http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g-uACT9oKQ-4u5jovb6FRKedlA5QD9BEF8PG0
At Rowan University, the public relations dept. stresses the importance of RESEARCH and STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION to put together an effective public relations plan and more importantly to influence attitudes.
The communications director of Missouri's dept. of Natural Resources probably should have sit in on one of my classes because then maybe 100 Missouri employees will still have a job in the next few weeks.
See link above.
If you're not one for more reading, allow me to sum up the article. More than 100 out of about 715 employees are losing their jobs and according to temporary spokesperson for the department of Natural Resources, Travis Ford, "this is 100 percent about the decline in revenue from the parks sales tax." The article goes on to state that three-fourths of the parks divisions' revenue comes from an earmarked state sales tax and the recession has lowered consumer spending.
Let's completely deny the accountability of the E. COLI IN MISSOURI'S BEACHES!
In the past three years there have been "10 cases... in which public beaches at state parks were not closed despite high E. coli levels.
Where do the research and strategic communication plans come in?
With articles dating back to 2006 about the E. coli in Missouri's beaches, would you not think that a strategic public relations plan would have been put in place to combat the negative attention, perception and attitudes that the media and Missouri natives had about its beaches?
(2006) http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3693
(2008) http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/29177/
(2008) http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kwmu/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=1310864§ionID=1
And several other articles.
If they did, it was an epic failure.
If they didn't, they all jumped on the fail boat and sunk along with 7 percent of Missouri park employees.
Travis Ford cannot deny that the media attention on the elevated levels of the E. coli virus did not have a direct impact on the consumer spending at Missouri's beaches. Even worse, is that he continues to deny it now after 7 percent of Missouri park employees will be filling the unemployment lines in a matter of weeks.
Let us not forget the public relations crisis of the E. coli virus in spinach a couple years back. Even with a PR plan in place, the United States Fresh Produce Association never recovered its spinach sales from the crisis. In fact, it knocked down all sales of fresh produce.
Another factor to take into consideration are the attitudes of American's and their health. In the past several years, American's have put more stress on their health, what they eat, who their doctors are, their exercise regiments, the purity of their water, etc. American's want to live long healthy lives especially with the healthcare industry being the moneysucker that it is. American's will not risk their health visiting beaches with elevated levels of E. coli, especially after they have not been shut down.
The smart move would have been to shut down the beaches in the first place and acknowledge the problem and put a plan in place to clean the beaches, in addition to releasing research and tests to prove which Missouri beaches are clean and healthy to visit. Afterwards, an integrated-marketing campaign should be put in place to promote Missouri's clean beaches to help stimulate revenue and create exposure.
I am not saying that consumer sales and the economy did not play a role in this crisis.
What I am saying is that this PR blunder could have been avoided and could have significatly reduced a staggering 7 percent of Missouri park employees being laid off.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Media Credibility Trumps Social Networking
Who has all of the up-to-the-minute news?
The public.. powered by a tiny cartoon birdie we like to call twitter.
Read this.
Twitter has drastically changed the media landscape and gardened it to level the playing field. Ladies and gentlemen, that means we are now all journalists. However, we only get 140 characters instead of column inches. Who do you think told CNN and MSNBC about the elections in Iran and the military coup in Honduras? The tweets, obvi (sorority short hand for obviously).
Okay, let's stop with the jokes. We are not all journalists. The difference between us and journalists is that the news we tweet is simply comment and responsive while media outlets are objective.
Twitter has put the news into our hands, and unlike my previous blog about media consumption, this is about the gift and the curse twitter is for journalists, the media consumers twitter filter, the charge twitter has put on the media, the twitter effect on PR and the media and ultimately the triumphant platform the media still has over the twitter phenomenon.
The unsuspecting journalist finds her/himself in a rose garden, and picks the most beautiful rose of them all. And as s/he reaches over to pick it, they are plucked by the thorn - aye, twitter.
