Note:  This past year has been one of reflection regarding family, friends and career, especially in light of what happened earlier this year. This will be one of many posts regarding various topics that I’ve mulled over from time to time through the year. Thank you in advance for your support and comments as I explore these topics.  

My husband likes to say that marketing and public relations is about who lies the best. When he tells me this, I am completely offended. Yet, I have to admit, there is a kernel, and probably a big one at that, of truth in his perception.

Our job is to present our companies or clients in the best possible light. The question is how far are we willing to take it in order to land the big story or customer? At what point does “spinning” lead to outright lying?

The Ethical Quandary

We’ve all probably been in that situation  – we’re marketing or publicizing a product /company that we know deep down can’t deliver on the promise. Or a competitor is blatantly lying and no one is catching on. It’s a very difficult position to be in, especially in today’s economic times when you don’t want to jeopardize your job security.

“The Truth Will Set You Free” – Gospel of John

It reminds me of the movie Liar Liar of Jim Carrey. His whole persona is about lying to win, until one day, he can only tell the truth. At first, this creates embarrassing situations for him. But the moral of the story was that by telling the truth, he was able to win a court case, and more importantly, his family back.

Or more recently, David Letterman’s predicament. He honestly, and painfully, revealed himself on his late night talk show. He didn’t downplay the situation or minimize his role. He took it head on. And in doing so, he defused the inevitable media storm, refocused it on the blackmailer and gained sympathy from most viewers.

“To thine own self be true” – William Shakespeare

Staying true to oneself is important. The decisions you make today do have an impact on you professionally and personally down the road. While it may not be easy, there will be times when you have to stand your ground.

 In the end, who do you want staring back at you in the mirror?

One of the great things about LinkedIn is the ability to start a group around an organization or topic. I co-manage the Virtual Events Forumwhich addresses topics related to virtual events and environments. In managing this group and looking at successful examples as the Event Planning and Management group founded by Julius Solaris, whom I’ve met virtually and one day will meet in person, I have these five simple tips for managing your LinkedIn group:

Set Up Email Templates: There is an option to set up automatic email responses to people seeking to join the group and when they are approved. This is a great way to add a personal touch while saving you time.

Create a Group Logo: When people join a group, they have an option of displaying the group’s logo. This is a great way to brand your group and spread the word through members’ profiles.

Communicate Ground Rules: Whether you have tens or thousands of members, it’s good to clearly communicate the rules of engagement for your group. Highlight what is tolerated and what constitutes banning a member or deleting a posting. This will keep things orderly for your group.

Assign Group Moderators: At a certain point, say about 150-200 members, you will want to assign a co-manager. This enables you to monitor the group and spread the responsibilities to a trusted member of your community.

Share it with Your Contacts: Finally, when you start a group, share it with your contacts by updating your status with the group name and link. I would then selectively send an email to contacts who may be most interested in the group. This way, you’re not spamming everyone in your contacts.

Any other recommendations?

Every Sunday, my husband and I watch 60 Minutes. While most of the stories are reruns this summer, 60 Minutes aired the first public interview with Michael Vick who recently left prison on dog fighting and cruelty charges. Check out the video and article here. I’m a huge football fan and was surprised that the Philidelphia Eagles took a chance by signing Vick earlier this week.

While watching the interview, I couldn’t stop thinking about the strategy that Vick and his team (lawyers, agency and brand/PR folks) are using to manage and rehabilitate his reputation.

1. 60 Minutes Interview: Lends credibility that Vick truly understands the gravity of hissituation and previous decisions and his true intent/desire (?) to redeem himself.

Association with Humane Society: With the Humane Society’s willingness to believe in Vick’s resolve to atone for his mistakes, the hope is that fans will also take that chance on him as well.

Controlled Public Appearances: Since being released, Vick has been very careful about his public image and statements. To my knowledge, he’s been dressed conservatively with a serious demeanor, further emphasizing that he is not the same person he was 2 years ago.

Conclusions

If Vick is truly sincere, I think these efforts will eventually have their desired affect with most out there – let’s be honest, a certain segment of animal lovers will never forgive him for his actions. There will be a healthy level of skeptism that Vick hasn’t changed and is just implementing a very sophisticated PR strategy to make money.

Regardless of which camp you belong in, I do believe that he is executing the right strategy to start down the road to redemption. What do you think?

