Take a look around the latest update of the CIPR “DOs of Social Media” and explore the full guidelines document on their website for further information and the Don’ts!
What else would you add?
Digital Trail
exploring the possibilities of online
Tagged with pr …
I’m a celebrity get me endorsing
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new, if anything, in this uber celebrity 15 minutes of fame driven society they are on the increase but what do they actually do for brands and where are the endorsements of the future going?
There are recent notable examples of brands dropping their celebrity face in the wake of revelations and tabloid conjecture. Notably, Kerry Katona, the bastion of motherhood, being ditched by Iceland on the back of Sunday tabloid revelations relating to substance abuse beyond a £1 Iceland ready-meal.
When pairing up a celebrity with a brand and things go well, it is easy to kick back and relax. That massive chunk of funding you have given this public eye entity was money well spent. Gary Lineker never got booked in his career and has carved a niche as ‘Mr Nice Guy’ so no sweat over him doing something bad like popping a cheeky Pringle.
But a brand can not control the one they pay to endorse. You can have as water-tight a contract as you like that says as a beacon of the brand you can not do this or dabble in that, but celebrities are human, they are suckers for temptation when they are offered the world and they do stray.
To the future, I envision a slight change in the role of celebrity endorsements and this is with a view to the use of Twitter and Facebook. This theory is based on observations of how things are starting to unfold on these platforms.
Agencies can now create the celebrity and thus control their brand endorsing face more carefully. For example, Compare the Market and their ingenious and ubiquitous Compare the Meerkat campaign has seen sales increase and thanks to a combined social media assault through Facebook and Twitter, Sergei – the little furry face of cheaper car insurance has single paw-dly hit the big time. Through an interactive and engaging Twitter and Facebook account, not to mention the Compare the Meerkat website itself, our little Russian friend has driven traffic and sales to the desired Compare the Market website without a single mention of the target site in its Facebook or Twitter activity. No tweets with links to the best deal or target site homepage, just pure character based tweets and a killer catchphrase that has reverberated around playgrounds, offices and everyday conversation. Simples.
Facebook and Twitter celebrity accounts with mass followings (and comparatively minuscule follow backs themselves) provide a ready made platform to endorse anything for a fee to their impressionable and idolising following. The rules have changed and results are there for the taking.
If you take the example of Stephen Fry and his Twitter account, not through paid for endorsement but out of his passion to share great Tech tips, on several occasions, Mr Fry has brought small time websites to their knees by Tweeting a recommendation to his vast following to go and check out site X. Site X not being prepared for such a volume of traffic crashes-the hat tip from Mr Fry a blessing and curse in equal measure.
So of the future, celebrity accounts will be created and maintained by agencies and not the Celebs themselves. (I am still hugely sceptical that Andy Murray updates his Twitter given the nature of the Tweets-all smiles and positivity-it appears awkward, forced and just not personable.) As soon as the following is built up, then the link to product or website X is casually dropped into Twitter conversation and the loyal following navigates to the intended source and laps up what their idol has recommended.
Sure the same pitfalls apply in that you cannot control the celebrity’s behaviour in real life, that is of course unless you create a fictional Meerkat, but you can cultivate the following and control the brand message with a yield of higher results for a fraction of the cost of a television advert.
BBC Jonathan Creek budget cuts leaked same day as Alan Davies book release-coincidence?
It doesn’t take Jonathan Creek to work out that the clumsy sleight of hand at work here was not that of Houdini, no the Harry who done it is in fact PR.
On the day that Alan Davies released his book ‘My Favourite People and Me 1978-1988,’ a collective of musings published by Michael Joseph, a prominently placed article about our tousled locks hero appeared on the BBC news homepage.
The story in question relates to the subtle slip of the tweet made by @alandavies1 that in order to pursue his role as JC he would be stomaching a 25% pay cut. Timing is everything, national press picks up on the story and voilà…coverage, a raised profile, book sales and much more…
It came to my attention yesterday that Alan Davies would be in Bristol come October as part of the fantastic Autumn programme put on by the Bristol Festival of Ideas. Perhaps I could discuss the PR strategy with the man himself or maybe his publishers could supply me with a copy of his book in advance of the event so I can ask him something, well, something Quite Interesting.
