Account Manager Annie Perkins talks to Jane Carpenter, Director of the Consumer Portfolio, about blogs, the changing media landscape and a recent blogger initiative PAN conducted for a client.
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Technology is the single most trusted industry sector, with 79% of people saying they trust tech to do what is right, according to mediapost.com. With that level of public trust, what can other industries learn about what the technology sector is doing right?
I think it comes down to what the whole purpose of the industry is; making our lives more efficient. Innovations in technology make everyday tasks faster, easier, and of course, more fun. Technology is a vastly growing industry, with constant upgrades and changes. Consumers may buy the hottest new product this month, only to find out there’s a better version launching next month. In fact, Infosys’ co-founder and CEO, S “Kris” Gopalakrishnan, said he changes phones every month, according to cnet.com. People are surprisingly okay with the commitment to further purchases because they feel tech businesses are honest about the latest changes. Consumers understand that the products they buy will very likely be outdated soon, but it doesn’t stop them from buying the products.
Transparency in technology is vital; take a look at the recent launch of Apple’s iPad. Last week, I attended a guest lecture by the VP of Apple Retail, Jerry McDougal, where he openly stated to the captivated audience that over the next few months they will be making tweaks and upgrades to make this an even better product for Apple’s loyal consumers. No doubt though, that there will still be aggressive sales for the first version. When it comes to technology, consumers understand that this is the stuff that is making our personal lives more exciting, and our business lives more efficient. Technology is what makes our lives, and staying connected to the people in our lives, much easier. People in the technology industry never stop working for the consumer and maybe, just maybe, that’s what makes it the most trusted industry.
Even beyond the consumer though, developers of technology are creating products that make their own lives more efficient also. This provides greater motivation to create an unbeatable product and consumers could be more likely to trust a product, if the developer has personal interest vested in it.
With the countdown to the 2010 Winter Olympics dwindling down, NBC is gearing up (and bundling up) to provide real-time coverage from Vancouver, Canada.
During the 2008 Summer Olympics, YouTube videos and news blogs caused the games to leap into the viral world. A year and a half later, social media will be even further integrated into the Olympics Games. Widgets, RSS feeds, tweets and mobile alerts will all have their moments in the spotlight during this years’ games.
NBC, the network host of the Olympic Games, has launched a website dedicated to the games: www.nbcolympics.com. The site makes it easy to pick from a slew of widgets and pre-setup RSS feeds.
The website is just the beginning. The network is happily jumping on the applications bandwagon and has designed two apps that will help Olympic fans stay up-to-date. These apps will bring iPhone and Blackberry users top stories, medal counts, videos and more right to their cell phones. The videos are also accessible on Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon internet-enabled phones. Users can also receive SMS messages with this information by texting Olympics to 51515.
U.S. Athletes have a collaborative Twitter page right on the NBC olympic page titled “Tweet Sheet.” Athletes such as World Champion Erin Hamlin, who competes in the luge event; five-time Olympic medalist Apolo Ohno, who competes in short track skating; and gold medal winner Shaun White, who competes in both skateboarding and snowboarding, will all update in real-time during the games. Right now, the athletes are tweeting about everything from how their practice runs went earlier in the day to radio shows they will be guest starring on.
Members of the NBC team will not be the only people utilizing social media during the olympics. One user tweeted on February 4: “@Charisma_Events The Big O is coming – not Oprah – the 2010 Olympics.”
Blogs are springing up from every corner of the world to report on the upcoming Olympics. It seems fitting that all these fast-paced forms of media that join the masses on the web, will cover an event that brings the world together.
Account Manager Ann Shannon speaks to PAN’s President and Founder, Philip A. Nardone, Jr., about this important topic.
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We just had to post this video of Boston-area weatherman Pete Bouchard (@pbouchardon7) to see if Channel 7 will send us a DMCA takedown notice, too.
This story by Mike Masnick @TechDirt tackles fair use and whether or not Channel 7 actually can demand people not use the clip, which until now had stayed semi-under the radar. Of course, the very best way to generate more unwanted publicity for video, audio or text posted to the web is to hire a bunch of lawyers to spook the few people who posted the video and moved on, until they got spooked by lawyers.
It’s like poking a tiger in a cage. First bloggers will echo the story, then pundits move in to dissect the situation (which is where we’re at now), then the story will get more blown out of proportion by mainstream outlets.
