What amazes me is that most organizations seem to have no plan for how to publicly handle crises. What I want to acknowledge is that there is no one-size-fits-all response. Precisely what should be said, when and who should say it depends on many factors. But I can tell you this much: If you’re not prepared, then be prepared for the worst.

Dealing with a crisis has one main goal: Do not let your words and actions make the situation and reputation worse.

So what I’m talking about is preparation. Here are a few ideas:

• Identify a small number of people who will be the face of the organization during an organization. The face should belong to a person who has instant credibility with outsiders. Credibility comes in two ways: Title and training. Preferably both, but always the latter. Whether it’s your CEO, your executive vice president or your director of operations, all organizations need to periodically train their spokespeople on handling internal and external communications.

• Identify key media, and keep that list updated. If you’re trying to tell your side of an issue, it’s best to find friendly faces in the media. That doesn’t mean you’re looking for media people who you’re convinced will tell only your side of the story. Good luck with that. Instead, concentrate on media that have covered your organization in the past, or have experience in covering organizations like yours. You want people who understand what your organization does covering this story because they’re more likely to understand the complexities of an issue.

• Identify your overarching goals. What is it you hope to get out of any crisis? Favorable reporting would be wonderful. But fair reporting is reasonable. Fair reporting means giving the facts, pro and con, without embellishment or extraordinary attention to the con side. So a starting point in preparation is this: Be prepared to provide all of the necessary facts. An organizational goal that seeks to spin, stall or be silent will simply lead to your organization losing control of the facts and with it, fair reporting.

• Don’t forget social media. Social media is the place where reassuring messages can be utilized. So make sure part of your crisis team is ready to keep Facebook and Twitter updated. But, one word of caution: You must make sure that the messages in the social media are consistent with the messages to the regular media. The regular media will be paying attention to the social media.

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OLD MEDIA ARE STILL RELEVANT

In other words, if I make widgets, and you need widgets, there’s a reasonable chance that you can find my widget-making business on the Internet thanks the search engines.

OK, that’s simplistic, and it’s not really the subject of this particular column. What I really want to talk about is traditional media and traditional marketing and public relations. Yes, I now appreciate and understand the power of the Internet more than ever. But nothing, absolutely nothing, beats human contact, good writing, smart messaging, and stories in newspapers, radio and television.

In other words, while we’re adapting to 21st Century communication methods, not only can we ill-afford to shelve the old-school methods, they’re as important as ever. Here’s why.
Credibility.

Yes, I know that credibility abounds in the digital world. It’s just that finding it feels like trying to pick out the best tenderloin among a herd of cattle grazing in a pasture. Nothing is standing out.

But traditional media do stand out. They have a history of generally getting the facts right. They reach an audience that is pretty enthusiastic about whatever messaging the traditional media provide. And the users of traditional media are likely to absorb a message, if not immediately act on it.

The digital world, by contrast, is filled with mixed messages, wrong messages and uninformed messages. And it can be hard to stand out.

I’ll take an on-message story in a local newspaper over a viral web-based campaign that’s fairly successful. (Of course, I had to throw in the qualifier “fairly successful” didn’t I? A fabulously successful viral campaign can be a gold mine.)

So that all starts from square one. You need to know the media. In other words, real people. In flesh. Lunch with a reporter is a good thing. Formulating well-constructed press releases that provide traditional media with enough juicy facts to get them interested in your client is critical.

And these days, with the traditional media now partners in the digital world of communications, a story there goes viral in a heartbeat. Readers become bloggers and emailers and gossipers. They share stories in traditional media with their friends, family and co-workers.

Call me old-fashioned, but I think using old-school tactics can move a message faster and with more control over that message, than if you start it on a web-based platform. It all starts with a handshake.

