You’ve decided it’s time to dip a toe or more into the social media pool. You know the Internet can be a very unforgiving place. You want to make sure you are going to do it right. It’s time to hire agency, but before you do that you want to have your own plan. While you are going to listen to the agency’s advice, you also want to know the landscape and have a general idea of how to get from Point A to Point Z.

This is what I encourage all of my clients to do. Yes, I am the expert, but it helps when they have some ideas of their own. One of the mottoes I live by in my business life is: “all of us are smarter than one of us.” You should do the same. If an agency is unwilling to listen to your input, you are working with the wrong agency. You are paying the bills after all.

Before anything else, this what you have to keep in mind about social media: it is not a tactic, or a strategy or just another way to do what you have always been doing. It is an entirely new way of marketing and it is taking over fast. I am going to cover how fast next week, but know that its use is increasing very, very quickly.

So, what to do first? It most definitely helps that you have your own ideas. The first thing I do when I sign a new client is meet with the principles to discuss their wants and needs. The process goes much faster when both sides have a good idea of the road map they are going to use.

Remember, your social media, marketing and public relations plan should be key parts of the company’s overall strategic plan. Marketing communications should never be treated as an island or silo. Rather, it should be one of the engines driving your company to be successful.

Integrating marketing communications planning with the company’s overall plans is key. I have seen too many companies that keep public relations and marketing in silos. They are only taken out when some senior executive needs to get a message out or sales are dipping. That is just wrong. Public relations and marketing are a company’s front door. It is the first thing a potential client or customer sees.

So, the first step should be to do discuss and define what you want to accomplish. Do a situation analysis. Discuss what the positive and negative forces. Figure out who want to reach and how to do it. Come up with a goal. A goal should be a broad-based destination, where you want your company to go.

It will be up to agency to figure out to reach that goal, to come up with the strategy and tactics for getting you there. But it is key, especially in social media, to know where you are going.

The second thing you should know is that a successful social media campaign takes time and your involvement. This is not like an advertising campaign where you approve campaign concept, check in on the production and then approve the final product.

Social media is a continuing process. It calls for doing things such as blogging, tweeting, creating a Facebook fan page, and posting videos on YouTube. It is highly effective when done right. However, none of those are things you can do once and forget about. It takes your commitment to the process to make it work. Success does not come in a week. Usually it does not come in a month or two. I always tell clients to expect the process to take at least six months to show results.

But when those results do happen, and if done right, they will, the success will be far better than what comes from other method.

NBC demonstrated to me Sunday night that they are tone deaf when it comes to social media. Which means they are tone deaf when it comes to listening to their viewers. That’s dangerous. They should ask United Airlines or Proctor & Gamble what happens when you ignore people who use social media.

If you were watching the Olympics Sunday, you saw what I thought was a pretty good closing ceremony. If you lived anywhere other than the United States, you got to see the ceremony straight through without interruption. If you were unlucky enough to be watching the NBC television network, your Olympic viewing was interrupted by an insipid reality show called “The Marriage Ref,” and local news. In all, there was about an hour break in the viewing. For those living in the eastern time zone of the U.S., that meant they had to stay up until 1 a.m. to see the entire ceremony.

As one who closely monitors social media, I can tell you the Twittersphere was alive with complaints. I have no idea how many, but I can you there were thousands judging by how fast the hashtags #NBC and #NBCFail kept updating. And the anger wasn’t just over the decision to cut off the Olympics; it was also over the decision to bring Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show.

Here’s a sample of the tweets going out on #NBCFail:

• wtfgerard: RT @nNoela: NBC is continuing their Winter Olympics coverage with a new downhill event. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. #imwithcoco #nbcfail I give this tweeter credit for combining his anger on two events into one tweet.
• disappointedme: BOYCOTT LENO and his Olympic killing network. #TeamCoco #imstillwithcoco #NBCFAIL #RIKSHAZ9LIRK #SuckitNBC As a note: the hashtags “I’mwithcoco (Conan O’Brien) was the third most popular topic on Twitter Monday. That’s quite an accomplishment considering there are an estimated 50 million tweets a day.
• MONTANAinAZ: RT @ColorMeRed: Just to thank NBC for their exceptional coverage (sarc) of the Winter Olympics, my TV will be reprogrammed to everything but NBC #NBCfail This was a particularly popular tweet. I saw it at least a dozen times.
• lvnTrey: RT @ChefMark: Although sad that the Olympics is over, I’m happy that NBC’s reign of tyranny on my set is over! #NBCFail. Oh, and #shutupCostas

You get the idea. There was a lot of anger. And a lot of calls for boycotting NBC. The anger went viral pretty quickly. As I write this on Tuesday, it is still going on. If anything, the flames are burning brighter.

What surprised me is that I never saw any response from NBC to all of this. They did apparently use an application called TwitterFeed to send out positive sounding tweets about “The Marriage Ref.” TwitterFeed is an app in which you enter a bunch of tweets at one time and then schedule them to be sent out over whatever time period you want. Judging by the tweets, I would say someone decided to send a tweet about every 10 minutes.  You can often tell someone has done this because the tweets tend to be phrased alike. They stopped when several people called NBC on it.

Doing that is a violation of one of my social media rules: don’t ever pretend to be something you are not. The social media universe hates lying. And, it destroys credibility.

Getting back to my main point, I am shocked frankly that the once proud Peacock Network did nothing to calm down angry viewers. NBC is in fourth place in a four-network race. They cannot afford to do something like this. This is not 15 years ago. Social media keeps things alive.

In NBC’s position, they cannot alienate their stakeholders. Those viewers have other choices. Fox, CBS, ABC and the hundreds of cable channels will all benefit from NBC’s decision not to engage with its viewers. It doesn’t appear NBC understands that. It’s sad.

NBC demonstrated to me Sunday night that they are tone deaf when it comes to social media. Which means they are tone deaf when it comes to listening to their viewers. That’s dangerous. They should ask United Airlines or Proctor & Gamble what happens when you ignore people who use social media.

If you were watching the Olympics Sunday, you saw what I thought was a pretty good closing ceremony. If you lived anywhere other than the United States, you got to see the ceremony straight through without interruption. If you were unlucky enough to be watching the NBC television network, your Olympic viewing was interrupted by an insipid reality show called “The Marriage Ref,” and local news. In all, there was about an hour break in the viewing. For those living in the eastern time zone of the U.S., that meant they had to stay up until 1 a.m. to see the entire ceremony.

As one who closely monitors social media, I can tell you the Twittersphere was alive with complaints. I have no idea how many, but I can you there were thousands judging by how fast the hashtags #NBC and #NBCFail kept updating. And the anger wasn’t just over the decision to cut off the Olympics; it was also over the decision to bring Jay Leno back to the Tonight Show.

Here’s a sample of the tweets going out on #NBCFail:

• wtfgerard: RT @nNoela: NBC is continuing their Winter Olympics coverage with a new downhill event. The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. #imwithcoco #nbcfail I give this tweeter credit for combining his anger on two events into one tweet.
• disappointedme: BOYCOTT LENO and his Olympic killing network. #TeamCoco #imstillwithcoco #NBCFAIL #RIKSHAZ9LIRK #SuckitNBC As a note: the hashtags “I’mwithcoco (Conan O’Brien) was the third most popular topic on Twitter Monday. That’s quite an accomplishment considering there are an estimated 50 million tweets a day.
• MONTANAinAZ: RT @ColorMeRed: Just to thank NBC for their exceptional coverage (sarc) of the Winter Olympics, my TV will be reprogrammed to everything but NBC #NBCfail This was a particularly popular tweet. I saw it at least a dozen times.
• lvnTrey: RT @ChefMark: Although sad that the Olympics is over, I’m happy that NBC’s reign of tyranny on my set is over! #NBCFail. Oh, and #shutupCostas

You get the idea. There was a lot of anger. And a lot of calls for boycotting NBC. The anger went viral pretty quickly. As I write this on Tuesday, it is still going on. If anything, the flames are burning brighter.

What surprised me is that I never saw any response from NBC to all of this. They did apparently use an application called TwitterFeed to send out positive sounding tweets about “The Marriage Ref.” TwitterFeed is an app in which you enter a bunch of tweets at one time and then schedule them to be sent out over whatever time period you want. Judging by the tweets, I would say someone decided to send a tweet about every 10 minutes.  You can often tell someone has done this because the tweets tend to be phrased alike. They stopped when several people called NBC on it.

Doing that is a violation of one of my social media rules: don’t ever pretend to be something you are not. The social media universe hates lying. And, it destroys credibility.

Getting back to my main point, I am shocked frankly that the once proud Peacock Network did nothing to calm down angry viewers. NBC is fourth place in a four-network race. They cannot afford to do something like this. This is not 15 years ago. Social media keeps things alive.

In NBC’s position, they cannot alienate their stakeholders. Those viewers have other choices. Fox, CBS, ABC and the hundreds of cable channels will all benefit from NBC’s decision not to engage with its viewers. It doesn’t appear NBC understands that. It’s sad.

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.

This rant might not resonate with you unless you live someplace where it snows a lot. I do. I live in Milwaukee, WI, a great, great city. Milwaukee is located in the northern United States. Winter can be tough here. It get’s cold and it does what it does every winter, it snows.

Snow is no surprise here. We tend to expect it to start snowing sometime around late November or early December. It keeps snowing until late March or early April – sometimes it snows into May. For those of you who live anywhere on Earth where there’s winter, I am sure the same thing happens where you live. As I said, it’s winter, it gets cold, and it snows. This has been going on for millions of years.

So, why do television stations go crazy whenever more than two inches of snow is predicted? Now, I am not talking about snow in a normally warm weather city such as Dallas, Texas or Charlotte, N.C. Snow is news there because it so rarely happens.

However, in my home city of Milwaukee, or in Chicago or Boston, snow is not news to most of us. Yet, every time the forecast calls for snow to fall, the local television stations treat the event as if aliens were invading. Broadcasts start at 4 a.m.; reporters are deployed around the area; all programming is canceled to make way for weather reports; and television meteorologists stand in front of blue screens looking very serious.

(A quick television note: the meteorologists cannot actually see that large, nifty map behind them. All they see is a blue screen. When they do the broadcast, they are looking at off-camera monitor that shows the map.)

Now, this hysteria over some snow is a result of marketing run amuck. A long time ago, some marketing consultant told some station manager that people like weather news. I always imagined the conversation happening in a bar after the station manager had consumed several adult beverages paid for by the marketer. Once the station manager was in an “agreeable” mood, the marketer told him about the “viewers like weather” idea. At this point, the station manager decided that sounded good and signed the contract the marketer shoved toward him.

The marketing guy goes to work the next morning and remakes the station’s newscast, giving weather reports way more prominence then deserved. For whatever reason, ratings rose. The marketing guy discourages doing an actual study of why ratings went up. Hey, the only change was the way the forecast was delivered, right? So, it had to be that.

Other local television station managers took note. Station managers are under constant pressure to raise ratings – their jobs often depend on it. Local news is a revenue source. So, seeing what happened to their buddy’s station, they do the same. The next thing you know, from Bangor, Maine to Portland, Oregon, television reporters are standing on street corners with rulers, measuring snow depth. Others are asking truck drivers whether icy roads are slippery. All this is done with the gravitas of reporting a major announcement from the White House.

So, when there is a normal snowfall coming, we now get hysterics instead of reasoned, normal coverage.

And I don’t think people care that much about snowstorms. I think I am like most people – all I want to know when it is going to snow and what the temperature will be. Of course, they get those wrong more than half the time.  If there is a major freeway accident, tell me about that too so I can change my route. But don’t treat it like World War III has broken out.

One final note: a very fine classic rock radio station in Milwaukee, WKLH, now has what they call “storm tracker tracker.” Basically, they make fun of the hype over the weather. I recommend listening to them. Just click on the link. You will laugh out loud.

Since posting the very popular rant last Wednesday on there being too many social media sites, I have had some requests for a post on what is proper social media etiquette. I wrote on the same subject almost a year ago. Like Emily Post did, I think it is time to update. So, let’s get to it.

• Let’s start at signing up for a site. Think of yourself as being at a party or in a meeting. You would tell people your real name, something about yourself and what you do. It’s no different in social media. So:
  • First, use your real name – not something cute. This is the only way that people are going to know you. If you were hunting for an employee, or hiring someone to perform a service, would you hire “drunkguy05” or “sexxxygirl02?” Plus, if you want to be found, the odds are much better if you use your real name.
  • Second, post a picture of yourself, not your dog, not a pretty sunset, or some weird avatar. People want to know what you look like. Why wouldn’t you post your own picture? You on the run from the law?
  • If you have one, include a link to a blog, another site such as LinkedIn or Facebook. This shows you are a real person. Definitely link to your website if you have one.
  • Include a short bio of yourself. Again, this gives people an idea of who you are.
  • This next rule should be obvious, but people violate it all the time. DO NOT SPAM. If you are joining a site simply to sell me something, go away. That’s not the purpose of social media. I am glad you asked – it is to have a conversation, link with like-minded people and share information. It is not to buy real estate in Goa, or some system that promises me I will get rich working five a hours a week. Or a system that makes me into a spammer. If I get those kind of invitations, I will block you, and I will report you to the site administrators. Of course, that goes double for all of those porn people out there.
  • Once you sign up for a site, it is perfectly acceptable to invite your friends – once. Not six times. As I said last week, if I don’t respond to your invitation, it means I don’t want to join. After the third time, I am going to send you to my spam filter, never to return. And know something about the people you are inviting. As a personal example, I am an Apple; I will never be a PC. So don’t invite me to join Windows Live. It is not going to happen.
  • On that subject, there is quantity versus quality debate in social media. Some experts argue that the idea is to accumulate as many followers as possible. Their thesis goes you want to distribute whatever you are sending out to the widest possible network. The other side it is better to be followed by a 100 people who are influencers in their networks. I come somewhere in the middle. It is up to you to decide. However, this is not high school – the person with the most friends does not win.
  • After you join a site, get active on it. Why else would you join?  That doesn’t mean you have to spend every waking minute posting. But, if you join Twitter, tweet twice a day. If you are Facebook, post an update or two each day. You get the idea. I will not follow anyone who invites me to join a site, but has done nothing there themselves.
  • As part of the above bullet, respond to other people’s post. That’s just good manners. If you want people to respond to what you do, you should have the courtesy to do the same for them.
  • Another thing for you LinkedIn people – unless you know someone personally or have worked closely with them, don’t recommend them. And do not send out blanket requests for recommendations to total strangers. How good could a recommendation be if you nothing about someone? Plus, what if you called by a potential employer who asks you about some stranger you recommended? You are going to look dumb and the odds are very good that the candidate will not get the job.
  • A final note – there is no privacy in social media. Well really, there is no privacy in the Internet Age period. So, if you don’t want people to know something, don’t post it anywhere. Things on the web never really go away. Along those lines, all of you college kids who have those really cool photos of that weekend in Cabo where you took your clothes off and jumped into the ocean – take them down. Many companies will not hire someone if they see such photos. Yeah, it is not fair, but that’s the way it is.



I am one of the most active social media users I know. I have more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections, more than 8,000 Twitter followers, about 500 Facebook followers and over 100 on YouTube. I blog twice a week. I also use Plaxo, FriendFeed and some other sites. I should be doing this – it’s my business. I run a social media marketing agency. Would you hire someone to do social media if they didn’t use it?

I have some problems with social media though – or more accurately, the people who are now using it. So, they are:

• The people who invite me to join a site to which I already belong. Every site has a search function that allows you to check members’ name. Do that before you invite someone to join Facebook or LinkedIn.
• The constant creation of new sites. I have yet to see one that could replace LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube or Facebook. Look, this ground has been plowed already. I think those sites are here to stay. Maybe one of those four will be “AOL – The Sequel,” but I doubt it. That is not to say there are not some good sites, but enough already with the constant creation.
• The constant invitations I get to join those new sites. If I don’t respond, it means I do not want to join. Don’t keep sending invitations. It is annoying and a breach of social media etiquette. After three invitations, you go into my spam file, never to return.
• The growing number of multi-level marketing people appearing on social media. To paraphrase Shakespeare: spam by another name still smells as bad. Just because you are sending the information via a new medium doesn’t make it anymore believable.
• As long we are on the subject, no one works five hours a week and gets rich. Steve Jobs, George Soros, Warren Buffett and all those other self-made billionaires worked really hard to get where they hard. I suspect they are still putting in 15-hour days. The only people who make money off those schemes are those selling them.
• And one more point on that subject, you do not have to spend money on search engine optimization to get your webpage to the top of Google rankings. This blog is rated a top website by Google. It is consistently is on the front page of Google searches. I spent a lot of time achieving that, but no money. It just takes work.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest, I am curious what your social media pet peeves are. Let me know.

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.

When I first thought about writing this rant, I was considering ripping Toyota a new one. The way the automaker has handled the public relations for its various relations recalls was nothing short of abysmal. I think the White Star Line handled the initial P.R. dealing with the Titanic’s sinking better than Toyota did its accelerator problems.

But as the New Orleans Saints can attest, being behind in the first half doesn’t mean the game is lost.

Full disclosure: I drive a 2000 Toyota Camry. Both my children drive Corollas. However, I have never received compensation of any kind from Toyota. The closest I have come to anyone from the corporate side was Monday, Feb. 8^th when Jim Lentz, president and chief operating officer of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, was asked a question I had posted as part of a Digg Dialog.

At any rate, yes, Toyota was slow off the mark with its response to the accelerator issue. The initial statement in which the company said customer safety was “very important” to them made me cringe. They should have said that customer safety was the “most important” thing to the company. Saying “very” made me wonder what was more important.

Since then, however, the company has recovered its equilibrium. Frankly, I think doing all of the recalls at once is very a smart tactic. It’s the band-aid theory of action – some people take a band-aid off slowly. The pain might be less, but it is prolonged. Or, one can rip the band-off quickly and get it over with. It hurts more at first, but the pain goes away faster.

The apologies have come from the top down, which is a good start. The leadership has been willing to take the heat. Lenz has been everywhere, which is smart. He seems unflappable, he is well-spoken and he doesn’t shy away from tough questions. All good qualities in the crisis team leader.

That’s what Toyota is doing – they are taking their licks all at once. Yes, it is painful at first, but they will put it behind them.

