Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

Emptying the bit bucket: books, pitches and too fat to fly?

by

Heard on Twitter about a big brand: Apparently the brand is using multiple word of mouth agencies on blogger outreach programs for the same company initiative. Some of the agencies are offering compensation for posts, others not. Here’s the kicker though: some bloggers are getting both sorts of pitches. For the same program. Ouch!

And before you ask: yes I know who it is, no I am not telling, and I’d appreciate it if my readers do not “out” the brand in the comments either. I’m telling this story to make a point, not to embarrass anyone.

Here’s the lesson. It’s okay to have different programs for the same initiative. Just make sure the programs are highly differentiated, especially if some include compensation and others do not. And for heaven’s sake, de-dupe the lists, and do your best to make sure that bloggers only get ONE of the pitches.

Too fat to fly? The ‘net was all a-twitter over the weekend and yesterday about the @ThatKevinSmith and Southwest Air incident Saturday. It was all over the mainstream media as well, but just in case you missed it (on vacation at the South Pole, crossing Alaska with a dog team, climbing Mt. Everest, etc.), here’s the short story.

Director Kevin Smith (“Clerks”) was asked to get off a full Southwest flight from Oakland to Burbank last Saturday for “safety reasons.”  He twittered about it as it was happening, and later released a special, very long, very ranty episode of his podcast with the blow by blow.

Smith has 1.6 million Twitter followers, so the whole thing blew up hard and fast. And of course, the whole situation was further fueled by the fat/thin debate.

Eventually,  Southwest apologized, sort of but not really, which further inflamed Smith. They then apologized again, as detailed in both this Nuts about Southwest post and Smith’s final word on the subject in his blog.

I’m not going to do a blow by blow analysis. The pundits have analyzed this thing to death, and it’s pretty clear that this was a customer service snafu that evolved into a full-blown communications crisis due to bad decisions and the power of social networks.

Southwest has learned a hard lesson. What can we learn from it?

First, exercise a little common sense. The entire situation could have been avoided in multiple ways. First, the obvious — just let the man fly. Southwest also could have chosen to NOT clear Smith from the standby list if they were truly already hyper-aware of fliers with “safety issues.” Is that right? No, of course not. It’s awful and stupid and ugly. But, it would have avoided the problem. Putting the man on the flight and then taking him off is the problem, because, truly, he didn’t get any fatter while waiting to board the flight.

Second, and I know others have said this as well: When you apologize to someone, you really should apologize for the thing that actually upset the other party. Otherwise, it isn’t an apology. It’s a justification. The lawyers may not like it, but good  customer relations demands it. When you screw up, own it. All of it.

Enough of this. I may write about this on my travel blog this weekend — after I fly Southwest to Houston for Mom 2.0. The airlines  — all of them — do have a problem. As they try to pack more seats into each plane and then pack each plane to capacity to improve the bottom line, the US population is getting larger. It’s not good. It just is.

Finally, I meant to post this weeks ago, but forgot. The second edition of David Meerman Scott’s book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR (Amazon affiliate link), has just been released. While I don’t agree with all of David’s tactics, it’s a good introductory text on how to use social media in your marketing plan.

What don’t I agree with? I am a profound opponent of using press releases to reach customers. News, yes. The press release form, no. Otherwise, our approaches to integrating marketing and social media are pretty similar.

Blogging Survey for Professional Blogging for Dummies

by

This Friday, I will be moderating Got Strategy?,the opening panel of the professional track at Mom 2.0. The panelists — Isabel Kallman, Joanne White and Mir Kamin — will share lessons learned, good and bad, in building their professional blogs.

I’ll also be sharing some of the results to-date of the blogger survey for my book, Professional Blogging for Dummies (Wiley, July 2010).

If you write a personal, small business or independent professional blog (ie not associated with or for a big brand), please take a few minutes to add your experiences with your blog to the survey. Professional Blogging for Dummies Survey.

Thanks!

(Updated 2/17 with new panelist name)

BlissDom, Disclosure, Super Bowl ads and a new survey

by

Apart from my rather hectic return North on Friday (which you can read about on Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip), BlissDom was absolutely great, and I wish I could have stayed longer.

BlissDom and Disclosure

As promised, here is a PDF of the complete slide deck from the “You Should Know Better” general session on Friday morning. Kristen Berman from Intuit covered best accounting practices, Liza Barry-Kessler gave an overview of the legal issues facing bloggers in their small businesses, and I talked about disclosure as a best practice and the FTC guidelines on endorsements and testimonials.

