Posts Tagged ‘Media Relations’
Did you see this reporter’s live shot on media training and social media?
Monday, January 30th, 2012Target and Breastfeeding: How To Turn A PR Problem Into A Positive
Monday, January 2nd, 2012A mom says Target employees humiliated her while she breastfed her baby in the store. To support her, breastfeeding mothers then staged a nationwide “nurse-in” at Target stores. How did the company deal with the nurse-in and media attention? To borrow one of Target’s lines, we “expect more.”
Support Groups: If an advocacy group contacts your company about an event at your business, quickly answer questions. Post comments on their blogs explaining your position. Support groups frequently feel strongest about issues. They pass on concerns to the broader public that may not be paying close attention. Don’t underestimate the power of such groups. Work with them. Be sympathetic. Surprise them and support their concerns when possible. The groups will share the company’s goodwill with the public and explain how the business is turning a problem into a positive. A group describing its mission as “to change the cultural perception of breastfeeding” says it was tough communicating with Target about the breastfeeding incident. The group says someone from Target eventually called back and summarized the call by releasing a statement. Meanwhile advocates pointed to how Whole Foods handled things when facing a breastfeeding incident.
Facebook: Acknowledge the complaints. Stun the planet and ask people to share stories and post pictures. Respond to questions. Embrace your role in the discussion. Welcome shoppers who may usually favor the competition and prove your company is a different type of business. In the Target case, mothers used a Facebook page to organize. As we wrote this, the page included more than 7500 members. The day of the nurse-in, Target posted on its Facebook page “How long do you leave your holiday decorations up?” Some people used the comment section to discuss the breastfeeding issue.
Twitter: Target was more on target on Twitter. We read several examples of Target responding to people on Twitter about breastfeeding. Here are examples of the company’s posts to Twitter:
- We support breastfeeding too. We have a long-standing policy allowing breastfeeding in public areas of our stores.
- We continue to educate our team members on the policy, and ask guests to contact us if they don’t feel comfortable.
- Nursing mothers are welcome to breastfeed in our stores, including in public areas, wherever comfortable.
- We have a long standing policy that allows breastfeeding in our stores and have addressed the Team Member incident.
- We’re happy to support nursing mothers! Please let us know if you encounter any problems.
YouTube: Post a video. Make clear the services your company offers for, in this case, breastfeeding moms. Video puts a face on your company. A video helps you standout while engaging and educating viewers. Video may capture attention more than any press release. Target has a YouTube channel called Target Theater with more than six thousand subscribers. We didn’t see any videos about breastfeeding or the nurse-in. Watch a recent example of a FedEx video responding to a PR problem.
Pressroom: Provide news releases and links about the situation. Give phone, email and social media information for contacts specifically handling the situation. Give a timeline of what happened. Recognize what journalists want to see. Target’s pressroom states the “Target Public Relations team is always interested in hearing about how to serve the media better.” We searched but could not find news releases about the nurse-in and breastfeeding situation.
Media Relations: We read several statements Target released about breastfeeding. We didn’t see a lot of Target spokespeople on air. We saw a Target manager on ABC News saying “Target is a family-oriented company, so if a guest chooses to breastfeed in our store, Target supports it 100%.” Target’s pressroom lists four media contacts. The efforts of those contacts, management and support staff should expand way beyond news releases. Identify managers in geographical regions the company feels comfortable putting on TV. Fly key team members to areas needing help handing media questions. Consider allowing a “pool camera” in each TV market to shoot video of the breastfeeding moms.
A company might win the war of words by drawing up a conservative game plan, taking a few hits and assuming the PR problem will blow over and be forgotten. If you like to do things the way they’ve always been done, feel free to play prevent defense. But PR problems also open opportunities to establish your company as an industry leader while inspiring trust and growing your reputation. Drop the icy and impersonal company language for something thoughtful and sincere and watch the headlines change. Expect more.
