Companies and corporations have begun to tap into this, thanks to the rise of content marketing and “native advertising” (aka buying a sponsored post). Because brands need to produce interesting content, and because they have the funds, they are able to recruit journalists who appreciate the better pay. Those journalists who are the most qualified are the ones who are actively looking to be rewarded for those skills, and really, who could blame them? If they get an offer from a big company to write for them, how can they turn it down?
Once we lose the experienced journalists to the companies who have the money to pay them, we end up relying on less experienced (and less ethical) ones to deliver “legit” news. Meanwhile, brands get to churn out content from the likes of Dan Lyons and Evan Hanson. Some of those seasoned veteran journalists aren’t too concerned about the state of their industry – they view it as an opportunity for younger journalists to cut their teeth. It’s an optimistic perspective, for sure. But if we want to complain about the quality of our news coverage, the age old “you get what you pay for” rings loud.
Ever since food delivery site Eat24 posted their hilarious Dear John letter to Facebook, marketers have been waiting for the site to come crawling back to reinsert food photos in between baby pics and your high school frenemy’s mom’s status updates. But that’s not happening just yet. Eat24 recently posted another witty post about life post-Facebook, and it all seems to be just fine.
What those people who are weirdly furious about Eat24’s shunning of Facebook don’t seem to grasp is that Eat24 has not, and is not, suggesting that all brands leave Facebook. They’re just saying that their $1m strategy didn’t work for them. Marketers like to post comments in articles about Eat24 that it must be because their strategy was flawed. They cannot seem to understand that Facebook advertising simply does not work for every brand. We’ve seen that firsthand ourselves. Yes, it takes time. A lot of time. And yes, it takes money. Now it takes a whole lot more money. But the whole point of Eat24’s anti-Facebook strategy is that it’s not the right platform for them, and it’s not the right spend of that money that they clearly have. And that’s totally okay. Relax, marketers, this isn’t indicative of any larger trend and you’ll still get to bill your clients for your strategic Facebookery.
While we’ll still argue that Facebook continues to remain the top platform to reach the biggest audience, it’s not for every brand. The changes to the “algorithm” and the way that fans can now see (or not see, as it were) brand pages means that strategies have to change, and those new strategies might not include this particular platform. Instead of decrying Eat24’s marketers as “not strategic enough,” they should be praised for recognizing, via their own data, that their Facebook strategy is simply not the best fit for them and exploring other ways to engage their customers.
Facebook is clearly not going anywhere. Brand advertisement spends will likely increase due to Facebook’s changes. The big, major brands will keep spending and the upstarts and emerging brands like Eat24 will explore other options. Even if Eat24 does come crawling back to Facebook, it doesn’t mean that their experiment shouldn’t be lauded. They’ve got lots of people talking and their business seems a-ok. They’re disrupting the marketing status quo by going against the top advertising platform without making any absurd proclamations. Their blog posts are funny, never defensive or offensive, in line with their brand identity and engaging their users. And that’s how you do PR right.
The Public Relations industry has often been viewed as a manipulative, ethically murky one, filled with puppet masters that resemble Roger Ailes. The PR industry written about in the excellent book Toxic Sludge is Good For Youstill exists, certainly (just look at how much Monsanto continues to accomplish) but the industry itself has shifted into a much more transparent one. Social media hasn’t given it much of a choice to do otherwise.
Look at it this way. How often have you looked at your Twitter feed, or on your friends’ walls on Facebook, and seen some kind of scandal? Whether it is a food chain that has been found guilty of having nasty ingredients in its food (it took me a while to eat a $5 Footlong after Subway’s food had the same ingredient as yoga mats in it) or a married CEO dating an employee, you usually hear about it through friends before you read the actual news article. Once news is out, it’s out, and with the wide spread use of smart phones, social media and technology in general, people find out about things immediately. Because of this, the general public often knows things before anyone in the PR industry has time to do “damage control” or to “spin the story,” therefore making it more transparent than ever before.
The prevalent use of social media and the need to know news the second after it’s released has changed the industry of PR. Back in the day, PR professionals had at least some time between when they found out about a crisis and when it was released to the public, and they could figure out how they wanted to handle it. Those days are long gone. Reporters are constantly racing to have the story out before anyone else, and once that is done, the world of social media blows up, leaving PR professionals little to no time to react.