We were lucky that Stacey Ferguson was in the audience. She is an attorney with the Federal Trade Commission advertising practices division and was able to help answer a few questions.

I don’t want to dive too deep into disclosure in this post but one thing most definitely bears repeating: the FTC does not dictate how you should disclose other than it must be “clear and conspicuous.” There are many ways to be clear and conspicuous. For example, put the disclosure at the top of the post, at the top of the blog sidebar or within the text of the post as you write about whatever it is. All pretty clear. You just have to be sure that the reader has an opportunity to see the disclosure without searching for it. But… there is no checklist that says the FTC approves these five ways to disclose and does not approve these other five.

That’s why best practices are so very very important. Also common sense. For example, if you have written a long, long blog post, putting the disclosure at the bottom of your post, and only at the bottom, isn’t too conspicuous. No one says you can’t put it there — not even the FTC —  but I will tell you that it’s not a best practice.

On the other hand, if you write snappy short product bits that fit in the first screen (“above the fold”),  a disclosure at the bottom of the post is pretty conspicuous. It’s simple common sense – just ask yourself, if I was reading someone else’s blog, where would I want to be informed about the endorsement or material relationship?

Stacey also made it clear to the audience that the FTC does not require that blogs have a disclosure policy nor does a blanket disclosure policy cancel out the need to disclose in your posts.

Best practices demand that you do MORE than the FTC requires. A disclosure policy is a best practice that helps your readers understand your point of view, your relationships and your biases.  Use best practices and common sense, and you should be fine.  The slides from the BlissDom session have some suggestions, and Blog with Integrity will have more free webinars on this and related topics like copyright and fair use.

Super Bowl Ads
Liked: Snickers, VW, Clydesdales [Updated 2/9 to add that I also liked the NFL, Google and HomeAway ads, all of which were spot-on in their branding]
Didn’t like: All the misogyny (Dodge, Bridgestone, Dove, Go Daddy), creepy eTrade babies, people acting like dolphins, stuffed animals acting like people

Survey for Professional Blogging for Dummies
I’m heads down most days on my book right now, and I’d like your help. A key feature in the book is case studies, anecdotes and tips from successful bloggers. I’d also like to have some trend data about professional blogs. How are people making money? Do they have a business plan? What sorts of opportunities have bloggers gotten as a result of their blogs? So, I’ve got a little survey up on Survey Monkey. If you write a professional or small business blog, I hope you will take it.

A refreshing change from Super Bowl ads – the Pepsi Refresh Project

by

cross posted to Snapshot Chronicles

The Super Bowl is pretty much the only athletic contest in the world where the television advertisements during the event get nearly as much media coverage as the event itself. Likewise the run-up and hype of the commercials. Will the network will sell all the space? Who will run ads, how much will they pay and what will they promote?

Before the ads even run, the pundits are postulating and after, they dissect them.

It’s a bit obscene really — and full disclosure, I’ve played the game on my blog in past years.

This year, though, the real news is who is NOT advertising during the Super Bowl. Instead of spending a hefty chunk of change on a few spots during the football game, Pepsi launched the Pepsi Refresh Project. For the next year,  the company is giving away $1.3 million dollars per month to community development projects submitted and selected online by the public.

Anyone can submit a grant. Pepsi will accept 1000 every month, and the public can vote for up to 10 projects every day.

Of course, the company is getting a lot of media, and social media, coverage for the campaign, and I imagine they are also spending a pretty penny on the infrastructure to support the project with their ad, PR and interactive agencies. I’m sure they have high expectations for positive revenue as well as brand awareness results from the project.

What makes this campaign so exciting is the scale of the grants. Other companies have done similar projects to fund charities through community submission and vote. For example American Express. But I can’t think of anything from corporate America that matches the scale of Pepsi Refresh.

It is truly refreshing to see a company do so much potential good. I’ve got no problem if they “do good” as a result.

In fact, I’d love to see more copycats.

Who’s next?

Where in the world is Susan?

by

I love speaking to groups. Or really, with groups, because the best part is the interaction with the audience.

A good thing, as I will be doing a lot of it over the next few months. Happy to do more, so please get in touch if you need a speaker for your event.

Here’s where I’ll be. Hope to see you there!

And watch this space for announcements about the 2010 Blog with Integrity webinars.