Cover photo.
Facebook regs prohibit any sort of promotion, urls, or product descriptions in the new 851 x 315  cover photo. Cover photos are meant to be strictly visual, with little or no text. Examples of how some big (and small) brands are handling this:

http://www.facebook.com/cocacola
http://www.facebook.com/nytimes
http://www.facebook.com/livestrong
http://www.facebook.com/gudmestadyoga

Milestones.
There is now a Milestone feature that allows you to post News that is significant and can make Facebook operate more like a website that users return to. What might an appropriate milestone?A new product

Pin to Top.
This option is available on each post – it allows you to “pin” a post to the top of your page, and it will remain there for 7 days. See http://www.facebook.com/livestrong the “Open For Fighting” post that has been pinned to the top left side of their page. This is good when running contests or for upcoming events.

Messages.
Did you notice the Messages Icon on the top of the page. People who have grievances can message the Admin rather than sending an email. Brands are beginning to use this for Customer Service.  As customers get more used to this it could be a way to direct interactions to get them off the page.

Negative comments.
You can now view and approve comments before they are posted. We can hide comments once they have been dealt with. The comment would still be on the users timeline but not visible on your company Facebook page. On the “About” page or an Facebook App (they used to be called “Tabs”) users can be directed to send a “Message” if they have a question or Customer Service issue.

Seeking guidance in the brave new world of public relations in the Internet age? InfluenceWave can help.

Why is this so unusual? These are specific inquiries by actual humans who know what they are talking about. I know that Google is out to build up its place pages since they often come up tops in searches, and Facebook is going through major changes with its company pages but this effort must take enormous resources.

Facebook is about to super charge its advertising, that’s what it’s really about for them (a $100 Google ad Words giveaway ended yesterday). And Google is Google – they own the rest of the digital world not owned by Facebook.

LinkedIn, another public company with pressure to grow, grow, grow, the third piece of the air/water/fire triangle of social media, is also heavily promoting user engagement to pump up ad values.

This sudden attention tells me I need to update our Google Places page and Facebook page.

When does this bubble burst?

The Golden Thinker

If you’re in the PR Biz and publicity is your game you want the coveted Golden Thinker, awarded by the North American Precis Syndicate Inc.(NAPS).

Congratulations to Danielle Elderkin and Cover Story Communications, this year’s Golden Thinker winner for excellence in creative writing and press release placement results.

If you’re in PR for any amount of time you know the NAPS game. You write a small story and NAPS ‘places’ it in small newspapers around the country. The big challenge is to write a story that is compelling and timely so more and bigger media will want to publish your story. It’s hard work and it takes creative thinking.

The winning press release was written on behalf of Cover Story client Fiesta Dinnerware, the most collected china in the U.S. and best-selling line of The Homer Laughlin China Company. It was titled, “Nostalgia Makes A Comeback,” and offered ideas for creating a feeling of reminiscence while entertaining, or hosting a family gathering or dinner party.

This theme was not only a popular, cultural entertaining trend at the time, but also fit nicely in to Fiesta Dinnerware’s initiatives. In 2011 the American-made dinnerware company celebrated 75 years of making its colorful, iconic dishes. Fiesta is also well-known as a popular collector’s item, passed down from generation to generation. The result? More than 1,100 placements over the course of the year. Publicity! The currency that is gold to a client. Connect with Cover Story Communications: Twitter @CoverStory; Facebook.

“This article generated results that are well above and beyond what would typically be expected. The award is given to those that are the superstars in Public Relations and for the success that this project achieved, the recognition is well deserved,” said Dorothy York, President of NAPS.

Whatever their goals, whether this Movement  peters out or builds and adapts, the Occupy people know how to use the tools of technology, and the power of street theatre, to shape and drive  messages.

The Occupy Movement is the communication story of 2011 and it catapults us into a raucous, uncertain Presidential campaign in the U.S., an economic crisis gripping Europe, and Arab upheavals that continue. It’s an exhilarating and frightening time for communication.

Facebook is no longer a novelty. Neither is Twitter. LinkedIn has matured into the staid professional/social site that withstands fashion. What social communication platform will ascend in 2012? How do we get messages across when college students are willing to take to the streets and wear their arrests like proud badges?

It’s obvious and a cliche but story and personality prevail. PR people are often ignorant of what makes a story. They think that whatever drivel a client is flogging will interest a journalist or engage an audience.

This year I found that we have to think more creatively, like advertising and marketing people, and we need to take more risks to get client messages across. We have to create News Bureaus that push out content through multiple streams, textual, graphic, and video. We have to be nimble and aggressive. In other words, we have to think like the Occupy people.

I’m blown away by the Occupy rapid mobilizations, the live feeds, the news sites that are replicated throughout the world, printing a quality newspaper, dramatic photo ops. They have no leaders and no money but their communications structure beats million dollar PR campaigns hobbled by bureaucracy, ridiculously high professional fees, and an unwillingness to take risks. It should be a very interesting 2012 in PR.

http://occupywallst.org/- they have an agenda generated on Google calendar | They have a full line up of entertainment. See NY Daily News story: Brooklyn rapper Talib Kweli knew it was hip to hop fence and join Occupy Wall Street activists | Check out the Occupy Wall Street Journal funded on Kick Starter: issue #2 and the Spanish language edition out. now They now have their own media company, Occupy Wall Street Media. They have Rush Limbaugh and Eric Cantor bloviating like Spiro Agnew from the early 70′s so they must be doing something right. Occupy Wall Street is morphing into Occupy New York, and judging the support in cities like Seattle, soon to be Occupy the U.S. This is a media-savvy generation that has all the tools of major media at their disposal, with none of the constraints or fears. Leader-less, with no central demands, it’s a crowd sourced revolution that taps at the roots of our revolutionary democracy. Anger begats action and action brings change. It’s bottom up, not top down. The revolution will not be televised but it will be live streamed. #ows. Tweet, tweet.

Sign Language from socially_awkwrd on Vimeo.

Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.

The comments are interesting. No matter what atrocities are happening in the world – mass murder, genocide, disease, famine – a sad pet story will bring people to their knees. Many people in all corners of the nation are praying for the safe return of Jack and AA is being bombarded by Facebook comments, Tweets, emails, calls.

This is worse, PR-wise, than a plane crash. Many people, and I am one of them, suffer deeper hurt from animal abuse than human abuse. It’s a strange phenomenon. This episode will cost AA millions in lost revenue and a damaged reputation. They should spare no expense, and use every possible resource to find that cat. If they find Jack, and put safeguards in place so it never happens again, there might be a sliver of redemption for the airline.