Twitter the gift - Twitter can be used as a tool by journalists to keep up with trends in the public eye, follow certain people who are heavily involved in their particular area of niche journalism whether it be consumer or travel, etc, and its also the future in media consumption and journalists need to stay current to stay competitive.
Twitter the curse - Over this past weekend, apparently Jeff Goldblum fell off a cliff in New Zealand and Harrison Ford fell off his yacht. Hmm, maybe not so much considering Jeff was on the Colbert Report Tuesday. People can tweet whatever they want, and if it gets enough retweets it becomes news? Twitter has the potential to become one huge rumor mill. Unfortunatly, the media has to deal with this. In regards to breaking stories, like Michael Jackson dying, people were calling his death as soon as they found out he was hospitalized. The media has to be the source that dispells these rumors and gives the facts. Fortunately for the media, twitter limits users to 140 characters in one tweet which only leaves room for headlines, no details that can really inundate a story and make it difficult to tell fact from fiction. It encourages consumers to actually follow up the stories, which leads me to..
The media consumers twitter filter! With 37 million members tweeting away at their every twinkling, twitterers have to scrutinize these tweets and acknowledge their subjectivity and lack of credibility before they become twitter twips and retweet twat that's not true. The internet is saturated enough as it is, but now there's a central hub that funnels all that information into one tweet at a time. It is more important now than ever that the media consumer be wary and informed of what's being said and where to get objective factual news.
With that being said, the media is now charged with an even stronger duty of objectivity to inform the intelligent media consumer. This needs to be done for two reasons aside from the ethical ones. As long as the media stays objective and factual, it retains its credibility and more importantly the trust of its consumers. In this business, credibility is all you have. Also, by maintaining that credibility, the mainstream media cannot be trumped by social networking and will continue to have its necessary and vital contributions to society.
Twitter offers a new channel for public relations people to deliver their messages to their audiences. Essentially, audiences are scooping the media and public relations people have the ability to avoid the middle man all together. What does this mean for the relationship between PR people and the media?
A professor once told me that when it comes to the media, you want to treat them like they were your girlfriend. It was some of the best advice I ever got. Twitter is a very dangerous tool for PR people because although you can directly target your message to your audience through this channel, it does not offer the same credibility that the media has. Consumers have their media outlets and channels they trust. PR people need to use the relationship that the media has with its audiences strategically to build and deliver effective messages.
Now when you bypass these outlets, its like not talking to your girlfriend and letting her feel unappreciated and not needed. Your girlfriend starts to feel ignored and shunned and is then going to seek attention elsewhere. But when you want that attention and its gone, you feel that chill called loneliness crawl up your spine. Coldblooded! Same thing in this situation. If the PR person goes directly to its audiences and ignores their media relations, it strains the relationship. The media wants to stay current with what you want your audiences to know. With these new channels available, PR people cannot forget that the PR & media relationship is vital and mutually beneficial to both professions.
Ultimately, the media trumps twitter and other social networking sites because of its credibility - a constant theme throughout this blog. Twitter and all of its tweets and apps and widgets do not have the reputation or the established relationship with its audience to dethrone reputable media sources. Although social media is the future of media consumption, media consumers are intelligent and will continue to scrutinize, challenge and filter the twat that is tweeted to get to the facts that only ethical, truthful and powerful journalism can provide.
--- Side note - Arizona just passed a law that allows people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon to carry guns into places that serve alcohol. WHAT!?
The public.. powered by a tiny cartoon birdie we like to call twitter.
Read this.
Twitter has drastically changed the media landscape and gardened it to level the playing field. Ladies and gentlemen, that means we are now all journalists. However, we only get 140 characters instead of column inches. Who do you think told CNN and MSNBC about the elections in Iran and the military coup in Honduras? The tweets, obvi (sorority short hand for obviously).
Okay, let's stop with the jokes. We are not all journalists. The difference between us and journalists is that the news we tweet is simply comment and responsive while media outlets are objective.
