You’re doing it wrong
“There is no right or wrong way in social media.”
Every so often I see it. I hear it. And my eyeballs roll back in my head, I drink of the wine and sigh.
Madness. Poppycock. Piffle.
- If there was no wrong, there would be no posts about the pitballs of crappy corporate blogging and funny lists of why we don’t follow lame social media gurus. *
- There wouldn’t be an ocean hot water for folks to parboil Kenneth Cole, Groupon, Nestle and a host of others.
- If there was no wrong way, none of us would have jobs. (Maybe I could tweet for Ashton Kutcher, since he’s now doing it wrong – the other way.)
- If there were no bad examples or excellent case studies of the right ways, a lot of gurus, pundits and other leaders wouldn’t be able to sell some books.
Puh-lease. I think some of my bestest, more funnier posts have been rants on the crap people are doing wrong.
It’s me.
I’ll sing you a chorus of “TEHO and we all have different goals, reasons, ambitions for being social.” Fine, whatever moves your furniture. But there are limits, there are many wrongs, including:
- Stealing other peoples work, copying blog posts.
- Taking credit for what’s not yours, i.e. retweeting without attribution.
- Spam link bait crap sucks and I still believe Auto-DMs are of the Devil.
- IMO small businesses need websites, but will grant there are exceptions. It’s wrong to say you must “do” social, have a Facebook page, Twitter or a blog. “Too boring to blog” is b.s., but of course there’s no shortage of poorly written, dull content out there.
FWIW you can flout conventional wisdom and break the Twitter rules, yet still achieve success. But when I see your company’s tweet stream is nothing but “we sell widgets, come see our widgets, which are totally for sale” tweets, then – unless you can come back at me with proof positive of your profitable sales - that’s the wrong way to do it.
If I were to write “my passions,” whatever I wanted – say, make every other blog post a Vampire Diaries recap – I’m sure many would say wrong strategy, bad move for my professional goals. And they’d be right. Unless of course, I was seeking to abandon PR and become a TV critic.
What’s right for me may not be wrong for you. Or something like that. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong.
*ETA: I really thought this list was good, funny; not calling the writer lame or guru. Apologies.
If you’re gonna suck, do it with service
I do like pushing things with headlines, which works with this little rant on customer service. Which will get a Part Deux, Uverse from Hell Boogaloo .. once I’ve calmed down. Anyhoodle.
Customer Disservice FTW 
Despair Demotivators® “don’t work even better” because they get it. But companies like Netflix with the plethora of blog posts telling them how to right their ship STILL cannot buy a clue.
Shit Happens.
A year ago I begged my – former! – dry cleaner to suck less.
Another trip to the dry cleaner prompts a different kind of customer service and PR horror story: screwing up the right way. After ruining a nice beaded evening jacket, the owner:
- Apologized.
- Didn’t have the nerve to try to charge me for the cleaning.
- Immediately offered to replace the damaged item.
All of this done without my having to throw a fit.
What’s in it for them?
- My business. No guarantees they’ll keep it but we’ll see how it goes (still shopping). Are they willing to pay cash when I find a comparable item? Or give me a store credit (more likely)?
- My silence. It didn’t matter to the other place, but I did downrate them on sites like Yelp and Google. If I’m satisfied with how this gets resolved, I doubt I’ll be taking the time.
- My praise? Doubtful in this case, but for many small businesses this could be an opportunity in disguise. Turning a mistake around, finding a solution and showing your value is how you can turn someone not only into a loyal customer, but a brand advocate and nice PR too.
It’s said all the time: mistakes will happen, no matter how much planning you do. It’s what happens next, after the screw up – THAT is what separates the starting lineup from those riding the pine. When you’ve made a mistake, bring your A game and make it right.
Have you ever made good on a mistake and lived to tell the tale? Do tell.
TMI: Getting to Know You
Commenting about the remarkable people in our social networks, I surprised Shonali with the reveal that I passed on an engineering scholarship and accepted a communications scholarship to LSU. Geaux Tigers as I loved every minute of it!
Getting to Know Me, You.. Each Other
Inside the Actor’s Studio host James Lipton does a modified version of a Pivot/Proust questionnaire. A couple of the questions he asks:
“What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?”
Travel host like Samantha Brown, know it’s work but that job looks all kinds of dreamy. Run a B&B. No I can’t really cook and yes another real work job, but it just seems like it’d be nice to live somewhere fun and cool. Teacher. Overpaid.. anything really. (Anyone hiring?)
“What profession would you NOT like to attempt?”
Closer; hard sales is not my thang and I’d never drink the coffee (NSFW link). Number crunching, I’m ok at math but it doesn’t look fun. Politics, bomb tester, stunt double which are all kinda similar.
Getting to Know Them
How well do we know our customers? I have to admit I’m more focused on the business, the professional rather than the personal.
