News

The San Francisco Zoo is making the world take notice of it through social media channels like Facebook, YouTube and, particularly, Twitter.

Instead of forcing corporate-speak Tweets about free days or a sale at the museum store, they’ve enlisted the help of their zookeepers to push out updates about what makes the zoo a great place – the animals themselves.

Wouldn’t you rather hear about what a baby penguin ate for breakfast versus an announcement about a new board of directors member? The zoo’s staff relies on Twitter primarily to get their message out, adding in podcasts and video as resources permit. Read more about their strategy here on Ragan Communication’s site.

In social media – in truth, in all your public relations messaging – stick to what you’re good at. What makes you, well, you? Why do your customers or supporters sign up to follow you or to shop at your store? It’s because you offer something they cannot get anywhere else.

So take a step back and think like a customer. What do they see the first time they interact with your organization? Why do they come back? Sometimes we’re so immersed in the corporate machinations we forget that we are interacting with living, breathing people, all of whom have a particular motivation in getting involved with us either online or in the “real” world.

In the case of the zoo, it helps that their product is fuzzy and cute (see their video below), but all organizations have that “baby gorilla” that they can use to pull on their customers’ heartstrings. What’s yours?

Cindy Harris

TED is a wonderful resource for sharing riveting talks from people around the world. Came across the below talk on augmented reality. Amazing. The magic starts at 6′24″.

Imagine the marketing implications of a platform such as this. Share your ideas and thoughts.

Doug Burton

AT&T’s recent battle over Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” commercials maybe a bit of an overreaction, but AT&T hits back with this new commercial using Luke Wilson:

With the new Droid out AT&T may be getting a bit uneasy, but the iPhone still leads in the App department and many have given the Droid less than rave reviews. So the battle continues…

Mary Grimborg

Here is an interesting article that I found about a 19 year old who was accused of robbery and was able to use a Facebook post as an alibi. Even more interesting is the Twitter Times service that helped me find it.

If you ever wondered what worth there is in Twitter, Twitter Times will help you find it. This service helps you by combining the tweets of those you follow into a newspaper format.  Twitter Times is now top on my list of Twitter aggregators. It pulls the links from those that you follow and makes the whole experience a lot easier to swallow!

Next up on the Twegenda…yet another hookup. Twitter and LinkedIn have hooked up, allowing users to cross-post. I think this is great for businesses and brands, but personally – I’m not sure if the details of the party you attended last night belong on LinkedIn.

Mary Grimborg

I’ve been writing professionally for almost 15 years, and I’ve yet to master the headline. My first boss and mentor told me that a headline should grab the reader’s attention while at the same time fitting on one line. Talk about a tall order.

Headline writing truly is an art, and there are very few who can claim to be expert headline-writers. But fear not – even if you’re unlikely to win a Pulitzer, there are some basic things to make your headlines better, according to this piece in Ragan’s Daily Headlines. Here are the author’s top two:

1. Use active words, not passive.

2. Get sassy.

Click to read more.

PS – Ragan.com has been a constant companion for me throughout my career; they consistently provide great tips and advice on writing, public relations, business communications, internal communications and more. If you write as part of your job, it’s an excellent repository of information across many different disciplines.

Cindy Harris

If your boss comes to you demanding “We need to do social media”, your first response should not be “Okay.”   Instead ask him why. Why ask why? Because in marketing we do not put tactics first. We think strategically then execute tactically.

First determine whether or not social media, or what ever you are discussing, fits into your overall marketing strategy. How will it compliment your existing  marketing mix? What do you hope to achieve? Who will it target? Once you have explored the “why” and have decided it it something you wish to pursue, then execute tactically.

Doug Burton

If you have ever signed up for one of Google’s many free services, one thing is for sure, Google knows a tremendous amount of information about you.    After receiving a considerable amount of criticism, Google has final launched a new service that allows you to see exactly what they know about you. It’s called Privacy Dashboard and it is located at google.com/dashboard.

Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail , Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and others.

Watch a brief video on Google Dashboard below:

Doug Burton

A new Twitter function allows users to create a list of other users and make the list public or private. Twitter also allows you to follow others’ lists and see what lists you’re on.

Twitter explains the lists on their blog:

“The idea is to allow people to curate lists of Twitter accounts. For example, you could create a list of the funniest Twitter accounts of all time, athletes, local businesses, friends, or any compilation that makes sense. Lists are public by default (but can be made private) and the lists you’ve created are linked from your profile. Other Twitter users can then subscribe to your lists. This means lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts.”

In the article Make A Twitter List And Check It Twice Media Post’s David Berkowitz speculates on five ways marketers can use lists:

1) Aggregate multiple professional accounts if you have several faces of your business on Twitter. It’s a natural for businesses like Comcast, which has a number of customer service representatives on Twitter, or Zappos, which has hundreds of employees tweeting. This can also work well for a company like Walmart that has a section on its site with all of its Twitter handles. A newspaper can bring together all of its reporters, or a packaged goods conglomerate can compile all of its brands in lists. Even if these lists don’t bring in millions of new consumers or clients as followers, they may be useful for important constituents such as reporters, investors, or employees.

2) Aggregate passionate consumers. If you run a TV show, make a list of tweeters who love talking about every last plot twist. If you’re a travel company, consider making lists of some of the most vocal Twitter users in each city where you have a presence. If you’re a product manager for a technology brand, pull together all your die-hard fans. At the very least, you’ll make it easier for all of these influencers to find each other to expand the noise in your echo chamber. But packaged right, it could be a way to pull in new fans and show others how much passion there is for your brand beyond those on its payroll.

3) Be a resource. Make lists of the most knowledgeable people in your industry, whether they’re colleagues, reporters, consumers, or even competitors. While my lists are a work in progress, I’ve added many friends and people I respect from other agencies to lists. Mostly this will be convenient for me, but I’m more than happy to make these lists public in case they’re useful to others.

4) Monitor what lists you’re on and what lists include your competitors and peers. It’s a way to gauge anecdotal brand perception. You can also find new people to follow this way.

5) Share lists beyond Twitter. It’s going to take a while for lists to catch on beyond early adopters; this highly anticipated feature for die-hard tweeters may just be one more thing to learn for casual users. If you cater to early adopters, though, creating useful lists and sharing them in other channels like your site, email newsletters, or Facebook page should resonate.

Make A Twitter List And Check It Twice

Twitter List Rollout Spreads, Fueling Web’s Newest Popularity Contest

Mary Grimborg

How are you going to say “2010″ next year? Will you say “two thousand and ten” or “twenty ten?” It might seem like a silly question right now, but for advertisers, language is our bread and butter. We spend a lot of time pondering and debating word choice – not because we’re grammar snobs but because it has real implications to our campaigns and our clients’ bottom lines.

It’s November – most advertisers are gearing up their plans and creative for next year already. On the national stage, the first ones to confront the “two thousand and ten” or “twenty ten” argument are automakers. Their new 2010 models are coming out, along with the massive ad buys to support them. The New York Times talked to ad shops who are in the middle of this conundrum right now. Click here to read their reasons for using “two thousand and ten” or “twenty ten.”

Which do you prefer?

Cindy Harris

I’ve been seeing this ad on television for a couple of days. It’s too clever for its own good, I think. It does not tell me much about the candidate – Andy McKenna – who is running for governor of Illinois.

The transition from the “hair” bit to the warm fuzzies about the candidate is too abrupt; the music bed, script, announcer, even the color, shifts dramatically. It’s like two commercials they knitted into one.

Only if you really look do you see a clever tie-in at the end – the candidate standing in front of Frank’s Barber Shop. Plus, who’s standing next to him? His barber? I presume it’s his running mate, but we don’t know because he’s not identified.

What do you think?

Cindy Harris