Susan Getgood

FTC Update: Reverb, Green and Behavioral Targeting

October 6, 2010 by Susan Getgood

: Image via Wikipedia

I haven’t written about the FTC endorsement guidelines in quite a while but some things have crossed the transom over the past month that I wanted to share with you.

First, the FTC announced the resolution of its first completed investigation in which the social media aspects of the guidelines applied – Reverb.

Short story: Reverb was accused of “astroturfing” — employees of the PR firm left glowing comments on video game message boards as though they were satisfied customers of products. No fines were assessed, but the consent decree imposes some pretty stringent requirements on the firm and its principal. Read the consent decree for the details.

Two important things about Reverb:

The deceptive advertising laws existed – and applied to online and social media – well before the revised guidelines were issued last year. Deceptive advertising is deceptive advertising, full stop. The revised guidelines help us – advertisers and consumers – understand how the FTC intends to enforce the law. The guidelines were and are not targeted specifically at blogs.
The FTC focused on the company and its principal, not the individuals hired to leave the comments. It was the agency providing the direction that was held accountable for the deception. This is consistent with the agency’s statements that it intends to focus on advertisers, not on individual bloggers participating in social media campaigns.

In other FTC news: the agency is going to turn its attention to Green claims. Not surprising given the greenwashing of the past few years. According to Ad Age:

“The guides are expected to tighten standards for packaging claims such as “recyclable” or “biodegradable”; regulate how marketers use such terms as “carbon neutral”; and how quickly and close to the source of carbon output “carbon offsets” must be executed, among other things.”

Another term expected to come in for scrutiny is “sustainability.”

This reminds me of the organic/natural debate. Organic is specific. Products need to comply with very specific requirements to be labeled organic. Natural on the other hand has relatively little meaning, and certainly doesn’t mean something is “good for you.” There are many things in nature that are most definitely not good for humans to breathe or consume. Carbon monoxide. Tobacco. Poison. You get the idea.

And on Monday, I read an item in Ad Week about the major US advertising associations collaborating on a mechanism for consumers to opt-out of online ads that use behavioral targeting. A move designed to forestall formal FTC action on the issue.

According to Ad Week

“Ads targeted using past Internet browsing history will carry the small logo. Clicking it will bring notice of the targeting used and direct people to a page with options for blocking behavioral targeting.”

Behavioral targeting increases the relevance of the ads to a viewer’s interests, and in that respect, benefits both marketers and consumers. On the other hand, there are legitimate privacy concerns. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. What do you think?

Update 8 October: The FTC released the proposed new green guidelines on the 6th. The public comment period ends December 10th. The agency also forestalled the game of “social media telephone” like the one that occurred last year about the endorsement guidelines (there was more misinformation and disinformation circulating at one point than actual information) by releasing a nice summary PDF of the proposed changes.

AARP and social media – my trip to the AARP Orlando@50+ Conference

October 4, 2010 by Susan Getgood

Last week I attended the AARP Orlando@50+ Conference. Snide remarks from friends on Facebook aside, I was not in Orlando as an attendee to plan my post-retirement life, although had I been, there was plenty of information on the show floor and in the sessions to help me. I’m still a couple years shy of the calendar milestone, and as for retirement, that’s at least 20 years off.

I was at the conference to present two workshops on Connecting and Communicating with Social Media as part of Kaplan University’s educational track within the conference. The room was full both times – about 280 capacity – even though the room was as far from the front door as you could possibly get and on Saturday it was one of the last sessions, competing with all the entertainment Orlando offers.

It’s impossible to introduce folks to “everything” social media has to offer in an hour session, so I focus largely on blogs and Facebook. Even then, people – especially in beginner audiences – tend to have very specific “how do I do this…” questions, and there is no way to get to all of them. That’s why I am particularly glad that as part of its deliverables for the AARP attendees, Kaplan has created reinventyourself.kaplan.edu, a site dedicated to expanding on the topics presented at the conference with self-paced in-depth courses on each topic. The site launches October 7. I’ll add a link here once it is live.

I helped develop a course based on my workshop, and got a sneak peek Saturday. The online course developers did a great job translating my concepts to the online interactive format. It is a great start for anyone dipping their toe into social media for the first time, at any age. It’s also free!

Of course, if you want to delve more deeply into blogging, and especially making money on your blog, my book Professional Blogging For Dummies is also a good choice! Links in the sidebar to your online bookseller of choice.

The workshops I am doing for the Conferences for Women in Pittsburgh, Houston and Boston use a similar outline, with a slight shift on focus to women and how these tools can help them personally and professionally. I’m giving away tickets to Houston and Boston; all you have to do is leave a comment on my post Using Social Media to Build Your Brand for a chance to win.