- Do we know more than their names? How to reach them, if they prefer call, text, email or social?
- Are we building relationships with them?
- Do we know their wants, needs, their business goals? How we can help them do better?
- Offer good service but don’t pretend to be friends?
- How often do we check in with a friendly, personal email or call rather than automated newsletter?
- Do we engage in ways that are relevant to the customer?
- Are they social, where to do they draw the professional vs. personal line?
There are times getting to know each other via social media is a blessing, total fun discovery. Times when it’s too much for either your or them, times when it’s just smart business to get to know each other a little better. FWIW.
Photo credit: So many hilarious Someecard choices, I had to just pick or I’d waste even more time. And yes, I’m kidding.
Would the real PR please stand up?
One post I’ve read listed 31 Flavors of Public Relations.
It has some good info to share, yet I agree with Beth Harte that 1) all those definitions creates a misperception of PR and 2) too many were publicity-centric. PR is not Publicity is a meme that’s made the rounds. Then there’s the textbook definition and the PRSA version of what Public Relations is.
This is the part where I joke: It’s like porn, you know it when you see it. But I’m not so sure.
When that company donates free tickets to a school group or when this brand sponsors this community event, do people see good customer service, community building, do they think ”that was some damn fine PR” or even give it a first thought, let alone a second one?
What do you do again?
Today’s excellent #SoloPR tweet chat brought this gem from Alison Kenney: “I once wrote a blog post called ‘I work in PR and my family has no idea what I do.’”
I laughed as I can totally relate. Which is the crux of the PR identity crisis: parents, consumers, clients can relate to what they know.
People know advertising, it’s the crap they zap on the DVR. They get that marketing has something to do with sales. My dad wants to “fix” my jeans since the branding label is there, and I’m doing the advertising for them. And people can wrap their heads around publicity, stories on the news and in magazines about this product or that company.
Don’t Tell Me what PR means, SHOW Me
Jayme Soulati has called for an education initiative. I thought rather than just a blog post of definitions, I’d call for examples not of what PR is defined as, but examples that define good PR. So here are the rules:
- Less is more. Forget the long boring white paper, keep it simple please.
- Links are ok. If it’s an affiliate or client, please disclose.
- Think outside the publicity box. Employee relations, goodwill campaigns, CRM programs, crisis management, etc. as I am all for integration.
- Publicity wins are ok.. IF you tie them back to other communications and business goals. Looking for more than “thud book” examples, want to know how that clip got sales or a new client.
Lemme start:
Via blogging, tweeting and chatting, I earned myself a speaking gig. This LinkedIn success story was both a social media and PR win for my business, establishing credibility with a key public: my peers.
Have a PR story to share? Please do.
Photo credit: Wasted too much time looking, settled on this just to hit publish.
Learning from the Worst of the Worst? Lessons in Dumbness
Nothing is useless. Even the worst can serve as a bad example.
That little quip has been quoted a few ways, very true. It calls to mind the flap in that NYT blog post about PR, which if you’re here, you’ve probably already read it and its partner in the blame game. It’s been discussed, blogged, challenged, with many clever and helpful posts by some of the best and brightest.
Even in failure, we can learn something.
Leading by Example
Either good or bad, that’s one of the first things I started blogging about: marketing, public relations, social media. That’s why my Advertising posts have the subhead “WTH were they thinking?” It’s why the PR category is about “the good, the bad, the galactically stupid.”
I did a summary post on everything from pay to play, to spin, to plagiarism, covering ethical issues in journalism and PR.
What I wrote then: “Nothing deep or especially clever, just Fire Bad, Tree Pretty, Ethics Good.“
How dumb was I? Not very, but then not helpful either. I just called out these examples as bad without offering insights.
I used good, bad and dumb examples of PR for this object lessons post.
What I wrote then: “Lessons learned: 1) Start with better PR practices than bulk emailing pitches and 2) Have a plan for when things go sideways. Mistakes will happen. It’s what you do next to quickly fix it that’ll make a difference.”
How dumb was I? Less so, as I did seek to offer at least some lessons from these public fails.
Examples of Leadership
When I rant about Summer’s Eve, Groupon, The Gap or rave about Apple or Old Spice, there are lessons SMBs can learn and apply to their businesses. If you own a small business in Atlanta or Marietta or Roswell, you can learn from the mistakes of others, capitalize on their growing pains without risking your own.
I need to share case studies, examples of success with marketing, PR and social media. Give SMBs some takeaways that they can learn from the success of those who get it right and the fails of those who get it wrong.
I’ll add it to my ever-growing Blog Better Damnit! list. Thoughts?
Photo credit: Resisted the temptation to use a Charlie Sheen pic, but that shit’s not really funny. A Despair Demotivator it is.