Is “reach out and touch someone” dead?

Has our obsession with electronic devices become more alienating to family relationships than even the teen years?  And what are the implications for client/customer relationships?

Alex Williams’s cover story “Quality Time, Refined,” in the Style Section of The New York Times earlier this month, raised these questions.  The writer described one of the families featured in the piece, who happened to be from Huntington, New York, where my Long Island public relations firm is based, as exhibiting a toddler-like phenomenon of parallel play, with parents and kids each absorbed in his or her own hand-held or lap-nestled technology during “together time” on the family couch. 

The voracious appetite for amusement and entertainment -- both stimulated and satisfied by today’s technology -- presents opportunities and challenges alike to the public relations practitioner. The opportunity lies in the countless outlets eager for content; the challenge is directing the right traffic to your message.  Every day at Epoch 5 Public Relations, we form new e-relations—through Facebook, Twitter and Skype; with bloggers; by texting; and yes, with people we meet IRL (in real life) and talk to on the phone. 

Over the last decade, how we communicate and relate to each other has transformed at a dizzying pace. Thanks to Facebook, the very definition of “friend” has changed, seemingly irrevocably. But one thing remains the same: as human beings, we need physical contact, even if it’s just tapping each other occasionally, as one couple interviewed for Williams’s article does while gazing at their screens. 

Perhaps that decades-old AT&T slogan, “reach out and touch someone,” is not dead yet.  

Written by Kathleen Caputi

Giving your best performance on the blogging stage

Blogging is becoming more and more popular. But what’s the point of blogging when no one is reading? Think of blogging as a concert and you are the musician; you perform to entertain your viewers. Chris Brogan suggests a few ways to effectively perform your blog: 

 

Be Brief
If you can say it faster…do so. 

Appeal to Their Sense of Self
Can you tell a story that will help your audience think of themselves? 

Be Prepared
There’s no pressure in writing good posts. It’s your choice to produce good content. Think ahead by keeping a notepad with a few extra ideas. 

Be Respectful
Your audience is brilliant and you sometimes know something they don’t. Blog as if you’re just sharing this information with them, not lecturing them. 

Be Conversational (and yet Concise)
Talk as if you’re having a conversation with someone. Keep things tight and don’t fret over it. Practice by posting once or twice a day.

Performance
No matter how you view your blogging, you’re on a stage performing. It’s the same thing, sliced differently. There’s no reason to treat blogging differently. 

 

 

 

When the Flicks Come to Life

What a dramatic week – it’s been like watching non-stop re-runs of potboilers, romances and disaster movies – only these were real.  We had tragedy, intrigue, surprise finishes and even a kiss or two along the way.

First we had the unspeakable tornadoes that ripped through the South killing more than 300 people with scenes straight out of Twister.  Then we had Prince William’s fairy tale royal wedding, a real-life Cinderella meets Love Actually.  Finally, Sunday’s breaking news that Osama bin Laden had finally been killed was like Under Siege with elements of Black Hawk Down.

Like many of us looking for an escape, I love going to the movies.  Romantic comedies rank pretty high, but action thrillers that transform this Long Island publicist, wife and mom into a CIA operative or Navy Seal duty-bound to save the world, are what really fuel me to spend my hard earned money on a Saturday night babysitter. 

So it’s no surprise that Sunday’s news about the Navy Seals team that killed the most wanted man in the world, in a covert, swiftly executed, 40-minute firefight with no U.S. casualties, has left me captivated.  When the Hollywood version is ready, I’ll happily put down my eight bucks to be engrossed by every detail of how these fearless soldiers pulled off this perilous feat. 

Sometimes, it seems like there’s no fixed line between the output of Hollywood and the world’s newsrooms – add public relations with its own shaping of reality, and the lines are further blurred.  As one of my generation’s heroes, John Lennon, aptly said, "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

Written by: Audrey Cohen

William and Kate are an online hit!

Fan or no fan, today’s royal nuptials were hard to miss.  Here’s a quick media recap:

• Mashable reported that in the last 30 days there were 911,000 Tweets, 217,000 Facebook posts/status updates and 145,000 blog posts on Prince William and Kate’s wedding.
  
