Glad it’s not your brand?  It could very well be next time.Over the past 24 hours, the #GASPFail phenomenon has been circulating social media channels like wildfire.  It has caused the company involved, GASP Jeans, to go into hyper-damage control, but it’s all too little too late. Two Facebook pages reveal a treasure trove of abuse (example one, example two), Twitter criticism is trending both here and in the US, and blogs are reporting on the failure of another company which fell victim to being unprepared.

Even Perez Hilton has weighed in on the debate.

But this is an incident which started offline and had no ‘social media’ origin until two emails were uploaded to dropbox and the links went viral.

Essentially, GASP’s poor customer service offline has led to severe brand reputation damage online.  It’s unfolding as a public relations nightmare for those watching on.

What we can take from this experience is that you can no longer ignore social media for your business, whether you’re proactive online or not.  As consumers, we don’t distinguish the on- from the offline any more, and businesses should be quick to learn from this lesson.

But while we all sit with mouths open as GASP seems to continue to make matters worse, what could they have done differently and what should other companies be doing to prevent this sort of situation from reoccurring?  Here are a few key steps:

1. Have a crisis preparedness plan in place that includes an online response process – whether you consider your business to be ‘engaged’ online or not, you can’t ignore your customers
2. Set up monitoring tools and listen regularly – be aware of the issues affecting your business or industry
3. Educate your staff and ensure they are aware that their actions representing your business can (and in this case will) have wider implications
4. Learn about online channels and how people use them – deleting negative comments on Facebook or shutting down branded platforms won’t stop the problem
5. Be transparent and honest in time of crisis – you can’t hide online and trying to do so will often only spark further interest in your story.

How would you have responded if you were in GASP’s position?  What would you have done differently?

This post originally appeared on Sefiani Communications Group’s Blog.

That sort of experience is invaluable as a PR practitioner as it helps you understand how things work on the other side.  When it comes to media relations, and providing relevant content for reporters, our role is to understand how to package content, know who will be most interested in it, and how to get it to them.  Otherwise, we’re missing a trick.

And this doesn’t just relate to TV.  Who’s ever been inside a newspaper office, or sat in a radio studio at some point learning how live interviews happen?  This sort of exposure is vital to our proficiency in the public relations profession.

I was talking with good friend and fellow PRINKer Scott Rhodie recently about this matter.  As a professional who came through the ranks of journalism at London’s The Sun, a number of public relations firms, and now digital strategy, Scott is a guy who understands all sides of, over and under the fence of the communications world.

His main concern about practitioners today is that they simply don’t get it.  If we spend all day at our desk or on the phone, how will we ever know what our journalist counterparts are going through when we pick up the phone to discuss an idea?  We must, for the benefit of our careers and clients, understand how things operate in newsrooms, TV studios and radio station hallways.

Almost two years ago, that was the very premise behind setting up PRINKS: connecting with other like-minded communications professionals hoping to learn more about all sides of comms, not just PR.  A chance to chat and see how the world works through their eyes.

I love the fact that I’ve made some great friends through this group – PRs, journalists, advertisers, digital folk.

But this is only part of the understanding process; a social drink every month or so won’t help you prepare a client for a live radio broadcast.  What it will do is help you to think differently.

There is a world outside client work and it’s one that you should take the time to learn and discover.  By understanding the processes and intricacies, not just content, of media – that is what will separate you from other enthusiastic practitioners.

As a magazine editor I get countless media releases sent from PR people each and every day. Some are excellent; clearly a lot of care and attention has been paid to crafting these. At their very best, these releases can set a story off on a new, fresh angle, or spark some serious debate – all good things for the consumers of your product.

Indeed, some might suggest that in this 24/7, time is money, cut’n’paste world, the ultimate compliment is to do just that – with minimal changes copy and paste it straight into the finished publication. Of course, I’ve never been guilty of that (no, never). Seriously, the people who write these releases can be the best friend of the editorial staff on any publication. And as another song goes, we all ‘get by with a little help from our friends’.

That leads me to the rest – sadly the majority – of these media releases.

It usually starts with the headline. In a face-to-face situation it reportedly takes just 30 seconds for most humans to determine whether they like you or not. Likewise, it can take around 10 seconds for a busy editor to decide whether or not it’s worthwhile reading the rest of the media release. Brutal but true. The headline should grab you instantly, while also not being so far off the mark or so outrageous that it stretches credibility to breaking point. It’s an art form in itself.

