The Byline: PR and Marketing Insights from Eiler Communications

A study from Harvard Medical School suggests that happiness could be contagious. And so could obesity, smoking, depression and grumpiness.

The article “Social Networks and Health” from the Annual Review of Sociology suggests that if your good friend is happy, you are much more likely to become happy. And if your good friend is overweight, you are more likely to become overweight. Scientists think these occurrences are due to humans mimicking those around them, eating the same foods, performing the same acts or just maintaining the same outlook on life.

This all seems logical with friends you see face-to-face, but what about through social networking online? Could a tweet on Twitter about getting a new job make your friends a little happier, or could a Facebook photo of you sulking just bring your friends down?

Currently there isn’t much in research on whether your cyber-friends affect your happiness, but it seems possible to some degree. Online social media allow friends to connect with you, share photos and video, even offer support. Though not as personal as, well, in-person connections, social media is allowing more people to share and be happy together.

Concerning if your Internet friends could contribute to your weight, smoking habits or mood swings, that may need a bit of research but happiness seems a sure thing. So tell your followers, connections, buddies and friends on the web that you’re happy. I’m sure they’ll pass it on.

Alyssa Eckles

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past year, you know that the economy is in bad shape right now. As a recent college graduate, this has had a tremendous impact on me. Throughout my time in school, I always thought all my hard work would pay off and I would land a great job once I graduated. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Even though sometimes the search for a job can feel hopeless, I’ve found that there are many different things you can do to help your job search.

Social media has taken the business world by storm so it only makes sense to use it as a job search tool. This is a powerful way to network with potential employers and let them know more about yourself, your skills and professional/educational background. LinkedIn is a great site to use to do this. Your profile page is like an online resume and you are able to connect with past colleagues, friends and employees at companies you are interested in potentially working for.

New grads should also consider doing an internship while looking for fulltime employment. It allows you to get hands on experience in the field that you are interested in. You are getting in valuable experience for your resume.

A big challenge in the current job market is getting the opportunity to interview with a company. Businesses are receiving hundreds of resumes each week. Job seekers need to find a way to stand out from the rest. A new trend is video resumes. In these short videos, a candidate talks about who you are, your education, professional experience and anything that you would put on your resume. This is a more personal way to connect with employers and show them why you are the best person for a job.

The most important thing that I have learned throughout this is to remain positive. You are not going to get a job by sitting around and feeling sorry for yourself. As frustrating as it is to have people constantly asking me if I have found a job yet, it’s much easier to smile and talk about all that I am doing to try to find one. As long as you remain positive and are creative in how you look for open positions, you will land your dream job in time.

Amanda Deluca

Background
Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign was historic not just politically but also because of his use of the Internet to promote awareness and create a loyal following. Obama and his campaign strategists realized that on top of public appearances, rallies and speeches the Internet was another effective medium to connect with the people of the United States. President Obama’s use of social media in his Presidential campaign will be the template to inspire future Presidential campaigns and be a beacon for how businesses can use the multiples of new media to reach customers on the Internet.

Obama was successful in realizing the true potential of the Internet as a way to raise $750 million dollars and support for his Presidential campaign. The youth vote played a major role in his landslide victory. Obama was able to earn the support of many first time voters largely because of his use of social media.

Situation
Obama needed to raise money and bring awareness to the people of the United States that he was running for President. The message to get across was that America needed a change and for this to happen, Americans needed to elect Obama as President.

Strategy
To reach every demographic with the one message, “In order for change, you must elect Barack Obama.” AND if you want him to win-you must join the campaign and donate. The initial strategy was to reach the audience by using technology and reaching the donation goal by the majority of donations being under $200.

Tactics
My.BarackObama.com
The site was created with help of Chris Hughes, one of the three Harvard students who founded Facebook. This site allowed Obama’s team to take the use of the Internet to a whole different level by allowing masses of volunteers to self-organize and communicate through their own social networking site. The site enlisted thousands of supporters for his blog, to get the word out about voting in elections and to get “buzz” going throughout the campaign.

By the time the campaign was over, volunteers had created more than 2 million profiles on the site, planned 200,000 offline events, formed 35,000 groups, posted 400,000 blogs and raised $30 million on 70,000 personal fund-raising pages.

Obama’s Blog
The blog was updated frequently to keep members coming back, interested and engaged. The blog was fun and encouraged feedback.

Obama on Flickr
The campaign constantly took pictures and uploaded them to Flickr. Pictures were from throughout the campaign including the 82 posted that showed Obama and his family awaiting the election result and celebrating the victory. Most of the pictures were not staged and allowed people to feel like Barack was a “real” person- not just a political figure.