• Webtrends says that a whopping 65% of tweets, blog posts and Facebook updates came from the U.S., while 20% came from the UK. Canada is in third place with a mere 2.6% of social media buzz. This matches stats from Nielsen, which also says that the U.S. is the #1 source of Royal Wedding chatter.

• MSNBC was pleasantly surprised that Twitter was able to handle the largest amount of activity the site has ever seen without a glitch or bug.

• Mashable said the Royal Wedding attracted the most concurrent viewers on Livestream ever - Topping over 300,000 concurrent viewers by 6 a.m. EST this morning.

• Livestream expected to serve about 2 million viewers, surpassing the 1.6 million views reported last June for the 2010 World Cup.

• Google’s home page is a Royal Wedding theme, with a Cinderella-like illustration featuring a horse drawn carriage. Users can click the picture to receive the latest news and photos of the Royal Wedding.
  
• According to Gen Connect, William and Kate are huge social media buffs. Thus, they’ve dedicated a YouTube Page as The Royal Channel where fans can watch videos, send video messages of good wishes and even sign their virtual wedding book

Not your dad’s word of mouth marketing

Just look at word of mouth now!

For eons, marketers like myself have preached that word of mouth is the most powerful way to drive interest in brands, motivate sales and create loyalty.  But creating programs with strong impact that don’t break the bank has always been a stumbling block.

Then along comes social media, whose ultimate appeal is that it isn’t just another medium on which to advertise or otherwise promote. It’s really about blurring the lines between personal-social interaction and what for marketers essentially becomes commercial interaction when a product, service or cause gets involved.

News feed posts to tens, hundreds or even thousands of friends -- versus the passive approach of generic marketing messages – is unmatched for attaining word of mouth’s credibility, confidence and loyalty.  So, while Facebook and other channels are usually described as “social” media tools for personal contact, for marketers they could more accurately be defined as “word of mouth” tools for commerce.

Facebook says it has data showing the cause and effect between sharing on Facebook and revenue generation on e-commerce sites.  When someone posts about a purchase, the value of purchases by their friends on that same e-commerce site increase over the norm. 

According to Facebook, 18 of the top 25 e-commerce sites are using Facebook features such as Facebook Connect or the “Like” button.  In one example, adding a “Like” button on an e-commerce site resulted in a doubling of revenue generated by Facebook referrals within two weeks. 

Think back just a few years to the “toe in the water” days when most of us far understated what we thought would be the impact of social media.  A web site with billions of members, many of who actively influence purchase decisions of their friends?  You gotta ask – what next?    

    

 Written By: Andrew Kraus

Facebook and Politics

The last Presidential election, Obama owned the Internet, but not so next year.  An article in this week’s New York Times shows how Republicans have caught up with Democrats in using technology and social networks.  Before you know it, we may be deciding our next President via Facebook and Twitter! Click here to read the story.

Getting the picture…

According to Reuters, some 327 million royal wedding-related pictures will be taken on digital cameras next week when Britain's Prince William ties the knot with girlfriend Kate Middleton.  The article goes on to say that half the photographers at Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding missed the iconic balcony kiss because they were busy changing film.

What a difference 30 years makes.  These days, nothing escapes the digital eye, especially since most pictures are taken straight from our cell phones.  But what makes us actually take so many pics?  Is it simply because we can, or is it the desire to share our images?

Professional photos of William and Kate will be plastered across the tabloids, yet onlookers outside Buckingham Palace will still want to post their images of the event.  In fact, Reuters predicts that of the millions of photos taken at the royal wedding, some 65 million will be shared on social media sites.

That’s a huge number.  And that’s why a public relations firm like Epoch 5 works with clients to make sure they use social media to its fullest.  Customers, employees and other audiences are accustomed now to sites where they have a voice.  Whether it’s for a major financial institution or the hot new restaurant down the block, people want to participate and be part of the discussion.  After all, the desire to be heard and counted is an old one — almost as old as the need to believe in fairytale weddings.