If you get past that hurdle the next stumbling block is the text itself. We’ve all been guilty, at some dark time or another, of screaming at the television news, “that’s not news!” – usually for those cute kitten up a tree type stories.

Sadly the same applies to written media releases. Some are simply so far from being relevant that they make you sit back and wonder: Perhaps I’ve been off track all this time! Perhaps this IS what I should be writing about! In other words, it’s so far out it becomes in.

No, that last scenario is unlikely.

If you make your life from writing then generally you know what you’re writing about. You tend to become a subject matter expert, whether you wanted to or not. Therefore, if you’re pitching to people who know their stuff, it pays to do a bit of research yourself. Hell, I’ve checked Google three times typing this article. It’s not difficult to check facts, get your head around an unfamiliar topic, even check the media outlet you’re pitching to in order to see if they’ve run something similar recently.

I find there are three broad categories for media releases:  the glorious (for everyone) ‘nice lead, I’ll take it!’, through to ‘maybe, with some tweaking, I could do something with this’, and then the dreaded ‘what are you thinking?’ Those in this last category usually come from someone totally unfamiliar with the target publication, hoping desperately that their scattergun approach to getting coverage for their C-grade celebrity or get rich quick scheme will hit paydirt. If nothing else, these do garner a chuckle from me; for others less inclined to forgive they may result in an abusive email straight back to the unsuspecting PR person (most likely a junior, ‘following orders from above’).

Other doozies to avoid:

• The ‘personalised’ media release that uses the wrong person’s name!
• Wrong publication name
• Media releases with ‘track changes’ still visible
• Incorrect attachments, and/or lack of attachments
• ‘Exclusives’ that aren’t exclusives

All that said, I realise that often hands are tied. It’s often not the fault of the public relations/comms person that the end result is a muddied mess: multiple levels of client approvals need to be granted; egos need to be stroked; corporate speak adopted. If you’re in that situation, well….I have no solution for you.

Perhaps follow in Bruce’s footsteps and take up singing lessons? Audition for a reality TV show? Get some more appreciative and understanding clients? Or perhaps someone more experienced in this field has some advice….but I’m sure that with just a little more effort my parched desert of an inbox could be transformed into a verdant field of insight and wit.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t marvel when someone gets it right.

Earlier this month, Kellogg’s (a brand which itself admits to being quiet on a public relations front) decided it would invite agencies to pitch for the consolidated business.  Though in a slightly different tender process…

They’d already shortlisted five other agencies but invited a sixth into the mix by asking them to tweet the Corporate Communications and PR Manager, Gareth Lucy, and explain why they should have the business.  Twitter’s been used for many things in Australia, but this was something unique.

Initially I was sceptical: was it a little bit presumptuous for Kellogg’s to ‘tweet and let them come’?  Should PR agencies do cartwheels for one spot on a shortlist?  Was the medium even a fair channel for entry?

But why not?

Tendering can be an extremely long and complicated process – Twitter offered a 140 character solution with the submissions filtered using the #kelloggspr hashtag.  Agencies were forced to be creative – the medium and the character limit were set; the rest was open slather.

Kellogg’s had hit on an idea that gave them the PR launch they were after, and sped up the selection process to find a creative Australian agency to add into the mix.  The #kelloggspr hashtag was soon trending on Twitter and it was impossible to ignore the stream of Kellogg’s-related information rushing around online.

Everyone in the Twitter comms world was talking ‘Kellogg’s’ and everyone wanted to be part of it.

Furthermore, the very next day my friends and I were sitting around talking about the excitement the campaign had caused and what entries we’d seen to date.

Kellogg’s had developed buzz around a traditionally arduous process and all because they adopted a different approach.  In fact, 364 unique tweets within eight hours…

The lesson?  Dare to be different.  Simply because something has been done a certain way time and time again doesn’t mean it’s the best way.  We work in an industry that encourages creativity to help clients get cut through.

Expect to see more creativity as businesses become even more familiar with the technology at their disposal.  Though spare a thought for the selected agency – once appointed, they have some big boots to fill.

This post originally appeared on the Sefiani Blog.

Perhaps when people first discovered social platforms, this statement may have held true.  But the rapidly changing online environment means that social media is no longer a ‘toy’ to be played with, but another genuine media source that, like print, television and radio, can make or break your business with the click of a button.