On Saturday, I attended the San Francisco Electric Vehicle Association meeting where two representatives of Nissan gave a sneak peek before the 6:30 pm PT worldwide announcement of the Nissan Leaf. While the details of the electric vehicle (EV) was interesting, I was curious to better understand the motivations behind Nissan for this move.

 CEO Mandate for Electric  

According to the representatives, Nissan’s shift toward electric is part of the company’s larger mandate for zero emissions. Instead of following the trend of rolling out hybrid versions of its car brands, Nissan is seeking to leapfrog the market by innovating a vehicle specifically designed for electric. The strategy is quite bold – a goal to encourage sustainability without dependance on oil.

Driving a New Market

I think Nissan is embarking on a great vision that has a potential to truly revolutionize the car industry. Going electric will require forging new infrastructure to support EV, including innovations in battery technology, service, recharging stations and(hopefully) green sources of power to close the lo0p. For Nissan, this even extends to leveraging recycled materials for the interior and constructing the Leaf in a way that the parts are recyclable at the end of the car’s lifecycle.

What’s Next?

The Nissan Leaf was formally announced last night at 6:30 pm PT worldwide in conjunction with the company’s new corporate headquarters in Okinawa, Japan. While initial marketing will be based on the car’s announcement, it will be interesting to see how these marketing efforts develop. Nissan recognizes that communicating the experience of the car will be key, yet difficult, with only a couple of prototypes available worlwide.

This will include reaching key early adopters and influencers who will spread the word. I envision that social media will also play an important role.  At this time, the car website doesn’t seem to incorporate any social media/community features yet. At most, I can provide feedback via a 7-point questionnaire when you sign up for a newsletter.

While I applaud Nissan’s vision and wish them luck, I still wonder what would have happened if the California Air Resources Board hadn’t abandoned it’s electric car initiative.

Other post of interest:

• Cash for Clunkers, Ford, EV Vehicles and Scott Monty

Not the truck we bought. We went used instead.

Last year, my husband and I had started shopping for pick-up trucks. We had narrowed it down to a Ford Ranger of Toyota Tacoma. While we preferred the Tacoma, we decided not to buy at that time. That turned out to be a good decision based on what happened earlier this year. Fast forward 7 months. We felt comfortable enough with my new (now 4-month old) job to start looking again.

Cash for Clunkers Program

Part of this was spurred by the Cash for Clunkers program that was signed into law by the Obama office. In a nutshell, the goal of the program is to incent car owners of gas guzzlers to purchase more gas efficient vehicles. If your car qualifies for the program, you can get anywhere from $3600-4500 back. Brilliant  move by the administration – good for environment, good for the car owner (especially if these cars are only worth a few hundred dollars) and good for car manufacturers pummeled by the economy over the past year.

Ford and EV Vehicles

Interestingly, while we had favored the Tacoma last year, we made a decision to buy Ford this time. Why? For two reasons:

1)     Of all the American automakers, Ford was the only one not in bankruptcy or to take money from the Government. The impression is that Ford is better of economically, which may or may not be accurate. But for finicky car buyers, this is an important distinction. I am comforted that Ford will be around in the near future.

2)     While attending the Marin County Fair, there was an electric vehicle (EV) showcase. We learned that of all the pick-up trucks, the Ford Ranger is best for EV conversion because of the truck width and carriage is ideal for adding batteries. Who knew? Too bad they didn’t continue improving and manufacturing the EV Ranger (please bring it back Ford), but this point turned us into Ford Ranger buyers.

Scott Monty Who?

After making our decision, we visited Novato Ford. Since we spent a good portion waiting for paperwork and discussing which car to buy (used or new), I naturally wanted to see if Ford’s social media programs filtered down to the sales guy at the dealership.

When asked about Ford’s PR and social media campaigns, got blank stares, “Scott Monty Who?” None of the sales folks on the floor seemed to be aware of the efforts. And when my husband asked the contract gal about how dealers provide feedback to Ford, she stated that the owner of the dealership did.

Ok – I know this isn’t a scientific study. For this dealership, the folks who connect with consumers (you and me) on a daily basis have minimal participation in the conversation with Ford’s headquarters and larger campaigns. It’ll be interesting to see what happens as Ford continues to expand their social media outreach.