For more on technology use by older Americans, check out this post on the AARP blog ShAARP. I was honored that they included the story about my mom that I use in my workshops to make two important points about technology and the Internet. First, there is no age requirement or limit. Second, don’t think – or let anyone tell you, that you can’t do something. We learn how to do the things that let us accomplish our goals. Even if it seems – or even is – hard.

Using Social Media to Build Your Brand – my topic at the upcoming Conferences For Women in Pittsburgh, Houston and Boston

September 25, 2010 by Susan Getgood

: Image via Wikipedia

I’m really looking forward to speaking at the upcoming Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women (10/14), the Texas Conference for Women (11/10) and the Massachusetts Conference for Women (12/9).

At each conference, I’ll be teaching a workshop on Using Social Media to Build Your Brand. Here’s the abstract:

In this tough economy, it’s more important than ever to develop a brand and set yourself apart from the rest of the masses. Whether you have a job and are looking to advance, in the midst of a job search or working to build a business, social media provides the skills, network and energy to create a serious career advantage. This interactive workshop will explore ways to master social media to help create and reinvent your brand, reputation and thought leadership. Attendees will learn how to utilize social media to:

Establish access to new networks

Leverage Facebook and Twitter as a practical professional tool

Create a blog to align with and help you achieve your short-and-long-term professional goals

Break into new industries, professions and business opportunities

I’ll be arriving in each town the day before the conference and generally taking off sometime in the late afternoon of the conference, but would love to connect with as many folks as I can while I am in town. If you are planning to attend one of the conferences, or just live locally, please email or dm me and let’s see if we can’t get a meet-up/tweet-up going the night before the conference.

The exception to this is Boston. While I hope to have a home base in Connecticut by then, we’ll still be living in Mass. as well. The plan is to see the calendar year out here, and then transfer my son to his new school after the December break. So I won’t be scramming after the Boston conference with quite the same speed!

I’ve already given away my pass to the Pennsylvania Conference, but I have a pass to give away to each of the other two conferences as well. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. Be sure to let me know which conference you’d like to attend, Texas or Mass. I’ll use a random number generator to pick the winning comments. The first comment number generated will get the pass for her conference of choice, and then I will generate numbers until I get a comment for the other conference. Please post your comment by midnight EST Sunday October 17, 2010. I’ll pick the winners early the following week.

Also, if you have a copy of Professional Blogging For Dummies and you’d like me to sign it, please feel free to bring it with you. I always have time for that!

Update 8 October: I will be doing book signings at the Conferences for Women bookstore so if you don’t have a copy yet, you will be able to buy one there.

Two levels of getting it right with blogger relations

September 17, 2010 by Susan Getgood

: Image by marymactavish via Flickr

Recently I was interviewed by Chief Marketer about how brands are reaching out to women through social media. The reporter was interested in how brands were and were not “getting it right.”

As I wrote here last month (OMG, that long), it’s become increasingly clear to me that the brands that are doing excellent work using social media tools to reach their customers generally have done and do a good job in traditional media. Sure, even the best companies make the occasional mistake with a campaign, product or program but for the most part, their marketing communications are sharp (often clever) and do not patronize the consumer.

These companies already understand that it’s important to respect your customer. In all that you do. They just have to figure out how to translate that imperative using the social media toolset in a way that is authentic to the brand and relevant to the customer.

It’s more than just getting the mechanics right. That’s the price of entry into social media engagement with your customer. I’ve been saying it for years, and I’ll keep on saying it: there is NO excuse for misaddressed e-mail – for example, the “Dear XXX” pitch about toys (children’s toys) that many parent bloggers got last week – or grammar errors – like “conscious” for “conscience,” also from last week’s in-box.

As Marketing Mommy said on Twitter:

@sgetgood My reply to him: “Despite my efforts to break into the porn star business, I’ve yet to use the moniker XXX.”

The poor interns come in for a lot of flack when we talk about these often humorous mechanical mistakes, but really, it is management’s job to create a system with the proper checks and balances.

If you MUST mass e-mail bloggers (and I wish you wouldn’t), invest in a decent CRM system and assign your interns to getting the data entered properly. Not on cutting and pasting pitches. Buy everyone who drafts, edits or sends customer facing emails a dictionary and make it a requirement that it be displayed on their desks. Why? Because it will be a constant visual reminder to check not just the spelling of words, but their meaning. Spell check and online dictionaries can’t do that.

The mechanics are the first, most basic level of getting blogger outreach right. We can do it. I know we can.

Your message is the second, more important level of “getting it right.” My favorite fantasy is that next year, even more companies and their agencies will see the light and understand that what they should be doing is sharing compelling ideas and stories with their customers. Exciting things that will make them want to write about the brand.