It’s not like it is the only auto company to recall defective automobiles. Here, from Reuters News Service, is a list of recalls from 1971 on:

• 1971 – General Motors recalls 6.7 million vehicles due to engine mounts that separated from the vehicle and impacted the throttle.
• 1981 – GM recalls 5.8 million vehicles due to loose suspension bolts that affected steering.
• 1996 – Ford recalls more than eight million vehicles to replace defective ignition switches that could have led to electrical shorts and engine fires.
• July 1998 – GM recalls close to one million Cadillac, Pontiac and Chevrolet cars because of fears the air bags may have deployed by accident.
• Aug. 2000 – Japanese tire maker Bridgestone Corp recalls 14.4 million ATX, ATX II and Wilderness tires of certain sizes installed on Ford Motor Co.’s Explorer SUVs and sold separately in stores. The recall applied to all tires produced at the company’s Firestone U.S. division.
• 2004 – GM recalls nearly four million pickups because of corroding tailgate cables.
• April 2005 – GM recalls more than two million vehicles to fix a variety of potential safety defects, most of them on cars and trucks sold in the U.S., which includes 1.5 million full-size pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles from the 2003 to 2005 model years with second-row seat belts that GM says may be difficult to properly position across passengers’ hips.
• Oct. 2005 – Toyota recalls about 1.41 million cars globally, including the Corolla and 15 other models, due to trouble with their headlight switching systems.
• Dec. 2007 – Chrysler LLC recalls 575,417 vehicles as long-term wear on the gearshift assembly could cause them to shift out of park without the key in the ignition. The recall involved 2001 to 2002 model-year Dodge Dakota pickup trucks, Durango sports utility vehicles and Ram van models and 2002 model-year Ram pickup trucks.
• Aug. 2008 – GM recalls 857,735 vehicles equipped with a heated windshield-wiper fluid system in the United States after the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a short-circuit in the system may cause other electrical features to malfunction, increasing the risk of a fire.

For the record, Toyota has recalled 3.8 million vehicles in the latest recall and 4.2 million since 1971. Since 1971, General Motors has recalled 20.4 million of its autos. Ford has recalled 8 million, while Chrysler brought the rear with 575,417.

If you remember, the other automakers often resisted recalls. The Bridgestone tire problems, for instance, came to light because of a 60 Minutes news report. At least Toyota admitted it had a problem and dealt with it.

The key now is how Toyota will handle the issue going forward. I have some ideas that I will discuss next week that I think could help.

The latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor estimate the current unemployment rate at 9.7 percent. That’s 9.3 million people who are unemployed. Globally, it is estimated by the United Nations’ International Labor Office that 212 million people are out of work.

As a note, in the United States you are only of work if you are collecting unemployment. Once you stop, you are no longer counted. There are some arguments that the real unemployment rate is 17.3 percent – depending how you want to crunch the numbers.

Things don’t look good right now for a lot of job seekers.  There are approximately 2.4 million job openings in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You know that expression about the five pounds of feces and the one-pound bag – well, I think we are seeing it in action.

I wrote about job hunting back in November. Things have actually gotten worse since then. I thought it was time to touch in the subject again, Here are some other suggestions on finding a job.

How Does Social Media Figure Into That?
What does this all have to do with social media? It’s simple really. With approximately four workers for every position, it behooves anyone looking for a job to develop an edge. The days of just sending out a resume, or responding to a job post are long gone. Let’s face it; any company with an opening is drowning in a tidal wave of resumes and cover letters. I doubt most are even read.

You need to do something to stand out – I mean really stand out. Yeah, you guessed it – get active on social media. Why? It will help you get noticed

Remember, most positions are never advertised. Companies that have openings compile a list of possible candidates through their own searches.

According to author Richard Nelson Bolles in his job-hunting book “What Color Is Your Parachute?” the average hiring manager is scared to death that he will hire the wrong person. Anything you can do to calm that person down is a positive.

Incidentally, I highly recommend Bolles’ book. It is old media, but it is very effective. It helped me when I changed careers.

Here are seven things I would do if I were job hunting:

• If I didn’t have one already, I would create a LinkedIn profile. Studies show that 80 percent of human resources people make LinkedIn their stop with looking for a new employee. Although I not seen a reason why that is, I suspect it is because LinkedIn is a trusted resource.
• On that LinkedIn profile, I would make sure my former co-workers had posted recommendations about me. Again, employers seem to trust these more.
• Also on LinkedIn, I would join the groups that correspond with my profession. I would do that for three reasons:
  • Almost all groups have a jobs section. It’s a good place to start looking
  • It’s a great place to network. Tell people you are looking for a job. Probably 10 percent of my over 5,000 connections list themselves as “in transition.” Talking to others in your profession will give you a leg up in the job hunt.
  • It is a good place to demonstrate your expertise. All of the groups list questions and statement from members. Answer those questions and respond to the statements. Ask your own questions.
• Start a blog about your area of expertise. Several studies have shown that blogs are the most effective kind of marketing. However, blogs are also the rated the most difficult thing to do. It takes time commitment and consistency to produce a good blog. But, it is the best way to demonstrate expertise. Write about what you did in career, talk about how you solved problems and the challenges you faced. All things a human resources person wants to know. Make sure you link the blog to your LinkedIn profile.
• Create a personal web page. It is very cheap to buy a domain name through a service such as Go Daddy. Make is a “business” page with you as the company. Sell yourself as if you were a company.
• Create a video resume and post it on YouTube. Again, link it to your web page LinkedIn profile. This will give potential employers a chance to see and hear you.
• I know some of you are going to ask about Facebook and Twitter. Twitter is a good to tell people about your blog and ask questions. Facebook – well, I am not so sure. Yes there are now 375 million who use the service. But, there is so much noise on it. I will tell you one thing you should do on Facebook – if you have embarrassing pictures, or questionable posts, take them down. Many employers are now requiring employment candidates to allow themselves to be friended on Facebook by the company so the company can review the candidate. The last thing you want them to see is that picture of you in Key West, drinking from a beer bong. I know of companies that have passed on people because of such pictures.

Good luck.

Writers note: I would to thank all of you that signed up with Google Friend Connect. It is both flattering and humbling to know you think enough of this blog to make that commitment.

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.

I don’t watch a lot of late night television. Like most people in my generation, I watched Johnny Carson now and then. However, I was more into the “Midnight Special” and “Saturday Night Live” when it was good. Now, if I watch anything past 10:30 p.m., it is either Nightline, Letterman or once in a great while, Craig Ferguson.

Jay Leno

None of those shows are essential viewing for me. So maybe that’s why I don’t understand all this brouhaha over Jay Leno forcing Conan O’Brien off the air. I mean, come on, these are two people who make their living by helping celebrities plug their latest project. Neither man is one-tenth the interviewer Charlie Rose or Tavis Smiley are.  They never, ever tackle a controversial subject. What’s the big deal?

Conan O'Brien

It is not as if one of them had their research grant pulled just as they were about to cure cancer. Or, they served in Iraq or Afghanistan. They are comedians, for goodness sakes.

Heck, I remember a Leno-hosted  “Tonight” show when far right pundit Ann Coulter was on. The other guest was the late left-wing comedian George Carlin. Now, this could have been great television. Coulter and Carlin could have verbally slugged it out. Instead, Leno asked Coulter a bunch vapid questions while Carlin said quietly on the couch. It was just boring.

O’Brien can be very funny. When I worked nights as a reporter, I used to wind down watching O’Brien on “Late Night.” He came on at 11:30 p.m. in the Midwest. I later the discovered I could do the same reading a good book. But you know what – I miss Tom Snyder on the Tomorrow Show. Now there was a great interviewer. Sadly, I don’t think most people today would appreciate Snyder.

Okay, so from a public relations standpoint, NBC really messed up

Yeah, I know NBC messed up the transition. How they handled the switch should be taught in public relations and marketing classes as the way not to do something. Or, conversely, if the goal is to generate tons of negative publicity, handle it the way the people at 30 Rockefeller Center did.

Still, I still don’t get what all the fuss is about.

********

I had a lot of comments on my last rant about the Microsoft commercials. Apparently what I missed was that two individuals were fantasizing about what they thought they looked liked when they came up with Windows 7. What can I say; I rarely give Microsoft points for subtly. But, I apparently I didn’t get the joke – which might say something about the ad’s effectiveness.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw what can happen when employees buy into a company’s overall marketing plan. I also saw what happens when a company representative ignores what a company should be doing. In the first case, I will recommend the company to my friends and to you. In the second, I will never talk about them, never endorse them, and if asked, will tell people what I think.

Case One – The Good Guys

The first case involves clothier Lands’ End. I buy a lot of my clothes from them. They are a Wisconsin-based company (albeit now owned by Sears.) I try to shop local whenever I can. But, that doesn’t mean I will forsake quality just because something is made in my home state. Lands’ End makes quality clothing.

(Note to FTC: I have not received any form of payment from Lands’ End. I doubt they even read my blog.)

At any rate, a few months ago I bought a pair of blue jeans from the Dodgeville, Wis. – based company. I wear jeans a lot. If I am working in the office all day, I wear jeans. When I am doing a repair project at home, or working outside, I wear jeans. I expect them to be comfortable and to last for a couple of years.

While the Lands’ jeans were comfortable, they started showing signs of wear with a few weeks. When a hole appeared where I sit, I went to return them to a local Lands’ End store. I had not saved the receipt.

The people in the store could have not been nicer. They looked at the jeans, checked the computer to find my account, and took the pants back no questions asked. The manager credited my credit card for the money I had spent.

What that manager did was ensure I will buy Lands’ End products for a long time. Among the other things it does, Lands’ End promises superior customer service. I am sure it is written into their business and marketing plans. More importantly, I am sure the expectation to provide that kind of service is communicated to the company’s employees.

That’s key to a company’s ethos. It isn’t enough to have a great marketing plan. Employees have to buy into it.

Now, for the other side

Both my children are getting married this year. My son and daughter are marrying wonderful people whom I really like

Since my wife and I parents of the bride in my daughter’s case, we are responsible for handling a lot of the arrangements. One of the key things we are doing is hiring a caterer. I suggested ordering 50 or so pizzas, but no one went for my idea.

Actually, my wife is handling most of the arrangements. She is smarter than I am and much better at this kind of thing.

So, she started contacting caterers. Milwaukee is a large city and we had a lot to choose from. One thing I should note is that my daughter is a vegetarian. When my wife contacted a number of caterers, she specified there had to be a vegetarian option. My wife also did her homework. She contacted friends and some food suppliers to ask which catering companies were best.

After narrowing the list down to two finalists. She emailed them both and asked for information. One responded quickly and provided all of the information requested. We were impressed. The other, frankly, took its time.

When the second caterer responded, they did not include a vegetarian option with their menu. Now, my wife is a very nice person. She patiently explained to the second caterer they did not provide the requested information. We got a nasty response that claimed the information was never requested. Wrong, we have the emails. My wife suggested they be more careful next time.

The reply my wife received read as follows: “THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUGGESTION.” Yes, it was in caps. That means the person was shouting.

I am not naming the caterer because it is not going to mean anything to most of you. And, I still want to give the company the benefit of the doubt. Maybe this person is not representative of the organization. I would not want to sully the entire company because of one idiot.

That being said, if anyone asks my wife or I what we think of this company, we are going to relate the above story. Would you want to hire them after hearing it?

The Moral

Now this caterer might have great business and marketing plans in place. Those plans might call for superior customer service. If they do, it doesn’t matter. Those plans are just so many meaningless words because one employee forgot their job to serve the client.

If you have been reading my blog, you know I am no fan of Microsoft’s marketing. The Redmond, Wash.-based company’s efforts come way too close to the line between truth and fabrication for my taste. Remember the commercials where a “real person,” who turned out to be an actress didn’t really go into an Apple Store, as she claimed.

Oops, they’ve done it again

Well, the company has done it again in the two commercials I have seen for Windows 7. In one, a very tall man named “Jack” claims he had the idea for Windows 7 while in the shower. They show him having his idea in the shower.

However, watch the commercial closely. The guy in the shower is not the same person who says he came up with Windows 7. If “Jack” is a real person, why the body double? Was he too shy to take off his shirt?

The same thing happens in a second commercial. “Steve” tells of having his revelation (complete with Angelic music). But, to me the problem is the “Steve” trimming the bushes when the light bulb is not the same man who is telling the story. Watch the commercial to see for yourself. The gardening one is taller and frankly more buff.

So what’s the big deal?

Why do I care, you ask? Don’t all commercials bend the truth?

Not all of them. In fact, most companies try to be honest. You find out quickly enough if they are or aren’t easily enough. In these days of social media, it is not hard to check claims. Companies who cheat are outed pretty quickly, I have found.

Frankly, given Microsoft’s record with the Apple commercials, I would think they would want to be very careful with their marketing. If they can’t even tell the truth about the people in their commercials, what else isn’t the company not telling us? This is why I am a member of the Apple cult.

I do have to say I like one Microsoft product – Excel. In fact, I love Excel. It is so easy to use and very functional. I also used to use Word because it is so ubiquitous. However, I am now using Google Docs more and more as it is easier to share information.

For almost everything else, I primarily use Apple products. I am writing on MacBook. As I said, I a member of the cult.

So, what do you think?

Okay, social media scares many C-suite people. That’s no surprise. Because if you are honest when you present, you should make them realize that using social media means acknowledging they don’t have complete control of their brand. Of course, they never really did. A brand’s identity is determined in the marketplace. It’s what consumers think – be they business-to-business or business-to-consumer – that defines a brand

It is hard for most senior executive to admit they really never had control of their brand. Facing that means acknowledging that all the money spent on marketing and advertising did not provide a failsafe way to ensure happy consumers and ever increasing sales.

Social Media will allow them to listen to what consumers are saying

Social media won’t do that either. However, unlike advertising, it doesn’t make that promise. What it does promise is a way to listen into and influence the conversation that is already taking place about a company or a brand. The odds are far better that there will be a positive outcome if a company knows what is being said.

Some executives will respond that they already know what their customers are thinking. After all, people will send emails when they have a complaint. That’s true. But remember, a person who is so upset that they are motivated to send an email is usually not representative of the customer base. Blog and Twitter comments will provide a far more accurate picture of what people are thinking.

Also unlike traditional marketing, those using social media want to hear the negative comments. How else does one get better unless one knows what the problems are? The good thing about this method it is much more inclusive. Rather than relying a focus group or a marketing study, a company has opened up its comments to entire customer base. That is much more representative of what’s actually happening.

How does one listen to these conversations? By creating a Twitter brand, by blogging, by having a Facebook page and a LinkedIn group. In addition, videos posted on YouTube are good. In each of these cases, and in other social media applications, you are looking for people to comment. It is from those comments that you will find what people are thinking.

Eventually what you to do is convert those commenter’s into fans and eventually evangelists for your brand. I will talk about how to do that in another post. But, I have just told you the first step.

Social Media takes time

After you describe all of this, the next objection is going to arise – social media takes time. Writing a blog, maintaining a fan page on Facebook, Tweeting and responding to Tweets, answering questions on LinkedIn, posting videos and monitoring and responding to comments are not something that can be done in an hour once a week.

These are many executives who used to their agency doing all the work. All they have to do is approve the campaign and make sure the agency has access to whomever it needs to work with at the company. It is a kind of “fire and forget” strategy. Now, you are asking them to become an active part of their own marketing effort.

Remember, social media is not a tactic or a strategy. It is an entirely new way of marketing. It requires a commitment to stick with it. Nothing turns off a potential customer more than sporadic, unscheduled use of social media. Blogs especially have to be posted on a specific schedule. Nothing kills a blog following faster than making it hard to find. The same thing applies to a Facebook fan page or a YouTube video channel.

This is, of course, your opportunity. You are there to teach them about social media and maintain their accounts. You are the solution to their problems of time management. It why they will hire you.

One note though – do not, ever, write your client’s blog yourself. You can edit it; you can proofread it, but don’t write it. That’s dishonest. PR firms have gotten into trouble for doing things like that. Tweeting for them is fine, as is maintaining the Facebook page. Just don’t be a ghostwriter. You want those thoughts about the company or product to come from someone who really knows it. Plus, consumers react badly when they perceive something isn’t what it purports to be.

There is more to do on social media. I will discuss the most important element next week. Stay tuned.

Customer service is something I know a bit about. I have worked in retail twice in my life – once in high school when I worked for a small grocery store and once as an adult when I was a professional bicycle mechanic. I also spend a lot of time in my local Apple store, playing with the toys. And let’s not forget my local Ace Hardware store – another place where I go as often as possible.

When I worked in retail, I learned the right level of customer service. The rule I was taught was to offer help once and then go away. If they want help, they will ask. Don’t annoy the customer. An annoyed customer is much less likely to buy something. They are also going to tell their friends about the obnoxious help. That keeps customers away.

I have three examples of bad customer service I want to rant about. I am going to go more in-depth Monday blog on this in a few weeks. But, I have blow off some steam.

First, why do people still persist in being obnoxious when they try to sell something? I am not going to name any names here, but I have two different companies try to sell me services lately. Both are services I would consider using if business was better. But, it’s not. I have told representatives from both companies I am just not sure right now – yet they keep calling me.

I finally got rid of one, but the other keeps calling and emailing me. That kind of obnoxious persistence guarantees I won’t buy anything from them.

Second, along those same lines, I have a business credit card. I have had it for almost two years. I like the service I receive from the company. They have been very good a couple of times when there were questionable charges. The statements are clear and easy to read.

I know they know who I am because I keep getting bills from them, which is fine. However, I also get constant solicitations from them asking my company to use their business card. They really ought to merge their marketing and customer lists. It is not that hard to do – I have done it myself for clients.

Third, I have a new printer. It is giving me fits. It keeps telling my laptop it is out of ink when I know it is not. I spent a long time on the phone with so-called technical support. The best the person could come up with was to send me two new ink cartridges. He had no clue what was going on.

Now, the company’s technical support was very good when I had an earlier printer problem. The person I talked to then correctly diagnosed when my laptop refused to admit the printer existed. This person was patient and walked me through what I had to do to correct the problem. The entire process took maybe 20 minutes.

Given the two examples though, which experience do you think the average customer is going to remember? It is human nature to remember the bad and forget the good. There is no wiggle room in customer service.

