I don’t know if it’s just me, but I feel like Cyber Monday reached an entirely new level this year.  

Everywhere you turned; it was in your face. It was impossible to grasp what each retailer was doing, because everyone was doing something.  Some did it well, others not-so-well.  But no matter what, they talked about it everywhere  – social channels, TV, online.  Mix in the websites that aggregated and promoted the information to help consumers find the best deals and sprinkle in the ridiculous amount of email I got from every retailer I’ve ever even thought about and, for me, Cyber Monday was a recipe for insanity.  I even heard an older gentleman in the Newburyport Tannery joke yesterday that the coffee was a “Cyber Monday special.”  I muttered to myself yesterday, “Cyber Monday is like COMDEX.“  And then I chuckled.  And then I thought about it and, Cyber Monday IS like COMDEX.

From a public relations perspective, here’s how I figure:

COMDEX was so huge that it was nearly impossible for any one company to stand out and get attention for what they were doing – yet – they spent boatloads of  time and money to make sure they were there.  Because you HAD to be there.   Fast forward to today: no retailer would dare “miss out” on Cyber Monday, right?

Reporters used to be bombarded with requests to meet with companies at COMDEX.  So much so that some stopped going altogether.  Retailers are doing the same thing  by bombarding consumers with invitations to their sales.  In fact, AdAge published an article yesterday on “Why Cyber Monday is the Spammiest Day of the Year.” The sheer volume of it all is overwhelming.

There came a time when we started to counsel our clients not to make any big announcements at COMDEX, because they would fall on deaf ears. You could get a bigger bang for your buck if you strategically timed your news before the show to drive foot traffic and, more importantly, prospects to your booth.

Ultimately, COMDEX  got WAY too big and died off because people realized that they could get more value by going to the smaller, more focused shows that were emerging.

So, it got me thinking, will Cyber Monday just continue to grow in its insanity or will pockets of retailers find other ways to monetize in more targeted, individual ways? Will a  new online shopping holiday emerge and allow retailers to capture more awareness from a consumer perspective?

If these retailers were my client and Cyber Monday was their “biggest PR event of the year,”  I would ask them if all the time and effort being put into Cyber Monday was truly driving sales and repeat customers.  If the answer to that question is a resounding “yes” then Cyber Monday is a no brainer.  But if that question is met with a lukewarm response, I’d counsel my client to put fewer resources into Cyber Monday and find other ways to stand out and drive revenue during this critical time of the year.

I believe some retailers will eventually “opt out” of the Cyber Monday hoopla and launch jaw-dropping sales during less marketing-saturated days, when they can attract more wallet-share.

But maybe that’s my PR mind working in overtime.

Qantas Airlines has a lot going on these days – most notably, a recent employee strike that has caused many delays and inconveniences for its customers.  Let’s face it, a strike is always going to be a public relations nightmare, and this case was no different.

What IS different is that Qantas seemingly decided to operate “business as usual” on its Twitter handle.  So what did they do? They created an “innocuous” little contest encouraging followers to Tweet their dream in-flight experience, using the #qantasluxury hashtag, for a chance to win a pair of Qantas first-class PJs and a toiletries kit.

During any other time, this contest would have come and gone without much fanfare – especially given a pretty lame prize.  But, due to its terrible timing, it incited many customers who were impacted by the strike to use the #hashtag and vent those frustrations.  In fact, #qantasluxury quickly became a trending topic in Australia.  Sadly, Qantas decided to basically ignore the onslaught of criticisms with a (paraphrased) “Keep those creative entries comin” type tweet two hours into the contest.  Needless to say, the contest and the brand received a lot more attention for the incident – from both consumers and news outlets – than they bargained for.

So, what happened?  Did the Qantas public relations team think that this would be a good way to get back into the public’s good graces? Are Qantas’ public relations, crisis communications and social media team operating separately? Or was this just a horribly timed coincidence that wasn’t given much thought?

Whatever the cause, it’s a great reminder that timing can literally make or break a customer relationship, a brand’s perception or, yes, a “simple” campaign.   There are a lot of lessons to be learned on this one – what did you walk away with?

Recently a colleague of mine did the unthinkable and tried to send a text while driving on the local-area bobsled course (a.k.a. Route 1 South) on the way home from work.  While I know nothing about the text – whether it was urgent, important or other – I do know it caused my colleague to not-so-gently rear-end the car in front of him as he wasn’t able to brake fast enough when the car in front was making a turn.  I was relieved to find out that nothing other than the front grill of my colleague’s car – and his pride – was hurt in this incident.