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How Companies Can Better Sell Themselves When Hiring Employees
Thursday, December 29th, 2011
Wanted: Superhero To Do It All (Tights Optional)
ABC Company has a great opportunity for a superhero to join our dynamic, growing team.
Responsibilities:
- Must be able to interface with internal and external customers in a fast-paced environment.
- Must be able to work alone or part of a team of other superheroes.
- Proven ability to implement and manage super social media campaigns in a flash.
- Develop, implement and manage all superhero-related activities.
- Must be able to decipher jargon faster than a speeding bullet.
- Social media skills must be more powerful than a light rail.
- Ability to navigate through corporate politics at a single bound.
- Demonstrated iron clad grip of a 24/7 global superhero operation.
- Must prepare reports to members of Hall of Justice as appropriate.
- Heavy lifting required (You are a superhero after all!).
- Other superhero duties as assigned.
- Warp speed travel required up to 25 percent of the time.
We offer a competitive benefits package including medical, dental, X-ray vision and Fantastic 401(k) plan.
Some job descriptions are so overwhelming that they seem impossible to fill. In these cases, companies are almost looking for superheroes in their job descriptions, cramming in everything they can think of with jargon-filled descriptions fit for a robot. They lay out everything the candidate should do for the company but leave out what the company can do for candidates. These companies are missing a big opportunity.
What can companies do to sell themselves and showcase what they have to offer their employees?
- Rewrite job descriptions and make sure they’re not intended for robots, cluttered with jargon. Ask your communications folks for help.
- Keep content fresh and delete tired, overused words that don’t differentiate your company from every other “dynamic” company.
- Start the engagement process in your job description. Explain how the person who takes this job can make a difference in the big picture. How does their job impact the bottom line?
- Include links in your job descriptions to pages that highlight:
- Company culture (include employee video testimonials)
- Company vision, mission and values
- Company benefits and other perks
- Career paths and training
- If possible, create a branded page on your website or a separate employment site that covers all the above areas and doesn’t require applicants to search for this information on your company site.
It’s easy to forget that a job description is often the first experience a potential employee has with your company. Treat the employment process as an extension of your brand. What messages do job descriptions send?
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Video and Public Relations: FedEx Delivers When It Absolutely, Positively Had To
Monday, December 26th, 2011YouTube user goobie55 entitled his video “FedEx Guy Throwing My Computer Monitor.” The video shows a man taking a package from the back of a FedEx truck, walking up to a gate, tossing the box over the gate and then walking back to the driver’s side door.
The YouTube user wrote: “Here is a video of my monitor being “delivered”. The sad part is that I was home at the time with the front door wide open. All he would have had to do was ring the bell on the gate. Now I have to return my monitor since it is broken.”
A customer would go through the normal hassle of returning the monitor and having a company replace it. But as of Christmas night, more than 6.6 million people watched the 21-second video. Companies want videos to go viral, but this is not what they have in mind.
Having this happen, with video and during a time of year most people relate to shipping important items, is a dream for any news producer looking to fill their rundowns with stories other than that the airport is once again busy during the holidays.
FedEx delivered more than a statement. It delivered its own YouTube video, which companies often don’t do. The FedEx video, entitled “FedEx Response to Customer Video,” shows a senior vice president. He begins by saying he saw the video and he apologizes. He appears genuinely upset and angry by what happened. He tries to address what happened to the employee and says the company will learn from this. His best line is “every single package is precious cargo to you, our customers.” The senior vice president wore a tie but no jacket, which makes him look professional but not like a stuffy executive many Americans love to hate. The video response was less than two minutes … short and, to me, sincere.
If you read some of the comments under stories about this incident, you’ll realize no amount of apology will satisfy everyone. But FedEx’s goal is to limit the damage from a public relations point of view. We can nitpick FedEx’s effort to say it’s sorry, but it delivered when so many other companies would have ducked back into the delivery truck and passed a lame, jargon-laden statement through a slightly cracked window. FedEx put a face on its apology. I’ve always believed most Americans are willing to forgive big mistakes as long as someone sincerely says “I’m sorry.” And FedEx understood it’s more powerful to do it with video.
