Outside of Barack Obama and Paris Hilton, no one has had the media (almost paparazzi) attention as Brett Favre the past couple of months. He’s appeared in media outlets far beyond the sports page (even Entertainment Tonight and the Wall Street Journal). As a fantasy football fanatic and media relations practitioner, the saga was enticing on many levels. So I can’t resist including four media relations lessons that sneaks Packers (and Jets) jersey #4 into the Risdall McKinney blog as well:

1. Lack of contingency planning ruins the best-laid strategies: For a while, it looked like Favre would be wearing purple at the very game that the Packers were to retire his jersey, opening weekend in Green Bay. Packers’ management was clearly surprised that Favre un-retired, even though he’d similarly waffled the previous three seasons. Obviously, there was no contingency plan or ongoing communications and that led to the escalated media attention. In retrospect, a PR person could have shown great value here by preparing during the offseason.

2. Bringing in a high-profile PR ringer midstream can become part of the story: My PR practitioner interest peaked when the Packers brought in White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (They said he was already scheduled to come, but admitted that the discussion turned to Favre).

3. Pointing fingers often backfires: When the Packers attempted to position the final trade as “Favre deciding he didn’t want to play for Green Bay,” fan reaction was strong. Favre stated all along he wanted to stay, and fan protests and commentary that previously was divided, seems to turn in his favor at that point. Packers management hasn’t repeated it since that day and instead is now focusing on his accomplishments and legacy — a much better key message. A crisis is no time for personal pride that requires you to “be right” or “be liked.”

4. When not controlled, stories take a life of their own: Reporters are not your friends, nor your enemies; but they are competitive. Competition from national reporters camped out at the Packers’ training facility led a local reporter to write the inaccurate tampering claims that Favre talked to the Vikings repeatedly on Packers’ team cell phone. Oops. The more information you can share and have regular briefings in a crisis, the less time for witchhunts.

Incidentally, headlines continued when he later ran a lap after fumbling in practice with his new team. Talk about a reach for a follow up story… How would you, as a practitioner, like every copyedit made by executives to show up on television (or a PR blog, even)?

The article in today’s Wall Street Journal really underscores the importance of being tuned in to your employees – and the stress and strain they might be experiencing at work or home.  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121970425860670819.html This is a good reminder for managers and co-workers to understand and recognze the early warning signs of stress.  The article notes that it is perfectly fine to ask a co-worker how s/he is doing.  But you can’t be intrusive — there is a fine line.  Be careful when you approach it.  Cuirous to hear what others think about this topic.

This blog is taking an incredibly long time for me to write. I’ve been scouring the internet reading blogs, news releases, and other content searching for the perfect topic to write about. Writing is hard. Even if it’s as informal as writing a blog, it’s hard and it’s time consuming. But in todays fast paced environment, where every second matters, speed is the most important factor.
Even Visa tries to scare you into thinking that by using “cash” instead of a check card that you will undoubtedly slow down the line, and therefore be ostracized and hated by around you. This a good way to see how the world works today. And what about automatic bill pay? No more sitting around writing checks, because auto-payments speed up the process. Ditto on the direct deposit option. No more going to the bank to deposit your paycheck, it’s automatic…and even if your organization doesn’t have direct deposit, you can still have funds readily available in your bank account the next day if you just deposit the check into an ATM instead of heading to the bank.
Communication today is an incredibly dynamic force. There are literally thousands of ways to communicate with other people, directly or indirectly, all of them with their own certain rules and etiquette.

I’ve had a few personal experiences that I’d like to share about my current relationship with communication:

1. On Friday I met a girl. We exchanged phone numbers. The next day, I didn’t call her. I sent her a casual text message, because my generation has a thing with informal conversation. The more informal it is, the easier it is, the more we use it. Instant messaging, text messaging, and Social Networking sites allow us to hide behind the screen. You don’t need to hear my voice or see my face. But anyways, back to the story. So I send her a text that says something along the lines of “It was great to meet you last night [blah blah, insert something incredibly charming and irresistible]“….not even a minute goes by when my phone vibrates and I receive a reply with “Yes, it was a pleasure to meet you too. We should hang out again. Are you on Facebook or MySpace?” This was literally the first thing she asked me. Weird huh? Not so much. The next time I checked my MySpace page, there she was. I knew where she worked, what music she liked, what her favorite movies were and I hadn’t even had a conversation with her yet! Amazing.
2. So I’m at lunch with some co-workers and we meet this guy who works at another agency. I give him my card for future references. By the time I get home from lunch, I already had a message from him in my inbox AND he was already following me on Twitter. About 2 minutes after that we were tweeting back and forth and he had started following Cydney too. Quick stuff.