Cash for Clunkers + Rebates = 50% off

In the end, we decided to buy a used truck (1200 miles) that came with a shell. However, there is evidence that the Cash for Clunkers program is spurring sales. Interestingly, if we had participated in the program and with the manufacturer’s rebates, we could’ve driven off the lot with a new 2009 Ford Ranger for 50% of the list price! The program officially begins on July 23^rd. I wonder if the auto sales numbers will start to climb in August?

Final Thoughts

It will be interesting to see if the Cash for Clunkers program, combined with Ford’s social media efforts will be the turning point for this American classic.  While we may be the exception to the rule, I found it interesting that Ford Rangers are the best for EV conversions (Ford, are you listening?) Maybe there is a niche here that you can get the word out. And finally, it will be interesting to see if Ford’s own social media best practices will filter down to the sales associates and dealer networks working directly with customers.

What do you think? Have you bought a car lately?

Note: This has been cross-posted on my company’s blog. Furthermore, my company offers virtual events solutions.

Over the past year, virtual events (e.g. virtual conference, virtual tradeshow, etc.) have gained in popularity due to the economic recession and budget restrictions. As more conferences consider a virtual companion to a physical conference or even going virtual all together, this represents a new arena for public relations professionals:

• No longer can you stand outside the press room and grab journalists for an impromptu interview
• You don’t have to walk or run a mile to get from one meeting to another with your client close behind
• What? – no late night cocktails with the reporter listening to a band from the 80’s?

How Public Relations Can Take Advantage of a Virtual Event

All kidding aside, I think this is something that will become more commonplace. Here are my recommendations the next time your client attends an event with a virtual component:

•  Staff the Booth: In a virtual world, there are no limitations on the number of booth staff. Your team can now staff a virtual booth alongside your customer. You will get to read what customers and prospects are seeking, which will make you more informed about your customer’s business. When a media or analyst comes to the booth, you would be the go-to person.
• Include Media-Ready Content in the Booth: Depending on the virtual event, the client will have 3-5 tabs for content. Recommend that one tab includes information that would be valuable to press and analysts, such as fact sheets, company backgrounder, link to the corporate blog, link to your online newsroom, and other resources.
• Participate in the Networking Lounge and Auditorium Chats: Most of the participants are in these two locations. Participate in these discussions as reporters may be asking questions of attendees, seeking resources, or participating in a subject-matter discussion. If the topic discusses your company or product, consider inviting the reporter to a private chat or to come by the booth to learn more. As everything, just make sure to be relevant to the reporter.  
• Hold a “Virtual Press Conference” in Your Booth: Like a physical event, you can schedule time to have a “virtual press conference” for an announcement and Q&A with your executives. The benefit is that you can potentially drive more participants as there are not travel requirements. The Q&A would take place via the group chat, recognizing that this is visible to everyone.  And remember, this takes the same amount of preparation as a normal press conference!
• Invite Press/Analyst to the Virtual Event: Virtual conference and tradeshows are fairly uncommon. If this is one of the first events in your industry, then press and analysts may be curious to learn more. Take this opportunity to invite them to the virtual event and discuss why your company is participating in the virtual trade show. Just be aware that registration is required to attend. Since most of this is free, consider setting up email aliases, e.g. reportername@yourcompany.com, to manage reminders directly with the reporter. Otherwise, have the reporter sign up directly.

Conclusions

In the end, a virtual conference or trade show represents an opportunity for public relations. I’ve heard of a few instances where press and analysts have been invited to invitation-only events online, I do anticipate this to increase as larger, more public conferences consider virtual components. When this happens, will you be prepared?

I wanted to point everyone to a new resource, B2B Marketing Zone, that launced last week. Brought together by Tom Pick of The Web Market Central and Tony Karrer of eLearning Technology, the website brings together top bloggers and topics on B2B marketing into one place.

I was honored to be asked to participate. I recommend taking a look – there are a lot of topics relevant to B2B marketers. And I hate to say this, but for PR folks out there, you can research relevant marketing-related bloggers in one place. Just one word of advice, READ the blogs before pitching!

Any other resources to consider?

I noticed this series of tweets with Chris Heuer, Social media Club Founder, on Twitter the last couple of days.

Before I continue, I do want to disclose that I was previously employed with the company that Chris is referencing in his tweets. The purpose of this post is to solely highlight the increased use of social media for sales, customer service, and customer feedback.

Now back to where I was headed =) In the past, most of these sales and customer support activities were done out of the public eye either through customer advisory boards, email customers surveys and other communications methods. However, as more potential and current customers seek information from trusted sources, that is our social graph and friend networks, these previously “secret” processes are being brought to the surface.

