Is there such thing as selfless good deed? The age old debate concerning altruism lives on. Joey and Phoebe of Friends argued the point of contention. They concluded that selfless deeds do not exist.
Yet, one thing we can be certain of. Selfish good deeds do exist. Even narcissistic individuals can be driven to do good. The clincher? Social media may rev up the process. Continue reading
We all know that word of mouth is the most effective medium for gaining new customers and generating leads. But as more businesses compete on social media for attention, gaining the trust and support of new customers becomes increasingly difficult and time consuming. Thankfully, brand new Australian social media site Recomazing may hold the solution:
In an online world where everyone’s a critic, strategic management of your reputation is imperative.
We’ve talked about Coke’s online achievements and Google’s print media successes so what else is there to discuss? – aah politics! They’re old, they’re grey-haired and generally not as tech savvy as the younger audience they lead, so how are politics relevant to PR? Two words: Barack Obama.
Barack Obama, President of the United States of America. Source: creativecommons.org.au
In the lead up to the 2008 American presidential election, Barack Obama launched a campaign like no other. Recognising that around 16% of registered voters follow candidates for office on social networking sites, Mr Obama saw an opportunity to differentiate himself from the competition – a decision that would later see the election labeled as the “Facebook election”.
With a focus on digital and social media, Mr Obama amplified his online campaign activity through podcasting, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. Becoming the most active election candidate on Twitter and befriending an additional 20 million Facebook supporters during the campaign period, Obama “rocked the youth vote” by targeting the 81% of young American people who use social media (Barnes, 2006).
But it wasn’t Obama’s dominant online approach that stood out most, it was his ability to use social media as a way to connect with the public. In other words, Mr Obama had adopted the practice of PR 2.0 in order to create a relationship with the American people. After all, in a recent Pew Research Center survey, 35% of registered voters who use social media to follow a political candidate said a major reason they do so is because it makes them feel as though they are personally connected to a politician.
And, it was that personal connection between Barack Obama and the American people that slingshotted his campaign to success. Barack Obama’s triumph marked the first US presidential election that was won on the internet and saw him become the first African-American president of the United States, being re-elected to office in 2012.
So what can we learn from this? That Barack Obama has paved the way for political campaigns around the world? That all future elections must be fought online? That politics can actually be cool and relevant to public relations?
Whatever it is, a discussion of politics shouldn’t be left for politicians, it’s a discussion we PR enthusiasts need to enter into. They may be old and relatively slow to the social media mark, but the combination of politicians and PR 2.0 is a dynamic force and one that is raising the bar on political campaigns everywhere.
So if you’re reading this Ms Clinton in the lead up to the 2016 US election, take note, because it’s time to start Tweeting!
Here’s part 1 of a four-part YouTube series on Obama’s social media success – strongly encourage you guys to watch the rest of the series!
Barnes, S. B. (2006). A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States. First Monday, 11(9).
Image courtesy of Daniel Go www.flickr.com/photos/danielygo
Food porn in social media has skyrocketed in recent years with the growing popularity of Instagram; it seems that every second post is a photo of someone’s meal! <!–more–>
Because of the development of apps such as UrbanSpoon, Yelp and Menulog, restaurants, cafés and food trucks have come under more public attention and scrutiny than ever before. Increasingly more power has been given to consumers, which means that anyone with a phone or a computer with access to the Internet has the ability to contribute a review or a rating. Inbuilt cameras on phones make food photography simple and reasonably discreet, and sharing those photos with friends and followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have never been easier.
But what does this mean for the food industry?
(A: Free publicity!)
And how does one take advantage of the public’s obsession with food?
(A: With effective use of public relations of course!)
