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Coca-Cola Wants to Get Rid of the Press Release: Will it Happen?

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Screen Shot 2013-12-03 at 9.54.12 PMWhen the most recognized brand in the world vows to “kill the press release,” PR practitioners should take notice. Of course that brand is Coca-Cola, and those words came from Ashley Brown, who leads digital communications and social media for the company.

Brown talks about how he’s challenging his team to think outside the press release box, way outside. His goal is to reduce the number of press releases by half in 2014 and eliminate them all together by 2015.

Instead, Coca-Cola is using its brand journalism project, Coca-Cola Journey, to share content and tell its story, essentially replacing the press release with its digital magazine.

Check out the full article from Ragan.com to learn how Coca-Cola may be leading the charge. Who will follow?

Read more after the jump…

GFM Crisis Expert Featured in Denver Business Journal on Prepping for the Big Media Interviews

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This article originally appeared in the Denver Business Journal.

Screen shot 2013-12-02 at 12.07.26 PMThe softball media interview is under attack so when the media calls – or, even worse, shows up at your doorstep – company spokespeople and executives must be prepared to answer the hard questions.

These days, the media landing an interview with an important or elusive figure is not enough to provide a credibility boost. News reporters are expected to ask tough questions without coming off as being too aggressive and get something more than just a scripted statement. It’s a tough needle to thread, but if they fail, the reporters risk getting pilloried on social media or in online comments.

Read the entire article here.

PR Tips you may THANK me for

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As we kick off Thanksgiving week at GroundFloor Media I thought I’d have a little fun with the imagesTHANKSGIVING theme in todays blog post. Here’s a quick rundown of some of helpful media relations rules I like to live by. When pitching media, consider the following tips:

Tell your story succinctly and accurately.

Have details and contacts ready to go in case a reporter wants to know more.

Always know what the reporters you pitch write about and how.

Never pitch more than one person if you utter the word “exclusive.”

Keep a log of calls and emails so clients know what goes into establishing contacts.

Social media can be your friend, some media prefer being contacted that way. Read more after the jump…

Weekly Reads – Dynamic Storytelling Takes Many Steps. Don’t Miss Them.

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Thanksgiving is around the corner, which means the deluge of social media roundups and articles with 2014 predictions is upon us. We, for one, love this time of year because everyone tends to make more for time for evaluating what has worked and which social media and communications strategies need adjustments in the year to come.

This week, articles about thoughtful storytelling and strategic content distribution planning rose to the top and serve as an important reminder to give due diligence to all the steps of a communications process from start to finish.

Read more after the jump…

Cause Marketing – Insights and Trends

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Cause marketing is here to stay. That is the conclusion reached by Cone Communications in its recently released 2013 Cone Communications Social Impact Study, which takes a comprehensive look at 20 years of cause marketing-related data. A few notable statistics right off the bat:

  • 54 percent of U.S. consumers bought a product associated with a cause over the last 12 months, increasing 170 percent since 1993.
  • 89 percent of Americans are likely to switch brands to one associated with a cause, given comparable price and quality, jumping nearly 35 percent since 1993.
  • 91 percent want even more of the products and services they use to support a cause.

Read more after the jump…

Engaging On Social Media Not Always a Good Idea

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JPMorgan Chase & Co. is just the latest company to suffer a self-inflicted social media firestorm.JPMorgan

Using the hashtag #AskJPM, the company invited the public to engage with Vice Chairman James B. Lee by submitting early questions for a tweet chat designed to provide insight on Lee’s experiences and thoughts on leadership. For a company recently defined largely by scandal, I’d wager that a public tweet chat wasn’t the best move down the road to reputation recovery – and the overwhelmingly negative public response confirms that engaging via social media isn’t always a good idea. Read this story from Al Jazeera America for more details, or this one from Bloomberg, which called it “snarkopolis.”

And for a walk down memory lane, and an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others, read this wrap-up from Mashable about 8 Hijacked Hashtags Gone Horribly Wrong (Or Right).

Both media stories provide a good reminder to carefully kick the tires on any social media campaign before launch. It’s not possible to out-think every possibly negative scenario, but some social media and communications teams might have been saved a crisis drill by reviewing their strategies a little more closely.

Weekly Reads – Without the Right Audience Good Content Doesn’t Matter

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Many of us spend our days brainstorming, formulating and deliberating how we can create the best content for our brands or organizations. But we spend much less time focusing on the audiences that will be consuming those great content ideas. It’s not so much the number of followers we have on each of our platforms, but whether or not they are the right followers. Read on to find out more.

Read more after the jump…

Guest Blog Post: What A Crisis Client Wants In a PR Partner

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partnershipManaging a crisis and a company’s reputation is much easier and more effective when the PR team and legal counsel are on the same page.

To help this relationship work here’s a list of important PR qualities compiled by Bill Ojile, chief legal counsel for Alta Colleges, a GroundFloor Media client since 2008:

Experience: Having a member of the PR team who has worked as a reporter was invaluable in translating the process. What was the reporter looking for? What would he accept from us?

Resiliency: Working with a reporter on background takes persistence and a willingness to go back repeatedly on issues, if necessary. They can’t give up and provide the reporter with an excuse to report an inaccurate or unbalanced fact.

Responsiveness: A media crisis is a 24/7 grind. Members of the media appreciate getting immediate responses to questions and issues. (It is also a two-way street.)

Toughness: Someone you would want with you in a bar fight.

Teachability: Work with someone who will get beyond sound bites and who wants to understand the details and background. This will involve a desire to dig in and learn about the company and how it does business.

Crisis Communication Strategy

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When it’s not a matter of “if” but “when”…

GroundFloor Media (GFM) had the opportunity to partner with The Castle Group last week to conduct a social media crisis simulation for a private liberal arts college in the Northeast. We run several of these exercises for clients throughout the year, and I always end up being reminded of or learning a few things in the process. Following are a few crisis communication tips that are top of mind after the latest Online War Room® simulation. Hopefully, they will be helpful to you, too…

Read more after the jump…

Organic Twitter Engagement with Trident

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TridentBig, flashy social media campaigns undoubtedly capture a lot of attention. But often it’s the way a brand reacts to the steady drumbeat of day-to-day social media conversations that really knocks my iPhone out of my hand.

Case in point. Trident is one of my favorite brands of gum. I am a gum addict and I have tried them all. Recently I discovered Trident Layers and keep packs of the Grape Lemonade and Strawberry flavors in my purse, computer and diaper bags to satisfy my constant sweet tooth cravings. One afternoon I decided to profess my love for Trident Layers on Twitter after popping a piece of Strawberry into my mouth instead of the chocolate tempting me in the GroundFloor Media kitchen.

Read more after the jump…