October 2007

Niche online blog groups are popping up daily. Alternative Dads, Working Moms, Adoptive Families, Mothers of Autistic Children, Food Allergic Moms—the list is endless. These communities can be vital to a client’s “buzz” factor and it can be tough to weed through the millions of mini-communities online, but it is completely worth it when the results roll in.

Working with special interest online communities can be very different from a traditional print/broadcast/online (PBO) journalist. They are often very close to the topic they write about and can be an even tougher critic than a traditional PBO journalist. Before fighting the good fight with every mom and pop blog out there, it’s important to really identify true key opinion leaders (KOL), or those with the most weight in that particular blogsphere.

A recent media trend is for producers and writers to work with these bloggers as lifestyle experts. Many bloggers, like the editor of www.allergymoms.com, have become spokepeople for their causes. AllergyMom, Gina Clowes has a child with a food allergy and has made it her mission to get the word out about severe allergies, becoming a mini self-promotion machine. She, like other bloggers, realizes the value of her experiences and presents herself, as an expert available for comment. Many bloggers are actually using traditional public relations tactics to self-promote, such as press releases and media alerts, while others are aligning with a non-profit in the field they cover.

Another great example of special interest blogger is SavvyMommy, Victoria Pericon. Her Web site(www.SavvyMommy.com) is a highly visited site featuring product review and savvy shopping tips for moms. Based out New York, this blogger has done a great deal of PR for herself. She has been featured on numerous national broadcast programs and interviewed for several national magazines and newspapers. Because of her efforts, we automatically targeted her as a parenting KOL because of her increased visibility. This blogger fully welcomed our pitches and offers for projects as it benefitted both our clients and her Web site.

Overall, the passion of parent and special interest bloggers is a benefit to any PR campaign, as long as relationships are targeted at KOL’s. Spending a ton of time on Joe’s Blog about cat food won’t get you the visibility or results you’re seeking.

It’s no secret that Facebook has quickly become one of the most popular marketing platforms online.  With an extremely attentive audience, a naturally viral setting and a low cost for entry,  public relations professionals should take note of a few Facebook channels that can elevate a campaign:

1. Facebook Flyer – The original way people could post advertisements on Facebook.  These are the small sidebars on the left of the page that can include graphics, text and links.  Anyone can post these ads, from a student running for Student Body president, to a large company trying to gain customers to a clinic seeking egg donors.  Flyers are very inexpensive ($15 for 7,500 flyers over three days).
2. Facebook Poll – A valuable market research tool.  A company can create multiple choice question and target specific demographics, with the questions appearing on users’ landing pages.  Facebook polls allow people/brands to get answers to a question in a very short amount of time for $26.
3. Facebook Group – Free to create and a simple way to unite users with a common interest.  When members join a group they can post pictures, make comments and join discussions on the group page.  Group membership is usually posted on a person’s profile page. Group moderators can post and send messages to group members.
4. Facebook Event – An invitation where guests can RSVP and also post comments.  Moderators can send messages, and members get reminders of upcoming events.  Creating an event is free.
5. Facebook Applications – When Facebook opened its platform to 3^rd party developers, many companies took advantage of the Facebook applications.  Applications are widgets that users can download and display on their profile page.  Some applications are very simple and just display a graphic while others are complex and may integrate information from other Web pages or even other social networking sites.  There are a number of regulations for Facebook applications.  For example, Flash animation and music cannot run automatically on a page, it must have a play button.  Facebook applications also can’t have automatic pop ups.  All Facebook applications must be installed and can be uninstalled at any time.

In our next post, we’ll share some strategies to keep in mind when activating a campaign on Facebook.

10) Do: Join Digg, read Digg, get a profile and start interacting with those that Digg in order to get familiar with the subject matter being discussed. There’s eight topics to choose from (thousands of stories submitted per day) so you might want to use Digg Spy to see real-time story updates or Digg Swarm to feel like you are part of a news culture! Also, be aware of who is on Digg — it could be your paperboy, the cable guy, it could even be your Grandma hooked on People’s Court!

9) Don’t: Join Digg and title your profile “John Smith, CTO Insert Fortune 500 Company Name Here.” Assuming a corporate identity can lump you in with a not so complementary title of the one that keeps bringing us all down, “The Man.”

8) Do: Loosen up, be casual, take off that restricting necktie and let your hair down. When posting, interacting and communicating in general with fellow Diggers, be yourself, but realize that you are on a very hip, Web 2.0-meets-social-everything media site, it’s ok to talk casually, fun, sarcastic and ironic at times (think Seinfeld meets CES).

7) Don’t: Take everything personal and bring your list of agenda’s to the party. When you submit, comment and interact, taking on a “my way or the high way” attitude alienates you from the crowd and lessens your following.