This is a serious reason why, despite the perceived importance of all communications flowing in and out of our mobile devices – and public relations is a business that thrives on the exchange of information, checking these tools while driving isn’t logical.

While significantly less life-threatening, here’s another good example of chaos that has resulted from checking a phone while driving:

I traveled to New York today for meetings in the afternoon and evening. I have a PMDA board meeting tomorrow – one that I’m very much looking forward to – and scheduled meetings around it as I typically do. Unfortunately, I had some hiccups getting to the city – and my very bad habit of checking my phone while driving is to blame.

 Driving from our office in Newburyport, I checked my phone at the precise time I was supposed to bear left on Route 95 South and accidentally took the exit on the right side for Route 128 North. At first blush, that’s really not a big deal. I should have easily been able to take the first exit and head back toward the airport. However, that turnaround activity took five minutes – a crucial five minutes when weather patterns threaten the airways and Delta Shuttle flights are being cancelled with good regularity.

 Here’s how things went at the airport once I arrived: naturally, I missed the 9:30 AM by less than five minutes. Then the 10:30 and 11:30 AM flights were cancelled. I arrived in New York late. (Like, very late.) I had to reschedule my afternoon appointment to the evening, and the evening appointment to even later in the night.  All of this unnecessary scheduling ridiculousness and a really long day spent trying to get to New York – all due to the fact that I had to check my phone at the 128 North/95 South split.

I’m certain that what I was reading at the time was important and meaningful in some way, but I’m equally certain it would have been just as important if I read it at the airport when I arrived.  While I’ve learned my lesson, I suspect I’ll see someone at the airport today with that same pained expression.  Oh well…

For $8,000-$10,000 Khloe Kardashian Odom will tweet about your brand to her 5 million followers! Too rich for your blood? Try singer Ray J, who will blast out your message to his 600,000+ followers for about $2,300. Still not buying? The list of B, C or D list celebs hocking their name for a quick 140 characters of their time, is fairly endless. In fact some celebrities that have…ahem, passed their prime…will even record video messages endorsing products or sending birthday wishes your way for a mere $3.00 a piece!

So, no marketing exec could pass up a celebrity endorsement, especially if there were measurable results attached, right? I guess it depends what type of return you’re willing to accept.

According to a recent AP story, for $3,500 Lindsay Lohan tweeted to her 2.6 million followers about CampusLIVE, a Boston-based surge marketing company that connects brands with college students…and a Matter client BTW. The post yielded 4,500 click-throughs to the company website.

We love our celebrity drama, and it seems the more embattled the celebrity the more social media sway they carry!

At the height of his award-#winning melt down, Charlie Sheen started a Twitter feed that has now attracted more than 5 million followers. At the time, his incented tweet drove more than 95,000 Tigerblood-juiced followers to an internship nexus site!

Both of these examples seem to match the expected click through from a standard tweet. According to Mashable’s unscientific polling, a 1.7% click through rate is pretty realistic. In these cases, the return rate from that found by Mashable’s quickie research proves pretty accurate, so the huge volume these pop icons reach makes mathematical sense.

So why isn’t every brand diving into the celebrity endorsed Tweet game?

First off, with estimates ranging from $16 to $70 bucks per letter (for the examples above anyway) far-reaching celeb tweets can be pretty costly for a smaller brand. Let’s not forget Twitter content like this has a very short shelf life. Sure it can be compounded by re-tweeters and extended virally through other social networking sites but, let’s face it, it’s not too often that a tweet, even one from a celebrity, lives beyond the same day…unless there has been external backlash about it.

This last point leads us to the most compelling aspect of the celebrity tweet consideration, why we all follow these celebs to begin with. We want to be the first to see them say something crazy and be among the select 5 million that were there the day they started their “Charlie Sheen spiral.”

Twitter can be a very powerful, sometimes dangerously powerful, communication tool. Ashton Kutcher, once the Twitter darling extraordinaire recently handed his feed over to his PR team after making some poorly-timed comments about the horrible events unfolding at Penn State.

So where do you fall on the risk v. reward expanse? Would you hire a celeb tweeter to represent your brand? With the numbers leading us to believe that a celeb tweet is equally powerful as that of any brand in itself (assuming like numbers of followers), what criteria would you need to see to make this investment?

Believe it or not, but holiday planning begins long before the temperatures start to drop and the turkey is on the table. In the PR world, holiday planning begins months in advance, often as early as the summer and spring months.

Today, I’m sending out dozens of holiday packages filled with my clients’ product samples. The power of touch can be extremely powerful, especially when if you’re looking to get your client into a holiday gift-guide.