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PR 101: SOCIAL MEDIA

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PR 101: SOCIAL MEDIA

BY FRANK BARRY

Non-profits continue to lead the way and explore how to use social media to do good in the world. And the creativity and inventiveness behind some of the recent social media-powered cause campaigns I’ve seen deserve recognition. Below are three social cause campaigns that will put a smile on your face.

1. 999 Bottles of DMD Research on The Wall

I recently wrote about Darius Weems and the Darius Goes West project on Mashable, but there’s more to be told about this incredible group of savvy social media users. They continue to impress with the ingenuity in coming up with new and inexpensive ways to raise money and awareness for Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD).

In celebration of Darius’s 21st birthday, they created a social good campaign called “999 Bottles of DMD Research on the Wall” that allows anyone to “buy” Darius a “drink” to support the cause. According to the Darius Goes West team, “Darius doesn’t want any alcohol for his birthday. Instead, Darius wants to spend his special day helping scientists come up with a concoction that will slow the progression of DMD – the #1 genetic killer of children in the world – in young men his age.”

By using social media sites like Facebook () and Twitter (), the 999 Bottles of DMD Research on the Wall campaign was able to raise almost $15,000 online in a very short amount of time, with most gifts being less than $21. Make sure to check out the Drink Wall where you can see all those who have supported the cause and bought Darius a drink.

2. The Goslabi (a.k.a. Wasabi) Challenge

If you thought the 999 Bottles of DMD Research on the Wall campaign was creative, then you’ll really love the Goslabi Challenge, another innovative idea from the team at Darius Goes West. There’s one simple question driving this campaign: “If swallowing a spoonful of the flaming hot sushi spice known as wasabi could have an effect on a fatal disease, would you do it?” Interesting challenge, right? The campaign cleverly makes that absurd notion a reality by using spoonfuls of sinus-clearing wasabi to raise money.

The campaign is simple. First, sign up for the challenge and make sure to set a fundraising goal. If you’re not interested in accepting the challenge and swallowing a dose of wasabi, you can still participate by sponsoring a spoon. Second, go out and ask your friends, family and anyone else you know to help you reach your goal. Being that Facebook is such a key part of the Darius Goes West community, Darius and team made it simple to challenge your friends on Facebook. Third, once you’ve reached your goal, grab your video camera and prepare to eat one spoonful of wasabi. Finally, make sure to upload your video for everyone to enjoy.

You’ve got to hand it to this team of creative and passionate folks for their continued efforts to raise awareness and money for DMD, while simultaneously having a lot of fun.

3. Send a Valentine to a Survivor

Love146’s Send a Valentine to a Survivor campaign made hundreds of families smile last Valentine’s Day. The campaign goal was simple: mobilize the Love146 community via its members’ social media outposts (blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube ()) to create personalized Valentine’s Day cards that would then be sent to the families of Round Home, a safe home for children in the Philippines who have been exploited in the sex trade.

In a matter of days, Love146 received hundreds of Valentine’s Day cards and raised a little money along the way. In fact, you can still give a gift online to support the cause. Make sure to check out the Flickr stream or the slideshow below to see all the creative and encouraging valentines.

Check out the resulting Flickr Slide show:

What social good campaigns have you participated in or seen that brought a smile to your face? Let us know in the comments.

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SOCIAL NETWORKING SURGE CREATES OPPORTUNITY

The program promotes the use of the “Advertising Option Icon” and accompanying language, to be displayed within or near online advertisements or on Web pages where data is collected and used for behavioral advertising. The Advertising Option Icon indicates a company’s use of online behavioral advertising and adherence to the Principles guiding the program. By clicking on it, consumers will be able to link to a clear disclosure statement regarding the company’s online behavioral advertising data collection and use practices as well as an easy-to-use opt-out option.

Starting now, companies collecting or using information for behavioral advertising are encouraged to visit www.AboutAds.info to acquire and begin displaying the Advertising Option Icon, signaling their utilization of behavioral advertising and adherence to the Principles. The launch of an industry-wide icon will enhance the efforts of the growing number of companies that are already using similar mechanisms to deliver enhanced notice to millions of consumers. Interested companies engaged in behavioral advertising can also register to participate in the easy-to-use consumer opt-out mechanism on the www.AboutAds.info site.

