Author Archive
Sawmill Partner on Social Media Panel with CNN Commentator and Washington Post Editor
Posted by: | CommentsI’m looking forward to being part of a panel on crisis communications and social media Nov.3 that will bring attendees the latest thinking on how news organizations are using tools such as Twitter and Facebook during crisis situations. Find out more about the session, “Crisis Communication in a Social Media World,” and register for PRSA’s Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake Conference here. My co-presenters are:
Maria Cardona is a Democratic strategist who recently joined CNN as a political commentator for the 2012 election and contributor to CNN en Español. During the 2008 Democratic primary election, Cardona was senior adviser and spokesperson to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and served on the campaign’s Hispanic outreach team. During the 2008 general election, she was a key surrogate for the Obama for America campaign, and during the Clinton administration, Cardona served as a spokesperson at the U.S. Departments of Justice and Commerce.
James Buck is the Washington Post‘s local innovations editor. He came to the Post in 2010, after working at FRONTLINE/World, The Oakland
Tribune, The Center for Investigative Reporting and University of California-Berkeley. While a graduate student at Berkeley in 2008, James traveled to Egypt to cover an anti-government protest and was arrested. He used Twitter on his cell phone to alert his friends, who immediately began campaigning for his release. The founders of Twitter frequently use James’ experience in explaining the power of the site as a communication tool.
Register today and join us! The Mid-Atlantic Chesapeake Conference has an impressive lineup of sessions this year, making it a must-attend event for the region’s public relations pros.
Facebook Friday: Can’t We Just Be Subscribers?
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The “subscribe” button is a new feature introduced this week by Facebook. Intended for those in the public eye who want to continue posting updates intended for their friends, the button allows them to share certain “public” content to a broader audience, soon to be known as subscribers.
It’s ideal for journalists, actors and other public figures who aren’t in a position to accept every friend request, but who still want to connect on Facebook. If you’re a member of the media, the “Facebook + Journalists” page has all the details, including a “Subscribe for Journalists Guide” PDF they posted today.
Check Your Crisis Communications Plan’s Expiration Date
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Does your company’s crisis communications plan look like this?
If you went through an expensive planning process that ended up with a bulky three-ring binder that’s now stuck on a shelf, it might have been a huge waste of money if it hasn’t been updated. If the words “Twitter” and “Facebook” aren’t even mentioned, it’s time for a re-fresh.
Today’s crisis communications plans focus less on setting up a media headquarters, holding press briefings and assigning phone tree responsibilities. Instead, your plan needs to incorporate social media so you can monitor and respond quickly – and while mobile – even before you get the first text, Tweet, email or even phone call from the media.
Is Your Website Press Room Missing Something?
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Does your website press room offer the information the media expects to find there, including an image library, useful contact info for your spokesperson and easily-printable fact sheets and background material? If not, you’re making a journalist’s job more difficult and that could reflect poorly on your brand.
Here’s a link to an informative blog post based on research on “what journalists really want from an online newsroom,” by David Bowen of Bowen Craggs & Co. and posted on the MyNewsdesk customer blog. [Thanks to Keith Childs for sharing it on the FIR FriendFeed room.]
Picnic in the Park!
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We’re involved in the community in many ways here at Sawmill and one of our favorite organizations is the Parks & People Foundation. I’ve been a member of the board of directors for many years and on Sept. 24 we’re holding a picnic fund-raiser. Join us if you can!
Picnic in the Park
A Benefit for the Parks & People Foundation
Please join the friends and fans of the Parks & People Foundation for an elegant picnic in one of Baltimore’s most beautiful parks. Enjoy the gardens of the historic Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory, feast on the bounty of the harvest from local farmers and fill your glass with offerings from premier breweries and wineries.
Saturday, September 24, 6-9 p.m. at the Howard Peters Rawlings Conservatory and Botanical Gardens 3100 Swann Dr. in Druid Hill Park, Baltimore, Maryland. Tickets are $75 person. Visit the Parks & People website to reserve your spot!
The Parks & People Foundation is dedicated to supporting a wide range of recreational and educational opportunities; creating and sustaining beautiful and lively parks; and promoting a healthy natural environment for Baltimore.
Use Earthquake Lessons to Shake Up Your Crisis PR Plan
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Here’s a crisis communications lesson from yesterday’s East Coast earthquake – if your crisis PR plan relies on using a telephone or cell phone, you had better insert an alternative method for reaching out to people.