Instead of trotting out formulaic pitches and recycling the same product launch templates from project to project, client to client, brand to brand.

Be careful though.This requires more than just identifying the blogger’s passion that drives interest in your product and inserting the message point in an otherwise bland pitch. That’s a start (I guess), but it’s not enough. There is honestly still far too much of this sort of pitch circulating in the ether.

Really getting it right requires that you connect with that passion. To do that, you need to know the bloggers you are reaching out to. It still comes back to the 3 R’s as coined by good friend and colleague David Wescott in 2007 – respect your customer, be relevant and build a relationship over time.

Good blogger relations is still (and always will be) a commitment, not a one night stand.

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Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women ticket giveaway – Stay tuned: I will pick a winner this weekend from the comments on this post. I also have one ticket each for the Texas Conference for Women in November and the Massachusetts Conference for Women in December. Watch for a post next week about the conferences and details on how I plan to give away those passes. More than likely it will be on Twitter, not here on the blog as finding time to write is a bit problematic for the next two weeks due to my schedule.

Next week, I will be in NYC most of the week, digging in to my second week on the job as VP Sales Marketing for BlogHer and speaking at a PRSA event on Friday. The following week, I travel to Orlando to present a social media workshop at AARP’s Orlando@50+ conference.

In between all of that we are trying to find a place to live for 3 people, 3 dogs and 2 cats. Fun times! We need a rental within about an hour’s commute to Manhattan by train until we sell our house in Massachusetts. If you’ve got leads, let me know. We’re leaning toward western Connecticut but open to all suggestions.

Brands & companies getting it right at BlogHer ’10: Liberty Mutual, Pepsi, P&G (BlogHer Marketing Lessons part 5)

August 31, 2010 by Susan Getgood

: Image by Lel4nd via Flickr

The comments, both here and on Facebook, on the previous marketing lessons posts have been terrific and chock full of examples, some of which we should strive to emulate, and others that we definitely want to avoid.

In this post I’m going to share my three picks for official sponsor companies that got it right at BlogHer ’10. These are by no means the only ones that did, but I have some specific learning points in each example.

Liberty Mutual’s Responsibility Project

I’ve been aware of the Responsibility Project since they reached out to me just before last year’s BlogHer. I don’t get many pitches and respond to even fewer but given my interest in ethics, disclosure and responsible blogging, I’m a good fit for their message of “do the right thing” and have written about the Project a few times over the past year. I was delighted when I received an invitation to its outing to Ellis Island the day before BlogHer. I’ve been to New York many times, and seen most of the main tourist attractions, but never Ellis Island. So I RSVP’d yes, and made my initial travel plans to get to NY that morning in time to join the trip. (BTW in the end, my plans changed and I went to NY on the Tuesday to film a roundtable discussion on celebrity worship, also for the Responsibility Project.) The Ellis Island trip was terrific as a sightseeing excursion and I highly recommend it. Details for organizing your own visit are on SCR.

Here’s why it worked as a blogger event.

Unique – The Ellis Island venue was a nice change from the usual meet & greet cocktail party/luncheon accompanied by swag bag that we’ve come to expect from blogger events. It also fit well with the theme of responsibility, although I admit that I nearly laughed out loud in the brief luncheon presentation by Peg Zitko, VP of Public Affairs at The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation when she tied the concept of responsibility to President Reagan’s decision that the American people should be responsible for restoring the Statue and Ellis Island through private donation rather than federal subsidy. Nothing against her message about the importance of the public contributions to the restoration — that’s an important story — but responsible is not exactly how I would describe Reagan’s policies. Oh well, never mind…

The group was small, about 30 women. This made it easy to mingle and chat, and actually get to know each other. Liberty Mutual PR agency Ketchum told me they invited bloggers who they have been working with already, like me, and others who they wanted to get to know better because they thought the Responsibility Project themes would resonate for them.

Here are posts from:

The swag bag was appropriate and thoughtful — sunscreen, lipblock, bottled water, some snacks and an autographed copy of the Ellis Island cookbook written by our tour guide Tom Bernardin.

Limited lecturing – Because the trip was sightseeing, it seemed likely that the company presentations would be brief so we could enjoy the venue. They were. Senior Vice President, Communications Paul Alexander greeted us after we boarded the bus at the Hilton, said a few words and showed a brief film of clips from Responsibility Project commercials and media coverage. At lunch, we were treated to the afore mentioned brief talk from Peg Zitko and a screening of Second Line, a short film directed by and starring Danny Glover. That’s about it. Instead of bombarding us with presentations (or crafts) the Liberty Mutual and Ketchum people mingled and enjoyed the trip with us.

