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Digital Marketing Strategy, PR and Messaging

Soulati-'TUDE!

Un-Social Media

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Here’s a quickie; just a rumination, really.

At the crux of “social” media are “un-social” people. Our dependence on the next generation device, new gadget, emerging application, competition to befriend the highest number of peeps, linkedins, FB’ers, and the like is causing detrimentally the weakening of social skills.

  • I watch it with the Wii generation of <10-year-olds.
  • We can see it in the very young teens with texting.
  • We learn about it from the high schoolers with sexting (something they’d NEVER have considered doing with a 35mm lens or Polaroid).
  • I watch the Kindlers and soon-to-be iPadders stick a nose in a device (rather than a book) and ignore the socialization happening around them. (Not sure why I think sticking a nose in a device is less acceptable than a book?)
  • I interact with college students who lack the social graces to interview and communicate without technology or e-mail.
  • And, then there are you and I. For at least 15-hours-a-day, we’re plugged in to social media, email, crackberries and i-devices addicted to who’s saying what and when it’s being delivered.  

I do pick up the phone; I do send a “what’s up?” e-mail to friends not in touch; I do send Skype messages to connect with friends in Mexico and Hong Kong; I do (gasp) write letters!

Alas, the rate of return on these efforts to connect when combined en masse is perhaps 2 percent. A sad state of affairs, isn’t it?

We’re smack in the era of mobile tech, WiFi, MiFi, gigs, and RAM, and there’s no telling when it might right itself. Those of us who pre-date the fax machine (yes, I’m seasoned) know of what I speak. Heck, all of us pre-date social media, and I bet you understand what I’m talking about?

Media Relations and P&G’s What-If Plan

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Today’s post is a compendium of news about Fortune 100 crises. If you’ve watched this space, you’ll recognize these names – Nestle, BP, and Proctor & Gamble. Don’t know the crisis each is managing? Then perhaps you’ve not been consuming social and traditional media, for these corporations are in the news several times a day of late due to rain forests, oil and diapers.

To bring you up to speed, here’s the Soulati-‘TUDE! Nestle post. This week, my “Got a What If Plan?” oriented to the oil debacle paved the way for the next day’s post on diapers, rash and Procter & Gamble.

So great to see a sequential flow, and the only reason I re-introduced this content here is as a foreword to this article in Advertising Age “Inside P&G’s PR playbook: How Pampers Battled Diaper Debacle” about a behind-the-scenes look at the public relations machine for Proctor & Gamble. The internal team and its agency kicked into high gear at the onset of mommy complaints that the new Pampers Dry Max caused diaper rash and “chemical burns” on babies’ behinds.

For anyone in corporate or agency public relations, I strongly encourage you read this piece. It is a fascinating unfolding of a public relations machine in synch with product marketing, corporate strategy, and internal response to a brewing external crisis.

The story was written by Jack Neff after Advertising Age was granted an insider view of the marketing public relations team in action. He followed them for half a day to watch strategy and execution. I’ve not seen a story of this nature delivered smack in the middle of a crisis. If I were a stakeholder, you can bet my concerns would be alleviated after reading this piece.

In companies the world over, there is crisis. Social media has elevated these issues beyond comprehension and presented them to the consuming public on a silver platter. This trifecta is a textbook case for students, and I hope academicians and volunteer public relations professors are watching these three situations closely. There’s no better way to teach than by real-world example, and none of us are too old to keep learning.

Only one word of counsel for today:

It’s more critical than ever to shore up external messaging. When social media comes calling, one word gone awry can upset the entire apple cart.

Today: A Tradeshow From the Desk

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When I first saw the demo by American Lawyer Media (ALM) for Virtual Legal Tech , the free-to-anyone-attend-from-your-desk tradeshow, I was duly impressed.

Two exhibit halls staffed with live people in actual booths today, May 20, 2010 (the second live day this year), a networking lounge, resource center, and auditorium complete with live Webcasts and CLE credit await conference goers for a sum of $0.00 to attend. Be sure and listen to the 2 p.m. ET Webcast by Darryl Cross of LexisNexis and Kris Satkunas of Redwood Think Tank about Nurturing Clients (you can log in free by registering for the event today).