That’s why I love the Apple store and my local Ace Hardware store. In both cases, the employees are expert in what they do, promptly provide help when you ask for it, but do not hover. Give me that kind of experience any day. I will keep coming back for more.

So, you review your new client’s needs and decide social media is the best course. Or, you are pitching a potential client and feel using social media would be the most effective way to meet their needs. The problem is the CMO and CEO are in their ‘50s and think The Wall Street Journal is the be-all and end-all of information dissemination. They think Facebook is a place where their kids waste time in mindless pursuits and tweeting is what birds do.

This is a more common situation than one would think. It is true that more and more major corporations are turning to social media for their marketing needs. However, there are still a large group of executives who frankly don’t get it.

As an aside, I have run into public relations executives who also don’t get it. They have told me they are taking a wait and see posture on social media. I get the feeling these people’s great-grandparents were buggy whip makers in 1908 when the first Model T drove by. They told themselves this automobile thing was a passing fad.

So, how to do you leap that hurdle?

So, how do you convince the person in charge that using Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools are the most cost effective – and just plain effective – way to market? It’s not easy, but it doesn’t have to be as hard as you would think.

The first step I take is to ask the person in charge if they use LinkedIn. According to the latest numbers I have seen, approximately 80 percent of employment managers go to LinkedIn first when looking to hire. So, the odds are fair to even that the CEO and CMO are at least familiar with LinkedIn. If you are really lucky, they have their own LinkedIn profiles.

The odds are also good that they don’t realize LinkedIn is a social media application. If they have a LinkedIn profile, explain they are already using social media. I often see resistance crumble at this point. Once they realize they are already using social media, explaining the rest is easier. You are not home yet, but at least you have hit a solid double.

But, what if they don’t use any social media?

Now, if they don’t have a LinkedIn profile, I sometimes show them social media’s dark side. “United Breaks Guitars,” the Motrin moms, and the Comcast stuff will often make the people in charge sit up and take notice. What I tell them is social media can kill your company before you even know you are bleeding. For instance, I have read estimates that United Airlines lost an estimated $100 million because of “United Breaks Guitars.” Watch a CFO’s ears perk up when he hears that number.

Of course, fear is not the only motivation you should use. After scaring them, tell them of social media’s successes. Southwest Airlines had one of its most successful fare sales ever primarily by using Twitter, Paula Berg, the airline’s manager of Emerging Media said at a conference I attended last fall. PepsiCo has pulled all its Super Bowl advertising. Instead of television ads, the soda company is going to spend $20 million on a social media campaign.

“… the Pepsi Refresh Project is about getting the global community to nominate projects that need funding in local communities, you upload your video/project profile, gather as many votes as you can by spamming the social sphere and the top projects will win finding from $5k multiple times per month up to $250k a few times every month,” according to the Digital Buzz blog.

There are a lot more examples of the successful use of social media. There are thousands of companies using Twitter. Ford, Honda, Jet Blue, the Marriot Hotel chain, Wachovia, and Sun Microsystems are heavily involved in it. You will find the same results for companies using Facebook.

Remember, most CEOs – especially in this business climate – don’t want to be a pioneer. They want to know that whatever you are proposing has worked for someone else. Once they know it has worked for others, they are willing to listen.

Now, if you find their competitors are already using social media, you have broken through another wall. Remember, those C-suite people are judged on results. Their board of directors, their shareholders, their lenders, analysts and journalists are all looking over their shoulders. Those company leaders do not want to discover they are losing market share to a competitor that is using Facebook or Twitter when they are not. In this case, they already see the benefit.

There is much more to talk about when it comes to pitching social media. I will cover more of the topic in next Monday’s blog.

I work from a home office.

That’s good because it cuts way down on costs, my commute takes about 30 seconds, and I don’t have to share the bathroom with anyone other than my smarter half. It’s bad because there are way too many distractions in my house.

One of those is the television. I am a news junkie, so I flip on the television on during the day to see what’s happening in the world. I haven’t been a working reporter for almost a decade, but I am still hooked on current events.

So the other day I turn on the tube only to see a commercial for denture adhesive. Three women of a certain age were singing about the joys of this adhesive to the tune of the Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love.”

My first thought was WTF?!?! I am sure Phil and Don Everly were not thinking about loose teeth when they were recorded the song in 1957.  (I was three-years-old when the song came out. My late older brother was big fan of the duo, so I heard it a lot.)

“Bye Bye Love” was one of those bouncy little pop ballads that were so prevalent in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. Hearing that song made me realize that the industry I am in is co-opting my formative years. I don’t like it.

For those of you who are not Baby Boomers, I realize we get pretty boring rhapsodizing about how great things were 40-years-ago. But, we had to listen to my parents stories about their generation. Now it’s your turn to listen to us.

You have to remember how controversial rock was in the ‘50s and ‘60s. When Elvis appeared for the first time on Ed Sullivan, they only showed him from the waist up. It was thought way too scandalous to show his gyrations. Seems a little tame now when you think about Madonna kissing Brittany Spears or Adam Lambert going all bi-sexual on national television. That’s one of the things we love about it. It was considered untouchable by anybody but us damned hippie kids.

Abbie Hoffman - the man who predicted our music would be co-opted.

I don’t think Steppenwolf would have been allowed to play “Magic Carpet Ride” on broadcast television forty years ago. After all, whether it is actually true or not, we always assumed the song was about getting high. People sang about such things in the ‘60s.

So, I Google the song and discover Wendy’s used a version of it in a commercial. Well, I suppose that marriage of music and marketing kind of works. You know, munchies ….

In fact, that Google search turned up three pages on About.com of popular songs used in commercials. What used to be the anthems of rebellion are now background music for selling hamburgers and cars.

Excuse me, but I have to say it: Bummer Dude!

Well, the late Abbie Hoffman did predict this was going to happen – I think in his opus “Steal This Book.” (Which I did, but then someone stole from me. It’s what Hoffman wanted to happen, but I digress.) The point he made was that eventually society co-opts everything. Oh, well, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Although I have yet to hear any commercial using the lyrics from John Lennon’s song New York City:

Standing on the corner

Just me and Yoko Ono

We was waiting for Jerry to land

Up come a man with a guitar in his hand

Singing, “Have a marijuana if you can”

His name was David Peel

And we found that he was real

He sang, “The Pope smokes dope every day”

Up come a policeman shoved us up the street

Singing, “Power to the people today!”

So, maybe there are some corners that are still untouchable.

There has been a lot of debate in the blogosphere lately about whether television is still a viable place for companies to hawk their wares. Those who argue old school marketing methods aren’t going anywhere for a long time say television is still a great place to set up a booth. Those who have imbibed the social media wine argue just the opposite – that television is as much a dinosaur as print.

Well, I think that for a time, both sides are right. However, if the sun isn’t yet setting on television for marketing, it is late afternoon. Why you ask?

A lot of eyes still watch the television screen

Well, let’s consider the latest report from Nielsen. In comparing American television viewership, the research service found that overall television viewership had risen by 1.9 percent to 153:27 hours a month in the first quarter of 2009. That’s an average of just over five hours a day.

(Editor’s note: Who has five hours a day to watch television? That’s 35 hours a week. Assume people work about 45 hours a week, spend another 10 hours commuting, and sleep 56 hours a week, that leaves 22 hours a week, or three hours a day, to get everything else done. No wonder most Americans look so bleary-eyed.)

According to Nielsen, approximately 284 million Americans watched television in the first quarter of last year. That number increased by 1.2 percent over the same period in 2008. For analysis purposes, that number was flat.

Still, that means approximately 80 percent of the American population was watching television. If I were marketing something, I think I would consider using television as part of the campaign – depending on the age of the consumer I wanted to reach.

TiVo and DVRs are changing the game

The Nielsen report found something else that is very interesting – approximately 79 million Americans watched “time-shifted” television. In other words, they recorded a show to watch later. They spent about eight hours a month doing that – a 37 percent increase over the first quarter of 2008.

Nielsen also found that “online video grew 13 percent in Q1 2009, driven by both strong brand marketing and large media events including the Presidential inauguration, the Super Bowl and March Madness. With broadband levels increasing in the U.S., online video audiences will continue to grow as consumers begin to upgrade their PCs to support increased video consumption. Mobile video viewing (on smart phones) has grown a significant 52 percent from the previous year, up to 13.4 million Americans. Much of this growth continues to come from increased mobile content and the rise of the mobile web as a viewing option.”

The researchers found that 131.1 million Americans watched video on the Internet in the first quarter of 2009 – a 13 percent increase over the same period as 2008.

What do time shifting, watching video online and on smart phones have in common – little or no advertising. Anyone who owns a DVR knows that it is programmed to skip by commercials. Most DVRs record the last five seconds of commercial to ensure none of the program is missed. That’s why marketers in Europe are developing five-second ads. They hope they can at least make an impression on a viewer.

I think we are about to see a massive change in the way people wath videos.

I think what we are seeing is a shift away from traditional television watching. As I said, the sun hasn’t set yet on traditional television. But it’s late afternoon for the 70-year-old medium.

The report notes that the age group that spends the most time watching time-shifted television are the 24- to 35-year-olds. They spent just over 12 hours a month watching something they had recorded. What marketers should really notice is that 12- to 17-year-olds spend the most time watching video on their phones – 6.5 hours a month. This is a group everybody wants to reach. The theory is that they haven’t yet formed any brand loyalty.

So, what I take from this is that the younger you are, the less likely you are to be wedded to traditional television. Oh, you still watch it, but you are gradually integrating newer technologies into your viewing universe.

Incidentally, while I don’t have any data to back this up, I think the same thing is happening in the rest of the world. In fact, since on-line video watching demands broadband hookups, I have a feeling the rest of the world is further along than the United States. Broadband in most of the world is much faster that in the U.S.

I think the snowball has started to roll downhill. The avalanche hasn’t gotten serious yet, but it is at the point where it cannot be stopped. Marketers and their clients had better start looking for alternatives.

Numerous research studies have found most people just don’t believe television advertising. The average viewer is most likely to make a run for the restroom than sit and watch the latest Madison Avenue effort. Still, that hasn’t stopped agencies and their clients from spending millions to create more and more commercials.

I have to admit, some are clever. But, that doesn’t mean I ever would buy a product based on what some actor tells me. And as for car dealerships – why I would buy anything from someone who shouts at me? TV advertising just doesn’t work anymore. It doesn’t matter that people are watching a lot more television than ever.

According to an August article published by MarketingVox.com: “by 2010, traditional TV advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990, according to a study from McKinsey & Co.

“That forecast assumes a 15 percent decrease in buying power driven by CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) rate increases; a 23 percent decline in ads viewed due to switching off; a nine percent loss of attention to ads due to increased multitasking; and a 37 percent decrease in message impact due to saturation, AdAge reports (via MediaBuyerPlanner). According to McKinsey, real ad spending on prime-time broadcast TV has increased over last decade by about 40 percent even as viewers have dropped almost 50 percent.”

I often give my new clients a little quiz: I ask them what is their favorite TV commercial. About half cannot name one. Of the remainder, about half of them cannot remember what company or what product was being pushed. Of that final 25 percent, most of them say they like the commercial, but wouldn’t buy the product.

Those commercials are a nice try on an advertisers part, but in real life, nice tries get you nothing.

Which brings me to my point

It doesn’t bother me that advertisers are wasting their money. It’s their business and their money.

What really bothers me is when a company shows the same ad over and over and over again. I cannot speak for all markets – just Milwaukee. And Milwaukee is often used as a test market, so maybe we get more commercials than the average metro area.

I will give an example. The Olive Garden is running a campaign positioning itself as a mid-range restaurant. If you haven’t seen it, the commercials feature various groups of people meeting at an Olive Garden to share good food and companionship. So far, so good.

However for some reason, the campaign has devolved into the same commercial over and over again. It features a mom and dad visiting their daughter at college. When I first saw it, I thought it was pretty good. It had a key element that made it realistic – it showed the parents taking their daughter – and her friends – out for a meal.  Speaking as the parent of two now college graduates, I think we fed half of Miami University of Ohio and Purdue University.

However, by the 20^th time I watched the family talk about eating pasta at Olive Garden, I was screaming at the television. Other companies have done the same thing – I love Southwest Airlines, but I was going to throw something at the television if I heard the phrase: “it’s on” one more time.

What I want to do to my television after one too many commercials.

I once read a study that after six or seven screenings, people start to resent television ads. After 20 or so showings, the reaction to the overplay can actually make people not buy a product.

You know, it’s nice when someone else makes the case for social media, even if they don’t mean to.

As said I Monday, I will not be publishing next week. The next blog will run Jan. 4^th. Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year to all.

This is the headline from the Dec. 11, 2009 crainsnewyork.com online business magazine: “367 magazines shuttered in 2009.”

The article goes on to report that: “As bad as the news is, the pace of decline appears to have slowed. In 2008, a total of 526 U.S. magazines ceased publication. In 2007, there were 573 that shut down.

The number of titles that folded may actually be higher, said Trish Hagood, president of Oxbridge Communications, parent company of MediaFinder, which describes itself as the largest online database of U.S. and Canadian publications. She explains that it will take until well into the new year to do a final tabulation.”

A knowledge gap is being created

I decided to write this blog because of last week’s announcement that two venerable magazines were shutting down: Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews are being shuttered.

I know neither of these of magazines would be the kind likely to be sold at the grocery store checkout (except maybe for grocery stores in Cambridge, Mass, the lower East Side of New York and Berkley, Calif.). But, they served important purposes in their niches.

The century-old Editor & Publisher covered the newspaper industry. When I started as a reporter in 1975, it was a must read. If you wanted to know what going on in the business, you read E & P. I got my first two reporting jobs from classified ads in the magazine. It was a magazine in which readers’ actually read the ads first, especially the classified job listings.

Kirkus Reviews published over 5,000 book reviews annually. It was an important outlet, especially for new authors. It was often the first public exposure a first novel received. Kirkus was an important resource for bookstore buyers. They would often choose a novel to offer to their customers based on something they read in the magazine.

Personal note: As one who is writing a novel, and hoping to get it published, I mourn the loss of Kirkus. I also mourn the loss of E & P. It was an important press watchdog.

The closing of those two, and other magazines, is creating a knowledge gap.

Magazines used to occupy a unique place in news and information publishing. Newspapers were looked to as a daily source of information. That role has largely been taken over by Web-based news sources, including Twitter. Magazines were the source of the longer, more in-depth pieces. Magazines had the space and time to really tackle a subject. But, they were more immediate than a book.

With the death of so many magazines, a valuable source of explanation and analysis is going away. Oddly, to me at least, many newspapers are trying to turn themselves into daily magazines. They write long investigative stories that often run for several pages. That’s not why people read newspapers. They want to know what’s going on in the neighborhood. People don’t have time to ready long stories in the morning – when newspapers are delivered.

There is a solution

Yeah, you guessed it – I think magazines should be moving on line completely. I know Editor & Publisher has been on-line since the ‘90s. Kirkus is also online.  However, I don’t think either did a very good job of bringing readers to their websites. Like a lot of other publications, I think they saw the websites as an auxiliary to their print editions. It should have been the other way around.

There is precedent for this – the move of soap operas from radio to television in the early 1950s.

A little history first. In 1946, there were approximately 10,000 television sets in the United States, according to questia.com. By 1950, there were 3 million and by 1953, half of all households in the United States had a television. Kind of sounds like the growth of social media, doesn’t it?

Proctor & Gamble started soap operas on radio during the Depression. It was a marketing decision to sell more laundry soap and other products. When television began to dominate, P & G moved the soaps to television. After all, you go where the customers are – which is a rule of social media by the way.

So, why can’t magazines do the same thing? The web is becoming the dominant media – so why not move to the customers are? More and more people are doing their reading online. I still get Sports Illustrated’s print edition, but I also read it online every day. SI and other publications can do more on the web – post videos, run a lot more pictures, link to other relevant sites and be a lot more immediate in their analysis.

I think that move would save a lot of magazines. In cost alone, it would be a good move. No longer would a publisher have to factor the cost of production and printing.

Seems logical to me. Any thoughts anyone?

Note: I will not be posting on either next Monday or Wednesday. It is a holiday week and I am taking some time off. The next blog will run Jan. 4, 2010.

Welcome to the second part of Public Relations 101. This Wednesday blog is where I will be giving you my opinion on various marketing communications efforts.

I see my Monday blog as a kind of primer on marketing, public relations and social media. There is some opinion in it, but basically, I hope you are reading to learn what I know. I appreciate that hundreds of people who read and comment on it.

I greatly enjoy writing it. I will keep at it. But, because I try to keep the lessons to around 1,000 words – long for a blog I am told – I don’t have the space to review marketing campaigns. So, this blog has been born. I don’t have a title for it, so suggestions are welcome. I do expect to start some debates; in fact I want to start some. It is how we all learn. I do not have all the answers. I don’t even know all the questions.

I hope you all read this one as much as you read my Monday offering. So, let me get to it.

I am very active in social media. As I am sure you have noticed, I blog. I also tweet, spend time on Facebook and am approaching 5,000 contacts on LinkedIn. While I have only posted one video on YouTube, I watch it a lot.

I also am active on Plaxo, dabble on FriendFeed, use Digg and read Mashable. I am willing to bet I use social media a lot more than most. When you throw in my age – I am 55 – I am definitely ahead of any curve you can name.

Yet, lately, some parts of social media have started to frost me.

First, somebody has to destroy the keyboards of a lot of social media developers

Why you ask, a look of bewilderment on your face. You just told us that you are an active user of social media. What’s the problem?

This is how I feel when I get yet another site invitation.

I will tell you. There are too damned many sites coming out there are trying to imitate LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube. Everyday I get invited to join some new site that says it will make my life easier. I think sometimes that the late pitchman Billy Mays’ last act was to  create all of these sites. The copy that comes with these sites is eerily close to how Mays used to sell products.

Look I am a huge believer in social media. I firmly believe it is replacing conventional advertising, marketing and public relations. Everyone should be using the Big Four plus one – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and blogs. Okay, I agree Digg, Mashable and Technorati are also important. A case can be made for Friendfeed and a few others. If I lived in Brazil or the Middle East, I would use Orkut.

But, geez, every time I one of my email accounts, there are half a dozen invitations for sites I never heard of. We don’t need all them. I know the shakeout is coming, but fast enough for me.