Twitter has put the news into our hands, and unlike my previous blog about media consumption, this is about the gift and the curse twitter is for journalists, the media consumers twitter filter, the charge twitter has put on the media, the twitter effect on PR and the media and ultimately the triumphant platform the media still has over the twitter phenomenon.
The unsuspecting journalist finds her/himself in a rose garden, and picks the most beautiful rose of them all. And as s/he reaches over to pick it, they are plucked by the thorn - aye, twitter.
Twitter the gift - Twitter can be used as a tool by journalists to keep up with trends in the public eye, follow certain people who are heavily involved in their particular area of niche journalism whether it be consumer or travel, etc, and its also the future in media consumption and journalists need to stay current to stay competitive.
Twitter the curse - Over this past weekend, apparently Jeff Goldblum fell off a cliff in New Zealand and Harrison Ford fell off his yacht. Hmm, maybe not so much considering Jeff was on the Colbert Report Tuesday. People can tweet whatever they want, and if it gets enough retweets it becomes news? Twitter has the potential to become one huge rumor mill. Unfortunatly, the media has to deal with this. In regards to breaking stories, like Michael Jackson dying, people were calling his death as soon as they found out he was hospitalized. The media has to be the source that dispells these rumors and gives the facts. Fortunately for the media, twitter limits users to 140 characters in one tweet which only leaves room for headlines, no details that can really inundate a story and make it difficult to tell fact from fiction. It encourages consumers to actually follow up the stories, which leads me to..
The media consumers twitter filter! With 37 million members tweeting away at their every twinkling, twitterers have to scrutinize these tweets and acknowledge their subjectivity and lack of credibility before they become twitter twips and retweet twat that's not true. The internet is saturated enough as it is, but now there's a central hub that funnels all that information into one tweet at a time. It is more important now than ever that the media consumer be wary and informed of what's being said and where to get objective factual news.
With that being said, the media is now charged with an even stronger duty of objectivity to inform the intelligent media consumer. This needs to be done for two reasons aside from the ethical ones. As long as the media stays objective and factual, it retains its credibility and more importantly the trust of its consumers. In this business, credibility is all you have. Also, by maintaining that credibility, the mainstream media cannot be trumped by social networking and will continue to have its necessary and vital contributions to society.
Twitter offers a new channel for public relations people to deliver their messages to their audiences. Essentially, audiences are scooping the media and public relations people have the ability to avoid the middle man all together. What does this mean for the relationship between PR people and the media?
A professor once told me that when it comes to the media, you want to treat them like they were your girlfriend. It was some of the best advice I ever got. Twitter is a very dangerous tool for PR people because although you can directly target your message to your audience through this channel, it does not offer the same credibility that the media has. Consumers have their media outlets and channels they trust. PR people need to use the relationship that the media has with its audiences strategically to build and deliver effective messages.
Now when you bypass these outlets, its like not talking to your girlfriend and letting her feel unappreciated and not needed. Your girlfriend starts to feel ignored and shunned and is then going to seek attention elsewhere. But when you want that attention and its gone, you feel that chill called loneliness crawl up your spine. Coldblooded! Same thing in this situation. If the PR person goes directly to its audiences and ignores their media relations, it strains the relationship. The media wants to stay current with what you want your audiences to know. With these new channels available, PR people cannot forget that the PR & media relationship is vital and mutually beneficial to both professions.
Ultimately, the media trumps twitter and other social networking sites because of its credibility - a constant theme throughout this blog. Twitter and all of its tweets and apps and widgets do not have the reputation or the established relationship with its audience to dethrone reputable media sources. Although social media is the future of media consumption, media consumers are intelligent and will continue to scrutinize, challenge and filter the twat that is tweeted to get to the facts that only ethical, truthful and powerful journalism can provide.