3. A co-worker was very interested in Twitter and super addicted to it because she had just started using it. I set her up with a Twhirl account and gave her a couple of tips. Apparently, I didn’t cover all of the basics because a few hours later, she called me on the verge of tears because someone had told her that following too many people on Twitter without having a relatively close number of followers was bad etiquette and that they might think that she is a Twitter spammer. It’s hard to keep up with all of these rules, especially when each medium has it’s own set of their own. I helped her out by giving her a little “Twitter 101″ packet I’d picked up somewhere along the way.

I guess there isn’t really one solid, main idea around this blog post. It’s just a few of the experiences I’ve had lately that made me realize how much different communication is then when I was even a freshman in college.
Have you had any eye-opening experiences with communication that you’d like to share? The ones that make you realize just how quick the world is moving.

A lot of PR people describe themselves as news junkies. This is very curious to me since I crave media-free time and could goes days without reading a newspaper or turning on the TV but for the fact that it’s expected that I be “up” on current events and in the know on who’s reporting what.  So, the only time I get to go media free is when I’m on vacation and self impose a purposeful disconnect.  During our 12-day, family vacation at the start of the month, I indulged … and save for missing a few initial Olympic stories and a handful of other things happening on other continents, I hardly missed anything of great importance – at least nothing that an inbox full of Google alerts didn’t catch and save for my return to the office!

While I am not, never have been and doubt I ever will be, a news junkie … I do confess there is one medium, however, that I do crave — I have an extreme affinity for magazines.  Anything from Bon Appetit to This Old House to Coastal Living to Redbook.    My family knows I need (at the very least) a Saturday afternoon fix of magazine indulgence.  Just leave me alone with a stack of magazines.  It’s therapeutic “me time” at its finest.

Label me whatever you like when it comes to magazine addiction, but I look forward to reading magazines whenever I get an extra opportunity … waiting at the doctors office, in line at the check out counter (yes, I do buy whatever magazine I’m looking at) or at the airport.  For example, whether I’m on business or personal travel, I hit the magazine racks at the airport to buy at least three or four titles just for the flight out and first night in the hotel.  Magazines really appeal because I can go at my own pace, flipping through until something catches my attention or reading in depth for every last detail.
Using my favorite office supply product – the Post It Note, which is right up there with index cards and highlighters – I can (and do) mark items for my husband, my kids, my sisters, my friends and neighbors, my RMPR colleagues and our clients.  The information remains timely for at least a week if not a month or more.  If I’m really hooked on a particular magazine item, I can go to the magazine’s Web site to get even more related content.  If I wanted, I could join an online discussion board or become part of a community.  But really, that’s going way too far for me … at least for now.

Forget the news, give me the latest issue of Better Homes and Gardens and a pad of Post Its. (For the record, in addition to being news-media free, I restrained myself on this year’s family vacation and only glanced at one magazine.)  It was bliss.

Well, it’s not really a book.  Yet.  But it seems that a similar book would have the potential to be a valuable asset to some clients.  According to a SMTrends article by Josh Palau, clients are confused about how SEO and SSO go together.  Here’s what he covered:

It’s Another Asset:
Consider your social programs as optimizable assets, just like SEO.  A traditional SEO campaign would optimize a site with the intention of increasing a client’s page rank in the organic search results.  Your Facebook, Twitter and Flickr pages can all show up in organic search listings just the same.  Heck, when I search for my name, my Twitter profile shows up fourth on the list!  SEO traffic in this case could come from an optimized Twitter profile that ranked organically. Josh goes on to say that if you link social campaigns together you can make gains on link popularity and drive more link value.

Link Value :
Tweet Tweet.  As your social campaign flourishes, at least a few of your friends will link to your client’s page, products or services.  Now SSO is a linking campaign.  Tweet Tweet for sure.

Social Search Engines:
Search engines on social sites are getting a lot of traffic themselves.  Consumers on Facebook or Twitter aren’t using Google, Yahoo! or Live to search, they’re searching the site itself using the site’s custom search.  Is your client’s brand in the results?……with a SSO campaign it would be. For more on this, visit this article on the miracles of collaborative or Social Search from the Social Media Optimization Blog.

