In these current times of economic doom and gloom companies are counting their every penny and trying to cut down costs left, right and centre. One consideration could quite arguably be to cut down on any CSR activities such as environmental commitments or charitable arrangements in an attempt to cut costs. Being socially responsible can come at a high price. This would then beg the question: Is it a bad time to be good?

In my opinion the current economic climate means that it’s more important than ever for organisations, small or large, to practice some kind of social responsibility. In a time where the very survival of organisations is under jeopardy, it’s essential for companies to set their brand apart from the competition, to create corporate awareness and to humanise their business policies.

Understandably this is a challenging undertaking if an organisation’s finances are scarce but engaging in CSR activities through these difficult times could prove invaluable in solidifying long term stability. The economic recession will not last forever and when it does end you don’t want to be the company that has compromised their brand values by showing a selfish corporate mentality through difficult social times.

The economic recession has had wider social implications which organisations must take heed of. Mistrust in big business and a growing negativity towards the impersonal, fiercely money orientated mindsets of some high profile organisations means that companies that offer a more socially responsible corporate vision will inevitably be seen in a more favourable light. In these times reputation is everything. Withdrawing from any CSR activities in the current climate could potentially terminally tarnish a company’s reputation and affect long term success.

So in answer to the question: Is it a bad time to be good?

It’s a worse time to be bad!

As the 2009 Formula One season springs into action this weekend in Australia, a brilliant viral video created by McLaren and Blackberry has been causing quite a stir online. Check it out (make sure you watch to the end):

As a follow up to my post ‘10 tips for good blogger relations’, I have found a campaign which I feel is a shining example of how best to conduct good blogger relations.

Molson is Canada’s oldest and most successful beer company. In 2008 they decided to launch a blogger relations campaign after recognising that the majority of their customers were online. The aim of the campaign was to connect with social media aficionados and influential bloggers throughout Canada in order to reach a broader customer base and to create more awareness of Molson products.

Their main objective was to build strong personal relationships with key bloggers in the Greater Toronto Area. They identified different groups of bloggers to target including consumer bloggers, lifestyle bloggers, marketing bloggers, food and drink bloggers and bloggers in the ‘magic middle’ that link to the more influential bloggers.

The tactics were to invite a select number of bloggers to an event at the Molson brewery: Brew 2.0. The event would consist of a full tour of the brewery, a food and drink tasting session, a sneak preview of new Molson beers and just a general shindig.

The targeted bloggers were sent e-vites by Molsen’s PR agency who had already built initial relationships with them. They were written in a conversational and personal way in order to make sure the bloggers didn’t think they were being ‘pitched’ anything. Twitter was then used as a follow up to the e-vites as a means to connect and introduce the attendees to each other and to the Molson team.

The event was a great success with all bloggers that attended being sent a complimentary crate of Molson beer the following day. Twitter was again used alongside follow-up emails to thank all of the attendees for coming. Links were placed in Tweets to direct bloggers to pictures and videos of the event which they could use if they wished to write about it.

As a result of the Brew 2.0, Molson was widely written about by bloggers in Canada, the USA and in the UK. It also created a lot of discussion on social network sites such as Twitter. A lot of the coverage was a celebration of Molson beer or a portrayal of Molson as a forward thinking, dynamic company.

What I really liked about this campaign was that there was no ‘pitch’ by Molson. The bloggers were left to write about the company if they wanted to and at no point did Molson apply any pressure to do so.

The campaign was completely built upon the idea of building relationships and that is why it worked. As a result, personal relationships with influential bloggers have been built and perceptions of the company within the blogosphere are favourable.

A campaign like this is beneficial in the long term and is a good example of how to practice blogger relations most effectively.