Second, I am really tired of all these social media “experts” who claim they can make me a million dollars in the time it takes to trim my nails

To all of you who send these schemes to make millions on the Internet – GO AWAY! You may not know you’re lying, but I do. As the cliché says: “if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”

If you use the term guru when you send me an email, I going to hunt you down and slap you silly. Guru is a religious title akin to Father, Rabbi or Imam. Here are the first two definitions of Guru: (n) guru – a Hindu or Buddhist religious leader and spiritual teacher; Guru: each of the first ten leaders of the Sikh religion.

So, why not call yourself the Marketing Pope or something and be done with it.

Plus, I want to know what qualifies somebody as a social media expert? I belong to the Public Relations Society of America – the public relations industry group. The PRSA bestows a designation called APR or Accreditation in Public Relations. An APR is earned an by taking both written and oral examinations. The standards are rigid.

As far as I know, there is no social media industry wide group that bestows such a designation. I know there are individual training companies that give out accreditations. But, as I said, there is no agreed upon industry wide designation.

So, to me the only thing that works in proving you are an expert is if you have actually run effective social media campaigns. So, if you haven’t, stay away from me.

Until Monday, later all.

I read a story the other day from the online Kansas City InfoZine about how easy it is to trick Facebook members into revealing personal information. This is a hacker’s dream.

IT security and data protection company Sophos “created two fictitious users with names based on anagrams of the words “false identity” and “stolen identity”. 21-year-old “Daisy Felettin” was represented by a picture of a toy rubber duck bought at a $2 shop; 56-year-old “Dinette Stonily” posted a profile picture of two cats lying on a rug. Each sent out 100 friend requests to randomly chosen Facebook users in their age group.

Within two weeks, a total of 95 strangers chose to become friends with Daisy or Dinette – an even higher response rate then when Sophos first performed the experiment two years ago with a plastic frog. Worse still, in the latest study, eight Facebookers befriended Dinette without even being asked.”

Of those who responded, 89 percent of the 20-somethings and 57 percent of the 50-somethings gave away their full date-of-birth, Sophos said. Nearly all the others hid their birth year, but this is often easy to calculate or to guess from other information provided. Even worse, just under half of the 20ish crowd, and just under a third of the 50ish crowd, gave away personal information about their friends and family.

I hope I don’t have to explain why doing what those people did is a huge, huge, snafu. I am sure most of you have heard of the researchers who were able to figure out social security numbers just from the information posted on Facebook.

Be Careful

The lesson from that story and others is be careful. The Internet is kind of a like a major city. It has high-end areas, middle class areas and its downright dangerous areas. The people who create those dangerous areas will try to move into the other two because that’s where the money is. If you exercise some common sense, you probably won’t have to worry too much about the bad areas.

I say you won’t have to worry too much because a little healthy paranoia will keep you safe – in life and on the Internet. Put another way; exercise street smarts when you are out there.

My rule is I only post information that is already public.

Yes, there are dangers lurking out there, but by using a little common sense, trouble can be avoided.

Do simple things and you should stay out of trouble. The biggest thing to do is be careful who you share your information with. I probably get somewhere around two dozen requests Twitter follow requests each day. I accept maybe half. Multi-level marketers, get rich quick schemes and other things of that ilk always get rejected.

I have a policy that I never, ever open a link from a Twitter direct message – even if I know the person who sent it. As I am sure you have noticed, many Twitter accounts are being hacked. The hackers use those accounts to send out viruses and other malicious things. I have the same rule for email – unless I know the sender.

As for Facebook, I am very careful who I share information with. That is why I have almost 5,000 LinkedIn contacts and only slightly over 400 Facebook contacts. Generally, the people I follow on Facebook have to already friended people I know.

Also, when I search, I very careful what links I open. Hackers have figured out how to create legitimate looking sites. If the site seems the least bit strange, I don’t open it.

That doesn’t mean pull your horns in though

Social media is here to stay. It is taking over, not going away. So, don’t shy away from using it. That’s just counterproductive.

There are some things you should do and not do when you use social media. They included:

• Post picture of yourself – not your dog or the sunset, a short biography and a link to blog or a website (if you have either) when you join any site. Don’t worry, this is not the kind of information that will be much help to a hacker. I wouldn’t put my street address or zip code in, but other information is okay. Those links are important. It will drive your readership up.
• Use your real name. I find it hard to take anyone seriously who uses a name of say “seoguru” or “happygirl77.” You are building your brand here, remember. You want to use a real name.
• You know those Facebook or MySpace pictures of that great Spring Break – the one where you posted pictures showing off the sayings your friends painted on your half-naked body when you passed out? Take them down and hope no one circulated them. I know of hiring managers who decided against hiring someone based on similar pictures.
• Social media means being, well, social. If you join a site, participate. If you join a LinkedIn group, answer questions, or post of your own. On Facebook link to interesting articles and comment on other people’s postings. On Twitter, recommend good people to be followed on #FollowFriday, retweet interesting comments, and post good stuff yourself.

A note about using Twitter – my rule on Twitter is the first time you post what you had for breakfast, or what cute thing your dog did, I will stop following you. To me, Twitter is a site to share information and debate questions, not get cute.

I hope those tips help.

Now, an announcement: starting this Wednesday, I will be posting an addition to PR 101. This new section will be my take on various advertising, marketing and public relations campaigns. It will be on the same URL: http://www.pr101.biz

I see my Monday blog as a kind of primer on marketing, public relations and social media. There is some opinion in it, but basically, I hope you are reading to learn what I know. I appreciate all of the hundreds of people who read and comment.

Because I try to keep the Monday blog to around 1,000 words – long for a blog I am told – I don’t have the space to say everything I want. So, I am starting the Wednesday blog. I don’t have a title for it, so suggestions are welcome. I do expect to start some debates; in fact I want to start some. It is how we all learn.

So please give it a read this Wednesday. Thank-you.

I have to make an admission right up front this week’s blog about job hunting: I am torn about Facebook and its effectiveness. I am not sure whether the largest social media site on Earth – 350 million users and counting – is where you want to be in your job hunt.

I know Facebook can hurt you in a job hunt. I plan to go into the don’ts of social media job-hunting next week. However, one thing I will say now – would you hire someone whose Facebook pictures included topless photos from Cabo or the beer bong drinking championships? I wouldn’t either. Take those pictures down ASAP. Those can never help, especially if you want to be taken seriously.

Be that as it may, I am going into the pros and cons of Facebook and let you decide what to do. I have to say that if I were looking for a job, I would not use Facebook. That’s my bias. I want that stated up front so you know. I will keep try to keep my bias out of this blog as much as possible, but just keep that in mind.

So, let’s get into it.

The Pros Of Using Facebook In A Job Hunt

The first reason to use Facebook is its sheer size. At over 350 million users and growing, it is the largest social media site on Earth. It is has penetrated the entire developed world – just about everyplace you would want to work. Judging by the 400 or so followers I have on Facebook, I would say that the people who use the platform are pretty representative of the Earth’s population.

Secondly, many, many companies are using Facebook for marketing and sales. A lot of people don’t seem to know that Facebook has business pages. A lot of companies use those pages. It is good place to check out potential employers. You can tell by a company’s marketing efforts that they are targeting for sales. It can give you a sense of their needs.

Third, a Facebook profile is more informal than LinkedIn’s. In this age of getting to know the real person, a potential employer will often feel that your Facebook profile is a better picture of who you are.

There are two things about your profile I want to say. This applies to all social media, not just Facebook.

When you post your profile, include a picture. I have face I think scares small children, but I still post my picture. Frankly, I am suspicious of people who don’t. Unless you are the run from the law, your creditors, or an angry ex-spouse, there is no reason not to post a picture. Excuse the pun, but it helps potential employers get a picture of who you are.

Okay, so maybe this is not the kind of picture you should post with your profile. But, it is important to post a photo.

Use your real name when you set up a profile. Again, why wouldn’t you use your real name? Any employer who is doing their job is going to search out all of your various social media applications. How is going to look when they find your Twitter name is “drunkguy39” or “sexxygirl?” Not good I think.

The Cons of Facebook

Before I get started, “The Cons of Facebook” would be a great movie title. It sounds like the title of an S.E. Hinton novel. It could be set in a prison. A group of convicts, led by an imprisoned hacker, could be trying to use the Internet to escape a despotic warden. Think it has legs?

Getting to the real cons, my major complaint about Facebook has always been there is too much noise. Besides profiles and pictures, there are games, ads, causes and a host of other things. It is a not a clean experience for any employer trying to check out an employee.

To me, Facebook is a place to play, while LinkedIn is a place to work. It’s that simple.

Plus, people tend to be more frivolous on Facebook. I don’t know why that is, but happens. I have been guilty myself sometimes. You find yourself answering quizzes such what “Sopranos” character one would be, or backing a political cause. Most companies shy away from any political involvement. It is just bad for business. You never know what a client’s political stance might be. So, I think a hiring manager might not contact a person who espouses some strong belief.

I am not saying you shouldn’t have strong beliefs. Just be careful who you share them with. And if you put them on Facebook, you have shared those beliefs with a lot of people.

Well, that’s my advice for this week. Next week, I am going to write about the don’ts of social media job hunting. I have touched on some of them, but I want to hit them all.

Also, if you have been using social media for job-hunting, I would like to talk to you. I would like some real world examples of what works and what doesn’t work. We can do this anonymously or I can use your name. Leave a comment if you are interested.

Finally, on a professional note, I find I suddenly can handle two more clients for my agency. We are a full service social media, public relations and marketing company. Contact me if you would like to talk. Thanks.

So, last week we talked about using social media to find a job. Here’s the second part of that.

I have been asked two questions on using social media in job hunting. In the first one, the writer said he had a hard time taking social media seriously. He observed that most social media applications were created and used by 20-somethings. He wondered on how many people older than that actually used social media.

That’s an important question. If social media’s primary audience is made up of teenagers and 20-somethings, what’s the point of using it to find a job?

Well, it is true those age groups are active users of social media. However, so are millions of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s and beyond using social media. As for companies, the last figure I saw showed over 15,000 companies using Twitter for a variety of reasons. According to Strategy Labs, the 35- to 55-year-old segment using Facebook grew 172.9 percent between 2007 and 2008.  In January of 2009, Strategy Labs estimated that almost 7 million people in that age group were Facebook users. The average age of LinkedIn users is 41-years-old.

Another statistic – according to Nielsen, 80 percent of employers start their search for employees on LinkedIn. Obviously, that’s a site a job hunter wants to be a part of. In fact, social media is a place a job hunter should want to be.

As for the second question – what does one write about?

Actually, that’s a pretty easy one to answer – write about what you are good at professionally. If you were a supply chain manager, write about the time your chief raw materials supplier suddenly couldn’t give you all of the widgets you needed. Talk about how you handled that situation. Or write about the time you primary shipper screwed up shipping product to your largest customer. Write about you how you solved the problem. You can also write about dealing with difficult employees or the time you planned the employee summer outing.

You get the idea. If you have specific questions, email me and I will try to help.

Here’s the key on whatever you write about: what you are doing is demonstrating your expertise by giving real world examples of how you used it. This is a much more dynamic way to show what a valuable employee you could be than handing in a two-page resume with a three-line description of the situation.

That’s the key to using social media in job searching – it is a dynamic way to show you are the person that fits the job. It is much better than blindly sending out resumes. Think of it this way, you are baiting a trap for potential employers. When they read your blog, they just might think this is a person they need to interview.

Which brings me to my next point, creating and setting that trap. I know I keep hammering this point, but it’s the key to social media: the hunters have become the hunted. While there are never any guarantees, social media can make you the prey for companies looking for someone with your skills. However, you are prey working to attract the hunter.

Another satisfied job hunter who used social media to get back into the workforce.

So, how to do you do that?

Well, the second point I keep hitting is that social media is a toolbox. As I have said before, you can build a house using only a hammer and saw, but it will go a lot easier if you use all of the available tools.

The blog should be your foundation. It will give you the most amount of space to demonstrate your expertise. LinkedIn should be next for three reasons:

• As I said, it is the first place most employers look for potential hires. A LinkedIn profile is more complete and in-depth than a resume. LinkedIn asks for a lot of information, which is a good thing. Someone looking for a new employee will be able to immediately evaluate potential candidates. Posting a link to your blog will help also.
• Most people on LinkedIn have third party recommendations from former co-workers or clients. These are invaluable. Someone who has garnered three or four recommendations will stand out from the crowd. One thing: it is perfectly acceptable to solicit recommendations from people who know you well. It is not to solicit recommendations from people for whom the only contact you had with them is through LinkedIn. How good could recommendation be anyway from someone who doesn’t know you?
• LinkedIn hosts thousands of different groups covering every possible profession. Joining those groups allows you to connect with professionals in your field. Members of those groups post discussion topics or questions. Joining in the discussion or answering the question is another way to demonstrate your expertise. In addition, most groups also post job openings. Those listing are a lot more current than anything you will find on a job board.

The next tool I would suggest using is Twitter. You can tweet about your blog posting – once – as I do. Once is okay because you’re telling people it is up. Anymore than that and you are bragging. In addition, there are many links to questions and discussions posted on Twitter. Again answering shows your expertise. In addition, you can join Twitter discussion groups. Discussion groups are delineated by a hash tag, which looks like this “#.” So a group would like this #publicrelationspros. You find groups by using Twitter Search. You are then talking to like-minded professionals who might just know about a job. Make sure your Twitter profile reflects what you are good at.

As a crazy suggestion, you might want to record and post a video blog on YouTube. They are usually called Vlogs. If you feel comfortable doing this, get yourself a web cam and go at it. I would suggest at least doing an outline of what you are going to talk about. And practice, and practice, and practice some more, before you record. , I have found rehearsing eight times is the most effective for some reason. I don’t why – it just seems to work. You want to sound natural when you talk.

Doing a Vlog gives a potential employee a sense of how you handle yourself. It can demonstrate your presentation skills. But, if you don’t feel comfortable or you are the kind of person who freezes in front of a camera, don’t do it. It will do more harm than good.

Well, that’s all the time we have. However, I am getting so many responses to the job-hunting blogs, I am going to continue writing about the topic next week. See ya then.

As all of you I am sure have seen, I am very active on social media. A key part of social media is connecting with people. In the last three months or so, I have seen an increase in the number of my connections who are out-of-work. I don’t care what Wall Street says, things are still tough out there. I have never counted how many job seekers I have connected with, but I would estimate it’s between 10 percent and 15 percent.

For a benchmark, between LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Plaxo, Digg and some other sites, I have more than 14,000 contacts.

I have a policy of replying to almost everyone who connects with me. I tell all job seekers the same thing – social media could be the key to finding a job. There are no guarantees on that. But, I think social media gives a job seekers a lot more than just a leg up in the market place. I think it gives them a Lambeau Leap up.

Note to my non-American and non-football fan readers: a Lambeau Leap is what Green Bay Packer football players do when they score a touchdown. The player who scores jumps about 10 feet up into the stands to celebrate.

By using a combination of blogging, a profile on LinkedIn, being active on Facebook and maybe even posting some YouTube videos – you can become a target for hiring managers. I cannot promise you will get hired, no one can. But, I can show you how to get your whole body in the door.

What social media will do for a hiring manager is provide a complete picture of your knowledge and skills. Let’s face, a resume is a like family portrait. Everything in that portrait and your resume are clean and neat. That resume no more defines exactly who you are than that family portrait shows what a family is really like. Does a family portrait show the work that goes into raising a family? Does a resume show how you spent weekends earning your Six Sigma designation?

Social media can, if used correctly.

As usual, I have more to say that I can fit in the approximately 1,000-word limit I set for myself. So I am going to take two weeks to cover this.

So how does social media help a job seeker? The same way it helps a company. It establishes your brand. Yes, you have a personal brand. You might not realize it – but you do. A brand makes you a standout in the marketplace. If you don’t maintain that brand, you will find yourself at the back of the line.

Job-hunting is very crowded marketplace right now. It’s a buyers market. Anything that can be done to make a candidate stand out is a good thing.

The first thing you have to know if you decide to head down this road is that takes more work than a traditional job search. You are not going to be just cruising the job sites, sending out resumes, networking, and cold calling your old contacts. In fact, most of that is going to go on the back burner – with the exception of the networking. You are still going to have to talk to people. But by using social media, they are going to know who you are and what you can do for their company.

That last sentence is key. You should not be using social media to pound your own chest. The same rules apply to personal social media as to business social media. Just as that attitude turns off customers, it also turns over hiring managers. What you should be doing is demonstrating your expertise in your profession. We will discuss next week the mechanics of doing that.

You want to be able to show that hiring manager that you really know about widget production or copyediting or whatever. As Richard Nelson Bolles says in “What Color Is Your Parachute,” a company wants to know how you can help them.

The other thing you should do is buy “What Color Is Your Parachute.” In my opinion, it is the single best job-hunting book ever written. It was a huge help to me when I switched from journalism to public relations. A good friend – Dave Vogel – gave me the book. I am paying it forward now.

Note to the FTC: I have never met Richard Nelson Bolles or any representative of his or his publisher. I not have not received any compensation – monetary or otherwise – to plug the book.

The second change is the same as business social media – the hunters have become the hunted. Nowadays, hiring managers are as likely to go looking for the right candidate as waiting for a resume to show up in their email box. Using social media will help you attract that hiring manager.

As Bolles and others have pointed out, the majority of available jobs are never advertised. Those that are on such sites as Monster, Career Builder and other’s attract thousands of resumes. Steve Jobs wouldn’t stand out in that crowd.

Social media could even help this guy. He could sell more apples - or get off the street and back into an office.

Another thing I learned from reading Bolles’s book is that hiring managers are terrified of making a mistake in their hiring decisions.

“As you go into the interview, keep in mind that the person-who-has-the-power-to-hire-you is sweating too,” Bolles wrote. “Why? Because the hiring interview is not a very reliable way to choose an employee.”

Bolles points out that a study conducted in the United Kingdom several years ago found that the chance of an employer hiring a good employee through the hiring process was only three percent better than if they had picked the name out of a hat. If the interview was conducted by someone who would be working directly with the candidate, the odds dropped to two percent. If it was done by a “so-called personnel expert,” the success rate dropped to 10 percent below that of the hat method.