As business registration and use of the Advertising Option Icon expand, consumers will have an opportunity later this fall to visit www.AboutAds.info for information about online behavioral advertising and to conveniently opt-out of some or all participating companies’ online behavioral ads, if they choose. The cross-industry self-regulatory initiative spans the entire marketing-media ecosystem and is led by the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s), the American Advertising Federation (AAF), the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), theDirect Marketing Association (DMA), and the Interactive Advertising Bureau(IAB). Collectively, these associations represent more than 5,000 leading U.S. corporations across the full spectrum of businesses that have shaped and participate in today’s transformed media landscape.

The associations are actively promoting adoption of the Principles by businesses across the entire online advertising ecosystem via a series of webinars. To build widespread awareness and understanding of the program among the business community and consumers, the associations will be conducting a national educational campaign.

When launched later this fall, the consumer opt-out platform will include the participation of the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI). In addition, the DMA has built the Principles into its existing self-regulatory Guidelines for Ethical Business Practice, which all DMA members are required to comply with as a condition of membership.

Starting in 2011, the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing marketplace trust through self-regulation, along with the DMA, will be responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance, as well as managing consumer complaint resolution. The CBBB and DMA expect to contract with the Better Advertising Project, (BAP), to provide its monitoring technology to report on companies’ adherence to the transparency and control provisions of the program.

“The advertising industry has a long history of strong, effective CBBB-administered self regulation of traditional media, and we look forward to applying these lessons to the dynamic new online advertising market. We also look forward to putting in place technology to monitor the marketplace and promote compliance with the program’s transparency and control principles,” said Lee Peeler, President and CEO of the National Advertising Review Council (NARC) and Executive Vice President, National Advertising Self-Regulation, Council of Better Business Bureaus.

“The Advertising Option Icon program launch builds on DMA’s long-standing commitment to consumer choice and its history of effective self-regulation across all marketing communications. As the marketing community seeks to provide consumers with more timely, relevant and customized advertising messages, the Advertising Option Icon will serve as a beacon of consumer choice and trust in the marketplace. We are committed to helping consumers understand that they have choices and exercise those choices regarding interest-based advertising, and will work diligently to foster compliance and accountability across the industry,” saidLarry Kimmel, CEO, DMA.

“Marketers, agencies and media companies need to talk to their audiences. They need to describe what they do, how they do it and the value it brings. Transparency and choice are essential in reinforcing that trust, and trust is a critical underpinning of growth—for the marketing and media industries as well as for the entire economy,” said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB.

“As advertisers utilize the Internet to effectively market their brands, they recognize the need for consumer trust. The self-regulatory initiative launched today is an exceptional program that protects consumers’ privacy. Consumers now can exercise choice and control over the data used by marketers to create interest-based advertising. On behalf of the ANA’s 400 member companies that collectively invest more than $250 billion annually in marketing communications, we are proud to join with other leading media and marketing organizations to bring this comprehensive, ambitious program to the public,” said Bob Liodice, President and CEO, ANA.

“Our ability to deliver advertising messages to consumers that speak only to their interests must surely be one of the great benefits of the media revolution that we’re living through. We fully understand that this advance in targeting will be lost if the public comes to believe that we are not responsible stewards of the data on which it is built. That is why we are so proud to be one of the driving forces in the creation of the code of responsible conduct that we are launching today,” saidNancy Hill, President and CEO, 4As.

“For the world of online advertising and marketing to work and grow, consumers must trust it. And the way to earn and keep that trust is to give consumers clear disclosure, choices, and, most importantly, control about how their data is used online for the purposes of targeted advertising. The organizations collaborating on this initiative represent an unprecedented coalition in support of that principle, with a concrete program to put that principle into action online. The American Advertising Federation is proud to be joining the other leading media and marketing trade associations in giving consumers the online tools they deserve to control, as they see fit, the use of their data in the world of interest-based online advertising,” said James Edmund Datri, President and CEO, AAF.

