Get everything out in the open, no big secrets.
Once your company is in the news for a major crisis, people are going to dig for follow up stories. If you hide information, people are going to find out and it will do even more damage to the company’s reputation than if you had just shared the information from the get go. Also, if your company shares the information first, you can explain the situation and shed the most positive light on the situation. When companies withhold the details, people are naturally inclined to assume the worst. Again, not good.

Plan ahead.
In college, we did a case study on BP’s oil spill and the basic principles apply here as well. From my point of view, it looks like the Costa Concordia crew and Carnival Cruise Lines did not have an effective crisis communications plan in place. The company has not made their statements readily available and easy to find. After a quick search, this was the only press release I could find, which was dated six days after the incident.

Be proactive.
If you know that there are issues or controversies within your organization that could lead to a crisis, have a well thought out plan (that is understood by your internal team) and perhaps even suggest that the organization make changes to avoid a crisis all together.

I am interested to see how the rest of this crisis plays out. What kind of crisis communications advice do you give to clients, either before or after disaster has struck?

From a PR perspective, it’s hard to blame McDonald’s for going out and trying to engage consumers in a way that would stir up nostalgia or charming anecdotes.  However, for a brand that has struggled with its brand perception and with America’s obesity rate higher than ever, it becomes easier to blame them for not being more thoughtful about the channel.  I’m not saying things wouldn’t have run amok if this was only done on Facebook – but I do think they would have had more control on their own page.  I find it hard to believe that no one brought up the possibility of a Twitter campaign going negative, fast.  And, if that’s the case and they thought it was worth the risk – well, then, they are probably realizing now the risk was far greater than the reward.

McDonald’s has had a ton of people piling on them for this – but I do see a bigger lesson here for brands on social media and their strategy for each channel.

It’s easy to say that every consumer brand should be on the biggies: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google+.  But it’s not the “where” in social media that is the most important, it’s the “what” and “how” they engage on each channel that is critical.  Brands need to realize that every channel comes with its own risk and it’s important to weigh the pros and cons before embarking on a campaign aimed at engaging a large number of consumers.

On Twitter, the negative campaigns and social media missteps “go viral” in the blink of an eye.  People want to be in on the joke – so they pile on – even if they don’t necessarily have a negative perception of the brand.    With hindsight being what it is, I can confidently say it would have been far better for McDonald’s brand not to be on Twitter at all than to have this campaign go the way it has.

So, what should brands do? Research and identify the channels that make the most sense for your brand. Weigh the risk vs. the reward of running a campaign on each channel.  And, listen to skeptics who bring up the “what if” scenarios.

Chances are, if you have one skeptic on your team, you’ll find a million of them on Twitter.

Let’s face it, a PR person throwing up her hand in protest when a CEO comes up with a crazy idea to split up the company and raise prices without adding value (*cough cough, I have a Netflix stuck in my throat) might not keep the CEO from pulling the trigger, but a good PR person would have to have a response in mind, right? Unfortunately, no matter how much a PR person prepares, something unexpected could happen, and like the article says, how you react is more important than how to avoid bad things happening.

The article rightly discusses an example of an insider trading scandal that could have been much, much worse than it ended up, simply because the firm reacted the right way. While it was traditionally a secretive and close-to-the-vest organization, it adapted to the problem at hand, demonstrated some transparency and avoided a very bad PR backlash.

It will be interesting to see what horrific PR goofs 2012 will bring. Hopefully CEO’s and celebs have taken note of the fumbles of others and will consult their PR reps before making any big moves.

You may have heard by now that the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) recently launched an initiative to “modernize the definition of public relations and increase its value.” The initiative, aptly named ‘Public Relations Defined,’ aims to re-define public relations with input from those of us in the industry.

As it turns out, PRSA last formally updated its definition of public relations in 1982. More recently, a new definition was proposed but never officially adopted:

Public Relations is the professional discipline that ethically fosters mutually beneficial relationships among social entities.

Pretty vague, if you ask me.