Bolles lists 11 reasons why hiring terrifies company hiring managers. I will give you two that social media job searching has direct effect on:

• “That you won’t be able to do the job: that you lack the necessary skills or experience, and the hiring-interview didn’t uncover that.
• “That it will take you too long to master the job, and thus it will be too long before you are profitable to that organization.

You can see why the process terrifies those making the decision. Social media can remove some of that anxiety.

Next week, I will discuss how social media will demonstrate that you will be able to do the job from the day you hired.

Bloggers note: This the same article that ran in Cision’s online magazine -
The Navigator. I received such a positive response to it that I decided to run it here. In addition, I know many of you do not read the Navigator and I wanted to make it available to all of you.

As I start my day each morning, I spend about 45 minutes reviewing the emails I have received from my LinkedIn contacts. Some are requests to connect, some are emails from individuals asking questions or inquiring about my company’s services, and some are from the LinkedIn groups to which I belong. I repeat the routine in the afternoon. I regard the 90 minutes or so that I use as one of the most important exercises of my working day.

Although it seems like a lot of time to spend on one social media application, it is a very productive use of 90 minutes. I find that with LinkedIn I learn more, make better contacts, and am contacted by more prospective clients than any other application – with the possible exception of my blog. There’s no spam, no silly games and no time-wasting requests to become a fan of someone you’ve never met.

That’s why I called LinkedIn the Facebook for adults. It is Facebook without all the superfluous noise. No LinkedIn user will tell you what they had for breakfast or post a video of some cute thing their cat did. They will ask for opinions on a proposed marketing plan or for an introduction to the CMO of the company they’re pitching.

LinkedIn defines itself as: “an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170 industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you need to work with to accomplish your goals.”

According to its website, LinkedIn:

• LinkedIn has over 50 million members in over 200 countries and territories around the world.
• A new member joins LinkedIn approximately every second, and about half of its members is outside the U.S.
• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn members.

Like any successful venture, LinkedIn was started because its founders saw a need for a social network for those moving beyond Facebook and MySpace.

“Before you turn 25, your social needs tend to be in the foreground,” LinkedIn co-founder Konstantin Guericke told BusinessWeek Online in 2006. “You want to be cool, express yourself, focus on your friends. I am in my late 30s. I am married and have two kids. My social needs aren’t that great. My professional needs are in the foreground.

“It is harder to reach people in my age group than it is to reach younger people, who are much quicker adopters of technology. But once you do, the network effects are stronger. And even though a younger audience is easier to get, it’s also easier to lose.”

Building that audience and interacting with it is the key to LinkedIn. LinkedIn audiences tend to be very loyal, according to a number of studies. They are also much more serious than the users of other social media sites. These are people who want you to get to right to the point.  It is why I belong.

Getting started with LinkedIn is simple. Access the site and fill out the required profile section. You will not be providing any personal information. LinkedIn doesn’t want that information What it is looking for is a professional biography – what your current position is, where have you worked before, and your educational background. It also asks for professional memberships and accreditations. Links to blogs and websites can also be listed.

Right away, you can see where the value comes from. Anyone looking for someone in your field can search on LinkedIn for you based on any number of criteria. The last numbers I saw said 80 percent of companies looking to fill a position go to LinkedIn first. It is easy to see why. A person’s professional life is laid in the site.

In March, CNNMoney.com reported that: “employers also increasingly rely on LinkedIn to recruit and vet their potential hires. Drew Patterson, vice president of marketing for Kayak.com, used the site to find two of the five employees he hired last year, paying $195 to list his job posts for 60 days. In addition to his fellow Harvard alumni, and his former Columbia Business School classmates, Patterson considers LinkedIn among his most useful job networks. ‘LinkedIn is great because you have some sense of where this person is and how they fit into your world,’ he said.”

Joining LinkedIn is free. The company provides four levels of service ranging from the free service to its Pro Service. The Pro Service costs $499.95 a month. The price ncreases from level-to-level.

LinkedIn has three areas that I believe set it apart from every other social media site. The first is the ability of people to list recommendations from their colleagues and co-workers. Generally, the recommendations are unsolicited. In fact, they should be. I feel it is breach of LinkedIn etiquette to ask for a recommendation unless you know well the person doing the recommending. It is not uncommon for two people to recommend each other. Potential clients or employers can review a person simply by going to their LinkedIn

The second way are the LinkedIn groups. There are thousands of groups on LinkedIn. Each group is geared toward a particular industry, discipline or area of interest. Some of the groups have 15 members, some have thousands. The advantages in the groups are two-fold: you can find people who work in your industry and network with them; and the groups give you a chance to demonstrate expertise in your field.

The second one is very important. Social media marketing demands that you show expertise. You can do that in the groups by joining in the discussions that go in the groups. Answering a question, or posting a comment allows you to demonstrate your knowledge.

The third way is the ability to contact a person through LinkedIn. There is no need to provide your own email address. That blocks spammers from bombarding you with annoying, unsolicited email.

There is another advantage to LinkedIn. Having a LinkedIn profile increases your Google search rankings. That’s important because it makes it easier for those looking for a potential company to work with to find you.

Although LinkedIn tool is not the only tool in the social media toolbox, it is one of the most important. It can be the key to a successful social media campaign.

So, you are sitting down, watching the cursor blink, thinking, “damn, I hate writing. I am not any good at it anyway. Who would want to read a blog I write anyway?”

First, take a deep breath and relax. Every writer – and I mean every writer, no matter how good they are – thinks the same thing every time they sit down at the keyboard. I have been writing since I was five-years-old. I have been writing professionally for approximately 35 years. I still wonder if I am any good. If you don’t have doubts, you are not human.

Don’t let those doubts take over. I find the best cure for writer’s block is to just start writing. It’s the same thing – at least mentally – as diving into a pool of cold water. It is better to confront the obstacle and attack it. Once you do that, you will find it is a lot easier to write your blog.

Okay, I need to back up a minute. Once you have made the decision to become a blogger, you need to decide your blog’s overall topic. You can go two ways on this:

• You can write a general interest blog under a broad topic, such as business and marketing. You will have a lot of leeway to cover the many topics related to that choice. In that case, you are aiming at general audience.

• Or you can write a specialized blog on a specific topic, such as automotive repair. Here, you are aiming for people who share similar interests.

As I said last week, write what you know. That’s key. Your blog will be authoritative if it is clear you know what you are talking about.

No matter how well you think you know a subject, do some research. If you can back up your statements with facts and figures from a respected source, it makes your blog that much more believable. I always include a hyperlink to the source for anything I am citing. It is just common courtesy.

Now, for the actual writing. You don’t have to be a Mark Twain, Margaret Atwood or James Baldwin to be a good blogger. However, you do have to write clearly and concisely. You need to use the language you are writing in correctly. For those of writing in English, I recommend you buy two books: The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White; and Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss. The former will teach you everything you need to know about writing. The later will teach what you need to know about punctuation.

I recommend a third book also – a decent dictionary. Do not ever rely on the dictionaries provided by Microsoft Word or any other online writing program. Engineers wrote them. That’s not a compliment. Those dictionaries are wrong more than they are right – especially when it comes to syntax and punctuation.

Okay, you have your tools. How you write is up to you. I know many writers who do an outline before they start. It helps them focus and stay on track. I don’t do that. But, I spent 26 years in newsrooms writing on deadline. I rarely had time to do outlines. You learn very quickly when an editor is breathing down your back to organize your thoughts and get going. However you choose to do it, do it.

Use Hemingway's technique of short, declarative sentences

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

Mark Twain - Perhaps the greatest American writer.

In other words, keep it simple. When I work with students, I tell them to read two Ernest Hemingway short stories: Big Two-Hearted River, and The Short, Happy Life of Francis Macomber. Hemingway was one of the finest short stories writers who ever touched a keyboard. He usually wrote in short, declarative sentences (follow the link for a definition). That’s the way to write a blog.

Now you’re done, right? Wrong. Writing is only the first step. Rewriting is the key. I usually rewrite a blog three times before I post it. On my novel, each chapter is rewritten at least seven times. Remember, the best writing is rewritten and rewritten again. It gets better that way. A rule to remember when in doubt whether something should stay or go, take it out. If you have to think about it, it doesn’t belong there.

One thing I learned from one my teachers is once you have completed your final draft, let it sit for a day. I refer to it as marinating. Then come back to it, print it out and retype it. You will be amazed how many changes for the better you make.

The last thing to do is proofread. If you can, have somebody else do that. Another rule is never edit yourself. It is human nature to skip over your own mistakes. It helps to have someone else point areas that are hard to understand. When that’s done, publish it.

Next week, I am going to move onto the first of the social media applications – LinkedIn. It is my favorite and one of the most effective.

Blogging should almost always be the foundation of effective social media campaign. It is where smart companies establish that they are industry leaders. They do that by providing information that is both interesting and useful to readers – who the company should want to convert to customers. It is also place to interact with current customers. A blog is where people can post comments, debate points of information and make complaints. This is one of the best ways companies can find what the marketplace is thinking.

What blogging is not is another way to continue using the same tired marketing and sales strategies. It not a place to virtually pound your chest. You should not be bragging about what good job your company is doing. You should not be demanding that potential customers buy your products because it will make them younger, cut their bills, or help them lose weight. If I want to hear that kind of nonsense, I’ll turn on the television.

Sadly, I read a lot of blogs that contain that kind of content. I only read them once, though. The writers don’t understand that blogs are not a vehicle to continue to do what no longer works. That last point always mystifies me. The old methods are dying, but there are some marketers and public relations people still use them. I think they want to be able to tell clients they use social media. What they are doing is the metaphorical equivalent of using a hammer on a screw.

The reason social media has become so effective so quickly is because it has inserted honesty into the mix. People respond a lot better to the truth than they do to hype. It wasn’t marketers who did that – it was customers. I think customers have always wanted honesty from people they bought from. It existed in the days of smaller stores when customers dealt with same people everyday. It largely went away with the rise of mega-stores and mass advertising.

Blogs are major reason that honesty is being returned to marketing. Today, when a company is caught doing something dishonest, it usually shows up in the blogosphere pretty quickly. Remember the most important lesson of public relations – it most definitely applies to blogging – DON’T LIE. YOU WILL GET CAUGHT.

Besides building a brand platform, blogs are valuable for another reason – search engine optimization or SEO. As I have said before, the idea is to make sure your company comes up on the first two pages of Google. The more different mentions of your company on the web, the higher your Google ranking. A blog is a good way to increase company mentions.

What a good blog can also do is move people from customers to evangelists. If you consistently provide good, honest content, positive buzz will circulate. Your blog will be recommended by your readers. If they use your service, and you back up what you say, these people will tell others about how good your are. They will evangelize for you. That’s what you want to happen – third party endorsements. That kind of endorsement carries a lot of weight with consumers.

Okay, so if I haven’t scared you off of the idea of doing a blog – either a personal or corporate one, here’s what you do.

Incidentally, I am going to more than one post on blogging. It is too big of topic to do justice to in one post. This week, I will cover the mechanics. Next we will talk about the actual writing.

The first thing to do is choose and design a platform. Most web design companies can incorporate a blog format into your website – that includes do-it-yourself site design programs. If you decide to keep the blog separate from your corporate website – or you are doing a personal one – there are many free blog platforms available. Two of the most popular are Google’s Blogger and WordPress.

If you are interested, my blog is Wordpress. My web designer – Joao Moraes of Sao Paulo, Brazil – likes the platform. I own the PR101.biz site. I did that for branding purposes. If you are a corporate blogger, you absolutely should own the domain. It is part of your brand identity. For the personal blogging, it depends on your goal. If you are going to blog out something personal, I do not think there’s any reason to purchase a domain name. But, if you are trying to build a personal brand, by all means, buy the domain name. Same reason as companies – it will become part of your brand identity.

I would also suggest you have a link to Twitter, so people can tweet about your blog. Include an RSS feed so people subscribe directly. Also, add Google Friend Connect. People who will really like what you will friend you. These are evangelists.

As for choosing a URL, I recommend using something that describes what you are doing. There are two reasons this blog is called PR 101: one – because who gives a damn who Jeff Cole is; and two – PR 101 describes my purpose in writing this blog. It is a primer on public relations, marketing and social media. It seems to work – I have built a large readership.

The tricky area – and I admit I stumbled on this one – is emailing a link to your blog. I would suggest you ask people to opt in before you send it out. I sent my blog link to a large list of people and gave them the option to opt out. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have had them opt in first. A few people viewed what I was doing as spam. I got reported as a spammer and got in a fight with my ISP. It is not worth the hassle, so don’t do it.

Okay, you have the whole thing set up. What next? Here’s what I suggest – map out 10 or 15 topics. I had 26 topics scheduled when I started. In that way, you have a road map. You won’t have to scrounge each week for a topic. It saves a lot of headaches. Once you get into to it, topics will suggest themselves.

As for choosing the topics, the rule is all of writing is to “write what you know.” If you are an auto mechanic, write about cars. You are building a brand platform through your blog, so you want to demonstrate your expertise. Now, here’s a key – don’t hype yourself. As I said, people don’t like that. Talk about properly maintaining a car, or when to change your oil, or when to replace a car’s tires. Show you know your subject well. I would much rather go to a mechanic who has a blog and shows he knows the subject.

Now, another key – publish on a regular schedule. I post once a week – always on Monday. It is important to do this. You want your readers to know that each Monday or Tuesday or whenever, that your blog is going to be there for them. We humans are creatures of habits. We like schedules. It bothers me when I get interested in a blog and then it disappears for a month or two. Not cool. If for whatever reason you cannot post on your regular day, tell your readers in the preceding blog, or in a very short post.

There’s a lot more to cover. Next week I will talk about the actual writing and blogging etiquette.

Note: The blog talk radio show scheduled for tonight has been canceled.

Note Two: Because of a fight with my ISP, I am no longer sending group emails alerts about the latest blog. So, if you know somebody who was receiving it that way, please tell them They can sign up for the RSS feed. Thank you.

So, you’ve have convinced whatever powers-that-be that you deal with that it’s time your company started using social media. Paying for your initiative, you’re delegated to be the social media point person. You think how hard can this be? You use email, you have a Facebook account and you even use Twitter now and then. You feel like you know what you are doing. That is, until you start the process of looking at which social media applications should be incorporated into the company’s marketing efforts.

That’s when you say: “oh Lord, there are so many social media platforms. Which ones can I use and which ones do I lose?” (Try not to say that out loud. People will stare). For you clicked on a sharing icon and saw 150 different social media platforms come up. You feel like Groucho Marx in “A Day At The Races.” Cold sweat trickles down the back of your neck. How are you supposed to navigate all of that and make an informed decision.?

Don’t worry, no one uses 150 apps. I use social media everyday and I doubt I could name more than 20 applications. You can ignore 90 percent of those. Why are there so many?

Right now, social media can be compared to the early days of search engines. Do you remember Open Text, Magellan, Infoseek, Snap, and Direct Hit? Eventually there was a shakeout and they went away. Others are still around, but have morphed into serving different needs. Today, Google dominates search. According to cnet.com, Google handled 69.5 percent of all Internet searches in 2008.

While I don’t think any single platform is going to ever dominate social media like Google does search, there will be a shakeout.  In my opinion, there are four platforms and one application that will always be on top. Others that compliment those four will continue to do fine. Still others will fade away. So, as I said, don’t worry about those 150. Most of them are not going to be around in five years.

The four applications that will remain on top, and therefore should always be used are: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. The platform is a blog. So, why these four and a blog?

Because by using those five tools in concert, you can build a comprehensive, effective social media campaign. Sure, they are other tools that can be used – in fact; some of will make your campaign even more effective. But, think of this like learning to fly. No one starts on a jet. You start out with a single engine plane and work your way up.

The goal of a social media campaign is to demonstrate why someone should buy your product or hire your service. They days of when a company could say: “hey, I am great. Buy my product” are gone. The public won’t go for that anymore. You are using social media strategies and tactics so your company stands out. You want outsiders to give you kudos on Linked, Facebook and your blog. You want them to highly rate your products. All of this shows others that yours is a company to be trusted.

The other thing you want is ensure when a search if conducted for your industry or business sector, your company comes up on the first two pages of Google, or any other search engine. Yeah, it looks impressive when Google returns a million results, but come on, no looks at a million results. Studies have shown that the vast majority of searchers only read the first two results page.

I am going to go more in-depth in the coming posts about why these five. But a few facts about each. It’s why I prefer to use them. These are not in order of size of use. I am ranking them more in order of what I feel is each tool effectiveness.

First, blogging is something I feel everyone using social media should do. It is not the first thing you should be doing, but it should be eventually. Why? Well, this where you most effectively demonstrate your knowledge of your subject. It is also is one of the best ways to increase your Google rankings. As your blog gains popularity, others will spread the word around the web. They will link to your blog, using such things as RSS feeds and other methods. This helps improve your rankings.

As Google itself explains it: “in general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.”

Once you have written that blog, people need to know about it. One note about that – the first two or three blogs you write are going to be read by your family and a couple of friends. It takes times to build readership. I now have around 5,000 readers but it took me sevens months to get that to level.

That’s where Twitter enters the picture. Twitter is essentially a headline service. I know it describes itself as mini-blog site, but blogs are more than 140 characters long. You can tweet – once or twice – about your blog posting. Anymore than once or twice is a breach of web etiquette. Yes the web has etiquette rules. They are unwritten, but they exist. What you want is for your followers to pass your blog around the Twittersphere, which will bring both bring traffic to your website and increase your search rankings.Twitter is also a great site to post comments and links to relevant websites.

The next site I always recommend is LinkedIn. I often refer to it as the grown-up Facebook. LinkedIn is a site for professionals to meet with other professionals. The value of LinkedIn is the thousands of groups that members have formed. I doubt there is any industry that doesn’t have a groups there. You can do three primary things on those groups: post questions asking other members for answers, answer questions, post a link to your blog or make comments on other posts, thereby improving your credibility; and post links to your blog, website or event. Again, that increases your rankings.

The third site is Facebook. Facebook is monster of all sites. It has over 300 million users – mostly in English speaking countries. It also has a business side where you can list your company. It is hard to pass up any site of that size. It is also a great place to post links, talk about your company and find out what others are doing. My

Finally, there is YouTube. YouTube is a video-sharing site. The old cliché said that one picture is worth a thousand words. So what’s a video worth? On YouTube you can post videos of a new product, a demonstration of what your company does, or a video blog where you can post graphs, videos within the video and other information. You can create a channel on YouTube where you can aggregate all of your company’s videos.