“The NAI and its more than 50 members are pleased to contribute their experience in similar self-regulatory programs to this exciting cross-industry effort. We welcome the next stage of this initiative, as our members continue to roll out solutions that give consumers more information and choices around interest-based advertising. Several of our members have already launched icon-related advertising disclosures for hundreds of millions of advertisements, and we expect to see aggressive further deployments over coming months,” said Charles Curran, Executive Director of the Network Advertising Initiative.

“Some argue these measures are not enough. I have to admit, as marketing firm, we of course have benefited from the hyper-targeting evolution in online advertising. I think these new requirements are so obviously necessary. But if I’m going to be shown ads…they might as well be relevant,” said Michelle Kubot Director of Online Marketing at Slay & Associates.

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Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis Media Kit Now Available Online

First, you must determine your desired outcome.  Why does the website exist?  To make the most possible money ?  Be specific, but say it in just 15 words.  Most often this should be somehow tied to financial indicators.

Once you figure this out, you should have analytics set up for this specific purpose.

Behaviors

This is what most people think about as the definitely of “analytics.”  As you can see, this is just one of four categories to achieve useful analytics. Some of the most important behavior indicators in my opinion are: Clickstreams, Click Density and Internal & External Search Keywords & patterns.

These should be segmented as much as possible, to help notice differences and meet the different needs of different users.  For example, sampling by referral source.  Someone who types in the the exact URL could have different goals than someone who was directed from a specific ad.

You must take this data and make hypothesis‘ as to WHY things are happening.

Experience

The behavior data can never be more than a hypothesis.  To gather really motivations behind readers behavior, you have to talk/study them personally.  You can do this threw: survey/poll (emailed, on website, etc), multivariate testing of site organization/tools and by conducting actual research groups.

Competitor analysis

You should compare the data you collect to your data to both put your numbers in perspective and can provide inspiration for new innovations.  (After all, if you are gaining 20% more unique visitors, you would initially be happy.  But what if you look at competitors and they are growing at a level of 60-80%?  Maybe it is the industry that is growing and your company is actually falling behind!)

By:  Michelle

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IT’S CREEPY HOW MUCH ONLINE ADVERTISERS KNOW ABOUT ME

Recently, I contacted and called a few dozen daily newspaper editors and publishers around Missouri, asking them if they would like to meet with a client. Most accepted the meeting.

A few said no. One editor, however, was blunt is his refusal: “Any public interest group that can afford a large public relations firm can afford to advertise itself and its mission.”

It was the sweetest rejection in my PR career. And why? Because I don’t work for a large firm. In fact, Slay and Associates is small. But his assumption that I worked for a large firm was a huge compliment. My boss was pretty happy about it, too. It means that we are enjoying the best of both worlds: We have the capacity to turn out work that matches a large firm with massive resources, while employing the nimbleness and cost advantages of a small firm.

So how do we do it? How do we look so big, when we’re not?

It takes coordination, planning, cross-training and a working understanding of technology.

Why did that newspaper editor think we were a big firm?

Well, first, he saw the 11-page media kit sent to each editor and publisher. It wasn’t on slick paper with some fancy folder. It was sent in a digital Microsoft Word file, with our clients’ logo on each page. It looked nice, but it didn’t take a team of staffers, printers and graphic designers to put together.

The kit included a few articles written about my client. We keep and catalog an electronic copy of every article involving our clients, and use Nexis as a back up. So assembling those wasn’t time particularly time-consuming. I also put together a short question-and-answer section about the client. Those questions were devised weeks earlier, as we determined an overall strategy for educating the public about the organization.

Not a lot of extra work there. Just cut and paste.