Obama’s YouTube Channel
Obama’s campaign took advantage of YouTube for free advertising. These videos are said to be more effective because viewers chose to watch them or received them from a friend instead of their TV show being interrupted.

The campaign’s official videos created for the site were watched for 14.5 million hours. To buy that much advertising time on TV would cost $47 million.

The most famous speech was “Yes, we can.” The video was viewed 1.8 million times on YouTube.

Barack Obama on LinkedIn
Obama’s presence on LinkedIn helped him connect to an older, professional and more politically motivated demographic. His homepage featured links to several web-based tools such as his YouTube videos and his Facebook profile.

Obama used the Q&A feature to pose a question to the LinkedIn audience: “How can the next President better help small businesses and entrepreneurs thrive?” The question generated over 1,500 responses from all types of small business owners and entrepreneurs. The Obama campaign then used the responses to formulate policy initiatives.

Twitter & Obama
Obama used Twitter to announce the various campaign stops and rallies throughout his campaign. His posts were encouraging and always contained a clear call to action.

He had his profile set up for whenever a person followed him he automatically followed them back. By Obama following supporters, he was sending the message that he wanted to communicate and he cared about what they had to say. This created a community and wasn’t limited to just getting others to see what he had to say.

Obama & Facebook
Facebook is home to more than 200 million users and is the most crowded place on the Internet today, making it an easy way to convey messages to millions in very little time.

Obama’s Facebook page listed his interests and provided supporters with interaction by giving them the ability to upload pictures & videos and post comments.

The campaign created an Obama application that supporters could add to their personal profiles. The application put a box in their profile and published stories to their news feed. There was also a plug in that asked users to pledge to vote for Obama and invite their friends to do the same.

Results
Barack’s campaign was everywhere in social media networking sites. Everyone was included: faith based, race based, age based and even event based social networks.

Ultimately, Obama won the Presidency and raised $750 million dollars, primarily through the Internet.

Amanda Deluca

Moviegoers were graced with a glimpse into the world of journalism in April with the premiere of two top-notch press-centric films; State of Play and The Soloist respectively. The investigative reporting and journalistic flair of newspaper writers drive the two films. State of Play and Soloist are just the latest in a long line of movies centered on the cunning investigations pivotal to the newspaper world. Remember All the Kings Men? Citizen Kane? Or The Pelican Brief? While the most recent cinematic journalism adventures are far from the first to feature press writers, might they be two of the last?

As newspapers continue to search for new business models, the “Watchdog” function is changing or disappearing. New forms of social media have accelerated the public’s demand for news. Whereas reporters once had weeks to cover an in-depth story, the editorial calendar has shrunk significantly. Instead of investing in investigations guarding public interests, newspapers are forced by high print and distribution costs to watch over their pocketbooks.

Some of the best movies of this generation are marked by newspapers in some way. If newspapers continue the current downward spiral, it will definitely be reflected at theaters…but how much remains to be seen. Five years from now, Denzel Washington may be on stage accepting an Oscar for portraying a Twitter-er. Or M. Knight Shyamalan might be directing a horror flick about Facebook. Enjoy the likes of The Soloist and State of Play while you can. Journalism has been celebrated in our society for many, many years, but the changes on the printed page are usually reflected on the reel.

Case Ernsting

It’s hip, it’s fun, but most of all it’s entirely original; it’s Skittles new website. If you haven’t gotten the chance to check it out yet, here’s the link www.skittles.com. Skittles created a fresh new site that is nothing but their Social Media pages. Their Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Flickr, and Youtube pages make up the bulk of the website. This is a pretty daring move since they can’t very well control the information being shared. Skittles must have a strong belief in their brand because all it takes is one bad comment to start an avalanche of negativity. Looking at the comments left on their Twitter and Facebook pages this seems to be a success.

Skittles has done a great job appealing to the social media crowd, which, let’s face it, is pretty much everyone now. This website has generated all types of buzz over the website, surprisingly bloggers hate it. This is interesting because everyone posting on the site seems to love the idea.

Here’s a list of a few things I think Skittles could do to better the experience.
1. For it to truly be social media Skittles will need to step in and engage in conversation.
2. For the people who aren’t in to Social Media or just don’t understand it, there needs to be a out-out option that will bring you back to their old website. This way using an analytics site you can track the number of users on the new website versus the old which will tell Skittles when it’s time to switch back to the traditional style website.
3. The widget-like menu needs to be movable.

If they can change those three problems, then all that negative buzz over their website will begin to fade.

An over-whelming majority of blogs out there regarding this subject, seem to think it’s over the top or think that Skittles took the easy way out. Even so, Skittle’s new site has all the information that any other website would have but they did it unlike anyone else.