Smokin’ Public Relations for Grocery Stores
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
I don’t smoke. With a few exceptions, I don’t particularly care if other people smoke. Don’t smoke around me. Please don’t smoke if you’re pregnant. (I once saw a pregnant woman smoking outside a minor league baseball game in North Carolina.) A friend of mine smokes all the time. I don’t think it’s a smart choice. He knows that. Most people who smoke probably know that. But smoking is their choice as long as they don’t exhale around me.
When I visit the two grocery stores neighboring me, employees are often smoking out front. I see this on a regular basis. I assume people at other businesses smoke out in the face of the front door, but I don’t see it as often as I do at these grocery stores.
Smoking outside grocery stores surprises me. Seeing these smokers is my first impression when walking into the store. I’m rather surprised these businesses permit staff to smoke out front. I wouldn’t want my customers, as they go into the building, walking past employees yapping about work and wafting smoke near my space.
This also surprises me because the business is food: fresh and good for your health food. I presume grocery stores put a lot of time and marketing into branding themselves and their produce. Smokers out front certainly don’t boost that branding. You don’t see people working on old cars or changing oil in front of car dealerships.
I have nothing against these smokers. I have something against where they smoke. You can spend a lot of money on advertising, but from a public relations point of view, some grocery stores are defeating their own image by introducing their new and regular customers with smokers out front.
So here’s some smokin’ public relations advice for grocery stores. Move the smokers to another spot. Maybe subconsciously people will purchase a few more oranges.
How do you like them apples?
How I used social media to sell a 15-year-old car with 173,500 miles in 35 minutes
Tuesday, December 20th, 2011
My first new set of wheels was a forest green, 1996 Jeep Cherokee. It’s been most places I’ve been and brings up many memories. Back in a North Carolina snowfall, I once locked the keys inside when it was still running. My Dad and I drove it across country with my cat. My cat, so distressed about an outing to the vet, once peed in the passenger’s seat. I made countless efforts to do away with that stench. Loren, during our second date, pretended to ignore the scent while sitting in the same spot. My Jeep performed amazingly well during its 173,500 miles on our road of adventures.
My Dad recently took ownership of the Jeep and decided to put it up for sale. We hadn’t sold a vehicle in many years. My Mom talked about parking the Jeep with a for sale sign on a street corner. That seemed to go against my philosophy of knowing your target audience. My Dad talked about placing an ad in the newspaper. I told him fewer people read the papers since the last time he sold a car. We also discussed websites specializing in selling cars. Ebay Motors was mentioned.
I recommended trying social media first. Tell your friends and family first, right? Tell people in your network. I told my Dad to shoot pictures of the Jeep. I would publish the pictures on social media. If the effort failed, we would have a go at more traditional methods.
I tried LinkedIn and Twitter first. Shortly after 9:30 Friday morning, I posted the following message on LinkedIn. “Please let me know if you are interested in buying this 1996 Jeep Cherokee Sport for $1,200? Contact me for details. Thank you.” I included one picture, the same photo you see above. The first reply arrived in my in-box two minutes later. I exchanged e-mails with a number of people. Thirty-five minutes after I posted the orginal LinkedIn message, I received a reply with the following words: “I’ll take it.”
Using social media, I sold a 15-year-old car with 173,500 miles in 35 minutes. And I sold it for the asking price of $1200.
Some of my former co-workers mocked me for driving such an old vehicle. An old friend on Facebook asked me jokingly if I still locked The Club on the steering wheel. My Dad gassed up the Jeep at Costco and someone who saw the for-sale sign asked to look under the hood. He then offered $1200 and said he had the cash at home. He was second in line to the LinkedIn buyer. An owner of a local restaurant wanted to visit and look at the Jeep, but she was third in line. The guy on Facebook who said he’d pay full asking price was fourth on the waiting list.