I spent a lot of my time with web developers who put together the new web page for my client. We created a simple, but elegant and easy-to-navigate site. I’m hoping that anyone who went to the site thinks my clients spent tens of thousands of dollars on web designer to put it together. But that’s not the case.

The media kit did not include a link to our website. But our firm’s name was there. PR professionals have to assume that every press release, every media contact will be followed by a visit to your site by a journalist. And despite the protests of one media person, it’s better to look big and polished, than small and disorganized.

So my boss has done a smart thing. She has invested time and effort in designing our site. But that’s not enough. It has to be maintained well, too – constantly updated so the information is always fresh.  So one of the two full-time employees here at Slay sees to it that our site looks great all of the time. It’s imperative to have a dynamic, constantly updated website for any PR firm. And it’s a lot easier to have that if someone working for the firm can keep up with it.

So put it all together, and you have one editor complaining, while others came away impressed. I’m thinking that our big-firm look provided some credibility and helped get us in the door at some of the newspapers. Once inside, of course, that’s when our real work begins.

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NAUDI, ELSWICK JOIN SLAY AND ASSOCIATES MARKETING, PR TEAM

I was a skeptic for quite a while about the impact of the social media in providing a coherent media message. Let me correct that: I was uninformed, unenthusiastic and unmoved about the need for social media in crafting a public relations message. I chalk that up to a generational thing. When I was in college, the Commodore 64 was all the rage.
But I’ve seen the light.

Let me go point-by-point through my concerns and how they’ve been alleviated.
MY CONCERN: I wasn’t sure what social media was. All I could see was a maze of disparate websites, with seemingly different audiences and different philosophies. I saw no way to connect to them.
THE AHA MOMENT: It came through a belated appreciation a single word: web. That word has meaning. You literally can get from one part of the Internet to another by moving down or up and over a few strands of the web. That’s precisely what social media are about. Yes, there are scores of sites, but they’re all interconnected. It really doesn’t take that many messages on that many websites before one of two things happens: Your message moves down the strands to other social media or users, or users work through the web to your message.

MY CONCERN: We lose control over a message just dropped onto social media. I mean, there’s no telling how the message might morph, like the infamous telephone game we played as children. “Jimmy likes green tomatoes,” could easily have become “Jimmy ate greasy turtles” in three or four whispers. Imagine what could happen on the Internet.
THE AHA MOMENT: Cut and paste folks, cut and paste. Most people spend very little time altering messages placed onto social media sites. They forward links or they cut and paste the items. Perhaps more importantly, the original message is always around. You certainly can lose control over who gets your message, but the message itself will stay virtually intact in the virtual social media world.

MY CONCERN: How do I talk to so many different people at the same time? How do I find the target audience?
THE AHA MOMENT: OK, here’s a cavalier thought. The target audience really doesn’t matter. A good message tossed out to a variety of social media sites – Facebook and Twitter being the most obvious – will find its way to a target audience. Of course, the deeper answer is it takes work. You have to build followings for your social media pages or tweets or whatever you might use. Which leads me to my next concern.

MY CONCERN: But how do I build the right kind of social media following?
THE AHA MOMENT: Your only battle is to get followers. It doesn’t matter at all who they are, where they’re from, their ages or genders or religious affiliations. Just get them. The web is a place where exponential math is the driving force. If you have only two 65-year-old grandmothers following you on Twitter, and that’s your target audience, all you might need is one of them to retweet a tweet to her garden club members and your message is off and running. In my opinion, the worst thing you can do is try to limit your followers or your pages or you social media sites.

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SOCIAL NETWORKING SURGE CREATES OPPORTUNITY

First, let me acknowledge what BP did badly from a public relations perspective. In the beginning, BP appeared evasive and equivocal about the disaster and its effects. There also was a short period where it seemed to point fingers at other responsible parties. That’s never a good tactic. BP should have adopted a position of helpfulness, compassion and understanding. That means pointing out its efforts at finding a permanent solution to the oil leak, while acknowledging that it would work hard to prevent such a thing from ever occurring.