Reputations have been swept onto the rocks with relative ease as rumour and gossip run rife on the web.  Sometimes these are accurate, sometimes they aren’t.  But as information flows continue their steroidal existence, it simply doesn’t matter.

I remember when rumours around Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett’s death first appeared on Twitter on June 25, 2009 and the subsequent suggestions that Jeff Goldblum had also died in a tragic climbing accident in New Zealand.  Goldblum’s follow up video on The Colbert Report soon after shows the startling nature of viral misinformation online.

When information spreads this quickly, how do you distinguish between truth and fallacy?

Four Corners aired an episode last week regarding Qantas and in it revealed how the airline’s share price had been directly affected by a rogue tweet which came out of Indonesia.  As was the case with Jeff Goldblum, online communities failed to separate fact from fiction and the share price collapsed as rumours spread that a plane had gone down in Indonesia.

As social media firm SR7’s Thomas Tudehope pointed out in his thoughts on the Qantas situation, “An innocuous tweet from an Indonesian student spread like wildfire, caused mass panic and dented the Qantas share price. [This] is an example of how social media is changing the game for brand and reputation management.”

The lesson here for all businesses is clear: if you aren’t engaged on these platforms you run the risk of false information about you spreading.  Very far.  Very fast.  And this will impact your financials.  Ignore social media at your peril.

Why would you sit idly by while someone undoes your hard-earned corporate reputation over 140 years in 140 characters?  By having a presence online, you give yourself the chance to engage in discussions and quash rumours.

More importantly, when something does go wrong, you are already engaged with your community and can provide them with the most relevant information as it happens to avoid misinformation spreading.

Australian business should learn a lesson from Qantas.  Explore social media platforms, connect with your online stakeholders and develop an online crisis communications plan.  Social media is not just for fun or a time-wasting tool for employees, but a genuine communication channel and one that can save you and your shareholders a lot of anguish.

Original post from Sefiani Communications Group blog.

Perhaps it provides an insight into my personality type, but I don’t believe I could be a full-time freelance writer. I need to know where my next pay cheque is coming from, and the thought of demanding someone pay an overdue invoice so I can pay my rent fills me with dread. A quote from American humourist Robert Benchley seems appropriate: “A freelance writer is one who is paid per word, per piece, or perhaps.” [Benchley evidently did indeed have a way with words – this is one of his most famous quotes: “Drawing on my fine command of the English language, I said nothing”]

In the rare instances where I’ve freelanced it’s been more about luck than any particular skill I possess in convincing someone to accept my words. It’s primarily been through friends or former colleagues who are now in editorial roles. In other words, while I would always hope that talent will win out, the old mantra appears to be true: it’s not about how good you are, it’s who you know.

No, full-time freelancing is not for me. However, I greatly admire those who strike out on their own and fearlessly shop their wares – in this case the written word – around town.

Now that we’ve established that I’m no expert, let me introduce someone who is. The very talented Sarah Megginson has freelanced for most of her working life. It’s something she’s done on the side even when she’s had full-time jobs. Now she makes a living from freelancing full-time. She’s also just become a new mum. How does she do it? What insights can she provide? What are the highs, the lows? I interviewed Sarah recently, and she shares her thoughts below.

Can you briefly outline your professional background?
I graduated from uni with a Bachelor of Communication in 2002, and worked in radio promotions/marketing for a few years while writing for anyone and everyone that would publish me (often for free!). Once I had a big enough portfolio, I finally got a full-time job as a journalist, working at a property magazine. I freelanced for other magazines while I worked, and early in 2009 I began working for myself full time.

Have you always done freelance writing work in addition to the 9-5 jobs you’ve had?
Pretty much. In the early days when I worked in radio, I freelanced wherever I could to try and build up my tearsheets. Back then writing was “fun” and I loved writing on my evenings/weekends – getting paid to write seemed like a dream come true!

What sort of publications are you currently writing for?
I write for and edit a monthly in-store music and movie magazine for Sanity stores, and I freelance for a bunch of magazines, including Cleo, Cosmopolitan, Your Money and Your Investment Property. The magazine work takes up about half of my business – the rest of the time I work with corporate clients, doing things like writing enewsletter articles and website copy, proofreading marketing materials, ghostwriting etc. I’ve even ghost-written a couple of books!

