Shedding Light on Black PR

February 20th, 2013 | Shonali Burke |

 

 

 

Terri Johnson tipped me off to a fascinating story yesterday. It’s an exposé of China’s “black PR industry.”
I had no idea such a thing existed, but here is how Charlie Custer, who summarized it for Tech in Asia, explains it:

“Black PR firms provide client companies with both post deletion services to help them escape negative news stories, and some also provide placement for soft ads and hit pieces attacking competitors. The top black PR firms can offer these services even for stories posted to China’s most popular news portals.”

Image: Arjen Toet via Flickr, CC 2.0
The bit about placing soft ads and hit pieces won’t shock or surprise you, since we’ve seen that happen here in the U.S. as well, disgusting as the practice is. And reputation management is often a large part of what we, as PR professionals, do; for some, it’s what they specialize in and focus on.

In fact, even those who don’t think they do it, probably do. For example, content marketing is as much about reputation as anything else; after all, we (organizations, or clients, or simply human beings) want people to think well of us, and to come to us for the right reasons… right?
Scrubbing the Internet
There are also numerous companies that offer to “scrub” your reputation for you (for varying amounts of money), or teach you how to do it yourself; though at least in the U.S., most people know enough to not overtly promote “black hat SEO” tactics to do so. In fact, companies like BrandYourself tell you point blank what they won’t do.
The approach I’ve seen (so far) from such firms primarily involves getting higher rankings for “relevant” and desired links, by tweaking keywords, generating useful content, etc… mostly in an above-board manner. This, again, is not a surprise. (I’ve never used BY, btw, I just found them when I was researching companies that offer this kind of service… case in point.)
But here is where I started to narrow my eyes as I read the article:

among other things, these “black PR” firms offer to delete negative articles and post “hit” pieces to China’s most popular news portals.

Not (just) search engines. Not pitch stories. Actually delete from, and post to, news portals.
The dirty saga in a nutshell


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Facebook Graph Search Is Here. What Do Marketers Need to Know?~By Michael Lazerow

           Social Graph Combined With Intent Data Is   Powerful Mix for Marketers... 

When Facebook announces something, people listen. And  when  the words "Facebook" and "search" are mentioned in one event, people really listen. And when marketers learn the possibilities presented by this new search product, called "Graph Search," they'll listen even more.

While Zuck did not focus on brands, it's clear where Facebook is going with its search strategy. And businesses large and small will be one of the primary beneficiaries.
What Did Facebook Announce?
Zuck announced the social networking giant's foray into search in Menlo Park Tuesday. Instead of pages and links, the heart of Facebook search is called Graph Search, which is the love child of its scantily clad search bar and Facebook's humongous social graph. And it's the third child of the Facebook ecosystem, which already includes News Feed and Timeline.
Zuck made clear that Graph Search is not a search engine. Instead, when people go to search for a term, they'll be directed to people, places, or Pages that already exist on Facebook, instead of a series of links. And because Facebook has its massive social graph to flex, search results will be displayed based on personal relationships that you've established on the network.

So How Does it Affect Marketers?
Think about the potential in terms of sheer volume of search queries. With over a billion people on Facebook, creating more than 240 billion photos and more than a trillion connections, imagine how many search queries will be performed each day. Every time someone searches for something, your branded content will have an opportunity to appear to Facebook's vast user base. Though users can only find content that has been shared with them, Graph Search makes it much easier to find track.