While many people commonly assume that a large part of PR is “spinning the truth,” in today’s social media era, it is an industry being taken over by transparency. Few things can be hidden in our world today. Quite frankly, it is impossible for PR professionals to hide anything, and if they do, people would undoubtedly figure it out right away, which would only be harmful to their respective client or brand. Social media is now playing a pivotal role in keeping PR straightforward and transparent, as it should be.
We’re lucky to work with clients that we’re passionate about. Everyone should be so lucky to believe in what they do every day, and it makes pitching busy reporters a lot easier when you’re excited about what you’re telling them (and you don’t have to call anything a “bespoke app”).
Here are some neat things a few of our clients have been up to:
San Francisco non-profit Kearny Street Workshop hosted their second successful “Dumpling Wars” fundraiser. Oakland Local was on the scene and wrote an event recap so good, it made us hungry for dumplings again.
Arizona startup Mobi Pizzalaunched their online ordering service to enable pizza shops of all sizes (not just those big chains with their cardboard pizzas) to provide online ordering for their customers. They’re helping the Davids compete against the Goliaths.
In an industry based solely on getting a message out to people, new technology has turned the PR world upside down and which way out. With the ever-growing social media presence in PR, things are not as simple as they once were, and we’re not just talking about the increased use of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram among PR professionals and brands themselves.
Unlike the advertising business, where attention is bought, PR is the act of getting earned media attention, but the “earned” part is suddenly not so black and white. If you see a Youtube video with thousands of views, you would immediately think that this video is getting attention for a reason. Maybe it’s awesome, maybe it’s hilarious, maybe it has cats, or maybe someone paid for view counts.
Indeed, places like Swenzy and GigaViews allow people to buy YouTube viewers, instantly boosting their videos. Other popular sites to do so include socialsbox.com and viewsaccelerator.com. The same can be said for Instagram. With the use of Instaliker, LikeBooster and +Like, Instagram users can simply buy both followers and likes, which boosts their pictures and in turn, their credibility. It’s time for the general public to recognize all the tricks and shortcuts that are going on.
In an industry that is supposed to help individuals, causes and companies gain attention, is this unethical? Is boosting your viewership through money turning PR into nothing more than another form of advertising? Many have argued that buying up video views or followers is deceitful and unethical. PR is supposed to be strategic and tactical, but these services that allow people to buy attention could become a detriment to the industry.
Despite the many legitimate critics and the many bad PR professionals who saddle the profession with a negative reputation, PR is supposed to be authentic and truthful (don’t laugh, we really believe this). However, one could also argue that it’s no longer about having great content when no one can view it in the first place without paying to play. With Facebook charging brands for posts to be seen by their fans, and YouTube being nearly impossible to grow organically (without the addition of cats, of course), someone has to game an already gamed system.
So don’t look at a video’s view count or an Instagram account’s astronomical number of followers, look at engagement and how many people are sharing that content, and how many people are talking about it. Nowadays, that seems to be the only true barometer of “viral” success.
On the heels of Eat24’s awesome blog post decrying Facebook’s latest changes to brand pages and the end of the free brand page ride, many brands are wondering just how much they’ll have to pony up to get their posts served to their audience.
While Facebook hasn’t exactly been free for a long time for most major brands, small businesses and startups are obviously the most affected by the death of the organic reach. Brands will have to add an amount that could be anywhere from $10 to $1,000 a day just for their posts to be seen, let alone liked or shared. So much for Facebook leveling the playing field.
Does this mean that brands will take Eat24’s cue and flee what has become the most cost-effective brand advertising platform? Not yet. Frankly, there really isn’t a better alternative to the flexibility and reach that Facebook offers. While Twitter looks to be the frontrunner, their ad effectiveness is still unproven (and we’ve used it with diminishing esults). Snapchat is too nascent, Vine is too quirky, Pinterest too limited in demographic targets. Until the new Facebook comes along, the MySpace killers will continue to call the shots, and we’ll all have to open our wallets for the pleasure of Facebook’s company.
Do you want to devour delicious dumplings to benefit a great cause? Then grab your elastic waist pants and head to the Oakland Asian Cultural Center (conveniently located by the 12th Street BART) this Saturday, April 12 from 6-9pm to support Kearny Street Workshop with their second “Dumpling Wars 2: The Hungry Games” fundraiser/cooking competition. Tickets are on sale now for $20, all going to a great cause (your stomach and Kearny Street Workshop’s mission).