What sort of practical considerations does a freelancer need to make before making this more than something they might do ‘on the side’?
Wow. Big question. There is so much you need to consider, but I guess I’ll highlight the biggest things I’ve learnt. Firstly, you need to have the right personality for it. You kind of have to be hyper-organised! You’re effectively running your own business and writing takes up about 70% of your working day, but you also need to spend time processing invoices, chasing up job leads/money, pitching stories, researching ideas, updating your website, etc. I have an epic excel spreadsheet that details the jobs I’m working on, upcoming deadlines, publication dates, pitches I need to follow up, etc. I guess it’s similar to managing your deadlines when you’re a salaried journalist, but there’s a bit more pressure – if I miss a deadline it could cost me the job and any future work with that magazine. You also never, ever switch off! I write for such a varied bunch of magazines so I’m always looking for unique story ideas, thinking, “Is there a story in that?” Once, I was chatting with a friend’s friend at a bar and he mentioned that he was a property investor – and that one of his tenants had died in his property! It was really awful, but what an interesting story. I interviewed him the following week and ended up selling a four-page feature to a national property mag, all from a random chat in a bar!

What do you like most about freelancing?
Freelancing has loads of perks. The money’s great. And I’ll admit that I’ve worked in my PJs on more than one occasion! I literally haven’t set my alarm clock in two years, which is the biggest bonus for me, I’m a night owl. Some days, if I’m really not in the mood to work, I’ll give myself a day off. Or, I’ll watch a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy in the morning then start working at midday. I have loads more time to do my own “life admin” stuff, like pay bills, visit the dentist, etc. But it goes both ways – if I spend too much time faffing about during my workday, I usually end up working at night/on weekends to make up for it.

What do you like least about freelancing?
You have to be really self-motivated. It’s so easy to be distracted by emails or cleaning the house or walking the dog or whatever, so I’ve found the best way to be productive is to get up, have a shower and try and start my workday by 9am. You also have to learn how to park work at the end of the day, which is not easy when you work from home. It helps having a dedicated home office; in my last apartment I worked off a laptop on the dining table, and that didn’t work so well. Now I have my own little office with a door, so when I finish up at night and close the door it feels like I’m “knocking off” for the evening.

Have you ever had to chase up unpaid invoices?
Not really, the majority of clients pay within 2-3 weeks. I can only think of two or three occasions where I’ve had to be really forceful to get an invoice paid.

How do you get on when you don’t know the editor (or another contact) at a publication? Any advice you’d give to budding freelancers when trying to make contact?
I always start with a polite email. It used to be that you had to hit the phones, but these days email is so much more convenient for everyone. It sucks to call an editor and it turns out that they’re on deadline, and they’re super busy and stressed and your pitch gets a crap run because it wasn’t the right timing. As far as advice goes, I’ve always found that being pleasant and professional goes a long way… that means spelling the person’s name and publication correctly, triple-checking the email to make sure there’s no spelling mistakes, etc. It sounds obvious but make sure you read the magazine you’re contacting, because you’ll look like you haven’t done your research properly if you pitch a story that they literally just ran the month before. And lastly, give them a reason to get back to you. Don’t just say “Hi, I’d love to write for your magazine, here are some samples of my work!” Offer a couple of strong story ideas and ask for their feedback, or at the very least, ask for a copy of their contributor guidelines.

With the rise of blogging, etc there’s a lot of talk about the demise of the journalist. What are your thoughts? Will there be a place for professional writers even if the medium through which their words are distributed changes?
Yes, absolutely! Bloggers have their place, but there’s so much more to being a journalist than simply being able to write. You need to know to ask the best mix of questions, where to go for research, how to gently prod for more information when someone is giving you yes/no answers (gah!) – and then you need to distil all of that information into relevant, interesting, engaging prose, and also edit it down to fit your word count. Self-editing is such a skill. Online you can blather on for thousands of words, but that’s not always a good thing! I always remember my university lecturer saying, “Why say it in five words when you can say it in three?”. The world will always need journalists. I hope.

Finish this sentence: “The publication I would most love to write something for would be….. because…..”
The publication I would most love to write something for would be any inflight magazine because I’d love to write a really fun, quirky travel piece!

As a communications professional, I’m always fascinated to see how the world is changing and where the next technologies that will drive that change are coming from.  As online technology and the increased capacity to share information continue to gain speed, I often wonder what that will mean for me both as a comms professional and as a consumer.  As part of the Ross developed The Zeitgeist: 2011 list of key factors shaping the world this year and a number very much caught my eye.

