Classmate's blogs

For my last blog I decided to look into two of my classmate's blogs. The first blog I'm going to discuss is Laura's blog. I think she has an interesting concept because she talks about social media and the entertainment industry. What I like about her blog about Twitter and Facebook is how she compares it to surveys. I like how she uses celebrities twitter accounts as an example. She explains how when people look at celebrities twitter accounts and they have tweeted a question it can be considered a form of a survey. I never thought to look at it like that.

The second blog I am going to discuss is Kevin's blog. He also uses his forum to discuss social media but this week he uses it to talk about social media and crisis communication.  He found an article that explains how social media for crisis communication is up and coming. He also explained about how they need to use the same tactics (honesty and transparency) as they would if they were writing a press release.

Shell's handle on blame

Last week I describe what experts say is the best method on handling a crisis. This week I came across an article about Shell, one of the major gas companies, and how they went about handling a crisis. It was the 15th anniversary of the execution of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. "Mr Saro Wiwa, who was the leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People at the time, was arrested on May 22, 1995 on charges of inciting Ogoni youths to kill four prominent Ogoni figures during a rally on May 21, 1995 (background information)" According to the article Shell was under scrutiny for not standing up for Ken Saro-Wiwa, being in cahoots with the military and government, as well as gas spills and oil fires. 


Since it has been 15 years and Shell gas is still running, the question behind it all was how did they do it? It was because of the PR team. The first thing that they did was stick to a message (like one of the steps I wrote about last week). They also realized who were their allies and who were their enemies of the press. They locked out their enemies and gave their friends the leads. Something that was out of the ordinary that i consider extremely interesting was that they organized a workshop. Technically it was more of a focus group. They gathered people from Amnesty International, church groups, people from the academic world etc. to figure out the boundaries of the corporate world and what is acceptable or were the boundaries are. I thought this was interesting resorting to the consumer for guidelines. It's actually quite brilliant because you're giving the people a chance to take out your anger on you while at the same time helping you out. They feel like they've made a difference - the company walks away knowing how to get their customers back on their good side.

How to handle a crisis

When reading different websites to further my knowledge of handling crisis. I came across a Bloomberg Businessweek article explaining the top 5 steps in handling a crisis. I thought it was really refreshing to see exactly what a professional needs to do to get their job done. One of the key points that were brought up was the need to be transparent. I thought it was interesting because when it comes to a crisis most companies wouldn't want to air their "dirty laundry". I figured that most companies would prefer to have a cover story to make up for their mistake.

Another key point brought up was "owning the message." Gallo talked about how important it is to have a clear cut message because a lot of bloggers just copy and paste. Because of this, most of the companies message is spread over the internet at a rapid speed. I thought it was fascinating to read because I knew messages spread quickly but I didn't realize it was because of the simple copy and paste method. The article overall was interesting because it was nice to see someone put what needs to be done so bluntly.

Classmate's blogs # 2

This week our assignment was to read two classmate's blogs.
The first blog I read was about Public Relations done in France by Vanessa. I thought her blog on research and whither it is truly helpful or just used to create hype. It was interesting to read because I never would think about "tainted" research. Another part of her blog that I thought was intriguing was when she talked about how on one website she found not a lot of companies used research the right way, or even at all! I thought after reading the previous blog how weird it is to me that companies would ignore research a product. You would think that the company would probably save money in the long wrong research would be used a lot more.

The second blog I read was by Katerina. She wrote about social media and the blog I found really interesting was social media and the internet. I did my group project on unobtrusive research and the legality behind it. Since companies can pretty much find anything anyone post on the internet and then can take action against them; it raises a legal and ethical question. It was captivating to read how even with people knowing that the internet doesn't forget people still are more open on the internet than ever before.

Qualitative Research

As any one who has done any type of research sometimes opinions count more than statistics. Yes, it is important to know that a certain number of people are unhappy with this product; its equally as important to know why they are unhappy. Knowing the emotions and opinions of people - going to out and collecting that research is consider qualitative research.

When researching this week's blog post I came across some information on how overseas companies are being forced to restrict certain things in order to let their product into the country. It was interesting to read the interview between international bloggers and Mauro F. Guillén. Guillen actually said that the companies overseas aren't censoring just to censor - they are doing it for protection. This censorship is going out towards all smart phone users as well as Google and their renewal of contracts in Asia. He went on to use Google saying that since Google has the ability to post anything out there and make it available to the public that 

"The technological opportunities are immense and demand a lot of attention. But these concerns are more driven by the flow of information, and the authorities just want to have some sort of control."

The interview went further on saying that America even does this - we just do it a lot less than most companies. It was also interesting to see how why he classifies this as a crisis:

"It's a crisis because your company is making headlines for the wrong reasons. You're under pressure from the Chinese government, or you're experiencing problems in India or the UAE, and you are in the spotlight. It is a problem that involves public relations, but also the mission statement of the company and its principles." 

What I want to see come out of this is the opinions of the employees and the people who live in the countries with the strict censorships. If I was trying to use Google and it turns out that half the webpages were blocked because of "security" it would be frustrating. But then its the double edge sword of if people grew up in a culture that continuously blocks out information they technically wouldn't understand what they were missing. When companies like Blackberry start going overseas for consumers  I would love to see the feedback on the censorship behind the smartphone technology.  

Non - Social CEO's

In a world where the social media is the main force of communication these days its a shock that 64 percent of CEO's aren't involved in the social world. An article found on PR Newswire declared that:

"Over nine out of 10 CEOs in the world's top 50 companies (93 percent) communicated externally in traditional fashion: 93 percent were quoted in the major global news and business publications and 40 percent participated in speaking engagements to an external, non-investor, audience."

I was truly shocked  when I read this article. We live in a generation that continuously relay more and more on the internet for connections and communications.  The fact that major CEO's aren't getting out there and using every up to date medias is something unexpected.  The article further went on to highlight the CEO's that are getting out and using all the resources available to them.

One of the aspects that CEO's that are advancing in their fields by using certain online programs to help advance the company.  They talked about how only 23 percent of CEO's post on the company's website, create podcast, Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin. 

The other part that stood out was a quote from Chris Perry, president of Weber Shandwick Digital Communications:

"It's not surprising that CEOs are less inclined to participate in social media given the perceived risk and time commitment required to engage in two-way conversations,"

It's interesting to read about how CEO's feel that the aspect of social media is almost too demanding for them. I wonder with the ever growing need and demand if CEO's will start forcing the companies interns to start getting a foot into the world of social media. 

Unobtrusive Research

This week the blog was supposed to be about Unobtrusive Research. We have spent the past two weeks hearing about different way to conduct this type of research practice. After Professor Laskin showed us how to setup Google Alerts I was excited to see what information was given to me this past week for the alert of "Crisis Management in Public Relations" I was really curious when I went down to the blog section and here was this blog about good crisis management.  I found it interesting in the sense they had a 'community chat' about the good pr of a local school district.  He even went as far as to post some of the conversation.  The part of the conversation I found the most interesting was: 

"McFarland: I see crisis management as something far more than "communication." Good crisis management is about good leadership and good decision-making. It's not communication that usually created the crisis, and communication and messaging cannot pull you out of it either."

I picked this part because I felt that people tend to think the communication is the answer to everything - it was refreshing to read an alternative view on how to handle crisis'. I felt that even though communication is a big part of dealing with a crisis it was fascinating to see its the only the biggest area. I also thought that this was a good way to show unobtrusive research in the secondary manner.