I’m not sure the heart and soul of PR has changed dramatically over the years, but the ways we communicate and execute successful campaigns sure have evolved. And with ever-changing technology, social media and the 24-hour news cycle, that evolution is continuing at a rapid pace. Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites not only provide new ways to communicate with reporters, consumers and other audiences and stakeholders, but their effective use is nearly required. Video news releases are in; faxed press releases are out. Public relations is now mobile, social, visual. It’s out of the box.

So, how do we incorporate all that public relations is and all that we do as public relations professionals into one clear and concise definition? Will the industry come up with a definition that will finally help us answer that nagging question about what do for a living? (Please, before I head home for the holidays and face the masses would be great!) Last week, PRSA released a “snapshot” of what the Public Relations Defined initiative has gathered so far. You can find the list of top words generated from the submissions here. Front-runners include, “organization,” “public,” “communication” and “relationships.”

What would you add? How do you define public relations? If you want to contribute your two cents to PRSA, today is the last day to submit ideas at PRDefinition.PRSA.org. Otherwise, stay tuned to the PRSA website next week, when the draft definitions will be published and voting begins.

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.

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…

In five years, we have….

• Moved our Providence office twice to accommodate our growing team and expanded our Newburyport office space at least five times
• Secured client placement on The TODAY Show more than ten times
• Joined Facebook (and I quit MySpace)
• Grown from 15 to 50 professionals
• Retained 98% of our clients
• Celebrated 9 weddings and welcomed 10 babies into the world (plus, there’s one more on the way)
• Helped our clients attract more than one million fans to their varying social networks
• Watched the Red Sox win 1 World’s Series, the Bruins win 1 Stanley Cup, the Celtics win 1 NBA Championship and the Patriots lose 1 Superbowl
• Consumed 3,568 pints of beer, 1,327 bottles of wine and 7,331 slices of pizza*

My mother has worked for the same company for nearly 20 years. Those are the sort of things you just don’t hear anymore. While I’m not so sure I’ll be posting on Matter Chatter 15 years from now, I can say that I will remain connected to my Matter colleagues many years after my last Matter chapter. This is the sort of place and they are the sort of people you want to stay connected to. Under our roofs you’ll find some of the smartest, savviest professionals in the business, but more importantly you’ll find some the coolest, kindest people you’ll ever meet. So as I look back on the last five years at Matter, while I appreciate the paycheck and the experience, it’s the people I’ve met that I’ll cherish the most.

So think back. Where were you five years ago? What have you accomplished? And when you look back many years from now, what will you remember most clearly from this time? Share in the comments!

*I made this up completely

While I’d agree that you can improve your own social skills by learning how to make better small-to-medium talk and putting yourself into varied settings for practice, you can’t teach someone to be a social influencer. People like Monya are born that way - possessing a rare combination of charisma and genuine interest in the people around them – and they have tremendous power to sway their social circles.

Tastemakers with large networks don’t just walk our college campuses, they’re everywhere – especially online. Bloggers, Twitterati superstars and Facebook fiends (and those who are all of the above) affect consumer preferences whether it be on the most reliable diaper or the best cloud service for SMBs.

At Matter, we’ve recognized how the “Monyas” have gone digital and are wielding their influence throughout the social space. To harness the power of these individuals, we’ve created what we call a TIP (Targeted Influencer Program) offering for our clients. TIP is a formalized way to strengthen relationships with those key people who shape buying decisions of their readers, followers and friends. Of course, these programs are customized to each client and depend on a thorough research and measurement process to identify the players in our clients’ spaces and quantify the impact of their social sway both before and during a TIP campaign.

We’ve seen great success for consumer and technology clients already, from positive shifts in overall conversation about their brands across social platforms to changing perceptions of individual influencers, and, if I can use another college reference/term, we’re psyched to help more brands do the same.

Sourced from The New York Times online, "The Elusive Big Idea," by Neal Gabler

Last week I read an article in The New York Times called, “The Elusive Big Idea.”

It scared the crap out of me.