What does employee communication have to do with an economic downturn? More than most businesses know.
Recent attention has been placed on marketing to customers and stakeholders during times of economic recession. Articles such as a Business Journal feature titled “Protect Your Brand and Reputation in Uncertain Economic Times,” written by Eva Keiser, APR, vice president of Risdall McKinney, provide valuable insights on how marketing during a recession is vital to an organization’s success.
What about communicating with employees, though? According to research conducted by Towers Perrin, just like communicating with customers and stakeholders during this time impact the bottom line, employee attitudes directly correlate to business performance. What better time to start communicating with employees, then?
Below are a few best practices in communicating with employees, whether during a recession or in general, but this is by no means an exhaustive list:
1. Communicate frequently and provide as much information as possible – when there is a lack of information, rumors tend to fill the void.
2. Face-to-face communication is always more effective than other forms of communication – visit employee jobs sites and engage them in conversation, or hold employee meetings.
3. Written materials must match the reading level of the audience – be sure to make materials clear and concise.
4. Show appreciation and value – whether through an employee appreciation program or individual praise, employees like to know they are doing good work.
5. Act on employee feedback – nothing will cause mistrust or apathy to provide insights more than a company that does not value and act on employee feedback.
Just remember that communicating with employees should not only be reactive during tough times or crisis. In fact, having a solid employee communication plan in place throughout the year can make communicating during these times easier. I would love to hear about how your company communicates with its employees, and any best practices you’ve learned throughout the years.

TV, radio, online and print media outlets are all riddled with tabloid journalism. The sensationalized gossip about celebrities (and non-celebrities throwing themselves in the spotlight) is often covered during the nightly news hour – did anyone on the planet not know when the Brangalina twins were born? Even the story of the “Fab Five” Texas cheerleaders who tortured their coach and received slaps on the wrists is now a Lifetime movie.

So, as a PR professional who works often on media relations, how can I combat the sensationalized stories that capture the attention of millions? (more…)

Lights, camera, action! We’re living in the digital age. Movies are a dime a dozen with releases frequent and reviews often horrendous. One day you’re in and the next day you’re out.

Not so with Christopher Nolan’s, “The Dark Knight” which continues to soar, leading the box office with a total gross of $394.9 million in just 17 days. Reviews come and go, the movie is worshiped and the movie is criticized. So just why are our caped crusader and his rival, the Joker, among the films all-star cast making such a profound impact?

The art and science of building active, mutually beneficial consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communities is nothing new, but rather a growing and booming tactical approach in marketing and public relations. I’m rarely astonished by this tactic, but at times do feel an element of surprise when word-of-mouth goes above and beyond its intended purpose.

I’ve been delighted to see such powerful word-of-mouth and viral marketing antics surrounding this dark and unconventional superhero film. Alongside the stellar reviews preceding “The Dark Knight’s” release and enthralling movie trailers, word-of-mouth continues to forge some very tangible results. The movie, directed at males ages eight to 80, has expanded its audience base, as men and women of all ages are enjoying the film worldwide. Additionally, people are going back over and over again to catch Knight’s niceties. Many of which have cultural and relevant tie-ins to present day human woes.

Being a committed Batman fan since age seven, I patiently awaited Dark Knight’s release, seeing it on opening night at an IMAX theater. Returning home, I finally read reviews of “The Dark Knight” from The Rolling Stones, Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Start Tribune.

Each review reports on the intricacies surrounding Nolan’s Dark Knight and the deviation from typical Batman fashion. In Knight, Batman is challenged like never before, as his vigilantism is under the microscope as the Joker conducts his social experiments (one after the other it seems), toying playfully with the human condition like never before. The elements of darkness, use of sound, light and dialogue play with and off each other most beautifully, creating a dynamic of success and discussion for its viewers.

Ledger’s death earlier this year has certainly contributed to the word-of-mouth and buzz surrounding this film. Many viewers are motivated to see his last performance, one that’s said to have sent him to the dark side — a role former Joker Jack Nicholson warned Ledger was difficult to inhabit.

Most importantly, Oscar buzz is mounting for the star that clearly lived and breathed this role with everything he had. Ledger’s demonstration as the infamous Joker is an integral piece of the film’s wild success, as he dazzles in darkness and terror, while also managing to win over your humor button ever so slightly at times.

While Ledger’s Joker does truly complete Batman in Nolan’s Dark Knight, it has been the efforts of a brilliant marketing and PR effort that has fueled this films success. Whether Ledger’s performance, Nolan’s brilliance or the combination of many factors, this film’s marketing efforts are something all of us PR and marketing folks can take a few notes on.

I advise a trip to the IMAX for this film so you can decide what’s in a hero — and more importantly if it lives up to all of its word-of-mouth hype. Enjoy!

At lunch, I had an epiphany and realized that online dating is a genius idea. It literally takes all of the guesswork out of “meeting” someone and lets you just input what you like and dislike in a partner…kinda like buying a brand new car and choosing your features. I heard all of these success stories about online dating and I figured “Why not give it a shot?” so I signed up today.

I obviously didn’t market myself correctly, even though I was 100% honest.

These are my actual results.