Given phenomena like he describes in ‘brands in the blender’, how do we, as professional communicators, advise our clients on things that we cannot see coming?  Have we entered a period now where control is genuinely a thing of the past and power lies very much with the consumer dictating terms to the business?  And what does that mean for traditional business-to-stakeholder relationships?  This shift in power is reflected in ‘wrath of crowds’ – online connectivity means voices can swarm quicker than ever and it’s now impossible to hide.  You need to be upfront and honest.

Equally, ‘social news curation’ isn’t something new to 2011 but it is something that many journalists express concerns over.  Again, the community seems to hold the power with traditional institutions often sourcing content from everyday people to make mainstream news.  Like Ross, I believe there will always be a place for quality journalism but there’s no doubting the opportunities for anyone to write their own news and consume it where they like.

The most interesting change, however, and something that has been much talked about, certainly in my office, is that ‘everyone’s naked’.  As Ross points out, WikiLeaks was a giant catalyst and transparency has been taken to a whole new level.  It now seems anything can be revealed with enough people power and people are listening.  If information is no longer private, just how much will the level of corporate and government honesty need to rise?  Yet again, who is left with the power?

Courtesy Financial Times

Essentially, Brian Dunn (CEO of Best Buy) is an advocate for social media and he penned an article for the Harvard Business Review referring to an incident that unfolded when his Twitter account was spammed.  When the words above regarding his fantastic private life appeared on Twitter, linking his 5,000+ followers to a site similar to what you’d find on AMI, he received 4am phone calls wondering what was going on.  He’d just shared an awful lot with the largely customer and supplier fanbase following him online and the team at Best Buy were terrified that it had been a slip of the finger…

Fortunately, I suppose, it was just a case of account hacking, but the fascinating thing about this article was how Dunn has embraced social media regardless.  As a CEO, something like this would have the corporate comms team filling out their resignation forms and heading for Centrelink – ‘Why did we tell him to get on Twitter?!?!’  But Dunn has not been perturbed by the tweet, nor other social media faux pas.  He’s recognised the genuine benefit in engaging staff and customers and feels he has stronger human relationships as a result.

In his words, “I’ve never considered pulling back from using it.  That’s the key.  You can’t just dabble in social media…I’m convinced the upside outweighs the downside.”

Such a refreshing attitude and one that leads me to the question: does the corporate fear of social media that was abundant in 2009 and 2010 still exist or are our business leaders becoming more comfortable and respectful of online engagement platforms?  Do you use social media in your organisation and, if so, how?

At one point, hosts Merrick, Dools and Monty were tackling a live read for a product and, to be perfectly honest, I now can’t remember what it was because they stumbled through it so noticeably live on air that I was more interested in this fact then the product they were trying to push. 

Why do companies invest in live ad reads and do they provide any tangible benefits from an awareness perspective?  Of course, the production costs would be much lower, as written text is all that’s required (though I reckon you can’t beat a good old self-done catchphrase…“Tell ‘em the price, son!”), but does the brand benefit when presenters stutter through the read or miss important wording?

The second moment came as listeners had a chance to win a new laptop.  An Acer laptop.  Have you heard about Acer?  Well, I can assure you they’re simply incredible.  Amazing, in fact.  Forget your iMac or Dell – Acer is where the future of technology lies.

Grand statements?  Perhaps.  But this was the impression the hosts left me with after trying to plug the competition sponsor.  Again, the only thing I took from the experience was how the brand would feel about being portrayed this way on air.  Sure, they want to get the biggest bang for their buck, and repeated mentions of the brand name will certainly help awareness, but there has to be a better way to do it that doesn’t leave the listener feeling sorry for the product from its awkward introduction on air.

As consumers, I’d like to think we’re smarter than that and can tell the difference between an editorial comment and a ‘natural’ sounding advertisement.

@rogerchristie

It’s a pertinent reminder that what we post on Twitter may very well come back to haunt us professionally. If you post something about a client, work related issue, the company etc, someone will see it and it will most likely come back to bite you. Moral of the story – best not to do it! What we post on Twitter and Facebook, whether we like it or not, reflects on the company we work for - something we always need to keep top of mind all day, every day!

“True confession, but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say ‘I would die if I had to live here!” – tweeted by James Andrews, PR Executive when landing in Memphis for a FedEx meeting. Twitter stuff up right there and an ’oops’ on Mr Andrews behalf which reinforces to all of us that we must think then tweet – and not the other way round!

@GemCrowley