Marketers can lead gen galore with a list of those who downloaded articles, case studies, brochures, scheduled demos, and vied for prizes. Some 10,000 people are registered to attend today’s live show. The age of virtual is truly upon us. And, when you visit both auditoriums, the company of companies is impressive – LexisNexis, Los Angeles County Bar Association, IBM, Integreon, and many more.

This event is social networking at its finest. Staffers of booths can conduct a live meeting with video, email visitors to the booth using the technology’s email system, speak on a group chat, send a V-card to attendees along with an attachment for their virtual briefcase, and eveat Virtual Legal Tech Shown interact in the networking room.

Was told “security” is tight; if booth stalkers decide not to leave or are downloading all the goods like a spy, then all an exhibitor has to do is phone or email for help. The offender will be promptly banned electronically from the shindig.

Why am I so enamored of this affair today? I spent about 20 hours making one of these booths come alive. What tripped me up were the flash files required to launch the final step of the way. Everything else was done by yours truly. (Hey, whose mug is that over there?)

I’ll be inside the booth today, welcoming folks to partake and get acquainted with the portfolio of products by LexisNexis Business of Law Software Solutions – InterAction, Redwood Analytics, atVantage, Juris, Time Matters, and PCLaw.

If you promise not to stalk me, I’ll promise not to stalk you! Stop by and say hello. This is a perfect example of the blurring of public relations and the blending of marketing, public relations and social media, don’t you think?

Got a What-If Plan?

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As I read and shake my head, sigh and get absolutely frustrated about the oil spill calamity/crisis/disaster, I know the entire world feels as I do.

Heck, this crosses party lines, and if there is a defense team, they better have thick skin when asking for reduced culpability. The cascading effects of this event will affect marine life and industry for decades.

I digress.

More the shock to me is the alleged lack of disaster planning by all the oceanic companies playing in the deep sea. Just prior to the rig explosion, folks tussled about the final step; people disagreed about the what if. Admittedly, it’s been said BP was not readily prepared with a crisis plan in the event of the what if.

I do not allow the what-if game in my house. Children are notorious for, “Mom, what if…” In this case, that’s prescience.

Every company needs a what-if plan. In public relations we call it a crisis plan. In theory, crisis plans sit on a shelf awaiting a dust-off day. Crisis plans are meant to be revisited annually; updated to flow in sequence and aligned with changes in the life stream of a company.

Got a what-if plan?

Better get one…just in case.

What’s In Your Name?

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Apparently, formerly Computer Associates now . and becoming CA Technologies as a brand (not legally) found out the hard way that CA Inc. was non-descript and too much like California and Cocaine Anonymous to be worthy.  So says a Wall Street Journal article May 17, 2010 in Corporate News (I would’ve thought that a story for the Marketing & Media section) and in.

To escape some accounting scandal, Computer Associates dashed to alter its identity to CA Inc. Seriously? I’m sure I heard about it and yawned. Now, a mere five years later (not long enough in the timeline of a corporation) with a looming gazillion dollar budget, the company is changing branding everywhere on products and marketing. Yet, it’s keeping its legal name CA Inc.

Why? Because CA Inc. didn’t describe what the company does.

So, I thought it fitting to tell you my name change story. Let’s call this storytelling or my company back story. I’m told by a dear colleague who shall remain nameless, Gregg, that storytelling is what makes the whirl funnel …

In 1991, I launched my first company – Soulati Media Relations, Inc. For seven years, I hired kids out of school, paid salaries and benefits and was president of the. I did exactly that – media relations. I was such a youngster. It was the pre Internet era, although in those days the first email addresses were from Compuserve, and they were digits!

In 2002, I came back out for the third time and named my company Marketing, Media & More, Inc. This was the early Internet era and still pre-social media. The company name was long, but it was what I offered. And, it added “marketing” to the mix because you know as public relations people the quest is always to be more marketing driven.

INTRODUCING SOULATI MEDIA, INC.

In May 2010, a name change to . With the age of social media upon us and the branding of Soulati nearly a decade old with a Web site () a blog (Soulati-‘TUDE!) and my email it was time to pull the branded family together. (Now, if you visit, you’ll see I’m still working on the presentation as this is a new deal.)

Thanks to CA Technologies, CA or Computer Associates whatever your name is for providing the platform to introduce the new me — branded and all.

Now, what’s your brand?