6) Do: Think before you submit or Digg someone’s submission. Find articles, podcasts and videos that matter to you and that truly stand out, then take a step back and ask, “Who cares?” If the answer is

a) Lots of people

b) This is hilarious

c) Holy smokes I didn’t know that!

Then by all means, submit or Digg a submission.

5) Don’t: Submit press releases of “me too” information. That’s a sure fire way to get you buried on Digg. Buried = Bad, fyi.

4) Do: Find out which print, broadcast and blog media are submitting to Digg or getting Dugg the most. Is your favorite gadget reviewer from Crunch Gear always on the front page? Is the “2 On Your Side” investigative reporter from Poughkeepsie always getting her show in the top ten on Digg? If that’s the case, find out if your product, story, service or paradigm shifting widget is a good story or trend for s/he to cover and go pitch the good pitch.

3) Don’t: Tell the top five bloggers in your area of interest that the reason you want them to give you coverage is to get on Digg.

2) Do: Be passionate about what you like and don’t like. Digg is a reflection of society as a whole, if you are animated and excited about a topic you will come across as genuine, a quality that people tend to follow.

1) Don’t: Think that Digg is the only social media site there, it’s more of a barometer of how your communication strategy is working overall. Keep your eyes peeled, new sites and trends pop up every day, might even find out about them on Digg.

I’ve pitched bloggers, media blasted podcasters and hunted down reporters like big game. Now Justin.tv comes along. What’s a PR pro to do?

First a little background. Last week Justin.tv opened its platform to the public. What began as one guy with a camera attached to the side of his baseball cap has turned into a media darling and Web 2.0 sensation that gives each of us the opportunity to start our own “lifecast.”

According to the site “[Co-founders] Justin and Emmett were driving around late at night in Boston trying to figure out what to do about their previous startup (Kiko Calendar) after Google Calendar dried up the early adopter market. Justin realized that their conversation might be interesting for other young entrepreneurs, then thought that perhaps you can create really compelling content by just live broadcasting the lives of ordinary people, then thought… why don’t I wear a camera on my head 24/7.”

The concept of using the Internet to create an instant audience for one’s personal life is nothing new. Blogs, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and the rest are each examples of tools that offered mass audiences the opportunity to personalize and popularize their lives. But the concept of Justin.tv took this basic premise to another level. Justin Kan voluntary offered to broadcast his every day activities and was savvy enough to realize that advertisers are only too eager to A) reach new and innovative audiences and B) grab consumers on a personal level. Justin.tv accomplished both of those things. No lie, but Justin.tv actually gained sponsors like Bawls energy drink and ZipCar. Every time Justin stepped into a mall or offered his opinion on his favorite food, it became commercialized whether intended or not. Fast Company has some interesting thoughts on this as well.

Kan, however, has more idealistic hopes for the company, telling the San Francisco Chronicle:

“Broadcasting something live from a remote site has always been the sole domain of large media corporations with access to satellite trucks,” says Kan. “What we want to do is put it in the hands of the people. Imagine what you could do if you had the ability to broadcast live video from anywhere, anytime. It changes the way news is gathered. It makes a whole new kind of travel show possible. It allows the broadcast of sports that aren’t large enough for ESPN. And I don’t think we’ve even predicted 10 percent of the possible uses yet.”

Enter the PR crowd. What are the possibilities that Kan mentions? Can we really turn ourselves into walking, talking media placements? The ability to broadcast a single event from unlimited points of view certainly presents options and benefits that a traditional media hit never could. With Justin.tv, we can eliminate the need to secure broadcast crews and instead choose to broadcast whatever we want, whenever we want, getting our clients messages out to a tech-savvy, highly influential audience.

Now, these are obviously the gold rush thoughts that cycle through every PR professional’s mind when a new technology is introduced. As always, the PR practitioners who take the time to understand the nuances behind each platform will be the ones who maximize its potential. And certainly there will be a glut of competition as marketers from all fields race to get their clients to the front of the line. But the clock is certainly ticking for Justin.tv’s first viral sensation to emerge. Just remember to smile for the camera.

Welcome to Fresh - a glimpse into the creative (and sometimes wacky) minds that make up the dynamic culture of CarryOn Communication and its family of services (CarryOn Interactive). As communicators, we’re keenly aware of the millions of blogs offering as many opinions about as many matters. And as contemporary communicators, we are equally understanding of the need for the majority of them to go away. That said, and never willing to simply bypass the fray, we submit here our own colored and most likely partisan approach to the purview of public relations, communication, branding and social media.

The CarryOn system offers a team of consumer-focused communicators and branding experts who dive deeply into the world of media, and who work incessantly to understand those who influence it. Daily we write, comment, pitch and in every other way entertain the various notions that allow us to reach these media who perhaps make up our clients’ most important publics. We share our unsolicited thoughts on these virtual pages and encourage you to feed the fire.