If you’re planning to send out holiday mailers this season, here are a few tips to ensure you’ll get the most out of every shipped package:

• Know your targets – do your research ahead of time to make sure that each recipient is the right fit for your clients’ brand or product
• Plan ahead – if you know that who your targeting writes their gift-guide in late November, make sure they receive their samples ahead of time so that they have plenty of time to review and / or compare to other products
• Stay in touch – your mailer shouldn’t end with the package delivery. Following-up with your target is crucial to ensuring coverage for your client. This will help the writer with any questions that he or she may have

These are just a few tips to help you plan your holiday mailing. What has proved successful for you or your clients?

As an account coordinator, you are responsible for keeping up with everything going on in your clients’ respective industries as well doing research on bloggers and reporters. Instead of just Googling everything, there are a few tools of the trade that make scanning easier.

Google Alerts:
You can set up the alerts by location, which helps target your results.
Make sure to search for the names of the competitors’ spokespersons.
Trial and error – if your results aren’t exactly what you are looking for, adjust your search terms to find what works.

Critical Mention (or another broadcast monitoring service):
This is great for keeping track of your client and their competitors broadcast coverage.
You can set up email alerts, if you don’t want to continuously check the website.
You can build clip reports to share with the team or your clients.

ProfNets and HAROs:
These are reporter and blogger queries that give you information about stories the reporter is currently working on. This is a great way to get your client into a blog post or article, if they fit into the query. However, many times the query isn’t a great fit, but your client would be perfect for a similar story. In this case, you can add the reporter to your media list for future pitching. This is a great way to research bloggers because most of the time they will give you background information about their blog.

Morning News:
Listen to the radio on your way to work or watch the morning news. This sounds pretty simple, but it really helps. By listening to NPR or a local news station, you might hear about something that directly affects one of your clients.

Newswires:
Check the newswires for press releases in the morning to find out if any of your client’s competitors have made any announcements. Most of the time press releases cross the wire around 9am, but sometimes they are released early in the morning and you can easily miss them.

Twitter:
I recently learned about this method of researching bloggers. When you are looking for a specific type of blogger (ex. tech bloggers), you often can find similar bloggers by checking the lists the blogger is in and who they follow on twitter.  There are several websites such as WeFollow, which can help twitter research as well.
As many already know, you can also use twitter to stay up-to-date on trends and breaking news. Tweet Deck or Hootsuite can be helpful with this.

There are many other tools for research and scanning, these are just a few that I use the most.

Recently, I decided to make a career move from Marketing to Public Relations. I’ve always been interested by the fast paced environment, and was excited to start this new chapter in my life.

One company that really caught my eye was Matter Communications. From the start, I knew there was something really special about Matter and I wanted to learn more about it. I decided to start applying for a position and even though I didn’t realize it at the time, through that process I learned a lot about PR. Below are three PR lessons I learned when eagerly courting Matter for a PR position.

1. Think targeted

I was sure to use LinkedIn and other online resources to find the right hiring manager and the correct contact information for positions at Matter. I didn’t send a mass email addressed, “To Whom It May Concern.”

When applying for a job and in PR, it’s all about finding the right contact. Anyone can use Google to find the email address of the News Desk or Managing Editor and send out a mass mail merge. The key is to set yourself apart. Put in the extra few minutes to do your research and find the most appropriate contact for what you are pitching. It will save you tons of time in the long run.

2. Let them know you are paying attention

Every week, I scanned for mentions of Matter in the news and new client updates to then turn this information around and highlight it in my cover letters in hopes of grabbing someone’s attention.

Like applying for a job, it’s important to be in the know and fully aware of who you are pitching. Scan. Read. Scan. You can’t expect to impact or be a part of industry news if you don’t know what is going on. Sign up for alerts, join social media communities and pick up the newspaper once in a while.

3. Be persistent

After I sent in the resumes, I would place a slew of follow up phone calls to Matter, hoping that each one might be The One that would open the doors and change my life forever.

Similar to following up on job applications, it is important to be persistent in PR. When pitching it is imperative to follow through with phone calls and make that personal connection. You never know if that next call turns out to be The One.

Overall, I’m glad that the years pursing Matter and keeping them top on my radar finally paid off. It has been a whirlwind adventure but I’m learning tons and loving every minute of it.

