Blogger’s Notebook: Foursquare, Tiger and Home/Office/Bar

Blogger’s Notebook is the newest feature on the PR Buzzsaw, a compilation of bits and pieces that don’t warrant an entire blog post, but shouldn’t get swept away with all the wood chips on the Sawmill floors. Here goes:

BFD? – Followers of @contactjeff on Twitter may have noticed my occasional tweets announcing where I am. Nothing glamorous, with places like Pei Wei, Free State Indoor Sports and the Maryland State House. Am I bragging? No, but here’s the story: When I read the post on Mashable titled “Foursquare: Why it May Be the Next Twitter,” I decided it was worth checking out and seeing how it might apply to Sawmill clients (I did the same thing when I heard about Twitter a few years ago…try it before you trash it!). I already see a number of marketing possibilities with Foursquare, such as becoming the tool that causes people to look up from their iPhones and Droids and actually connect with others in real life. Wow.

‘My Bad’ – The Tiger Woods “apology” grabbed so much media attention and follow-up analysis by PR pundits that there’s no need to rehash it all here, other than to say it was a highly scripted stunt that only Tiger and his team could attempt to pull off. No questions allowed or asked? Media housed in a hotel ballroom a mile away? Just Tiger reading a statement written by his advisors and attorneys? Come on.

Split Personalities – One of the PR podcasts I’ve been listening to lately is Inside PR by Canadian PR pros Terry Fallis and David Jones. In a recent episode and in response to a listener comment, they talked about the use of Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and how/when to use each one. Here’s what they said: look at Facebook as your home, where you’d likely welcome friends and people you know well; consider LinkedIn as your office, where you’ll conduct yourself more professionally and keep it more business-like; while Twitter is more like a bar, with a bunch of people you may or may not know popping in and out; some informative and worth getting to know, while others are more random yet still entertaining. Makes sense.