Kearny Street Workshop is based in San Francisco and is the oldest multidisciplinary Asian-Pacific American 501(c)(3) nonprofit. What does that mean? They enable aspiring APA artists to do their thing, supporting the community and building bridges.
Their first Dumpling Wars was a big success, so naturally, they’re bringing it back. This time, with a Hunger Games theme. We’re pretty sure everyone will make out like Katniss and get to sample some tasty dumplings courtesy of competitors with adorable team names like “Better Pork Tomorrow” and “Mac-niss Everdeen.”
Congratulations to Threshold Interactive on being named finalists for not one, but two (!) Shorty Industry Awards! The Shorty Awards honor the best in social media so we’re stoked to see Threshold recognized for their brilliant “You Got What I Eat” Hot Pockets video and as Best Agency of the Year.
View from our last Amtrak ride on the Capital Corridor
As unabashed sentimentalists, we love riding Amtrak, grinning like a little kid every time the train horn sounds. Whether it’s the cushy seats, free WiFi, dining cars, easy boarding process or generally relaxed passengers who aren’t stressed from shoving gigantic suitcases in crowded overhead bins or irritated from a horrible TSA experience, riding Amtrak is a darn good time for the patient. We’re not going to lie, it definitely takes longer to get from point A to point B but hey, sometimes in life, you have to stop and smell the railroad tracks.
Throughout the years, it goes without saying that train travel has decreased. We’re a “hurry up and go” society and Amtrak is anything but fast. The old-fashioned brand appeared to be getting left behind by the rapid digital world we exist in where quick bursts of Vine clips are the preferred forms of communication.
But Amtrak has embraced digital forms of communication, constantly tweeting and updating the public via its social media platforms. Amtrak is one of the better brands who listen to their fans on Twitter. We’ve tweeted them before and were impressed by how quickly they responded, and how responsive. Clearly, Amtrak has a good grasp of using the digital tools that have obliterated many of the brands Amtrak came up with.
One of the smartest things Amtrak has done recently is listen to their fans’ requests. After writer Jessica Gross tweeted about her enjoyment of writing on trains, she then tweeted that she wished Amtrak had a writer’s residency program. Amtrak did the unthinkable – listened to its customers (gasp!) and actually decided to try it out. It’s one thing for a brand to say “hey, thanks, we’re listening!” and another altogether to say “hey, great idea, let’s do it!”
It’s hard not to admire that. It’s not only adventurous (especially for a brand as old as Amtrak) but it’s smart. Why not listen to the people who pay to keep your business afloat? Amtrak just gained a huge surge in social media buzz and media articles, making an age-old form of transformation relevant and hip again, and not just with sentimentalists.
Amtrak’s promotion of the #AmtrakResidency hashtag has resulted in excitement (just search that hashtag) and massive engagement and, above all, the program (if it goes through) will create endless free content for Amtrak to mine, much like GoPro and its limitless supply of brilliant user-created content. Like GoPro, Amtrak is embracing and showcasing what its customers are doing, rather than ignoring them.
Ultimately, this is a win-win for Amtrak with little downside. They generally don’t sell out all of their seats so they’re not losing revenue by giving away a few free seats. The cost of executing this idea is minimal. The free PR takes care of itself. And if someone doesn’t like the idea, they can blame their fellow riders since it didn’t originate from Amtrak. Win!
Remember when # was just a functional symbol for number? Those days are long gone and now that hashtags have entered the public lexicon in ways you never imagined, or frankly wanted, hashtags have become so overused that even Jimmy Fallon’s making fun of it.
Hashtags were meant to organize, categorize and better find and follow conversations. Now they’re cluttered, abused and irritating. Everyone has that friend who fills up their Facebook feed with meaningless hashtags that no one could possibly comprehend.
Threshold Interactive has heard your cries and have the answer: Hash Snag. The new app* is here to end the hashtag epidemic (with tongue firmly in cheek).
Next time, think twice before you bust out that #yolo tag and #HashSnag that up.
*Sense of humor required before using
Check out the articles on Threshold’s Hash Snag app on Digiday and Technorati