Of course, with events in the world being what they are this is not anything of consequence. But still, there’s something interesting in watching digital media (mostly open) wrestle with legacy media (mostly proprietary, filtered) over control of content’s soul.
So Jaffe PR has publicly declared an end to public relations for law firms. In fact, they have decided that public relations is no longer relevant to its client base and that instead law firms need to be concerned with public reputation management according to a press release issued this earlier this week. Obviously, their number one agenda item is to promote their agency and its services (completely understandable) but they are doing a major disservice to PR professionals everywhere – not by dismissing the relevancy of public relations but by generating a transparent and self-serving press release with such little substance. Talk about spin! If they take the same approach with their clients’ communications, they really will have some “reputation management” to do!
As public relations professionals, we are challenged every day with leading our clients through the new media landscape. When we talk about managing relationships, we are talking about engaging with critical audiences and, certainly, we are presented with new channels and tools for interaction on an almost daily basis. From Twitter to Facebook to the ever-growing blogosphere, the power of persuasion is in the individual’s hands and reputations are always at stake. Public opinion can turn on a dime and a full fledge crisis can break out and spread to all corners of the earth within a matter of minutes. For these reasons, social media is no longer a niche specialty or “nice to have” add-on to a public relations program. Social media and one-on-one engagement is the face of modern public relations.
Everyone wants to be the first to coin a new phrase or lead the pack with buzz words that usher in the future (e.g. social media release), but please back it up with some substance rather than simple semantics. Public relations or public reputation management – call it what you want. We’re all talking about the same thing here. Jaffe hopes to usher in a “new paradigm” with public reputation at the heart of the new reality. While I agree that there is a new paradigm for public relations in 2010, public relations has always been about reputation management. It is the strategy, tools and tactics that have changed not the end goal.
Senior Account Manager Erica Burns talks to Jason Ouellette, Co-Director, Technology Portfolio
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I’m very excited about a benefit PAN is bringing back to its employees! With the realization that the Holidays are just around the corner and that each and every one of us lead busy lives, PAN is giving each employee an extra day off to shop, bake, decorate or participate in any holiday activity they choose! Each employee has been assigned to a (Friday) day off over the next three weeks to enjoy this benefit, and each has been carefully chosen so all our account teams are well balanced. PAN’s team of Directors decided to bring back this benefit as a token of their appreciation during the holiday season. Kudos to our awesome employees! And thank you to PAN for their generosity!
Account Manager Lisa Astor chats with Jason Ouellette, Co-Director, Technology Portfolio
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Over the past two years, one of the major themes across all business publications has been the dismal state of the economy. Lessons learned articles with phrases like “How to XYZ in a Down Economy” have been flooding the headlines and executives who have weathered economic storms of the past have been sourced for their valuable experiences and advice.
Last week the Dow hit 10,000 and this propelled what began as a mumbling across the internet that the economy is on the rise, into a wave of optimism. Though there are many experts proclaiming that despite these sporadic glimmers of hope, the end is not near—there is no doubt that businesses are beginning to think about how to position themselves to succeed when today’s economy does get back on track.
From a media standpoint, this has opened opportunities for businesses that have been able to weather not just storms of the past, but this storm, successfully. Recently, we have positioned a number of PAN clients for opportunities that went beyond their traditional trade publications to offer broader expertise in top tier business publications.
Recently, in her regular “Stand Out” column in SmartMoney, Diana Ransom tapped CEO Ryan Wuerch of Motricity for his strategies behind making and overcoming tough decisions to keep his company on top. Offering his perspective as a business owner, rather than an expert on mobile internet, provided an opportunity to reach a wider audience outside of those focusing solely on Motricity’s industry.
In another SmartMoneyarticle entitled “One Year Later: Lessons from the downturn,” Tangoe, a company specializing in telecom expense management (TEM), a very niche space, was able to break out of the traditional conversations around TEM and connect with SmartMoney’s audience in a more relatable way. For this opportunity, CEO Al Subbloie was able to highlight his company’s success over the past year and also further assert his leadership in the TEM industry and beyond. A topic from which many businesses can glean advice, the article was also included in the Wall Street Journal.
As we continue to have such a close eye on the economy, it is clear that media opportunities forward-thinking in nature, abound. Predictions and analysis on when we will climb out of this slump will continue and as they do, thinking about how clients can weigh in on the conversation from unique, but significant ways, will be key.
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