And it didn’t help that Tony Hayward, the company’s CEO who will be stepping down soon, had an almost cavalier approach to the Deepwater mess and its effects on the public. He needed massive media prepping and either didn’t get it, or ignored it. It amazes me how often this is the case; company leaders don’t have a clue how to deal with the media in disasters. But it’s pretty basic.

You have to develop a sensible message and stay on it, and you can never let yourself appear flippant, cold or unsympathetic. You must be consistent with both your message and your attitude.
BP, weirdly enough, was helped by the duration of this disaster. It was given what few companies have in a disaster, time. Eventually, BP figured it out. Silencing Hayward, whose credibility was shot, and bringing in an American, Bob Dudley, who is seen as far more compassionate, was a key public relations moment. In addition, BP is running television commercials showing that it cares. OK, so the commercials are obvious ploys, but they will help the company image.

So BP is figuring out the attitude. But what about the message? Well, after the rocky start, BP figured that out, too. The company frequently cautioned that its solutions to the oil leak might not work. It acknowledged that the size of the leak is far larger than originally stated. And it appeared to have accepted blame for the disaster, while acknowledging that it will spend what it takes to restore the environmental damage.

I also want to focus on one important aspect of the disaster: the deaths on the day of the explosion. The 11 people killed on April 20 have become little more than footnotes in a disaster – at least from a PR perspective. I put human lives ahead of other negative impacts, and probably most others do. Those 11 people aren’t coming back, and BP has all-but avoided public shame or scrutiny for that.

Yet BP has managed to escape scrutiny over the deaths on that oil rig. And, yes, I credit PR for that; the one message that has been consistent for BP is to stay mum about those deaths. BP had help, because the media were riveted on the leaking oil. But the last thing it wanted to do was to transfer attention to those who were killed.

The full extent of BP’s PR success or failure won’t be known for a while. But my prediction is that five years from now this disaster will be a faded memory and BP will still be a highly profitable oil company, with an acceptable public image. In the end, that’s what PR is all about.

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PR 101: SOCIAL MEDIA

But the tricky question is who should get the exclusive. There are a several approaches to take in considering who should get the exclusive, and, in the end, you have to accept that some media members probably won’t be happy.

In no particular order, here are the approaches:

• Mercenary. This is pretty basic. You pick the biggest or the best media outlet – print, broadcast and online – and give it to them. When you want impact, you’ve got to be mercenary. That means you might end up wounding some other important media relations.
• Small leak. Sometimes, you just want a small bit of publicity for a client, which might be appropriate for a soft launch of a product or service. But you also want it a story that might build a bit. This would be a perfect place for a well-read blog. It might take a few days for the mainstream media to pick up the item. That could lead to maximum exposure for the hard launch.
• Trusted source. When you want to hand over an exclusive that’s sensitive, you need to pick out a media source who you think will be the most objective.  This one seems obvious, but you need to be careful, too. Your job here isn’t to manipulate this person, but simply to provide truthful information that you want reported accurately.
• Relationship building. For low-impact, but interesting sorts of information, you will probably want to pick media sources that you’ve neglected in the past. You don’t want to burn bridges. So if you are in the habit of giving exclusives, you need to make sure that most of your media contacts get one every once in a while.

So I’ll finetune this with some Do’s and Don’ts.

DO use exclusives from time to time, and the media source should depend on your strategy.

DON’T play media favorites. You really do need to rotate exclusives, or you could end up burning a media source or journalist. And journalists talk to other journalists.

DO ultimately make the exclusive information available to other media and work with those media.

DON’T make excuses for why you gave a story to one media person or another. Ideally, you should be able to assure most journalists, bloggers and others that their turn will come.

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BE CAREFUL WHEN YOU PROMISE EXCLUSIVES