Consider that by creating a tie through the social network between a user and your Page, you are now providing another chance for you to reach people; this time, in the form of a branded search result.
This points to a larger trend in personalization.
I've said many times that people are people, and need to be treated as such. We're done with the days of people being labelled as expiring cookies or data points; instead, marketers need to treat people like human beings. Graph Search is the next logical step in this process for Facebook and social marketing. By building a fan base, creating engaging content and building a community, you can ensure that you're there when your fans and the friends of your fans are searching for something on the site.
The secondary benefit to marketers is that Facebook will now be conditioning its billions of users to search for what they're looking for. Does this sound familiar? Yes! It's intent. And Facebook has never been able to capture intent. The combination of social context (what your friends like) and intent (what you're looking to buy) will make it possible for advertisers to take Facebook's already amazing targeting to the next level.
I don't want to blow your mind just yet, so I won't go much further down this path. But imagine what happens when you combine intent, social context and custom audiences (i.e. the data you have about your customers). All of a sudden, Ford can advertise to friends of their current customers who are in the market for a car today. That's exciting and opens up many possibilities to take loyalty and social referrals to the next level.
Graph Search is only available to a few Beta testers. So for now, you should continue to focus on creating great content and buying sponsored stories to amplify the resulting engagement across the social network. Connecting to consumers using today's strategies will turn out to be the best form of SEO down the road as Graph Search takes off, and will ensure you aren't trying to play catch up when the functionality is launched to over one billion people across the social network


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Ten marketing phrases you need to stop using now~By David Petherick

It's time for a little rant. Words are powerful, until they start to become abused, by being lazily thrown in parrot-like as part of loathsome marketingspeak and managementspeak. Here are the current Top Ten words and phrases that annoy the hell out of me.

1: Game-changing

Here's how to change the game of cricket: replace the cricket ball with a shuttlecock. It certainly changes the game, but it doesn't make it a better game, or one that's going to be enjoyed by players or spectators. There are very few things that really change the game. It's more realistic to focus on improving your game, or to realise you're playing a different game.

2: Groundbreaking

In similar vein to game-changing, this has become a cliche, and is lazily and incorrectly used as a synonym for 'new'. Are you digging the foundations for a grand new building that defies architectural precedent? Are you trying to suggest that digging a hole is something amazing? It's not, so shut up.

3: Engagement

Did you give her a ring and ask her to marry you? Then it's not engagement. This word is especially popular when talking about social media: "this offers the opportunity for engagement with customers". It's also combined very often with another choice phrase, so that you end up "driving engagement".

4: Thinking outside the box

Dear God, I thought this was gone, but it's still there, and keeps reappearing like a stubborn case of athlete's foot. What, and where is, the box you are talking about? Use this phrase, and I'll assume you are referring to the tiny little cardboard receptacle in which your feeble brain is rattling around. Forget the box.

5: Go viral

It's not 2005 any more kids. So if you still think you can create content designed to "go viral" then I think it's time for you to open an envelope containing your P45 or pink slip. This phrase was dead almost before it first started to be abused in Powerpoint and chocolate biscuit sessions.

6: Driving / Driver

"This is driving up engagement across social channels." No it's not. "This will act as the driver for this interaction" No it won't. Do you think you're like Fernando Alonso? Or are you a chauffeur? No, gracias.

7: Unique

A cliche again, and the worst type, because usually, this now means the opposite. "A unique opportunity" is best translated as "the same opportunity again, perhaps in a thin disguise". Avoid.

8: Impact

This is an incredibly flexible little word, and is used as a verb and a noun. "This will impact impressions favourably." And "This had a significant impact". It's such a nice satisfying sounding word, but it's simply abused too often. Impact describes a collision, or the effect of one thing on another. Use affect or effect, and people will stop tuning out, because they might just understand what the hell you're rabbiting on about. This word has become jargon.

9: Front-of-mind

The human brain does not work like a conveyor belt, and even brain surgeons admit they know only a small fraction of what there is to learn about the workings of the human brain, so this phrase is entirely ridiculous. Quite aside from anything else, assuming that people have even more than a passing interest in your products or services is highly delusional.

10: Implementation

Just shut up. This means 'doing stuff' or putting something into effect. "The key stage will be in effectively implementing this strategy." Ugh. I often hear the gleeful substitution of 'execution' for this word, which is just as feeble-minded. "We need to execute on this plan". Nah. You need to fire the next person who uses that phrase.

11: What about you?