Reading the news and reading good books are two of my favorite things. When I read a book, I sink into it and it changes my view of things for the time that I’m reading it; the world around me comes into focus through a lens of the book and I see overlap and connections between reality and fiction. So, when I’m reading a really good novel like The Imperfectionists, I dive into the incredible characters, and swim around in the story lines; and I see in a different way the changing world of news publishing which overlaps with the ways we get and digest news – which, of course, impacts the way we PR people tell our clients’ stories.

Sometimes, the overlap between what I’m reading and current news is so outrageous that if it were supposed to be a Venn diagram, it wouldn’t be – it would just be a big circle with words in it.

Here’s a great example: I’ve been re-reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, for our Matter book club. The book is an attempt to throw a net of scientific understanding around the phenomenon of social movements, enthusiasm and how things become wildly popular. At the same time, I read the articles last week about Smith College and the Logic experiment that two professors undertook which started a campus-wide protest.

I was immediately struck by the connection that the Smith College story could be one of the examples in Gladwell’s book.  Just like in Gladwell’s subtitle, it was a case study in ‘how little things can make a big difference.’ This experiment was just one in a series that the professors have set annually over the last decade (this one sought to convince people that Smith was going vegan and locovore). What was it about this rumor that made it so successful? What was it about the half of the class who was assigned to make people believe it was true, that they were so persuasive? A mix of context, personality, and audience made the rumor take flight. In both the Smith College story and The Tipping Point we can glean lessons about the varying levels of influence different people have, and why the timing and receptiveness of an audience matters, and the art of storytelling using compelling and persuasive facts. 

For me, the connection between the current event and the book I was reading made for a great reminder of why, in our busy, transactional lives, where we spend lots of energy making the proverbial trains run on time, it is so useful to take a step away and read something that takes us out of the everyday, forcing us to make observations, and ask questions that might not occur to us otherwise. Whether it’s a novel, a business book, or a biography, seizing the opportunity to read something new is one of those ‘little things’ that makes a huge difference – arming us with questions, information, and insights that can be our own tipping point, raising the level of our PR work, and ultimately yielding better results for our clients.

Little kids can be a treasure trove of wisdom waiting to burst open, and I may have had my “A-ha!” moment a few weeks ago through an awesome little tyke.

I was invited over to a friend’s place to watch the Patriots game surrounded with good company and good food.  Among all the chatty adults was an adorable toddler not more than 3-years-old making the rounds with all the guests.  He had a beaming smile and was very well-behaved.

Of course, kids will be kids, and even though the Pats were on their way to a victory over the Jets, the boy could care less about the score and was too busy occupying himself with none other than the popular Angry Birds game, the mobile app game developed by Rovio where players use a slingshot to launch birds at pigs stationed on or within various structures.

It occurred to me as I watched him focus on that game that at 3-years-old, this little boy was being kept entertained completely by technology.  His attention was being held captive by the sights and sounds of the worldwide web and through mobile phone applications.   Then it dawned on me.   The toys and games I played with when I was a little kid have been outdated and made obsolete.   Consider me ancient!

But what was worse, I further thought, is that the technology available to kids today has destroyed their creativity and imaginations.  When I was a kid, I transformed an old refrigerator box into a house for my dolls and I to have tea parties in!  When I was a kid, I flew around my back yard with a towel tied around my neck pretending to be Supergirl!  When I was a kid, I didn’t have iPhone game apps or the internet to tell me how to be creative or teach me how to play.  My imagination was my babysitter, not Angry Birds!

Then something else happened.  The little boy put Angry Birds down and started to flap his arms up and down as he tiptoed around the house in circles while whistling.  The little boy was pretending to be one of the Angry Birds in the game.  He was, dare I say, using his imagination to create his own game inspired by the iPad he was just tinkering with.

And just like that, my theory that technology is plotting to kill kids’ imaginations was disproved and upstaged by an adorable, make believe Angry Bird with a beaming smile.  Imaginations of kids today have not been replaced by technology.  Rather, technology has only offered a plethora of venues for kids to come up with great new ideas for their own make believe worlds.

So what does any of this have to do with PR?  Today’s PR professional is not your father’s PR professional.  Our typewriters have been replaced by laptops.  Our fax machines have been replaced by emails.  Our landlines have been replaced by cell phones.  Technology has clearly changed the way we conduct business just like it has changed the way kids come up with their make believe games.

But no matter what fancy bells and whistles are thrown onto our desks, PR professionals still rely on our own creative ingenuities when crafting the perfect pitch or brainstorming the perfect branding strategy for our clients, just like how the little boy still relied on his own imagination when turning himself into an Angry Bird. Technology has changed the PR industry, but without our creative imaginations there would be no PR industry.