The King of Pop is Dead; Long Live Merchandising
As perverse as it is, the death of Michael Jackson will be widely regarded by those out to make a buck as the perfect marketing platform. Marketing around an event is exactly the focus that is needed to drive sales. Some will view it as sickening cynicism so close to the event of his passing but it has been said before that death can be the greatest career move in terms of finance generation.
The upcoming series of gigs at London’s O2 were in part somewhat likely to have added to the downfall of MJ but were essential in order to pay off the vast debts he had accrued in life. For those who paid for their tickets through legitimate sources, a refund will be forthcoming. For those who paid through the nose on Ebay and by other means-a refund may not be so readily available. Now this isnt attributable to the power of marketing, but it would be a safe bet to see ticket sales of the concerts increase slightly even in death. Why would anyone want to part with serious money for something that has no return? This is where we come round to the memorabilia bandwagon that was taking a good oiling to the axle during the hours of confusion over whether or not the death of Michael Jackson was truth or hearsay.
It is known from a friendly source, HMV issued an e-mail that was in the Inbox of branch manager’s across the nation come Friday morning that any Michael Jackson stock should be moved to the front of house and that additional stocks would be in place for the weekend.
Of course, much like radio stations across the land, the only playlists in stores that sold Jackson products were the songs of Michael Jackson through the years. The weekend’s online commercial activity appears to have been dominated by the sale of his music. Back catalogue packages on iTunes saw Jackson’s chart ranking soar akin to his physical format success in his prime. By Sunday Jacko was topping nearly every possible chart.
According to CNN, “Almost 20,000 items were up for sale after his death on the popular auction site eBay, where collectors could snap up everything from the rare to the ridiculous.”
As of Saturday morning, the BBC had shipped out a team to LA (despite the fact they have one based there already) to cover the public mourning and invited a street dance troupe to perform a tribute-said dancers were all wearing various boxfresh Jackson t-shirts bearing messages of ‘RIP’ and ‘We Miss You.’ It is dificult to put a finger on what may have been the more likely reality-was merchandise printed up before death or was it a frighteningly rapid turn around of product conception to product launch?
As a tweet by Harriet Crosse (Director of Bristol PR Specialists 72point) explained, for those in the PR game looking for column inches come the first Saturday after his death, they need not bother chasing around after journos and editors. On that Saturday, in many instances, the first 10+ pages of tabloids were devoted to the troubled star and his demise.
As a Royal wedding sees commerative plates and other related frippery and tat become common place in shops and newspaper’s readers offers, a Michael Jackson plate may not be too far off.
The Marketing Donut – PR Support Role
My current employment is a temporary position with BHP Information Solutions‘ Small Business offshoot concept – The Marketing Donut. The Marketing Donut is a fantastic pool of tools and resources with content written by experts in their own particular business field. Its conception came with the powerful backing of Google and Royal Mail.
My role, as PR Support, is to drive traffic and registrations on the site through the means of online communication – predominantly through using Twitter to highlight articles of interest on the Donut or debates on the Marketing Donut Forum or Blog. I also link to other interesting articles written elsewhere which fit in and appeal to those who are running a small business enterprise. I also monitor and drive interactions on the Donut’s Linkedin, Facebook and Ecadamy profiles.
As part of linking to comment elsewhere – be it on business or marketing websites or blogs – on occasion I link back to the Donut, in one instance I secured a valuable positioning on Business Week for a 24 hour spot. Having seen an article relating to the use of Twitter in Business and knowing there was an active debate on the Donut Forum on this topic itself, I commented on their insightful article and highlighted the debate existing on the Donut. A few hours later I received e-mail correspondence from the Business Week site Editor asking for a photo in order to put my mugshot and comment on the homepage as part of their scheme to highlight pertinent points made by their readership. Having been on the homepage for 24 hours, the comment and photo is now on their “In Your Face” section for the foreseeable future.
Hopefully securing this will have opened up the Donut to a wider online audience than it has seen previously and site traffic, registrations and more will be noticeably greater, with the ultimate upshot being that small businesses are getting great quality resources, tools and expert advice from the site-without any annoying pop up adverts!