As Gus Sentementes reported in today’s edition of The Baltimore Sun, “As Marylanders reached for their cell phones to communicate with their friends and family, they found it easier to get peace of mind through text messages, emails and Facebook updates than through calls.”
That’s because just about everyone has a cell phone in their pocket – and the first thing they do in an emergency is call family and friends, so the phone system cannot handle such a high volume of calls. To actually work, your crisis communications plan needs to rely on other means to get the word out – tweets, texts and Facebook updates.
As we counsel clients, now is the time to set up those social networking accounts and the related policy and protocol – not during an emergency! [Gus's photo sent via Twitter, left, shows an evacuated Sun staff yesterday after the earthquake shook up the building.]
Media Training Tip #16: Skip the Interview Walk-off
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One technique we don’t cover during Sawmill’s media training sessions is the “walk-off.” And for good reason! If you aren’t up for the questions the interviewer is likely to ask, don’t put yourself in that position. If you decide to unclip the microphone and stomp away, it will guarantee coverage, but not the kind you’re looking for. But people still do it! To see some of the best walk-offs, check out this clip from WBAL-TV.
Sawmill Partner Invited to Share Public Affairs Success Tips
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I will be a featured speaker at a full-day learning event, “Resources & Tools for Public Affairs Success,” co-hosted by Erickson Living and the Maryland Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel on Thursday, September 29, 2011 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The day includes panels looking at the role of social media in crisis communication and today’s newsroom, as well as hands-on workshops on Twitter and LinkedIn. Attendees will also hear the State of News Media from Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.
Here are “my” sessions:
The Role of Social Media in Crisis Communications – 9 a.m.
Featuring a behind-the-scenes account of a shooting at Johns Hopkins Hospital and how social media was used, I will guide a discussion that will demonstrate the importance of monitoring and being aware of today’s online tools to protect your company’s reputation. 9:00 a.m.
• Justin Fenton, Crime Reporter, Baltimore Sun
• Anthony Guglielmi, Spokesman, Baltimore City Police Department
• Jeffrey A. Davis, APR, Sawmill Marketing Public Relations
Twitter Tactics for PR Professionals – 10:15 a.m.
From basic tools and etiquette to the many ways media and PR professionals are using Twitter, this session will offer a hands-on look at the latest tactics.
• Jeffrey A. Davis, APR, Sawmill Marketing Public Relations
The event is held in collaboration with Erickson Living as part of their national Corporate Communications Summit. Because of this, PRSA is limited to 20 seats at $50 for PRSA members, $65 for non-members. For additional details and to register, visit the PRSA Maryland Chapter website.
This Hit Never Gets Old
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One thing that never gets old in our business is getting a client mentioned in the media, otherwise known as a “hit.”
Today we got our hands on the August issue of Baltimore magazine and inside is an article about seniors housing communities that includes our client, Crystal Spring. It’s a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) coming to Annapolis in 2012 that will also include village center-style townhomes for people of all ages and a destination retail village with shops and outdoor cafes, as well as a cultural arts center and village green. A boutique inn and spa is also being considered. It’s all on one “campus,” and is the new way CCRCs are being designed and built vs. the old stand-alone model that isolates the residents from the broader community.
Sawmill has been working with the writer for many months. In fact, the paragraph were I am quoted comes from an interview I did back in January. Proof that publicity also requires patience.
The ________ is dead!
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An advertising agency we follow tweeted last week that the QR Code is dead!
The “revelation” could not be further from the truth, and the blog post the agency shared, “Death to the QR Code,” is so off-base that it had to be written to generate comments and new readers (aka “link bait”). If you read the post, scroll through the comments as well. Either way, it got me to thinking about all of the other declarations of death in our industry:
The press release is dead – this one’s been going around for a while. Kent State Professor Bill Sledzik traces one of the earlier proclamations to 1979 in this post. The reality: there is a new role for the press release; sloppy usage by clueless PR people is the real problem. Social media is dead – Google (or “Bing”) that phrase and you’ll find post after post informing us SM is over. Twitter is dead – #exaggerations anyone? Facebook is dead – a meme resurrected this month as Google+ hit the scene; and, of course, Google is dead. As I said, anything to generate comments and links!