We’re living in a time when information is fast, efficient, neatly-packaged & delivered— suspended in a magical (and convenient!) web of ether just waiting to be accessed.

…But how much of it are we actually processing?

As a new PR professional, I’ve noticed a change in my way of thinking. While I was in school, I took home books or articles, read them at a steady pace, underlined, revisited— and mulled, if you will. Most of the time, I would then sit down and start writing in order to develop and lengthen these study-lounge musings.

I find there to be much less time these days to study and mull. I’m submerged in the deep end of the information pool where quick facts, stats, industry news headlines, blurbs, and witty one-liners leave me drenched. Keeping the best interest of my clients’ business in mind, I pay attention to a much different, and much wider range of topics now than before. Relevant information is quickly bouncing back and forth between status updates, twitter handles, and blog posts. Web addresses aren’t even written in full anymore— our short messages are shortened further by bit.ly’s and tinyURL’s, even embedded behind # and @ signs.  It’s enough to make my head spin. I’ve learned, though, that scanning alone does not produce the best results.

As Gabler writes in his NYT piece,

“In the past, we collected information not simply to know things. That was only the beginning. We also collected information to convert it into something larger than facts and ultimately more useful — into ideas that made sense of the information. We sought not just to apprehend the world, but to truly comprehend it, which is the primary function of ideas. Great ideas explain the world and one another to us.”

Does this new trend of “apprehension” truly make us more informed? Smarter? I’m inclined to say no, that it only gives us the ability to move more quickly —finish the lap— call out a message first in order to win the recognition of passing the baton. We can certainly find the answer to just about any question online, but we need to remember to reflect on what we know first. The relevancy, context, and reliability of what we find must then be considered, as well as how we plan to use our new information sensibly.

Getting a bit more philosophical, can you say that you’ve thought through your own worldview, end to end, amidst the blur of contradicting information that’s available to us? If there was a line drawn across a particular ideal you’ve lived by, would you be able to confidently stand on one side armed with sturdy reasoning, or are you positioned a bit more shakily (and perhaps more safely) in the gray middle area? Have you thought through any one thing so thoroughly that you could ignite a fiery debate, and still stand unburned on your own turf?

As intellectual people with such amazing innate potential, I hope we can all say yes.

“We are like the farmer who has too much wheat to make flour. We are inundated with so much information that we wouldn’t have time to process it even if we wanted to, and most of us don’t want to.”

Isn’t it strange to consider that this overload of information, be it significant or trivial, has actually occupied space in our minds meant for new ideas?

For the maintenance of my own sanity, I need to set aside some time to step away, process, think, and comprehend. This is the key to generating innovative ideas! There comes a point when in order to be a good PR pro (or person of real substance, for that matter), we may need to disconnect in order to reconnect to our own thought process.

This marks the first Royal Wedding of the digital age. More than one billion people worldwide are expected to watch Prince William and Kate’s big day on TV. That’s a major uptick from the 28.4 million viewers who tuned in to see Princess Diana and Prince Charles wed back in 1981.

Today, there are more media channels than ever to keep people across the globe, not only looped in, but also engaged with all things Royal Wedding.

Predictions have already been made that the volume of tweets on Twitter during the Royal Wedding will reach record heights. The volume of tweets during the big day is anticipated to surpass the current record of 5,000 tweets per minute after the death of Michael Jackson in 2009.

If you’re a Facebook junkie, then you probably already are one of the 345,000 people that “Like” The British Monarchy Facebook page. Perhaps you’ve even added a comment to a post about Buckingham Palace.

If you really want to feel like you too are a part of Prince William and Kate’s special day, then you can add your name and message to The Wedding Book Facebook app. The messages will be collated and bound into a leather-bound book that will be given to the couple as a “special gift from the public.”  

And, if your schedule permits, you can view the entire wedding ceremony as its broadcasted on YouTube via The Royal Channel, (which already has more than three million channel views).

With all the different options available, how will you be getting your #royalwedding social media fix this Friday?