Additional Information:

Case Study

Blogger Relations – Brian Solis

For a presentation next week i’ve been researching the best ways to conduct blogger relations. I have compiled these points from a range of different blogs and articles, some written by professional bloggers and some written by PRs. Here are 10 tips for good blogger relations:

• RESEARCH:
• Find out which bloggers are writing about the field you’re interested in.
• Keep track of what they’re saying through RSS feeds.
• Use services such as Technorati or Techmeme to identify the key bloggers and others that it would be beneficial to get in touch with.
• Don’t just focus on the top 100 blogs. Also take into account the ‘magic middle’ – the blogs with between 20 – 1000 people linking to them.

• READ BLOG: It sounds obvious but it’s essential to read the blog that you will potentially be engaging.
• Don’t just read the latest post but read a load of their previous posts to gain an understanding of the blogger’s views and interests.
• Read comments that have been posted by other people.
• Check out the ‘about page’ to learn more about the blogger.
• Look at the blogroll to see which blogs they have linked to.

• JOIN THE CONVERSATION:
• Leave comments.
• Use links and trackbacks
•  Engage with bloggers on social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook etc.
   
• Find out what the blogger’s preffered method of contact is and try and enter into a dialogue.

• SEND FREE STUFF: There is no harm in sending some schwag to a blogger to get reviewed or just as a token of appreciation.

• SOCIAL NETWORKS: There are other ways to engage with bloggers than just on their blog: Follow and speak to bloggers on social network sites such as Twitter or Facebook etc. Use social bookmarking tools such as Del.icio.us or Digg to collect links that might be of interest to the blogger.

• BE Personal: Never send impersonal group emails to the bloggers you are targeting. Also, never write two sentences about their blog and then just attach a press release. It is all about building relationships and engaging bloggers on a personal level.

• BE Honest: Be transparent about who you are and who you work for.

• BE Relevant: Make sure that what you have to say is relevant and will interest the blogger that you are saying it to.

• DON’T ‘Pitch’: Bloggers are not journalists. People don’t like to think they are being sold a product or being pressurized to do something. As Brian Solis says: ‘The pitch is dead’. Use the relationship that you have built up with the blogger to find out how you can help each other out.

• Add Value: When you leave a comment, make sure what you write adds value to the content. Engage in the conversation which means not leaving a meaningless comment on a post just for the sake of it.

Related Posts:

Brian Solis

Online Marketing Blog

Intuative Systems

Web Pro News

Its Not a Lecture

Blogger Relations Survey

At the moment, everywhere I turn someone or something is talking about Twitter. It was around the same time I started this blog that I also decided to sign up to Twitter to see what all of the buzz was about and to dive head-long into the world of web 2.0. I think that according to the hardcore ‘Twitterati’ that would probably make me a late adopter.

I will not lie; my presence on Twitter still has a lot to be desired. I have 8 followers, 2 of which are my mum and dad, I’m following 12 people, hardly any of which ever actually ‘tweet’ and I average about one post every two weeks. However small my initial splash into the Twitter ocean has been, I have still become fascinated by the concept of it all – Especially with relation to PR.

It seems to me that the jury is still out for some PRs when it comes to Twitter’s relevance to the field even though the majority of the PR industry seems to now be embracing it. Personally I can’t understand why anyone would not see the potential or the importance of Twitter in terms of PR.

Speaking and Listening:

The underlying function of Public Relations is the building and nurturing of relationships. Whether PR is being used to promote a new product, manage a company’s reputation, change people’s perception on a certain issue or deal with a crisis, speaking and listening is at the crux of each function. Twitter is all about speaking and listening. The conversation is 24/7; it never stops.

Speak: In the current online social environment whatever you do can be seen by everyone. Consequently, it is very important for an organization to appear as transparent as possible. Entering into the conversation rather than staying silent is much more beneficial in order to cultivate a good reputation, develop a wide network and build strong relationships. Twitter gives an organization an opportunity to constantly keep all stakeholders and any other interested publics informed and up to date with what it is doing. This makes Twitter an excellent tool for implementing transparency.

PR Tweets could be used for – company news, announcements, promotion, networking, crisis communications and administration.