--- Side note - Arizona just passed a law that allows people who are licensed to carry a concealed weapon to carry guns into places that serve alcohol. WHAT!?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Media Consumption Revolution
Michael Jackson is dead!
I know I'm a little late on posting the news.
Aside from the personal impact the news had on me as a dancer and as a kid idolizing Michael, there is a very important undertone that needs to be looked at when it comes to media consumption and public reaction, and also their affect on this cultural revolution. Before we go any further, read this article.
"Because it wasn't just HOW lots of people first learned of Jackson's demise, but what they did once they found out."
Social networking sites are quickly becoming the opinion leaders of our time. Let's use Jackson's death as an example. As soon as the news broke, as said in the article, people tweeted and facebooked it. Text messages sent per second went bananas which led to more tweets and facebook status updates. Behold the newest trend in media consumption.
Let's continue with this consumption theme. I like to think of Twitter and Facebook as the appetizers for what the media wants us to consume. When a story breaks, someone will make a post about the story on these sites. From there someone else sees this post and looks into the story through more traditional means, the entree of the story if you would. These traditional means being CNN, newspapers, analysts, etc. This is ensued by a repost of the story so that someone else can go through the same process. This is public reaction to the way we consume media.
What I'm saying is that these social networking sites are changing the way all of us get our news and information, and the way we share that information with others. Facebook and Twitter are the buzz creating publicists for the mainstream media.
We are living in the middle of a cultural revolution. Many professors feel as if the students of my generation lack a certain amount of awareness about the world around us, and I agree. Many of my peers don't read the newspaper, and with the internet, many of us barely watch television. Now the media is effectively using these channels, social networking sites, to target a vast array of demographics. With these channels the media has become agile and versatile, so much so that lack of awareness becomes an active choice. Personally, I'm pumped about these new cultural trends in media consumption, and even more excited that people are reacting and responding. News media and the way our culture absorbs it is evolving and becoming more sophisticated and accessible. It's time to jump on the train and take advantage of it before you get left behind.
F.Y.I. - I found that article using my little brother's Wii video game entertainment system.
"I want to love you, PYT, Pretty Young Thing!"
I know I'm a little late on posting the news.
Aside from the personal impact the news had on me as a dancer and as a kid idolizing Michael, there is a very important undertone that needs to be looked at when it comes to media consumption and public reaction, and also their affect on this cultural revolution. Before we go any further, read this article.
"Because it wasn't just HOW lots of people first learned of Jackson's demise, but what they did once they found out."
Social networking sites are quickly becoming the opinion leaders of our time. Let's use Jackson's death as an example. As soon as the news broke, as said in the article, people tweeted and facebooked it. Text messages sent per second went bananas which led to more tweets and facebook status updates. Behold the newest trend in media consumption.
Let's continue with this consumption theme. I like to think of Twitter and Facebook as the appetizers for what the media wants us to consume. When a story breaks, someone will make a post about the story on these sites. From there someone else sees this post and looks into the story through more traditional means, the entree of the story if you would. These traditional means being CNN, newspapers, analysts, etc. This is ensued by a repost of the story so that someone else can go through the same process. This is public reaction to the way we consume media.
What I'm saying is that these social networking sites are changing the way all of us get our news and information, and the way we share that information with others. Facebook and Twitter are the buzz creating publicists for the mainstream media.
We are living in the middle of a cultural revolution. Many professors feel as if the students of my generation lack a certain amount of awareness about the world around us, and I agree. Many of my peers don't read the newspaper, and with the internet, many of us barely watch television. Now the media is effectively using these channels, social networking sites, to target a vast array of demographics. With these channels the media has become agile and versatile, so much so that lack of awareness becomes an active choice. Personally, I'm pumped about these new cultural trends in media consumption, and even more excited that people are reacting and responding. News media and the way our culture absorbs it is evolving and becoming more sophisticated and accessible. It's time to jump on the train and take advantage of it before you get left behind.