Kudos to Skittles for being bold and trying something never done before, but as great an idea as this is, I think it won’t last very long. This is a great way to temporarily boost interest in Skittles and learn about their customers; but in the end the hype will wear off and people will want the website back to the traditional style.

Christian Bittner

I’ve been trying to explain Twitter and Facebook to my parents for some time now, and despite my best efforts, they still find the lack of privacy a little unsettling. “You mean everyone will know when you go to the bathroom?”

Not exactly Mom, you don’t tell people everything you’re doing. But her point is a good one. Social Media (SM) allows individuals to effortlessly communicate and share ideas across broad networks, but some recent news has shown what happens when social media goes wrong.

Twitter’s rapidly growing population consists of celebrities, presidents, companies, neighbors and even pets. Charlie Villanueva, Forward for the Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA, has become an infamous Tweeter after two incidents last month. First, Villanueva or CV31 as he’s known on Twitter, posted a Tweet at halftime of a game against the Boston Celtics. Bucks’ head coach Scott Skiles quickly reprimanded these actions. (The Tweet can be read here.) For an encore, CV31 cited an inside source when he announced that Jim Calhoun, the coach of his Alma mater would coach in the next game of the NCAA Tournament for the University of Connecticut after health complications kept him out of the previous game.

“Juror Jonathon” ran into trouble in March for Tweeting details of a $12.6 million case from his cell phone. These Twitter updates, while not explicitly forbidden by courts, are believed to be grounds for a mistrial.

These two incidents are yet another example of technology moving faster than regulatory rules (or just a lack of common sense). Social media is a great public relations tool, providing ways for businesses and individuals to control their messages. But as more companies and businesses enter the social media circus, they must be wary of information leaking to the public through blogs, podcasts, Facebook pages, MySpace, Twitter, etc. The traditional walls of privacy my parents are familiar with are being torn down in favor of faster communication. Until rules are in place to control the expansive social media capabilities, remember to balance networking with personal responsibility and common sense.

Case Ernsting

“What’s on your mind”? With this simple query that appears on the front page of Facebook profiles, Facebook has thrown down the gauntlet. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has had Twitter on his mind for a while now, and struck back at the up-and-coming social networking site two weeks ago. The much anticipated and incredibly hyped Facebook profile changes appeared on browsers everywhere on March 13. How BIG were these changes? As you can see here, the evolution of Facebook’s façade earned Zuckerberg an invite to appear on Oprah. Clearly, dorm room tech geeks aren’t the only ones noticing the social media frenzy.

Where’s all this buzz coming from? Well, Zuckerberg’s changes mark the latest chapter in the clash between Facebook and Twitter. Twitter has built its reputation on simplicity since CEO Evan Williams launched the site in 2006. Zuckerberg threw subtleties aside when he joined the 6 million on Twitter with a username of his own (thezuckerberg), apparently researching the micro-blog from the inside. (For those scoring at home, add “Espionage” to the list of professions social media has transformed.) The most obvious examples of Facebook’s robbery: When users sign on to Twitter they are greeted with the eerily coincidental question, “What are you doing?”. Facebook’s revamped look helps companies develop a presence on the site beyond the traditional “Fan Pages”. With Facebook’s improved business-oriented functionality, look for Facebook’s membership to spike in the upcoming months.

In the past six months, Twitter has really found its stride attracting celebrities, musicians, politicians, professional athletes, news agencies, businesses, and even President Barack Obama (username: BarackObama). This diverse, informational, and entertaining Twitter population was growing so much (752% In the last year!!) that Facebook looked to purchase the site last year to the tune of $500million in stock. Twitter and Williams rebuffed the offer, proclaiming that “Twitter is just getting started”. Facebook’s offer and subsequent rejection is even more astounding when you discover that Twitter is not a revenue-generating machine. Perhaps these are the changes Williams’ and his team foresee.

What’s the next step in this titanic clash of social media giants? It’s hard to speculate, but definitely fun to watch. Stay tuned.

Case Ernsting

Are you a thought leader? Thought leaders are credible, insightful industry professionals (often heads of companies) with the expertise to comment on industry trends and issues…basically, the leaders of thoughts. This is highly desirable brand position requiring a focused public relations (PR) effort and a commitment to hard work.

Thought leaders provide insight and vision and therefore, are “go to” sources for members of the media often providing quotes and commentary for news coverage. Highly visible examples include Steve Jobs of Apple, Bill Gates of Microsoft, Larry Page of Google, Richard Branson of Virgin Megastores, or Mark Zuckerburg of Facebook. These leaders provide insight of global scale due to their product’s popularity around the world. It is also possible to carve out a niche for your company’s product or service locally or wherever you define your target market.