Here’s a video on a discussion of the effects of social media on the food industry. Skip to 3:10 to find out what owner of ApprovedFood.co.uk, Dan Cluderay believes is the most effective social media platform for food:
It’s true that we trust our friends’ and loved ones’ suggestions over a targeted advertisement or campaign, therefore personal recommendations are extremely valuable and hold the most persuasion power (Regan, A., Rutsaert, P. et al., 2012). So how would an upcoming food business be able to actively utilise and take advantage of this in a public relations campaign? One example comes from a Melbourne ramen restaurant, Fukuryu Ramen. Fukuryu Ramen runs regular competitions for free meals and giveaways under their public relations campaign, “How Do You Fukuryu?”. The way the campaign works is that customers take selfies with their food at Fukuryu and must upload it to Facebook and tag the restaurant
Image courtesy of Premshree Pillai http://www.flickr.com/photos/premshree/
in the picture. Once a month, the best selfies are displayed on Fukuryu Ramen’s main Facebook page and the user is awarded with a free meal. It’s successful in that there is an incentive for taking the photos, and once they are uploaded, are visible to the individual user’s friends (usually in the hundreds). This means that even if they don’t win the competition and have their selfie displayed on the official page of the restaurant, there’s a good chance that their Facebook friends will see it. The lure of a free meal may not work across all customer demographics, but Fukuryu Ramen’s target consumers are students and with that in mind, this campaign works extremely well.
Now that’s some food for thought!
References
Fukuryu Ramen’s Facebook Page (last accessed: April 13, 2015)
www.facebook.com/fukuryuramen
Regan, A., Rutsaert, P. et al. (2012) Trends in Food Science & Technology: The use of social media in food risk and benefit communication, vol.30:1, Focus Business Communications, Southampton, UK, pp.84-91
Social media offers unprecedented opportunity to modern organisations. Brands must engage with consumers and develop an authentic, continuous and multi-faceted presence online.
Let’s face it, our publics have become skilled at scrolling the mouse even faster down a webpage and unrelentingly pressing the lock screen on their iPhones when they grow bored. If you haven’t read my last blog, we all nodded our heads toward social media’s video centric focus. Be alert though, because this only means that there’s even more content out there in the social media wilderness to compete with.
My first blog post (click if you missed it!) introduced how social media has rapidly spread throughout the globe and has become a successful tool for PR practitioners to engage and expose information to publics and stakeholders through two-way communication.
Whilst easy to set up and use, effectively utilising social media is hard to master. We have seen time and again the ‘noobs’ of social media post something that is a complete ‘fail’. Some of these ‘fails’ are by huge companies like McDonald’s. I mean seriously, you would think they would be the ones that have mastered the art of social media, but it just goes to shows how fragile social media is.
To help you all out, i have created a list of 8 simple tips to help you become smarter about utilising social media to build strong relationships with publics and stakeholders!
Know the differences between Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and all these platforms you use. Did you know that there’s a word limit on a ‘tweet’? That you can change your settings to private or public on Instagram? Research your platforms and work out what’s best for you!
Understand that social media is there to help build relationships, not to flood with commercial content. Send a tweet asking how everybody’s day went, or share a photo of yourself with your dog. Personalise your content and be casual! Check this example out!
Social media is considered to be in real-time, no one want’s to be left waiting. Getting onto questions, comments and engaging in discussions quickly is only beneficial to you. However, whilst keeping consistency with your responses make sure you’re not just ‘copy and pasting’ responses, keep it personalised!
To be trusted you need to be transparent and honest with publics and stakeholders. Gaining trust will allow you to expose you and your brand further, see this blog post on how transparency is so important!
Make sure you post a variety of content throughout your social media platforms. If you keep posting the same content, you will be seen as boring and users will be less likely to keep engaging with you and may even unfollow/unlike you.
Make sure you select a small team whom you trust with authority over your social media accounts. Have a meeting with them once a week to help answer questions they may have or put forward ideas before they follow through with them.
Create some key points for your team to follow when posting and make sure you are prepared for anything! You might want to: create a list of FAQ’s, allocate a schedule for posting content for each platform and/or set up a folder of business related information, photos, videos for easy access to share at the time of need. Being prepared and having guidelines will help reduce confusion within your team, create consistency and will reduce the risk of a ‘fail’!
The option to buy fake accounts to follow, like, comment, or to do whatever is needed is a big no, no. Whilst it may seem like an easy, convenient way to help grow your brand, it simply will just damage your reputation and integrity in the long run. These accounts wont engage with you, they will just sit as a number until you get found out, and when you do, how will you deal with the backlash?
You’ve probably seen your share of Dove ‘Real Beauty’ campaigns that tug at the strings of your heart to last you a lifetime. But trust me when I say you probably haven’t seen one as good as this!
Launched on April 7, 2015 in 70 countries, Dove has been able to add an additional beauty campaign to their Real Beauty brand mantra. Dove has been exceptionally successful in building a strong online community and presence through their online (and offline) campaigns to really engage and connect with their publics. Continue reading
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