F.Y.I. - I found that article using my little brother's Wii video game entertainment system.
"I want to love you, PYT, Pretty Young Thing!"
Saturday, June 27, 2009
iFred
Welcome to iFred (because its cool to put 'i' in front of everything).
My name is Freddy. I am a recent PR graduate from Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, a Philadelphia suburb. I originally hail from West New York, NJ - a tiny town whose population is 98 percent hispanic, wannabe gang bangers in over-sized white t-shirts run the streets while gym teachers and Cubans run politics, and you can find a store on the main strip, Bergenline, that sells cell phones, hello kitty stickers, sneakers and blow dryers. It's quaint. Perhaps its most defining feature is the majestic view of Manhattan from across the river, or Sal Vega's politics that have been recently featured on ABC. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=6666355&syndicate=syndicate. My perfect shade of paradise.
What is iFred?
iFred is the "premiere blog in regards to PR news, cultural trends, entertainment and education" as quoted by someone credible, hopefully in the near future. I blog, I voice, I speak about what interests me. It could be about the new climate bill legislation that has been recently passed which serves as a historical and cultural bookmark in which this green fad transcends joining a fashion trend, or it can be about my picks for America's Best Dance Crew. I like to think of myself as an agile thinker. Let's run with that. Most importantly, it's my personality. iFred is an outspoken extension of who I am.
Why this blog - iFred?
iFred is my catalyst for personal growth and change through the world around me. It has its roots in self-motivated career advancements. Let's not lie. Through iFred, Twitter and Facebook I hope to fulfill one of if not all of my aspirations. These dreams include becoming a PR professional, becoming a hip-hop dancer, going to graduate school, becoming the dean of students at an institution, opening a barber shop and opening a dance studio - agile thinker.
But in these selfindulged notions comes a strong voice that is aimed at challenging and encouraging thought. Ultimately, if I remain jobless, still live with my mom and still blog from my bedroom but have created some sort of awareness and provoked an intelligent reaction within my readers, then my success is engrained in what my readers do with that thought through their social networking, the present and future of media consumption.
Welcome to iFred.
My name is Freddy. I am a recent PR graduate from Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ, a Philadelphia suburb. I originally hail from West New York, NJ - a tiny town whose population is 98 percent hispanic, wannabe gang bangers in over-sized white t-shirts run the streets while gym teachers and Cubans run politics, and you can find a store on the main strip, Bergenline, that sells cell phones, hello kitty stickers, sneakers and blow dryers. It's quaint. Perhaps its most defining feature is the majestic view of Manhattan from across the river, or Sal Vega's politics that have been recently featured on ABC. http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=6666355&syndicate=syndicate. My perfect shade of paradise.
What is iFred?
iFred is the "premiere blog in regards to PR news, cultural trends, entertainment and education" as quoted by someone credible, hopefully in the near future. I blog, I voice, I speak about what interests me. It could be about the new climate bill legislation that has been recently passed which serves as a historical and cultural bookmark in which this green fad transcends joining a fashion trend, or it can be about my picks for America's Best Dance Crew. I like to think of myself as an agile thinker. Let's run with that. Most importantly, it's my personality. iFred is an outspoken extension of who I am.
Why this blog - iFred?
iFred is my catalyst for personal growth and change through the world around me. It has its roots in self-motivated career advancements. Let's not lie. Through iFred, Twitter and Facebook I hope to fulfill one of if not all of my aspirations. These dreams include becoming a PR professional, becoming a hip-hop dancer, going to graduate school, becoming the dean of students at an institution, opening a barber shop and opening a dance studio - agile thinker.
But in these selfindulged notions comes a strong voice that is aimed at challenging and encouraging thought. Ultimately, if I remain jobless, still live with my mom and still blog from my bedroom but have created some sort of awareness and provoked an intelligent reaction within my readers, then my success is engrained in what my readers do with that thought through their social networking, the present and future of media consumption.
Welcome to iFred.
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