Listen: The context of PR in 2009 makes it essential for PRs to tap into any conversation they can, even if it’s just to listen. The accountability and governance of organizations is greater than it has ever been before. The internet means that the court of public opinion is no longer adjudicated by the print and broadcast media. Anyone can make their thoughts or views public. This rise of the so called ‘citizen journalist’ has meant that it is more important than ever for organizations to pay attention to what is being said about them. Keeping an eye on Twitter is a very effective way of finding out people’s perceptions of a company or even just general moods or trends.

Listening to Twitter could be useful for – monitoring brand/company reputation, identifying noteworthy bloggers, spotting and anticipating potential trends/threats and researching.

The longevity of Twitter is still under question and will continue to create interest. For now, embracing Twitter and trying to understand it better can only be beneficial. I better start practicing what I preach and try to broaden my Twitter presence. Maybe I’ll ask my sister to start following me!

Check Out the following links for more knowledge:

Twitter for PR

Punch Blog

HubSpot – Twitter for PR and Marketing

Drew B – PR and Twitter

Student Blogs:

Jennifers Blog

Postmodernpr

For a long time illegal downloading of music on the internet has been savaging the music industry. A continuous battle between the major record labels and the illegal download sites and internet service providers has been raging for the best part of the last decade and still nothing seems to be changing.

While governments and record companies seem to chase their own tails instead of providing any realistic answer, some forward thinking private companies are implementing their own solutions to the problem. One that is creating quite a lot of buzz at the moment is a service called Spotify.

Spotify is a music streaming application that you download onto your computer. It’s being hailed by some predominant music piracy-focused blogs (e.g Torrent Freak) to be a feasible alternative to downloading music illegally.

The service works as follows – Spotify has cut deals with all the four major record labels (EMI, Warner Music Group, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG) and a number of smaller labels which means all the music is accessed completely legally.

Spotify make their money and pay the labels and artists by giving users three sign-up options. You can either sign-up with a subscription fee of £9.99 a month or you can use it completely for free but every 20 minutes a short audio advert plays between tracks. There is also an advert free day subscription option of £0.99.

Once signed up, users can then search Spotify’s music library and stream songs instantly on demand. They can then create and share playlists that they save to their personal Spotify music library.
I decided to sign up for the free service to see what all the buzz is about and I have to say that I am very impressed.

The service visually resembles itunes but in my opinion looks sexier and functions much more smoothly.

The speed at which the music can be searched and then streamed is second to no other streaming service I have encountered. There is no buffering, it literally plays at the click of your mouse.

The range of the music library is vast considering that the service was only launched back in October 2008. A few of my searches were unsuccessful and some genres of music are more sparse than others but this is a problem that will definitely get better with time. In my opinion most record labels small or big and in whatever genre will soon be fighting over each other to get their music into Spotify’s music library.

The adverts that play every 20 minutes are not as intrusive as you may think. They are all advertising other music and they only last for about 20 seconds or less. The ads always play between songs so they just resemble brief radio ads. In my opinion this is a small price to pay considering the potential of this service.

Unfortunately, as of yet, the music you save to your playlists can’t be copied onto any portable devices like mp3 players or such like. Playlists can be sent to other users or friends by email or other applications but you can’t download the music into your computer’s music library. This is the main obstacle that Spotify has to overcome if they really want to provide a realistic alternative to illegal downloads.

As already mentioned, Spotify was launched very recently back in October 2008 so it is still in its infancy. It is not available in the US yet but extension into untapped markets is planned for 2009.
The potential of this service is huge. Spotify’s music library will grow and grow by the day and there are plans for a mobile phone application and hopefully following from that they might address the issue of letting the songs be saved and then played on portable music players.

Whether Spotify will affect the future of illegal downloading remains to be seen but as the service recently broke the one million user mark in only five months a lot of bloggers and commentators are positive.

Check it out. I would love to hear other people’s opinions on it.

If you re interested in finding out more about spotify or the illegal download situation check out –
About Spotify:
Wikipedia Entry
Spotify About Page
Reviews:
cnet
Duke Listens
The Lefsetz Letter
News:
Cnet News
Financial Times.com
BBC News