Maybe I got lucky. Maybe there’s something about an old Jeep my cat and I never appreciated. But using my social media network, I speedily found people who I never knew had such interest in cars. The following line is worth repeating:
Using social media, I sold a 15-year-old car with 173,500 miles in 35 minutes.
Give Bank of America public relations credit where credit is due
Friday, December 16th, 2011
Bank of America mailed my friend a card. The face of the card read “Thank You.” Inside the card, the bottom half included in red print “Thank you for choosing Bank of America. We look forward to continuing to fulfill all your banking needs.” This part did not necessarily impress me. Big businesses, from insurance to satellite companies, mail generic thank you cards to customers. But the top half of the inside of the card caught my attention.
Someone handwrote the top half of the inside of the card. The handwritten note began by addressing my friend by name. The words thanked her for being a customer since the year she first opened an account. Her local branch signed the card.
Recent years have not been good public relations years for big banks. Some people are switching to credit unions out of principle if not for practical reasons.
You can be distrustful and assume a corporate drone mandated otherwise unwilling employees to write handwritten letters which truly did not contain love for customers. But let’s be out of the ordinary. Let’s not be cynical.
One aspect of good public relations is digging your company, one small effort at a time, out of a dreadful public relations hole. Someone at Bank of America took at least a baby step by doing the following:
- Mailing handwritten notes
- Addressing customers by name
- Taking time to look up how long customers have been customers
- Signing the letters from a branch not corporate
Few people shout how much they love their banks. Banks have taken several steps to smash trust with customers. Because of all those missteps and questions of trust, I stopped writing this particular blog long ago after starting it. It’s hard to praise an industry synonymous with hidden fees and fine print. But not pointing out a positive step when you see one is a pastime too many politicians and much of the public already play. Give Bank of America public relations credit where credit is due.
Businesses: Is that cool video really you?
Tuesday, December 13th, 2011
Many businesses seek out videos that might go viral. They crave their creative horsepower to run wild. They realize their plan might end up redefining silliness, but they’re captivated with that You Tube video with more than two million views.
Before you take a crack at reproducing that cool video, keep in mind video offers you yet another chance to bring to light how your services separate you from the competition. Video helps consumers make their choices. Using your own staff to be in the video with your own, one-of-a-kind style might help potential customers make a personal connection with your business. You don’t need to copy a You Tube video to build a dynamic, engaging and well-produced product that reflects your brand and personality. The video would help continue to put a thoughtful, genuine face to the company while adding a personal voice.
Viral videos I’ve watched seem to tap into either emotion or humor. Emotion might come from the client who greatly appreciates how much your service helped. Humor might be a hilarious story or co-worker everyone interacts with every day. People appear to welcome those willing to make fun of themselves.
Decide if you’re comfortable with a video featuring real people, real customers, or a video featuring actors you hardly know. Manage your expectations. If you want to, go ahead and re-create that video with more than two million hits. Just make sure that cool video is really you.
Lowe’s: Let’s Build Some Better Public Relations Together
Monday, December 12th, 2011Lowe’s nailed itself into a corner. The company stopped advertising on a show called “All-American Muslim.” The show airs on TLC. According to TLC’s website, the show “takes a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan–home to the largest mosque in the United States–through the lens of five Muslim American families.” The L.A. Times says a group called Florida Family Association pressured Lowe’s into pulling the ads. The group’s website says its goal is “improving America’s moral environment” and educating people “on what they can do to defend, protect and promote traditional, biblical values.” Their website says “All-American Muslim is propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda. 65 companies pull off the show. Please send your email to recent advertisers.”
After pulling its advertising, a California senator talked about boycotting Lowe’s. He asked the “chain to apologize to American Muslims for ‘bigoted, shameful’ actions” and wrote a letter to Lowe’s CEO.
