not chance it.

* They panic and curl up in a fetal position under their desk.
* They get angry and decide to go on the attack
* Or they blithely think everything will be okay and do nothing to prepare.

I hope it’s obvious none of those approaches will work. All three will get you into trouble, leading to a variety of consequences, none of them good. Bad publicity can depress a company’s stock price, destroy its reputation, and drive customers away. Remember, perception is reality. If it is perceived in the press, blogosphere, and by the public, that your company is doing something wrong – even if you aren’t – it is difficult to turn that perception around.

The goal of this post, and the others that will follow, is to provide a primer on media relations. I am basing this on my 25 years as a journalist and my seven years in marketing communications. What I hope to do in this series of blogs is help you and your company develop a proactive strategy so you build and maintain a positive reputation. Being reactive after is never good. To quote Vince Lombardi’s, the best defense is a good offense.

Remember, there are no guarantees. Sometimes you can do everything right and still take a hit. I will deal with what to do with those cases in a later post.

By way of background, I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help companies with marketing communications through my company -  JJC Communications LLC .If you want to know more about me and my company, click the link.

Okay, enough introduction. Let’s get to it.

The thing to remember is that reporters are not your enemy or your friend. They have a job to do. That’s all. When I was a reporter I used to say that I will hand you the rope, but what you do with it is entirely your business. I hope these blogs will keep you from hanging yourself.

So, let’s discuss the overriding rule of marketing communications – Don’t Lie. If you do nothing else that I suggest, obey this rule. Do not deviate from it, ever. Why? Because you will get caught. And when you get caught, you have destroyed the most important thing your company has – its credibility. Once that’s gone, good luck in the marketplace.

How will you get caught? Well as Ben Franklin said: “three can keep a secret if two are dead.” Inevitably, somebody will talk about the lie. You think your employees and associates all love you? If you do, I have some land for sale in Louisiana I would like to discuss with you – it’s only underwater for 11 months.

And if not one of your associates, it could be a competitor. Or, you might have left a paper trail. Or somebody with a big mouth might talk and be overheard. I will also discuss that in another blog.

Don’t think if you lie to just one reporter, you will be okay. Journalists are the biggest gossips – with each other – on the face of the earth. Word will quickly spread. No one will trust you. Yes, journalists compete, but its more akin to lawyers than sports teams. Like lawyers, journalists will try to tear each other’s throats out pursuing a story, then go have a beer together.

As importantly, catching a liar is a great story. Want a sure way to end up on Page 1, or be the lead item on the evening news, or become the subject of a hundred blogs? Lie. The public will soon know that your company cannot be trusted. Remember too, it is not like the old days when only the people in your city or state might find out. There is this thing called the Internet. Odds are the entire world will know within hours about your transgression.

Okay, so you’ve decided not to lie. You get asked a question you don’t want to answer, so you say “no comment.” This is rule 1A. Saying no comment is always wrong. I don’t care what your attorney told you. We will deal with the role of attorneys in reputation management later. Basically, consider any legal advice carefully. Attorneys think about only one thing – litigation. They too often don’t consider the long term effects of destroying a reputation and credibility.

Saying no comment to a journalist is waving a red flag. When I was reporter, if somebody said no comment, I immediately assumed they were hiding something. I would start digging to find what it was. I knew the general area, because I had asked the question. I usually found out.

I will give  you an example. Milwaukee used to host a very popular Circus Parade. Wisconsin is the original home of the Ringling Brothers Circus. There is a large circus museum in Baraboo, WI. The state has had a long love affair with the circus.

The parade was originally held in the 1950s with wagons and other things provided by the museum. The primary sponsor was the old Schlitz Brewing Company. The parade folded when the brewery closed.

In 1985, a group decided to revive the parade. The backers had set up a huge press conference for a Monday morning to announce its return. The announcement was geared toward our rival Milwaukee paper, which was published in the afternoon. The parade organizers called our city desk on a Sunday afternoon to tell us to come to the press conference. We would have none of that. It meant we would be scooped on a large local story.

So, I was assigned to find out what was going on.  The first person I called, one I knew was probably part of the revival, lied to me. And I knew it. It was the way they acted. That made me angry. So, I called the next person, who also knew what was going on. He “no commented” me. Now frankly, I was pissed. I started really digging until I got the story. We beat every media outlet in town. I ruined their carefully planned media event. My editors were very pleased.

The organizers could have avoided the whole thing if they had just told us what was going on. They could have still found a way to have their big event.

So, what do you do ? You say I cannot answer that question and here’s why. Give a viable explanation, such as it is a competitive area we don’t want to tell our rivals about. Be credible about your answer because it will be checked. If you tell the truth, and you can back it up, most reporters or bloggers will be okay.

Okay, that’s the first lesson.

There is no quiz, but I hoped you learned something.

Please let me know what you think. I appreciate the feedback.

Next week we will talk about interviews and going off the record.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help companies with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link.

I am available for speaking on media relations, or counseling your company on that or on your other public relations needs. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.