20 Hats: Thinking Cap

LinkedIn: A communications model experiment

A remark from a friend and my fascination with how people communicate and relate to one other led me to use LinkedIn yesterday.  Despite registering months ago, I hadn’t actively connected with business associates through the site.

According to LinkedIn, there are already 9 million professionals in the LinkedIn Network. In the last 24 hours, I’ve added close to six thousand of those individuals to my network. Whether this proves beneficial to me or not is yet to be seen.

Here are some observations though:

• Millennials ARE plugged in. (DUH!)
The first ten or so people to officially connect with me were all under the age of 30. We’ve all read that this generation is connected to their keyboards. If you could have seen how fast they responded to my LinkedIn invite, you would believe it!

• Women may be better networkers
In my network, women have more connections then men and therefore larger networks. Does this reflect women's well-documented emphasis on relationships?

• Personal relationships still rule
Nothing is a more powerful marketing tool than a verbal referral. An electronic recommendation on LinkedIn is great, but it will never replace a verbal referral.

Corporate Blog Review: Nuts About Southwest

Southwest Airlines
Originally uploaded by Darhawk.

Nuts About Southwest, Southwest Airline’s blog is a great example of a corporate blog done right. Why does it work?

1. The company has a goal and reason for the blog.

Our goal with this blog is to give our readers the opportunity to take a look inside Southwest Airlines and to interact with us. This is as much your blog as it is ours.

2. Diversity of bloggers.

We have lined up a crew of bloggers representing a diverse cross-section of our Company.

3. Encourages interaction from their customers.

We want to build a personal relationship between our bloggers and you, and we need your participation. You are the “other half” of this blog, and our bloggers can’t wait to communicate with you, so get busy posting.

4. Grounds rules for comments and sets expectations.

This is the point where we insert the “fine print” and discuss the guidelines for posting. The Southwest Blog is starting out as a moderated site because we want to ensure that everyone stays on topic. We would LUV for you to post your thoughts, comments, suggestions, and questions, but when you post, make sure that they are of general interest to most readers. Of course, profanity, racial and ethnic slurs, and rude behavior like disparaging personal remarks won’t be tolerated nor published. Even though our blog is moderated, we pledge to present opposing viewpoints, and we will strive to keep it interesting, diverse, and multi-sided. Our bloggers want to engage in a conversation with you, but not every post will receive a response from us. However, we encourage you to respond to our bloggers and to the posts of other individuals. We also ask that you be patient with our bloggers for a response. Some of our bloggers are Flight Crew Members, so they may delay a response for a few days while they are “on the road.” (Actually, we should probably say that they are “in the air.”)

The Public Relations Measurement Dilemma

Most people would agree that a public relations program will be most effective when some pre- and post-campaign research is done. However, convincing organizations to spend that money is really difficult.

That’s probably why this quote from a PR Week article about the publication’s 2006 Corporate Survey caught my attention.

"You can't control what you don't measure," says Mark Stouse, BMC director of worldwide corporate communications. "PR people [who] say, 'I can feel it in my gut,' may be correct, but a business executive is going to say, 'You want me to trust your gut?'"

Stouse is 100 percent correct, and yet we continue to struggle to justify funding for this important activity.

Here are three reasons why measurement is important:

1. Without research, you’ll never know where you stand. Politicians wouldn’t run a campaign without poll numbers, and you shouldn’t either.
2. Avoid costly mistakes. With research, public relations practitioners can better advise you on the strategies and tactics that will have the greatest impact, and you won’t overspend on useless tactics.
3. Without measurement, there is no way to gauge return on investment for your public relations expenditures.

Public Relations Play of the Day

LRAD acoustic nonlethal device in NOLA at Superdome
Originally uploaded by xeni.

Congratulations to New Orleans! The city will unveil the Superdome tonight when the New Orleans Saints host the Atlanta Falcons on Monday Night Football.

The Superdome has undergone a $184 million makeover to rid it of the stench and physical damage caused when 30,000 plus people sought refuge there during Hurricane Katrina.

Holding an event at the Superdome is a critical public relations move and one that I think is brilliant.

There could be some backlash today though. Officials need to be prepared to answer questions about why such a large amount of money was spent on the Superdome while some areas of the city still are without utilities and infrastructure.

Working with the Media: Media Mistakes

Reading1
Originally uploaded by Ughman.

From time to time we have a client who is annoyed that the media has gotten something wrong about them in a story. Typically, the error is something like giving someone a wrong title or paraphrasing a quote. Sometimes it’s factual (do you mean the error?) in nature.

Although your boss may be hacked off that something is wrong, this situation begs the question of whether the error is important enough to correct or if asking for a correction would basically amount to nit-picking.

To make this determination, take a step back and assess just how damaging the error is. Is it worth jeopardizing future coverage from the publication?

In most cases, it’s not.

Although the error may cause an internal political issue - such as your CEO being referred to as president - most readers won’t even notice or remember the individual’s title in the article.

Demanding a retraction or correction for something that is primarily creates internal upheaval is a bad idea. Ditto when the “error” involves the misuse of industry jargon or terminology.

Instead, be sure to clarify any confusion upfront the next time you work with that same publication. In addition, work between stories to cultivate a better relationship with individual reporters.