What words or phrases do you have to add to this list? I look forward to hearing your gems...

 

 

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How to boost your Klout score with Flipboard

Give more than you take — and get rewarded for it

I’ll get to the point: My secret to being amazingly and profoundly engaged with so many of my followers on Twitter, my friends on Facebook, and my circles on Google+ is because I cheat.

Whenever I am between things, in lines, waiting for something, and even on boring conference calls, I pull up Flipboard and read what my followers, friends, and circles are sharing and I generously retweet, +1, like, favorite, share and comment. I believe that Flipboard is my secret weapon when it comes to improving and maintaining my Klout score. Why? Well, the more I give, the more I get. The more items I honestly and earnestly retweet, favorite, +1, like, and share, the more willing and game the people I share are also willing to take the few seconds it takes to retweet me back.

One of the hardest things to do when it comes to participating in social media is trying to give more than you take. In order to really grow your reputation online you really need to be perceived as giving more than you take. Generosity is always rewarded in this marathon of social media engagement. In order to make the most of your work online, you need to work on becoming connected with your online community. Social media demands not only commitment to feeding the beast — the 24/7 maw of content-creation — but it also requires that you take an interest in what your followers and your friends are posting as well.

Begin with the automagically generated personalized newspaper

Flipboard makes it easy to do this. When you install it, immediately go to the red ribbon with the magnifying glass on it. Here you can login, link up all of your social networking credentials and Flipboard will automagically generate a personalized newspaper for you to peruse. Of course, you can also follow various topics and news sources and so forth — and I do that as well — but the real juice happens when you share the content of real people with whom you’re connected via reciprocal connection rather than just sharing content fed to you directly from online media sources.

And since I really only like, share, favorite, +1, and retweet stuff that resonates with me, it helps build my character online, allowing me to build not only my personal and professional brand with my followers but it also allows these real people to get to know me better based on what I like, as well. Additionally, all of this great content aggregates right to me, so I become not just more broadly informed but also way more deeply informed as well. Why? Because birds of a feather flock together.

This is especially important for us social media experts, social media ungurus, and social media marketers. We tend to be a little heavy-handed and tend to do a lot more egocentric and self-serving posts than other folks. It’s our business. Tempering our perceived abuse of these platforms with authentic sharing and an engaged back-and-forth is essential, otherwise people will tune out and we risk being unfollowed for being a little spammy.

Flipboard even knows how to set up an editable RT the right way

Because Flipboard isn’t an open mic, you won’t be tempted to read your own poetry, to just speak about your own brand. Since Flipboard is a reader that allows full social engagement and wraps it up with a very gorgeous bow (the UI is amazing and makes even the simplest blog posts feel like a full-color glossy magazine), it’s no pain to consume all the share of everyone you too often ignore. Instead of being painful torture, it’s actually quite amazing.

Even more, because of how easy it is to navigate through the cross-platform interface — including uniquely designed Apple iOS apps for iPhone and iPad and a very attractive interface for the Android as well — it’s easy to breeze past the articles, tweets and posts that don’t interest you and then move on to content that catches your eye. You can easily favorite, +1, retweet, or retweet with comment. And, for you Twitter grammar geeks, Flipboard knows how to set up an editable RT the right way, conveniently adding an RT before the quoted tweet and none of that stupid quote stuff that some of the other tools offer.

It reminds me of when I was a young poet in college. I would go to poetry readings and I would spend all of my time on my own poetry — as was everyone else. Everyone was reading, reading, reading, and nobody was listening to other poets. The audience was full of people who were spending all of their time reading or prepping to read and no one was listening.

Same thing with social media. Most brands and companies are spending all of their time talking talking talking, sharing sharing sharing, link-dropping link-dropping link-dropping, that even just listening a little, engaging a little, even responding sometimes, is really appreciated — and really unexpected, too.

Spend some time every day giving back. Before Flipboard, it was still essential but a pain in the neck. With Flipboard, it’s actually a very informative and entertaining pleasure.

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