A note about YouTube – it’s the second largest search engine. Google owns it. See what I mean about Google dominating search.

In the coming weeks, I will go more in-depth about each site, starting with blogging.

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.

To run a successful marketing campaign in the first part of the 21^st century means using social media. It’s a fact of business life. It is one that scares a lot of chief marketing officers and their bosses because they don’t understand how to use social media. But that doesn’t change the fact that not using social media creates the risk of your business being left behind the competition.

No one wants to have his or her company left behind. Still, the idea of switching to an entirely new marketing system is daunting. It doesn’t have to be. That’s where I come in. For the next several posts, I am going to over some of the common applications and how they can be used for public relations and marketing.

I was going to write about this last month, but I got sidetracked. It is so important – I think – that I want to come back to the subject.

Before I start, let me give you a bit of my background in social media. I started doing it three years ago when I created a podcast for a client. It wasn’t even called social media then. From there, I started attending seminar, webinars and reading everything I could on the subject. Eight months ago, I stumbled across Simon U. Ford’s in-depth social media courses and took them. They really helped. I now use social media on an everyday basis – both in business and my personal life. I am a member of the Social Media Boomers, a group of six dedicated to spreading the world about social media.

So now – first, why social media? It is because that’s where your potential customers are. If you want to see the social media usage statistics, read Lesson 25. And remember, those are slippery numbers as social media usage keeps increasing.

So, how to you reach those customers? Well, you find them by driving the search results for your company on the first two pages of Google. That’s where social media enters the picture. It is what gets you there.

Why Google? Because Google dominates search. No other search engine is close in the amount of usage. It is where over two-thirds of those around the world conduct searches go to find something. So, if someone is looking for an advertising agency, a plumber, or a doctor, chances the first place they will look is Google. Why the first two pages? Because most people will not go beyond the first two pages. Yes, it looks cool when Google returns two million results for a search term, but no one wants to take the time go beyond the first 20 or so results

Google is the best illustration of how marketing has been turned on its head by social media. It used to be companies looked for customers and seduced them into buying something. They did it my shouting, or cajoling, or making promises, or offering a deal.

Well, starting about five years, consumers turned on that kind of marketing. The power paradigm shifted. Using the Internet, people found they could talk to consumers all over the world. If a company did something that angered consumers, the entire wired world knew within about an hour. If a product was good, customers told each other.

What those customers were doing was building a community. That’s the key takeaway from this post – social media is all about building a community. These are communities that demand openness and honesty. If you don’t do that, you ain’t selling them anything.

This is another reason why I think many executives don’t like social media. It demands a lot more effort. To be successful at social media means interacting with the community that is being created. It cannot be done any outsider. A lof of executives think they don’t have the time to do that.

So, what to do? Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let’s start talking about using social media. It is going to take awhile – several weeks or more probably – but I will give you the mountaintop view.

Social media marketing expert Brian Solis developed this diagram to explain how social media marketing works. Don't worry, it is not as complicated as it looks.

The first thing to deal with is the sheer number of social media applications. If you use Google to search for social media applications you will get thousands of results.  I compare it to my first day working as a bike mechanic. I looked inside my new shiny four drawer red toolbox and wondered what the hell all of those tools were for. With their blue and yellow handles, they looked cool. But, I didn’t know a “third hand” from spoke wrench.

In the following weeks, with the help of skilled and patient teachers, I learned how to use those tools. I figured out which were essential and which were only for specialized jobs. I can now take a bike apart and put it back together the same way.

The same thing is true about all those social media applications – think of all them as tools. Some you will use constantly, others will be for specialized jobs. But, they can be used together. In fact, you should always use more than one application. As I tell clients – maybe you build a house using only a hammer, but it would be very difficult.

There are five tools you always have in your social media toolbox. The four applications are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. The fifth tool is blogging. Blogging is not application, although the software that allows it to happen is one. Those five – in different combinations– should always be part of any campaign.

It will be impossible to cover every social media application. Every time I think I know them all, five more pop up. So don’t try. Next week, I will talk about how to chose the applications you need for each campaign. As a preview, it boils down to quality of followers versus quantity of followers. But that’s next week.

NOTE TO MY READERS: IF YOU WANT TO REALLY LEARN SOCIAL MEDIA, GO TO THE SOCIAL MEDIA BOOMERS SITE AND CLICK THROUGH TO THE SOCIAL TRAFFIC INC. SITE. THERE YOU WILL FIND INFORMATION ABOUT THE SAME SOCIAL MEDIA COURSES I TOOK FROM SIMON U. FORD.

SECOND NOTE: FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO WANT MORE OF AN IN-DEPTH INTRODUCTION TO SOCIAL MEDIA, JOIN THE SOCIAL MEDIA BOOMERS ON BLOG TALK RADIO STARTING OCT. 21ST AT 8 P.M. CDT (GMT-6). WE WILL TALK ABOUT DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF SOCIAL MEDIA. JUST CLICK ON THE LINK TO LISTEN.

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.

The key to social media success is building a community of like-minded people. If you are in business, what you want people to do is like and trust your company or your product. If you are an individual, you want the community’s members to like each other. In both cases, the key to building that community is giving people a reason to join and a reason to stay.

Let me use a non-internet example of how to build a community, how to keep it going, and how that builds a successful business. The example applies to social media. I will explain how in a bit. I am using this because it was my first experience with building a social community – although the internet was 20 years away at the time.

I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. (When I say upstate, I mean almost 200 miles north of New York City. Westchester County is not upstate). The two-century-old village of Ballston Lake had a population of about 900 people when I was there in the 1950s and 1960s. Most of the families, mine included, had lived there for generations. When I saw the play “Our Town” for the first time, I thought playwright Thornton Wilder had been spying on Ballston Lake.

This where I grew up - Ballston Lake, NY

The village had six businesses: Ketchum’s Hardware Store, Sauer’s Gas Station, a small restaurant/bar, Etchibelli’s Pizza Parlor, a barbershop and Fanning’s Market.  It is Fanning’s I want to talk about it because I worked there while I was in high school.  A retired Navy Chief Petty Officer- John Fanning – ran the store with his wife Florence. There were six other employees.

Like a lot of other communities at the time, the areas around the village were rapidly suburbanizing. General Electric operated one of the largest industrial plants in the world 10 miles down Route 50 in Schenectady. The state capital of Albany was 20 miles south on the newly constructed freeway known as the Northway because it went all way to Canada. These brought a lot of people into the area.

Following those new families were the chain grocery stores – stores seven or eight times the size of Fanning’s Market. Their prices were lower and they had a much larger selection. They advertised in the local newspapers, on radio, and on television. John Fanning didn’t do any of that.

Yet, Fanning’s Market thrived. Saturdays you could barely walk the aisles because the place was so full. It was almost as busy every other day.

So how did John Fanning beat his much larger, better-financed competition? He built a community around his store. We had hundreds of regular customers. We knew their names and their wants. Head butcher Leo Dion knew Mrs. Nelagar liked smaller lamb chops because she was a widow. I knew Mrs. Gibelius preferred three bags, even though her groceries would fit into two.

Customers loved that all our meat was cut to order. I do not remember us selling any prepackaged meat.

The store was also a place to come to find out what was going on in the community. When was the Town Board going to repave Eastside Drive? Or man, was that a big snowstorm yesterday. Dates were made there, parties arranged, and people comforted during tragedies.

John Fanning spent every day in that store talking to customers. He always knew what they liked and what they didn’t like.

He also did one other thing. He knew his market. The area I grew up in a area that is part of New York’s apple producing region. There were a number of orchards in the area that sold fruit and related items. John never tried to compete with them. He knew his community. He knew they wouldn’t like it if he tried to take on another community they cherished.

Of course, we all lived in the area, so we knew all about customers. John Fanning was a member of the Fire Department and a number of other organizations. He helped sponsor the annual Fire Department Clambake. He couldn’t get away from his customers, but then he didn’t want to. He knew the only way to keep that store successful was to know what people were saying and what they wanted.

It worked the other way. Every time a new customer came in, we would ask how they heard about us. We weren’t exactly on the main road. We were in the “downtown” of a small village. Inevitably, we heard that a neighbor had told them about how the store. John Fanning always made it a point to thank those people for coming. And to thank the neighbor who sent them. In fact, he thanked every customer who came through the double glass doors.

That, in a rather large nutshell, is social media. It is all about building community and giving that people a reason to trust you. If they trust you, they will do business with you. They will tell their friends to check your website or read your posts. You build trust by providing value and knowledge. John Fanning did that because he talked to his customers everyday. They trusted our products and service would be better than other places they could go – even though we cost more.

You can do the same in a virtual way by using social media tools. By blogging, podcasting, and posting videos on YouTube, you demonstrate value and knowledge to your readers. By reading and commenting on posts on Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media you show interest and knowledge. In addition, by reading the comments on your blog and on social media sites, you know what people are thinking. By retweeting what others say on Twitter, you show you care what they think.

By doing that, you find out what your potential customers want and need. You will give them a reason to shop your store. You have given a reason to follow you.

Some notes 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.

Second, the second installment of our social media book club will be broadcast Wednesday, Sept. 30 at 8 pm CDT (GMT -6) on Blog Talk Radio. We are discussing part two of Australian social media expert Simon U. Ford’s book: Social Traffic: Marketing In A New Media Scape. Simon is my social media mentor. If you are interested in joining us, let me know. I will send you Parts One and Two of the book and the url for the first show and for this weeks show.

Third, if you are interested in an in-depth, intensive social media training course, follow this link to the Social Media Boomers website. That’s a social media group to which I belong. Follow the link there to Social Traffic Inc. and check the various social media training modules. This is a course created by Simon Ford. I am a graduate of this course. It is intense and not for those who just want to dabble in social media. But if you want to have your brain expanded and really learn social media, this is the course for you. It takes 10 weeks, and it will make you an expert.

The number and kind of social media applications keeps growing. Image courtesy of Share Media

In the seven months I have been writing this blog, I have had much to say about social media and its implications for traditional marketing and public relations. What I haven’t done is talk about using social media’s. So for my next several blogs, I am going to talk about applying social media to your business. It works for both – business-to-consumer and business-to-business.

I am not talking about using Facebook to find that long lost high school sweetheart (does your spouse know you are doing that?). Or tweeting all your friends that you just made a dynamite Denver omelet. There’s nothing wrong with doing that. But to me that’s like using a Porsche Carrera to pick up milk at the corner. You are not taking social media out of first gear.

My social media mentor, Simon U. Ford, calls social media the fifth communications revolution – coming after things such as the printing press and the telephone. As Ford explains, social media is not just sharing information, it is people working together – people collaborating, about people building a community. He also argues – and I agree – that it has completely changed the mediascape.

Here’s the definition of social media definition I use in client presentations: “Social media is a set of Internet tools that enable shared community experiences, both online and offline. It allows people and companies to tell stories, build communities, sell products, build market share or reach new audiences through the use of websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, blogs, podcasts, video podcasts (usually called Vlogs), photo sharing and wikis.”

Or put more simply: “social media is about building a collaborative community.” Yeah, I know I said that two paragraphs ago, but it needed to be said again.

The ultimate goal of social media is to bring people to your website. Once there, they can register for your event, buy your product, hire your company, recommend you, do anyone of thousand other things.

What social media does is give people reasons to go the website. Here’s the second key about using social media: you have to build trust. Think about it; are you friends with anyone you don’t trust? I don’t mean an acquaintance you have an occasional beer with. I mean someone who has demonstrated to you through his or her words and actions they are someone on which you can rely. The same thing applies to on-line communities – would you join an online community where you didn’t trust the other members? The trust could take many forms, although demonstrated expertise is always my top reason.

In social media, you attract people by demonstrating your expertise. You do that by blogging, tweeting and using other forms of social media. That’s just the first step. Once you do those things, other people have to endorse what you have done. They have to tweet about, link to it on their blogs and talk about it on their Facebook pages. I will talk about how to do that in other posts.

That is the part that many companies have problems – it means giving up control of their brand. Social media has done is turn the old equation upside down. Customers will search for the companies with which they want to deal. So, every company has to do everything it can to make sure it’s trusted.

When used properly, social media is a powerful set of tools that will outperform just about any other form of advertising or marketing. I think it is that effective. I have seen just how well it works for my clients. Check out either Sidewinder Cycles or Smart Barter USA. I have not worked with either of that long. But you can see the positive effects of social media on both their brands.

Before I go into this, I want to establish how I learned to use social media. I came to it three years ago when I created a series of podcasts for a client. They wanted to find a new way to reach employees. Email wasn’t working. The podcasts had over a 75 percent open rate, compared to the 15 percent rate for emails. I didn’t even know what I was doing was called social media. I just knew it worked.

For the next two years, I did everything I could to learn social media – which was then called Web 2.0. I read everything experts Brian Solis, Chris Brogan, Sarah Evans and other wrote.They are all very good and I learned a lot. I signed up for every social media application in existence and read their FAQs and instructions. I thought I was pretty good at it.

I didn’t know how much I had to learn until I stumbled across Ford. Ford owns a company called Eventslisted.com. He is a successful social media entrepreneur. That’s why I chose to him as a teacher. I mistrust trainers who have never actually done it themselves.

Prior to that, many people who tell me they can teach me social media in a day or a weekend have approached me. That to me is like some driving schools that say they will make you expert driver after one or two lessons. I suppose something like that happens for one in a million students. But most of us have to take the course from an expert instructor. We all need both classroom instruction and hands-on training. This is the kind of training that takes time and effort. If you don’t put in the time and put out the effort, you won’t learn much.

So, I went through Simon’s intensive 10-week social media training course. I learned how to use tools such as Twitter, Digg and YouTube. I learned a lot.

You can see how I applied what I learned by doing a couple of simple exercises:

• Google PR 101. This blog comes up in the third result.
• Google Jeff Cole, Milwaukee. I come as the first three results.
• Google Jeff Cole. I am the first result.
• If you Google my company – JJC Communications LLC – it comes up as the first four results.

I am not doing this to boast. I am writing this to prove a point. By the way, I still need to do some work. If you Google public relations and Milwaukee, I don’t come up for three pages. So, I am still learning.

Next week, we will discuss how to use some social media applications.

If you have any questions about social media, ask through a comment or email me. You can contact me through my company website: http://www.jjc-comunication.biz or email me at jjcole54@gmail.com.

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.

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…”

After posting last week’s blog (In case you have noticed, social media has already taken over), I was curious about those people who still either oppose using social media, or think it’s a fad. I know there are people out there who just aren’t too sure about it. For instance, I had a conversation about a year ago at a function where the director of major public relations agency told me he didn’t think social media was going to last. I wasn’t as adept as I am now, but I still knew he was wrong.

I think a lot of people out there who feel like the residents of Oz (no, not Australia – the mythical place created by L. Frank Baum). They look up in the sky and see this skywriting witch demanding they surrender Dorothy Gale. The residents of Oz all run to the see the wizard. The doorman assures them the wizard is going to deal with the issue.

Well, Social Media is not the Wicked Witch of the West. And the wizard cannot stop it anyway, although some executives are apparently still trying.

In my research, I found this: “51 percent of … executives fear social media could be detrimental to employee productivity, while 49 percent assert that using social media could damage company reputation,” in a research brief from the Center for Media Research. The brief reported on a study done by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law that found that “senior US marketing, management and HR executives are concerned about the risks of increased use of social networks within their companies.”

A study by Equation Research and reported by eMarketer.com found these reasons for companies not adopting social media.

I think Walter Schwabe did a good job of explaining the resistance in the blog “fusedlogic.

“The truth is, most organizations despite the decline are still spending large dollars in the traditional advertising space and are justifying these expenditures on metrics that are estimates in many cases,” Schwabe wrote. “Then those same executives look at social media investments with risk in their eyes, a lack of understanding and claiming there’s no way to measure.

“What they’re really saying is “we don’t understand,” Schwabe explained. “Then they provide a media buyer with $250,000.00 or more to go fire away at the big three, print, television, radio for a 90-day campaign. Why? Not because it’s necessarily the right answer but because it’s what they understand and the safe move.”

Of course there are ways to measure Social Media impact. I have to say first that I have never understood some of the measurements of traditional marketing. I have heard marketing people say: “well, 10 million people saw that commercial during the game.” Or, “that magazine has a 800,000 readers.” So what.

To me, there is only one measure of the effectiveness of a marketing campaign in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketing: did sales increase? Anything else is just commentary. If a campaign doesn’t increase sales, what’s the point? Yes, brand awareness has to built. People have to know about a product before they will buy it. But, I think a lot of marketers stop there. They forget the goal is the sales funnel – not getting people to watch some cutesy commercial.

Social media can drive sales – I think more effectively that traditional methods. But I digress. That is the subject for another blog.

The other fact that surprised me was that Twitter is for adults. Teenagers and tweens just don’t use it, according to The Participatory Marketing Network (PMN), an organization that helps marketers transition from push and permission marketing to participatory marketing.

“Just 11 percent of its (Twitters) users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore, the New York Times reported. “Instead, Twitter’s unparalleled explosion in popularity has been driven by a decidedly older group. That success has shattered a widely held belief that young people lead the way to popularizing innovations.”

The Times went on to report that: “In fact, though teenagers fueled the early growth of social networks, today they account for 14 percent of MySpace’s users and only 9 percent of Facebook’s. As the Web grows up, so do its users, and for many analysts, Twitter’s success represents a new model for Internet success.”

Studies have found that tweens and teens prefer texting to Tweeting. There are two primary reasons, the studies found: tweens and teens do not want their parents to know what they are doing and it turns out Twitter is optimized best for marketing and news. Teens and Tweens have little use for those activities.

In other words, Social Media is maturing. Don’t worry; you won’t have to surrender anything. And you might just find Social Media is the key to the City of Oz.

I intended this week to write about an entirely different subject .Two things changed my mind: I love the blues. As I write this I am listening to Son House sing “Government Fleet Blues” on iTunes. It occurred to me that the reason I can hear a Blues song recorded over 80-years-ago is because of a technology perfected in the 1920s – phonograph records. It seems quaint now, but the record was a huge leap from the waxed cylinder previously used to record music. It democratized music distribution. Social media is having the same effect on information distribution,

Second, I was a reading the Socialnomics Blog. It contained information that just blew me away. I read a lot of social media blogs written by some of the best: Simon U. Ford, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, Sarah Evans, and others. They are all saying that Social Media is taking over. I know they are right. But the following information underlined that fact in a way that surprised even me. Did you know:

(If you prefer the information in video form, here’s the link to the Social Media Revolution.)

• Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth has now become world of mouth.

• In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services – they will find us via social media.
• Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy – listening first, selling second.
• Successful companies in social media also act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser.
• Twenty-four of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because the Web is now the primary news source.
• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers – 96 percent of them have joined a social network.
  • Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen.
  • Social Media has overtaken porn as the number one activity on the Web.
  • Three out of eight couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media.
  • Years to reach 50 million users:
    • Radio – 38 years
    • TV – 13 years
    • The Internet – four years
    • iPod – three years
    • Facebook added 100 million users in less than nine months.
    • iPhone applications hit one billion in nine months.
    • If Facebook was a country it would be the world’s fourth largest – between the United States and Indonesia.
      • More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook – daily.
      • The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females.
      • Some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using its services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this).
      • Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than four weeks and cost Facebook $0.
      • comScore indicates that Russia has the most engaged social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the number one Russian social network.
      • A 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction. One-in-six higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum.
      • Percentage of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees – 80 percent.
      • Eighty percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime. Company reputations are often killed before the company even knows it is bleeding.
        • Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama.
        • There are no secrets in social media – ask any job applicant who didn’t get hired because of those college party pictures on Facebook or Flickr.
        • The second largest search engine in the world is YouTube.
        • Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78 percent of those articles are written in languages other than English.
          • If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour.
          • There are over 200,000,000 blogs and 54 percent of bloggers post content or tweet daily.
          • Twenty-five percent of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content. Thirty-four percent of bloggers post opinions about products & brands.
          • People care more about how their social networks ranks products and services  than how Google ranks them.
          • Seventy-eight percent of consumers trust peer recommendations
            • Only 14 percent trust advertisements.
            • Only 18 percent of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive return on investment.
            • Ninety percent of people that can skip ads using TiVo do so.
            • Hulu (the online video site) has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009.
            • In the past month, 25 percent of Americans said they watched a short video – on their phone.
            • According to Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, 35 percent of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available.

It takes a lot to surprise me. I was a newspaper for 25 years. I have pretty much seen it all. These facts, though, amazed even me. Social media isn’t taking over, it has taken over.

Traditional marketing, public relations and advertising are dying. They just don’t know it yet.

Note: Two weeks ago, I posted a blog about how the kindle could save newspapers. I thought it was an original idea. Well, I was wrong. In 1994, the old Knight-Ridder newspaper chain came up with the same idea. They called their reader The Tablet. What stopped them was technology had not moved far enough along to make it viable. Check out this video to see what Knight-Ridder planned to do.

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.

It is no secret that the recession is deeply affecting marketing, public relations and advertising agencies. In the last two months, at least a dozen marketing communications people I know have lost their jobs. It is nothing they have done or haven’t done. It’s just that clients are just not spending.

I can attest to the recession’s effects on my own small business. Clients have cut spending, gone away completely, or taken longer to make decisions on new marketing efforts. I don’t blame them. There is a lot of fear out there. We have not been through anything like this since the end of World War II. None of us know what to do.

So companies are doing what seems logical. They are retrenching, laying off people, and slashing their marketing budgets. The thinking seems to be that we need to hoard our resources or we won’t survive. Right now, we cannot worry marketing. Besides, the thinking goes, consumers aren’t buying right now anyway. They too are retrenching.

On the surface, that seems like the course to take. Prudence and frugality should rule until the whole thing is over. do. But it’s not the course companies should be taking. and I can prove it. Let’s first consider the cereal giant, Kellogg.

“So, when the Depression hit, no one knew what would happen to consumer demand,” James Surowiecki wrote in the April 20, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. “Post did the predictable thing: it reined in expenses and cut back on advertising. But Kellogg doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new cereal, Rice Krispies. (Snap, Crackle, and Pop first appeared in the thirties.) By 1933, even as the economy cratered, Kellogg’s profits had risen almost thirty per cent and it had become what it remains today: the industry’s dominant player.”

Surowiecki also wrote “… a major study, by the Strategic Planning Institute, of corporate behavior during the past thirty years found that reducing ad spending during recessions did improve companies’ return on capital. It also meant, though, that they grew less quickly in the years following recessions than more free-spending competitors did.”

It is understandable that many executives are scared to gamble on introducing and marketing something new. I think they see themselves as captains of the Titanic. If they go too fast, they risk running into the iceberg. Going slow allows them to miss the obstacles. But remember this about the Titanic: it wasn’t speed that sank it; it was the failure to see the iceberg that did in the ship. Neither lookout had binoculars and didn’t see the massive piece of ice until it was too late.

Fearing that iceberg, executives don’t see the value in stoking the engines up. But, as long as there are good look-outs with the right equipment, the ice can be avoided. Some companies know that. Let’s look at some the products introduced and marketed during economic hard times:

• Kraft introduced Miracle Whip in 1933. Through both radio and newspaper ads, it became the top salad dressing in the United States.

• In 1933, Proctor & Gamble went on the radio with the first soap opera – “Ma Perkins,” sponsored by Oxydol.  P&G was so satisfied with the sales increase, they went on to introduce “Vic and Sadie” for Crisco, “O’Niells” for Ivory Soap and “Forever Young” for Camay.  By 1939 the Cincinnati-based company was sponsoring 21 radio programs. It doubled its radio-advertising budget every two years during the Depression.
• Also during the Depression, General Motors used intensive advertising to pass Ford as the number auto company. I find it interesting that Ford is now gearing up its marketing efforts, while GM sits on the sidelines.
• Apple introduced the IPod in 2001, around the bottom of the last recession. Apple is a master of viral marketing. We all know what happened to the Apple’s profits as a result. In addition, Apple has used the cache built by IPod to increase its market in areas such as laptop computers.

I could on, but the point is, cutting back the wrong thing to do. Of course, it’s a gamble.

As Surowiecki concluded: “The academics Peter Dickson and Joseph Giglierano have argued that companies have to worry about two kinds of failure: “sinking the boat” (wrecking the company by making a bad bet) or “missing the boat” (letting a great opportunity pass). Today, most companies are far more worried about sinking the boat than about missing it. That’s why the opportunity to do what Kellogg did exists. That’s also why it’s so nerve-racking to try it.”

Of course, I have an answer for that – social media. I know I am obnoxious about this, but I firmly believe that social media is going to replace traditional advertising, marketing, and public relations within the not-to-distant future. Think of social media in the same Proctor & Gamble thought of radio in the 1930s. A lot of the company’s shareholders were opposed to using the new medium, especially during The Great Depression.

Think of social media as the new radio. As radio was to P&G, social media could be to a smart company willing to take a chance. A lot of companies are starting to dabble in it, but few have made a total commitment. I think there is both fear and unfamiliarity with the new medium. A survey by the blog überceo found that the majority of CEOs whose companies are on the Fortune 100 are – the blog’s words – social media slackers. They don’t understand it or know how to use it.

That’s where someone like me enters the picture. It is my job to show executives why it is smart to market using social media. Just let any savvy marketer who understands media into the room and we will show why this recession could be the best thing that ever happened to your company.

A Time magazine poll done shortly after Walter Cronkite’s death found Comedy Central “news anchor” Jon Stewart is now the most trusted newscaster in America. For those of you too young to remember, that title was held by “Uncle Walter” for the almost two decades in which he anchored the CBS Evening News.

That a comedian is now considered the most trusted man in American news has profound implications for those of us in marketing and public relations. It is another demonstration that the old rules no longer apply. Newspaper or television coverage of a client will no longer translate into increased brand awareness, increased sales or brand loyalty.

It means that social media is the now the best way to market. In fact, in the not-to-distant future, I believe social media will sweep away traditional advertising, marketing and public relations.

Why? And what does this have to do with Walter Cronkite and Jon Stewart?

Well, Walter Cronkite reported the news. He didn’t embellish or editorialize. He presented the facts as he saw them. People believed him because of who he was. Cronkite talked and we listened. Advertising, marketing and public relations were done – is still done in many cases – the same way. On behalf of our client, we tell a potential customer why a product should be purchased. We get a newspaper or a broadcast outlet to do a story on a client. We think convert potential customers into buyers because of what we did. We think we have succeeded.

We’re wrong.

Watch a Jon Stewart broadcast on Hulu.com. He doesn’t so much report as comment. Much of what he does is satire. One of my favorite segments is when he plays a tape of some public figure making a statement he never said something controversial. Stewart than plays half dozen clips showing the politician making the controversial statement. He often doesn’t say anything, but his expressions after some stories say what he thinks about what was just reported. Stewart is a reflection of much of today’s cynicism about just about everything.

This is how most of today’s consumers think. Just telling them something is good isn’t going to cut it. In fact, study after study shows that most people under the age of 35 just don’t trust advertising. Advertising and public relations doesn’t even reach most of them. They don’t read newspapers or magazines, they don’t listen to radio. In other words, the traditional model no longer works. Even if they do watch television, they probably use a Digital Video Recorder, or DVR, to record shows.  A DVR is programmed to skip commercials. Where today’s consumers get most of their information is from the Internet.

The recession has also things tougher. There just isn’t as much money to spend as there was even two years ago. Consumers are becoming extremely discriminating in how and where they spend their money.

An article in the June issue of McKinsey Quarterly notes: “Marketing has always sought … touch points, when consumers are open to influence. For years, touch points have been understood through the metaphor of a “funnel”—consumers start with a number of potential brands in mind (the wide end of the funnel), marketing is then directed at them as they methodically reduce that number and move through the funnel, and at the end they emerge with the one brand they chose to purchase. But today, the funnel concept fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels, coupled with the emergence of an increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer. (my emphasis) A more sophisticated approach is required to help marketers navigate this environment, which is less linear and more complicated than the funnel suggests. We call this approach the consumer decision journey.”

The best way, the only way, I feel to reach those increasingly sophisticated consumers is through social media. They need to be convinced that what they are considering purchasing meets their needs. They have to be shown. Most consumers today are going to do a lot of research before they make a purchase. They are going to talk to their friends and go on to discuss brands.

As I tell potential clients:” there is already a conversation going on about your company, event, or product. You need to be a part of that conversation. Whether you are not, the conversation will go on.”

That’s the role of social media. Companies can join in the conversation. But in doing that, they need to provide real reasons why a consumer should buy into that company’s concept. A company has to use all of the social media tools to convince a reluctant buyer that they should buy a product.

Blogs by company officials can tell a consumer the thinking behind a particular product’s creation. It can detail why the creator feels it is good product. A good blog will allow consumers to ask questions about the product. Remember, they expect accurate, concise answers. Try to hype them and you will lose them. If the blog is well done and honest, other blogs will link to it, consumers will tweet about and the word will spread.  To support the product, a company can post videos on YouTube demonstrating the product and how it works. Again, there has to be room for consumer questions and comments.

Many companies are starting to understand. I could use a Starbucks or Southwest Airlines as an example. But I will leave you with the story of a Texas car dealership. General Manager Hagen Durant is using Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to bring in business. This is an excellent demonstration of how everyone should be embracing social media.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. Myself and three 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, the podcasts, 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 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.

I was once at a party where a couple of guys were talking about some websites they surf that feature lascivious content. I am taking their word for what was on the sites. Those sites are not anything in which I am interested. The sexiest thing I look at on the Web is the new Trek Madone bike.

At any rate, I asked these two if they weren’t worried someone would find out about their online viewing habits? One of them assured me that no one would find out because they use fake names and email addresses dedicated only to their pursuit of “pleasure.” Oh, I said, so you don’t use your home computers? Both of them looked at me and said of course they did – they would never do that kind of thing in public.

Both turned white when I told they were not hiding anything. Why? Because on the web, their computers are identified by their ISP addresses. They cannot fake those. In addition, I am willing to bet that the porn sites are dumping cookies into their computers.

“In computing, a cookie (also tracking cookie, browser cookie, and HTTP cookie) is a small piece of text stored on a user’s computer by a web browser,” according to Wikipedia. “A cookie can be used for authenticating, session tracking (state maintenance), and remembering specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts.” (The emphasis is mine.)

In other words, your ISP provider knows where you are going and what you are doing, and the site you visited knows you were there. Actually, a spouse could find too, simply by checking the list of cookies stored in the computer.

What these two gentlemen discovered is there is no privacy on the web. The trade-off for using social media and other sites is that you are living in a glass house with no curtains.

I am not talking about hackers. That is entirely different issue that often involves criminal conduct. What I am talking about here is the entirely legal ways your personal information becomes public information. The problem is that once this information is collected and packaged, it doesn’t seem that difficult for hackers to steal it.

There are any number of businesses and agencies that collect and keep information that flows around the web. Retailers, credit card companies, and research firms, are some. Just to make it really fun, law enforcement monitors also the web.

“Among its many provisions, the (Patriot) Act gives law enforcement authorities additional authority to monitor individuals’ Internet activity, including e-mail and website visits,” according to a 2004 article by the Congressional Research Service. “Amendments passed the next year as part of the Homeland Security Act (P.L. 107-296) expanded the circumstances under which Internet Service Providers may voluntarily divulge the content of communications, and to whom.”

Think about all of this. When you buy a pair of shoes or anything else on line, information such the type of shoe you buy, your address, what kind of credit card you used, what other shoes you looked it, how long you stayed on the site, and where you live are all recorded.

When you join sites such as Facebook or Twitter, you provide such information as whether you are married, where you live, your income range and some of your interests. On LinkedIn and other such sites, you are telling the world where you work, where you went to college, what other jobs you had and what you are doing at work. Add to that some of the Google apps, such as IGoogle, that tells the world where you are and what you watch on YouTube.

Companies now regularly check such sites as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter before making a hiring decision. There are dozens of stories about candidates losing out on jobs because of the pictures of that beer bong or wet t-shirt contest. In my home state of Wisconsin, all criminal records are listed on a state website. If you look, you will find my two speeding tickets.

If you really want to lay awake at night, consider what two researchers recently discovered. According to Time Magazine: “by using data from voter registration lists and social-networking sites, and studying statistical patterns in the Social Security numbers (SSNs) of people who have died, researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross have developed an algorithm that could potentially identify the SSNs of millions of people. Acquisti and Gross warn that “unless mitigating strategies are implemented, the predictability of SSNs exposes them to risks of identity theft on mass scales.” (my emphasis.)

Just for the heck of it, I Googled myself. I found out a lot – just about everything I listed above. I found where I live, what I did, where I went to college and my original hometown. I should note that when I was a reporter, I was put through several Internet training courses. I am pretty good researcher. It wasn’t that hard for me to find just anything for which I was looking. But I am nothing special. Anyone with a logical mind and a knack for solving puzzles can find pretty much find anything on the Web.

Okay, so you are saying to yourself, well, I don’t use the web that much. I don’t purchase anything from a website. I mostly just send email. Well, let’s put aside credit cards for a minute. Like most of us, you probably have a number of discount cards in your wallet from various hotels, airlines, retailers and grocery stores. You think they give  you those cards out of some altruistic method? No, every time you make a purchase and use one of those cards, all of your purchases go into a database. Very soon, the retailer builds a pretty good profile of what you buy.

Companies who aggregate the information collect all kinds of other data from a variety of sources. You want to buy a list of blue-eye, left handed Catholics who make over $75,000 a year and play golf every Saturday? Someone can compile the information for you.

When I tell people this, they roll their eyes and stammer that somebody should do something about this. Well, what would have someone do? Do you really want a world with the Internet, if it was even possible? It’s here to stay. So unless you are planning on moving completely off the grid, we all just have to learn to be careful and just live with it.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. Myself and three 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 $47. 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, the podcasts, 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. That’s right, we are actually marketing to Boomers – and anyone else who is interested.

In every company’s life comes a time when things don’t go so well. A product doesn’t perform well, there is an accident in the plant, or an executive is caught with his hand in the cookie jar. When bad news happens, many executives first instinct is to duck and cover. They deny, lie and obfuscate. Wrong thing to do.

No likes bad news. But bad news can be turned into either a demonstration of competency or a public relations disaster. Handling bad news incorrectly can lead to a depressed stock price, lower sales, and in some cases, government regulation. No smart CEO wants any of that.

If you remember my lessons on interviews and crisis communications, you know why. A quick review: liars get caught and destroy all credibility; not releasing all information, or giving incorrect information, can make a crisis worse.

In Milwaukee in the last few days, the right way to handle bad news was demonstrated. One of the area’s largest employers – meat packer Patrick Cudahy – saw a devastating fire destroy one of its primary buildings. However, local government officials and company executives handled the public relations correctly. Emergency officials gave updates as soon as they information to release. Local government did its part to tell people living around the plant what was going on.

Most importantly, both local Patrick Cudahy executives and executives from parent company Smithfield Foods, Inc. did everything they could to assure workers that jobs would not be going away. In addition, Smithfield worked hard to assure its customers that there would no product shortfall.

Writers note: I once was a member of the public relations team that represented Smithfield. However, I have not had any contact with the company in five years.

This was an example where everything was done right. Communication channels were kept open, information was disseminated as soon as it was confirmed as being accurate and no one tried to duck or cover. As a result, officials controlled the story and it’s positioning from the beginning.

Contrast that with the way some banks and mortgage companies are handling the rash of foreclosures. As reported in the July 12 Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, some lenders are simply walking away from foreclosed properties. The effect is causing blight in otherwise stable neighborhoods.

The lenders’ defense is that it doesn’t make financial sense to take some properties because the profit would not offset the cost of the effort to rehab and resell the property. So they walk away from it. Often there is no longer any clear owner leaving the municipality and neighbors to deal with a property that can become a haven for vandals, squatters, prostitutes and drug dealers. The cash-strapped local government has to deal with both losing property tax revenue and eventually paying to have the building torn down.

Remember, these lenders are the ones who either originated the loan or sold it to a group of investors. As has been demonstrated time and time again, the people receiving the loans should have never been given the money. They usually did not have the ability to make the payments.

The “not our problem” attitude is probably why only 36 percent of Americans in 2008 told the Gallup Organization they had a positive view of the banking industry.