On Monday night, Russell Simmons and Mia Farrow joined the discussion on Twitter debating Lowe’s decision. Someone Tweeted that a friend cancelled a big flooring order. Someone called the marketing folks at Lowe’s “complete idiots.” Another asked “whose ur PR person?” A Texas man whose Twitter bio says “Just an angry man with internet access” wrote “heaven forbid a company does what it wants with its own advertising money!” Lowe’s Tweeted “Please see our Facebook page for an updated statement on our recent advertising.”
We went to Lowe’s Facebook page. Its profile picture states “It’s the season of joy.” The page’s debate wasn’t so joyous. On Facebook, Lowe’s released the following statement. As of Monday night, it received more than 7,800 comments.
“It appears that we managed to step into a hotly contested debate with strong views from virtually every angle and perspective – social, political and otherwise – and we’ve managed to make some people very unhappy. We are sincerely sorry. We have a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion, across our workforce and our customers, and we’re proud of that longstanding commitment. Lowe’s has received a significant amount of communication on this program, from every perspective possible. Individuals and groups have strong political and societal views on this topic, and this program became a lighting rod for many of those views. As a result we did pull our advertising on this program. We believe it is best to respectfully defer to communities, individuals and groups to discuss and consider such issues of importance. We strongly support and respect the right of our customers, the community at large, and our employees to have different views. If we have made anyone question that commitment, we apologize. Thank you for allowing us to further explain our position.”
We have some questions:
- What types of discussions took place at Lowe’s before deciding whether or not to advertise during “All-American Muslim?”
- Has anyone at Lowe’s regularly watched the show to draw their own conclusions?
- Did critics of the show catch Lowe’s off guard?
- If Florida Family Association played a key role in Lowe’s decision, did the company thoroughly research the group?
- Did Lowe’s understand pulling its ads would build even a bigger backlash? Did it care?
- Does Lowe’s have confidence the same people at the company that got them into this mess can get them out?
- Does Lowe’s make decisions such as these based on potential financial ramifications or do their decisions reflect the company’s core values?
These questions can apply to any company big or small. How do you think Lowe’s could have improved its handling of this? Do you think this debate goes beyond public relations and is simply an issue of right and wrong?
Public Relations for Apple Juice
Thursday, December 8th, 2011
My mom and I debate many topics. Social security is a recent one. I didn’t expect apple juice boxes in her refrigerator to appear next on the agenda.
After recently researching the safety of cell phone towers, I was not prepared to recharge so soon for another topic of trepidation. Then Dad informed me about the Consumer Reports article raising concerns about apple juice.
I try to approach such stories with skepticism. Similar to Monsters Inc., some media energize themselves with a good scare based on a study from a European institute of higher education no one previously heard of. For example, my former TV station assigned me so many stories about germs, I could release a trilogy on DVD with bonus features to spare. My story about “money germs” made my former colleagues laugh instead of scared, but several TV stations across the country aired my report with a straight face.
Despite serving up skepticism, I took the logical approach to apple juice-gate: Don’t drink it! Then came the debate about the apple juice boxes in mom’s fridge. So I decided to actually do my own research. I Googled “apple juice” and read articles questioning the study and language indicating, as usual, the need for more scientific evidence.
I clicked on Mott’s website. The home page includes a clearly marked, green section “Get the facts about apple juice safety.” I didn’t need to click on a maze of links to learn the company’s position on the controversy. The green box took me to information which appeared to directly address the Consumer Reports story. Mott’s wrote with a tone indicating why families might be confused and concerned.
I keep reading about apple juice and I’m still not sure what to believe. And despite Mott’s home page approach, some consumers will always assume big business is feeding them a line. But, for us, the golden apple of public relations is acknowledging the problem, sympathizing and addressing it … and doing so without publishing the information on page 89 of a website, in a corner that requires supernatural vision. I’m not sure what to do with the apple juice boxes in the fridge, but companies can’t let the debate stir on without them getting in the mix.
