My Bank Has a Twitter!

This is all very predictable, with the rise of mergers between companies and self-controlled media, but no less cool. My bank, Wells Fargo, launched an active twitter account. There is someone who is actually monitoring twitter, available weekdays 9-5 to answer my basic banking questions.

I researched it, and they were holding an inactive twitter account for a while, monitoring the popularity of Twitter before they decided they wanted to be involved. Yet so far, tweets are usually one-way announcements.

This is very pioneering, to me. Maybe I just find it weird that the bank has multiple blogs too. Now I can post my ATM-related problems for the world to see. I'm thinking that this is probably the last stop for company information to be disseminated, though. (Note the disclaimer on the Wells Fargo Twitter page) Although, it's just shooting out public information, so I guess I can be on board.

But maybe if I actually do need to discuss my bank matters, I'll just physically go to the bank.

http://twitter.com/ask_WellsFargo

Social Media. Officially Everywhere.

Because of new Google Sidewiki, no one can avoid social media, ever. Even if they wanted to. Google Sidewiki (see link) was recently released, and it is a great example of how social media has totally penetrated most communication.

Excuse the sarcasm, but why wouldn’t we want to give anyone with access to a computer more capability to influence our perception on just about every corner of the Internet?

Google spins it like this: Everyone can share his or her thoughts and insights on any webpage! Problem: Anybody can put forth their own views and statements on any webpage or phrase? In PR, this means that any client is social media-competent.

Any PR strategy that doesn’t include social media is already far behind, but now media doesn’t “cover” anything anymore. You influence your audience by use of your own media.

From Google: “In developing Sidewiki, we wanted to make sure that you’ll see the most relevant entries first. We worked hard from the beginning to figure out which ones should appear on top and how to best order them. So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.”

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/help-and-learn-from-others-as-you.html

State Parks and Voluntary Fees

http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/story/2216103.html

There is really no logical reason for anyone to be against optional license renewal payments for park funding. If this message was more clearly stated or communicated, maybe there wouldn’t be so much upheaval about “voluntary fees.”

Is it ethical for journalists to suggest a fee to enter state parks? Leave it up to a referendum (votes of the Californians) to vote for a mandatory fee put on their registration when they buy a car or not. Or just do like in all the Canadian parks and charge an arm and a leg to get into a park.

Objective: "unfair to apply the same label to the state parks system now. Since 2001 the state park department has undergone repeated budget reductions... Now have a $1 billion backlog in deferred maintenance."

The social responsibility of the professionals is to report how the closures will affect the workers, the budget, and of course the park goers. The parks want to close for a few days a month to save money. So ethically, the PR professionals for these institutions might realize their employers just can't raise the money through automatic fees on your car purchases, but an optional box for a donation fee could be implemented. Like a donor card on your driver's license.

Promoting Generation X

Why most people don't care about or reach out to the 40 to 50 million people born between 1965 and 1980 is debatable. But why they are an important audience is important to consider from a PR perspective.

It sounds like a massive demographic but compared to the boomers of the 50's and 60's it is a fringe group. They don't really have the celebrity of the younger generations, but they don't not want to make an impact, either. In reality, the 1970's born citizens are the managers of today in most corporate businesses, but they are only opinion leaders in some markets.

Their way is an approach very different than the boomers who want to "mentor younger employees, yet dislike being considered old" (Guth, Marsh 105). The boomers' voices are softer voices which aren't dominant anymore. Many women from this decade are still in the workforce, and these will be the women that my generation will replace in ten years. X'ers were latch key kids who had to become self sufficient and independent.

Expertise? The energy of the X's is subdued, but they have an unconscious awareness and acceptance of diversity because of the Internet and global expansion. Over 60% attended college .... maybe this leads to the idea that they were too busy working and schooling to be in the limelight?

Maybe generation X flies under the radar because the realism they worked hard for takes more effort than the idealism from the previous generation.

So is Generation X unnoticeable? She (or he) is probably your boss.

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1731528,00.html

Boston PR Firm Loses Pentagon Contract

Spin: popular term used to describe the framing of a message in what the source considers the most desirable context.

- Fourth Edition Public Relations: A Values Driven Approach

Current Events:

When big PR firms let their journalistic integrity slack, they face negative outcomes. A Boston firm, called Rendon Group was accused of "reports it helped military brass keep naysaying reporters covering the Afghanistan campaign from traveling with U.S. troops."

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view.bg?articleid=1194564&srvc=rss

Writing negative stories, or having any kind of bias where it is not called for led, in this case, to a ranking of reporters based on their past stories. The outcome was a loss of contract with the Pentagon for the PR firm.

Spin, a type of propaganda that public relations should not be, brings ethics into question. The journalists should incorporate a focus on their values at the heart of the four-step public relations process. As chapter six of Public Relations A Values-Driven Approach tells us, "The rewards of ethical behavior [include] the deep satisfaction of doing the right thing."

YouTube Snuggies

One of the things discussed in class was the necessity for representing a product in the same mediums as they are already portrayed in, especially when the depiction or description of a product is less than beneficial.

In other words, if Snuggies are being poked fun at on youtube, the PR representatives for Snuggie brand should be watching how that specific product is being received, not just with surveys and on their website, but on youtube.

They should also be portraying the product in a positive light as well, in the same media (on youtube). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWHlvtWhum0

In this video, Snuggie wearers are negatively portrayed as occultists. In reality, I could find no video where Snuggies are represented seriously on youtube, and most likely, youtube viewers are the majority of an audience and probably look to this site to find out about any product first.

This doesn't go to say that as a Public Relations person, we are responsible for finding out every twitter or blogger that misrepresents a person or product, and that it is necessary to inundate every website with the ideal portrayal of a product or person. It merely is profitable if an audience has a correct view of a product, in contrast to the propaganda.

Youtube is just one example of many different ways a product or company or person can be publicized. Just because it isn't necessarily the ideal way it was meant to be represented and promoted, doesn't mean the impact of this media on a particular audience isn't huge and widespread.

Here is the second way I could think of researching the intended promotion of Snuggie brand.

Their website. https://www.buysnuggie.tv/flare/next?tag=os%7Caf

Unfortunately, not a lot of video-streaming viewers are willing to hunt down the intended information about this product, especially when they are in for a good laugh about it on their favorite go-to website.

Stay In School.

Media on Obama Education speech.

Obama's intent of his PSA to schoolchildren was not to brainwash socialism into young minds. It started out, and should have stayed a simple encouraging speech to children in schools. Unfortunately, it was made into a political debate and referred to as"political agenda to indoctrinate students," said Tom Benning.

Blog Link:

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/03/obama-school-speech-lesson-or-propaganda/

Texas Republicans in FBISD in Houston, Texas even went so far as to send home letters asking parents if they wanted their kids to watch or to do another activity during the program.

The conservatives are afraid to promote his views or attitudes (scared little ones will switch over to the evil side)

Is this entirely reasonable?

Is the media perpetuating anti-Obama views? This sends the message that it's okay to ban Presidential opinion.

It is always good for kids to hear one has to work hard for their future and to take their education seriously, or is there something legitimately wrong with that?

From a PR perspective, as discussed in class, it's important to understand the attitudes and concerns of the parents (community) for or against obama's efforts to advance the education levels and attitudes of students.

The parents are the ones who are able to make a big deal out of it, so the parents are the ones who should be reached, reassured, and informed about Presidential broadcasts. Apparently, there should have been more informing and clarifying going on.

This isn't health care reform or about the war in the middle east. The objective of the president was obviously just to promote staying in school and to clarify his vision for education. Which he should care about, right?