I will never understand why financial people in particular always talk in “money speak” when it comes to dealing with bad news. It just kills their image.

What the financial industry in this case has to realize is that what is simply a balance sheet issue to them is an emotional issue to someone living next to an abandoned house. Residents take it very personally when something affects their neighborhood.

What the financial industry is doing is a good example of thinking short-term. Something bad happens, so the first instinct is to put one’s head down, make an inane comment and hope it all goes away. What they are not seeing is the big picture. People remember these kinds of actions. That leads them to do things like demanding more government regulation. The financial industry will find it has no friends when it opposes such actions.

That’s key takeaway from this. When bad news hits, think long term. Deal with the news in a way that doesn’t cause damage. It might be hard to do in the heat of the moment, but it is best course of action.

Next week, I am going to write the other side of social media – how in today’s environment, privacy is becoming a thing of the past.

So, you’ve landed that big interview for your boss or client. The CEO is set to appear on CNBC’s Squawk Box or be interviewed by one of Business Week’s top writers. You’re feeling good about yourself. This will put the company on the map.

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.

I have been active in social media for about a year.  I have also sat at the (digital) feet of Simon Ford, a man I consider a true social media expert, and learned a lot. I am active on over a dozen sites – ranging from Facebook to Squidoo. I range over another dozen at least once a week.

Now, that’s all well and good. I know I am not unique in my use of social media. One thing that makes me unique is my age – I am 55-years-old. I don’t how many other baby boomers do as much as I do with social media.

I bring up age for a reason: Mrs. Cole raised a polite boy, one who knew his manners from an early age. Just as there are (or at least I hope there still are) rules for conversations, there are also social media rules. Ignoring some social media rules will only get your marked as a boor, ignoring others will get you marked as a spammer and ignoring still others can cost you a job. In some instances, if you are really stupid, it can get you sent to jail.

So here, in about 800 words, are Mrs. Cole’s son’s rules for using social media sites. I cannot cover them all, but I will hit the high points. Most of the rules are universal.

One thing – there is no privacy on the Internet. It is the price we pay for connectivity. Nothing ever really goes away. It is on the ‘net somewhere. The rule I always use is that if I would be embarrassed for my family to see it, I don’t post it.

There two general rules I want to tell you first, although I hope you already know them both.

• First, social media sites are not a popularity contest. You have already graduated from high school. So don’t try to add followers just because you think it’s cool to have a lot of followers. Followers, and those you follow, should be people with which you have things in common. Hopefully, you are on a site to talk, debate, learn and share information. It is almost never cool to push yourself. If you post something that attracts attention, others will repeat it. It is like all social media – third party endorsements are the best.
• Second, no spamming. You should not be using social media lists to sell the latest scheme for anything. As Social Traffic Inc. CEO Doug McIsaac says: “if you wouldn’t want it to happen to you, why would you do it to others?”

Oh, I am going to assume you know about the sites I am writing about. There will be no explanations of which sites do what.

Let’s start with the rules for Twitter:

• First – use your real name, or some variation thereof. I follow people with real names; I usually won’t follow @stonerchick88 or @studman. Why aren’t you using your real name? What do you have to hide? And, if you use a dumb nickname, I will assume one of two things: you are about 12-years-old, or you are spammer. In either case, I am not interested.
• Second, post a link and a bio. Again, I assume if there is no information, you are hiding something. As a side note, if your link leads me to some get rich quick scheme, I will block you. Pictures, while not required, are also nice. I like to see to whom I am talking.
• Third, tweet at least once a day or so. If you ask me to follow you, and you have not tweeted since George W. Bush was president, I am not interested. It means you have nothing to say.
• Retweet what others have to say, it ‘s common courtesy.
• I don’t give a damn what you had for breakfast, or if your dog has gas.

Facebook

• I know Facebook is a little more, how shall I say, homey. People do talk about breakfast, flowers, and their dog’s intestinal upsets. That’s fine. Just don’t get upset when I ignore that.
• For all you students out there, do not, I repeat, do not, post pictures of you smoking a joint at that wet t-shirt contest. Potential employers check Facebook before making hiring decisions. You think they are going to hire you if they have pictorial evidence of you doing something stupid? And don’t gamble on taking everything down in your senior year. Nothing is ever secret on the Internet. The rule of thumb is if you want Mom to see it, don’t post it.

LinkedIn – this is my favorite social media site. You have to be adult to be on it. It’s rules are strictly enforced by both its moderators and it members. Still, there are rules, including:

• Complete your profile. I have picked up clients because people have read my profile.
• Generally, it is common courtesy to link in with someone who asks. Contacts are at the heart of LinkedIn, so honor the requests.
• If you join a group, it is good manners to comment on discussions and answer questions. That’s what linking in is all about. It is a discussion group, after all.

If you really like what someone is doing, recommend them. It tells others that this is a good person.

YouTube – This one is pretty simple. Don’t post any videos you don’t want a future employer to see. Just like Facebook, employers check YouTube. Of course, we have all read the stories of people committing a crime. For some unknown reason, they feel the urge to record it and post it on YouTube. I personally think the sentence should be doubled because of the stupidity of it all.

There are a number of other sites – Digg, Squidoo, Technorati, and FriendFeed to name a few. The basic rule for all of them is showing some respect for others. And be yourself, but don’t be a jerk.

Thanks for reading. Next week, I will be talking about the do’s and don’ts of media training.

When I was a wee slip of lad back in the ‘60s (alright, I was a teenager, but I was small), Black revolutionary poet Gil Scott-Heron wrote a poem entitled “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”

The first stanza said:

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

In other words, you will have to be involved to make the revolution happen. Although I am not sure Scott-Heron would make the connection, I think his poem applies to what is happening in countries like Moldova and Iran. Social media – which demands involvement – is bringing people into the streets. It Moldova, it is being called the Twitter Revolution.

Television has been one of the key tools those power use to stay on top. That’s why the first target of any revolution was always the broadcast outlets. It used to be he who controlled the outlets controlled the information. And he who controlled the information controlled the outcome.

Well, that’s how it used to be. But, as we saw in Moldova and now in Iran, social media trumps old media. It is social media that is sustaining the protestors in both countries. Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed and YouTube have become the instruments for protests.

Iranian opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi has a Facebook page, where he, or most likely an aide, give updates on what is happening inside their country. Moldovans and Iranians tweet about what is happening inside their country. Powerful amateur videos of protests in both countries are posted almost daily on YouTube.

I am a social media advocate. I firmly believe it is rendering conventional marketing and advertising obsolete. But what social media is being used for now is far more important than selling a few more widgets. Social media is allowing people who used to be completely shut out of any say in their own political futures to make themselves heard.

The media has always been important to anyone trying to make changes. This is especially true in free countries where the government does not control the media. In August 1968, protestors at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago started chanting “the whole world is watching” as National Guardsmen and Chicago Police officers beat them. They knew what was happening to them would be seen because the national networks were recording it. What happened in Chicago gained even greater impact when then CBS news correspondent Dan Rather was punched on the floor of the Democratic National Convention.

“What an official report later described as a “police riot” did more damage to Chicago’s reputation and the fortunes of the Democratic Party than anything the protestors could have done,” according to blogger Jo Freeman. What did the real damage is that people found out about it. Many historians now believe that what happened in Chicago was when mainstream America started to turn against the Vietnam War.

It used to be different in places like Iran where the rulers control all of the official outlets. I think they thought they could control the flow of information during what looks to be a deeply flawed election. They used the old model of the media lecturing to its audience. What they didn’t understand is that social media fosters conversations, arguments and information sharing. It is the democratization of information.

“What Twitter and Facebook can do is spread information to large groups. In any crisis, that’s important, both to the participants and to the outside world. But what is the true value of Iranian tweets,” Forbes Deputy Editor Elisabeth Eaves asks in a column. “On one hand, they are more valuable than crisis tweets would be in a country with a free press, because they are one of the few sources of information the government has not found a way to control.  Gaurav Mishra, founder of a Mumbai-based social media analytics company observes … “in Iran … social media are the only things you have.”

Mishra estimates there are only be 10,000 tweeters in Iran. But I suspect those 10,000 are the leaders of the protest, or at least the leading communicators. I have no idea if all 10,000 follow each other, but I suspect there is a lot of following among the group.

So, say the 10 of those tweeters spread the word about a protest. That tweet reaches all 10,000. Each of those 10,000 uses the oldest form of social media known – they talk to their family, friends, and neighbors. Each talks to 10 of their neighbors. That’s 100,000 people. Each of those 100,000 talks to another 10. Suddenly you have a million people pouring into the streets. I think that also explains why the protest seem to be an urban phenomenon. People live closer to each other in cities.

Twitter seems to understand the power of social media and what is happening in Iran. It delayed scheduled maintenance so as not inhibit the Iranian protests. That allowed the protestors time to organize more demonstrations.

As I write this, it appears the Iranian government is beginning to use violence to stop the protests. The protestors are fighting back. Although no one can predict what will happen, it appears the Iranian people are willing to take their protests to the next level. Will they succeed in toppling the current regime? Who knows? But, if they do, it means social media has moved from the marketplace to a much a larger stage.

For only the second year since records have been kept, charitable giving in the United States declined in 2008, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal. The paper reported that “according to an annual report released Wednesday by the Giving USA Foundation, U.S. giving in 2008 totaled $307.65 billion, down about 2 percent from 2007’s record total of $314.07 billion. When adjusted for inflation, the drop is 5.7 percent.

“The reduction is the first in the survey’s 52-year history caused by economic conditions. A slight decline in 1987 is attributed to changes in tax laws.” Experts estimate that 2009 will also show a decline in giving, the paper reported.

Clearly, charitable organizations should be rethinking the way they fund raise. The old ways are not working as former donors react to the recession.This is not the first recession charities have weathered. There have been several since records started being kept in 1957. Yet, for the first time, donors are backing off.

What have charities done in response? Stepped up their traditional fund raising methods of mailings, phone calls and emails. Judging by last year’s results, these methods are no longer working. Plus, I suspect sending out more letters and making more phone call raises administrative costs, thereby taking money away from the various charities’ missions.

To me the solution is simple – adopt social media methods. Start blogging, tweeting, using Facebook and other social media sites to get their message out. I think it will be a lot more effective than the way charities and foundations are doing it now. Instead of sticking their hands out, charities should be demonstrating the benefits they provide. Entice people into giving; don’t beat them over the head.

Let’s look at the way it is being done now. In my mail each day are solicitations from a number of charities. At the Cole household, we probably get somewhere around seven or eight such mailings each week. All come from worthy causes who appear to have real needs. Some send pens or mailings labels, while others included poignant pictures or sobering statistics about the effect of this disease or that pollutant.

In addition to the snail mail, we receive emails and phone calls from various groups. The range of groups who call is even wider than the mailings. They range from my wife’s and my alma mater to groups we support and a lot we don’t. They usually come in the evening around dinnertime. I guess they assume that’s when people are home. The colleges always seem to have some hapless student make the calls.

These solicitations annoy the hell out of me. I think they are ineffective and counter-productive. Instead of convincing people to donate, I have the feeling they do just the opposite. And how much do these organizations spend buying pens and mailing labels? I use them, but it doesn’t make me want to donate. My biggest peeve: the multiple mailings from the same organization. Don’t the local, state and national organizations ever talk? Do they really think people are going send three separate checks?

I am not just speaking from the hip. I have participated in, worked on, and run a number of local charity events. Because diabetes is prevalent in my family, I have done a lot of volunteering for the American Diabetes Association. I have also done pro bono work for a several charities.

Instead of killing whole forests, I think charities should be concentrating on converting their donors into true communities. As blogger Andy Sernovitz noted in the “Smart Blog on Social Media,” the key for anyone trying to do anything on the Web is community-building.

Sernovitz’s suggests:

• Create focused communities. A group focused around a central issue or mission will be much more active than a general fan club.
• Offer training and certifications. Use your groups as virtual classrooms for educational training and offer things members can add to their resume.
• Reward participation. Promote your active community members by awarding them leadership roles and credentials.

Now, I firmly believe with two decades social media is going to knock traditional advertising, marketing and public relations ass over teakettle. (Sorry, the Irish in me comes out sometimes.) It is already happening. Study after study is demonstrating that before consumers fork over hard-earned cash for anything, they want to know everything they can about their purchase or donation. I believe the recession has heightened that.

The other effect the recession is having is that people are reassessing their spending. “All in all, 51 percent of Americans project that they are going to settle into a new, normal pattern relating to either spending or saving. Within this universe, a group of significant interest is those who say they are going to be not only spending less in the years ahead but also saving more — behaviors that would mark them as true exemplars of the ‘new frugality,’” according to an April 27 report from the Gallup organization.

I think most people are going to reassess charitable giving as part of their personal spending reviews. So, as I just said, they are going to need a reason to donate beyond just a free pen or some mailing labels. True, there will some loyalty from long-time donors. But, I can tell you from experience you cannot rely on just them. You need the so-called “casual giver.”

Couple this with the coming of Gen Y. This is a group of people who have little or no brand loyalty. They also don’t have a lot of money. They don’t read newspapers, and they don’t watch a lot of television. Where they do get their information from is the Internet. You want them to donate, you have to go where they hangout. That would be cyberspace.

So, it’s time to turn to social media –  blogging, twittering, podcasting, vloging. The entire social media toolbox needs to be utilized.  Not doing that is asking for trouble.

What do you think?

I post this blog every Monday. 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.

If you want to subscribe to this blog, please use the RSS feed link in the upper right hand corner.

In addition, please join my community. In the upper right hand corner, there is a widget marked Google Friend Connect. Please join. This is an example of cutting edge social media.

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’s 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.

Email me at jjcole54@gmail.com.

The online classified advertising service Craigslist has been in the news a lot lately. None of those stories are the kinds of clippings that will be posted on the company bulletin board as morale builders. Accusations that people are using Craigslist as a high tech brothel, stories of a murderer who found his victims via the service, and the latest story: a woman raped because her husband solicited the assault on Craigslist.

If there were ever a situation that cried for a proactive crisis communications strategy, this would be the one. Yet, I have yet to see any evidence that Craigslist has one. Rather, the company seems to be responding on an ad hoc basis. That’s not a good idea and in the long run, it could hurt the company.

As a note, I use Craigslist sometimes. It is a very handy site for finding all kinds of things. I like it.

That being said, the way Craigslist reacts to stories of people committing murders by placing ads on their site or scammers finding victims through the site, is in my opinion, just plain wrong. All it does is attract grand standing politicians who want to make a name for themselves. What it could do is eventually attract some bulldog of a trial lawyer who sees deep pockets. Yeah, that lawyer might eventually lose the case, but think of the negative publicity, and the money Craigslist will spend defending itself.

Now obviously any site that has over 50 million unique visitors each month is going to attract some strange people. No question about that. Remember, until 2008 pornographic sites dominated the Internet. It took social media usages to knock porn off of the mountaintop.

It’s not Craigslist’s fault these people show up at their doorstep. However, the San Francisco-based website could be a whole lot more proactive when that fringe element uses the website to pull off a crime.

‘What makes Craigslist susceptible to crime is the perceived anonymity of the site; Trench Reynolds told the North Carolina-based News & Observer. Reynolds runs CraigsCrimeList, a site dedicated to tracking crime believed to be spawned by Craigslist

Reynolds said the most common crime connected to Craigslist is fraud or scams, with robbery second. Rapes have been connected to Craigslist solicitations, he said.

Craigslist does cooperate with authorities when it is alerted that someone has used the service to commit a crime.

Craigslist is also just coming off a battle where were several state attorneys general forced the company the curtail its erotic ad section. I suspect it is feeling more than a little bruised and battered.

Still, I cringed when I read the following statement from Craigslist spokesperson Susan MacTavish Best in the Columbus Dispatch: “she questioned whether it is standard practice for reporters to call, for instance, General Motors every time someone is injured in connection with a GM vehicle.”

Well, yeah they do when it shown that some action by General Motors or another auto company contributed to the accident. Any company that manufactures a product can tell you that.

Making a statement like that is not the way to handle a crisis. For that’s what this is from Craigslist – a crisis. So, I think rather than react every time some idiot uses the service for criminal purposes, the service should come up with a plan to prevent such things from happening.

What would I do is:

• No anonymous ads, period. If you read this blog regularly, you know I worked for newspapers for over two decades. No one could ever place an anonymous ad in a newspaper. The paper might agree not to use a name, but it always knew everything about the person placing the ad: name, address, phone number, bank information, etc. True papers got fooled sometimes, but it was rare. All it takes right now to post on Craigslist and reply to ads is an e-mail address.
• No personals period. Leave those to the alternative press and the dating sites. It seems people placing personal ads commit a lot of the crimes. To me, Craigslist is on-line sales forum, not a lonely-hearts site.
• Develop someway to review the ads. According to Craigslist’s website, it has 28 employees. I cannot imagine another web company, say Google, running with only 28 employees. Yeah, I know the whole privacy argument and most times I agree with it. But, there has to be some way to screen for the wackos and the weirdoes. I cannot believe there isn’t a search algorithm that could flag potentially dangerous ads for review by a staff member.
• Have a much better response when something does happen. A flack such Best should never be making a comment about a company. And I say that as a flack myself. Good public relations should leave no fingerprints. Either CEO Jim Buckmaster or founder Craig Newmark should be doing the talking.
• As I wrote in an earlier blog about crisis communications, just saying “our heart goes out to the victim” isn’t enough. If I were Newmark or Buckmaster,  I would sent up a fund to pay for the bills of victim’s who were the victims of a criminal using Craigslist. I know Craiglist’s attorneys will argue that is essentially admitting liability. I don’t think it is, and besides, it protects the brand platform. Or make contributions to victim’s rights funds, or over rewards for catching people who use Craigslist to commit crimes. Do something to show some empathy.

Now, I want to know what you think. I struggled with this blog. I am usually a First Amendment absolutist. I think nothing should be censored. However, the marketplace doesn’t agree. Companies have gone out of business for less. So again, let me know what you think.

I post this blog every Monday. 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.

If you want to subscribe to this blog, please use the RSS feed link in the upper right hand corner.

In addition, please join my community. In the upper right hand corner, there is a widget marked Google Friend Connect. Please join. This is an example of cutting edge social media.

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’s 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.

Email me at jjcole54@gmail.com