A few thought-leadership tips from www.skmarketing.com, a Minneapolis based business-to-business marketing agency:

1. Availability: Respect the hectic schedule of the journalists and other members of the press and return all calls ASAP.
2. Preparedness: As a thought leader, you are expected to possess wisdom and a familiarity with a wide variety of topics in your field. It is advised that you prepare talking points prior to any media engagement/interview.
3. Be Opinionated: Donald Trump might be the best example of this type of thought leadership. Thought leaders are expected to bring something new to the conversation without sitting on the fence. Be bold, compelling and dramatic.
4. Persistence: Create your own fortune through thought leadership tools. Examples include determined press releases, knowledgeable speaking engagements, effective social media, white papers, by-lined articles, and/or case studies.

Eiler Communications has practiced these skills for over twenty years, establishing brand messages and thought leadership strategies for local and national businesses. David Mielke, Dean of Eastern Michigan University’s College of Business, is an example of a local thought leader Eiler Communications works with consistently. Mielke has established a voice in the business community writing articles in the Ann Arbor Business Review and on www.MLive.com, often times commenting on the current state of business ethics. Mielke also serves on a number of economic and business boards.

So, are you ready to be a thought leader?

Case Ernsting

The social media website, Facebook, has been around for five years. It started as a social networking site for college students who attended a four-year university. Today, anyone with a valid email address can create his own account and it has expanded from college social networking to opening doors and benefiting businesses with several different features.

The pages feature was created to give businesses their own page on Facebook like an individual person. Pages give your business an identity. Once a business creates its page, it can then put pictures, videos and any other type of information that describes the company. People can become a “fan” of your business and follow your page and it’s updates. Any new activity on a page gets posted back to your mini feed for all your friends to see. This is another way to increase others awareness of your business.

The groups feature is similar to the pages feature. Groups are meant to be built around several people rather than an individual business. The difference between the two is that groups do not share as much information with users friends as users interact. For example, posting activity and updates on a users mini feed.

Facebook has a powerful advertising feature. It enables businesses to specify a specific demographic to target, see the number of people that demographic will hit and then advertise to them. This allows businesses to control who they are reaching to and then create an appeal to the specific demographic.

The applications feature allows businesses to have developers write software to help promote their business. Applications give them the full power to say or promote anything they want about their business.

The polls feature is good for marketers who want to get a quick answer about a particular feature they would like to implement or to find out the opinion or information from a specific demographic.

It is very clear how businesses can benefit from Facebook. As time passes, more and more businesses will realize how powerful of a marketing tool the website is. I didn’t realize the full extent to how powerful and beneficial social media was to businesses until I started at Eiler. Now, I think all companies should be using Facebook and other social media sites.

Amanda Deluca

What Does Twitter Do For My Business?

According to the IDC (Premier Global Marketing Survey Company)Internet users spend an average of 32.7 hours online each week. That’s close to half the time they spend on any media (70.6 hours), twice the time they spend watching TV (16.4 hours) and close to eight times as much time as they spend reading magazines and newspapers (3.9 hours). The two fastest growing categories are video and social media (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Wikipedia, Blogs, YouTube, etc).

Clearly, attention is shifting on-line for all of our social and business needs.

Abrams Research recently asked over 200 social media leaders at the Social Media Week 2009 conference, what social media site would you recommend your business to pay for
(if they had to)? Twitter beat Facebook by more than two to one. Why? One of the most typical responses was, “ It is the quickest way I’ve seen to spread information virally to a wide scope of people attached in a lot of random ways.”

So, what is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social messaging utility for staying connected in real-time and is one of the fastest growing communities online. It allows people to send public or private messages in 140 characters or less via the web or mobile phone. Think of it as a Facebook status update on steroids. The idea is to sign up and find people that you want to follow. Once you follow them, you receive updates minute by minute on whatever they “tweet”. A “tweet” is a 140 character or less statement or link to information.

For instance, I follow people that are relevant to my business. By sharing quick bits of information, I can stay connected to them, know their interests and appeal to them for my professional or personal needs. The key is to “tweet” about relevant topics. No one cares if you are having coffee (unless of course you own a coffee business and are sharing your favorite brew). As a Twitter courtesy, if you follow someone they usually follow you back so, get out there and start following and watch your site grow! Think about this. If you send out one “tweet” that directs your followers to relevant news about your business, which directs them to you or your website- you can reach thousands of Twitter followers by the minute.

The key: No one likes a constant sales pitch. Twitter about relevant issues that pertain to your business or your interests. This will position you as an expert and drive traffic to your site.

Jennifer