Executive commitment –– Major kudos to Paul Alexander who joined us for the whole trip, and managed to still look cool and crisp in his suit and tie at the end of the day, when we all looked a bit frazzled and fried. This is the kind of commitment from company executives that bloggers want to see. Not a few words and a hand wave as he or she is escorted from the room, and on to presumably more important things. I was most impressed by this, although perhaps I should have expected it. It is after all the right thing to do, and I have come to believe that Liberty Mutual walks its talk.

Procter & Gamble

I didn’t spend much time on the Expo floor. In my early career, one of my duties was tradeshow coordinator and I spent my fair share of time setting up, working and dismantling trade show booths of all sizes. As a result, I have a love-hate relationship with trade shows. I love the customer contact and the energy when you have a great conversation with a prospect or a reporter. However, the very venue reminds me of endless hours manning show booths or waiting for freight to be delivered etc etc. As a result, unless there is something I am specifically interested in, I tend to cruise through as fast as possible. In the case of cleaning products and groceries, my family will tell you straight up that I am not the buyer 🙂 so I also don’t want to waste the booth staff’s time chatting with me.

However, I was impressed by the sheer size of the P&G booth, and heard many good things about it from folks who spent some time with the P&G reps. Even if all you did was walk by, you got the idea the P&G had made a serious commitment to BlogHer.

Other things P&G did right: In addition to the show floor, it had suite space for its new brand Align. The reflexology massage was awesome! More importantly, though, it was paying attention before BlogHer. As I’ve mentioned previously, it offered (and I accepted) free samples of Align for the attendees at the pre BlogHer BBQ. That gives the brand some mindshare even before people get to the conference. Given the noise and competition for attention once BlogHer starts, this is smart marketing.

Pepsi

Pepsi had a lot of things going on during BlogHer but I’m going to single out one, because I think it is very important, not just as a marketing lesson, but as an example for anyone interested in gender equality. Or parity if you prefer.

It is a well known fact that there are not enough women elected officials in this country. Not enough women run, and of those who do, not enough win. The day before the main conference, BlogHer partnered with the White House Project to hold a workshop for women interested in running for office. NY York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand also held a brief meeting with political and NY bloggers during the conference to focus attention on women as candidates.

However, I believe our political reality won’t change, or change enough, until the business world changes. Until more women are in positions of business power and choose to use those powers for good. To make change in the world. And to support women candidates.

Pepsi, helmed by a woman, CEO Indra Nui, seems to be doing just that. The company took the opportunity at BlogHer to showcase some of its senior executive women. It brought a panel of senior executive women to BlogHer for a “Sofa Summit” moderated by Campbell Brown to talk about Pepsi’s forays into social media, being a senior executive, nutrition and yes, even their families. I was privileged to be invited to this breakfast session attended by about 30 women bloggers, many (but not all) of whom write about gender issues.

This is important — to see women in senior executive positions at top brands.We need more of it.

Now you may have noticed that I didnt include any of the entertainment brands in my picks. Does that mean I don’t think Ubisoft got it right with Let’s Dance 2? Of course not. The dance-offs in the booth were brilliant, and many many bloggers tremendously enjoyed this booth. It’s also a slam dunk. Nothing in marketing is ever easy, but it is a lot easier to come up with fun ways for customers to engage with entertainment brands. Fun is already the point.

It’s a whole lot harder to make insurance, soap and soda sexy. That’s why Liberty Mutual, P&G and Pepsi are my top picks.

Unrelated to BlogHer specifically, but apropos of brands getting social media engagement with their customers “right,” brands that have a track record of positive engagement with customers in other venues tend to hit more than they miss when deploying social media tools. They aren’t perfect — no one is — but they already seem to understand the importance of connecting with customers over shared values, not simply products.

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On October 14, I will be speaking at the Pennsylvania Governor’s Conference for Women in Pittsburgh on using social media to build your brand and advance your career. Early registration price is $135 and expires Sept. 1oth. But… courtesy of the conference organizers, I have a pass to give away . Just leave a comment on this post by noon eastern time on September 14th. I’ll use a random number generator to pick a winner.

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Disclosure: Liberty Mutual hosted us for the day, providing transportation to/from Battery Park and the Hilton, the ferry ticket and guided tour of Ellis Island and lunch, plus the afore mentioned swag bag. I also participated in the celebrity worship roundtable; my extra hotel costs for Tuesday and Wednesday nights were covered and the participants received a small honorarium for our participation. I attended Pepsi’s Sofa Summit breakfast on Saturday. P&G sent samples of Align for the attendees of the Boston pre-BlogHer BBQ at my house, and like many attendees, I received a reflexology massage at its BlogHer suite.