From a sales perspective, I recently wrote about the pros and cons of using Twitter for sales prospecting.  In this case, we are now seeing how one has to be careful with connecting with customers with social media, especially with someone like Chris who has over 10,000 followers. Here are my recommendations for engaging with prospects or customers via social media:

1. Acknowledge the Person’s Feedback: In this case, Chris was unhappy with the amount of time it took for a response and when he was finally contacted, the level of understanding for his business. By recognizing these two points, the company would have acknowledged their mistake. As Alli Gerkman wrote recently, “Sometimes ‘Sorry’ is the Best PR”
2. Take It Offline: The first tendency is to want to respond via social media to tell your side of the story. While I would have also responded via Twitter back to Chris, my message would be about connecting offline. This way, you demonstrate that you are listening online and being proactive.
3. Personalize the Brand: I realize there is a lot of discussion about having a “corporate” brand on Twitter vs personal ones. I strongly believe that a corporation should have a corporate brand. With that said, I have also recognized the value of “personalizing” who is managing the Twitter feed. And so your corporate brand isn’t associated with anyone person, you can say that the marketing team or a couple people are responsible for the Twitter feed. In this case, I am unsure who is responding back to Chris.

These are just a few of my ideas – what do you think?

 UPDATE: The company subsequently sent a tweet to Chris apologizing with a plan to call him today.

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Using Social Media for Customer Support – three things to consider by @csalomonlee: http://bit.ly/UnRQs

This morning, I sent out a tweet asking for feedback about press release newswires. A few hours later, I received an email from a company regarding news monitoring service. To protect the innocent, the email started:

Cece, thank you for your interest in [company]. Here’s some basic information

I was a bit confused as I 1) didn’t recognize the name of the company or person and 2) didn’t remember downloading/submitting anything related to news monitoring. Curious, and partially to keep a mental note for future reference, I asked how I demonstrated interest in the company. The response?:

Forgive me Cece, I meant to send this to you referring to your posting on Twitter but failed to.  We monitor mentions of the newswire services and your posting was sent to me as a lead.

Interesting and scary at the same time. While I do see Twitter becoming a real-time source for sales leads, especially when directly related to your product and services, I think there are some best practices to follow:

1. Reference Source: As the sales person acknowledged, he/she forgot to highlight that this was based on my Twitter posting.
2. Relevancy: My initial request was feedback on newswires – not media monitoring. It seems like any post with certain keywords are being forwarded as prospective leads which leads me to
3. Context: Be sure to understand the context of a person’s original tweet
4. Tweet Me, Don’t Email Me: This is where the big brother part freaked me out. Yes, my email address is on my blog but I used Twitter for a reason. I wanted to get feedback from Twitter. Unless you’re a friend of mine, I don’t expect a response via email from a stranger – Side note – I don’t anticipate a sales person to go through the effort of gonig to my blog for email and since I don’t have it on my Twitter profile…how did he/she get my email?!
5. Add Value: To me, Twitter is about engaging in a conversation or seeing what my friends/contacts are doing. If you want to respond to me, add value to the conversation.

In the end, just because you track down a possible lead on Twitter, Linkedin, or some other way, there are certain best practices that sales folks need to practice. What do you think? Any other tips for marketing folks mining social media for sales prospects?

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Cut and paste this: Twitter used for sales lead prospects – 5 tips for doing this well by @csalomonlee: http://bit.ly/ilL0X

A couple of weeks ago, I met up with Jason Falls of Doe Anderson and Social Media Explorer. After a beautiful meal at Il Fornaio with Jason and his wife, we sat down for a quick video about social media and communciations strategies. Here is a summaryof this video.

Communications Strategy: Traditional and Social Media

• Communications strategies for traditional PR is typically one that looks at talking points and messages we want to communicate via traditional media
• Traditional media is about one-way communciations with the audience
• With social media, traditional media is no longer part of this as now you’re going direct to the consumer
• No longer is it one-way communications. It’s about how you can create a strategy to communicate these talking points in a conversational way

Different for B2B and B2C?

• Not necessarily as B2B is in between the two extremes of traditional media and social media
• Regardless if this is B2B or B2C, social media requires a conversation
• How can you be nimble in your conversations

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PMM Interview with Jason Falls regarding social media and communications strategy by @csalomonlee: http://twurl.nl/a70p7g