There’s a lot of emphasis on automating the public relations process and there’s almost daily a new program platform, trick or app with a funny name that guarantees more followers or better notoriety for clients. But there are some time-honored principles for cultivating your brand, whether your use hieroglyphics or Twitter to communicate: Do good deeds, find allies, use what you have an discreetly toot your horn. Because there’s no way to automate relevance.

We have a track record of delivering news media coverage for our clients and it’s worthwhile to examine how it happens with a good case study.

KTRV and KTVB interview a Boise Rescue Mission resident about the clothing drive with Clothesline Cleaners

There are no secrets to getting news media coverage and several good principles include: Make yourself relevant, do something good for the community, make it easy for journalists to do their job and stand back and let them work.

In September, we hooked up Clothesline with Dress For Success Treasure Valley, which collects professional clothing for disadvantaged women and was holding a clothing drive in conjunction with Office Team. In addition to collecting many women’s suits, several people donated men’s suits and Clothesline Owner Gary McCracken wanted to give them to a worthy cause.

A and A looked for another charity and found Boise Rescue Mission Ministries, which has a program to help homeless and other disadvantaged men enter the workforce, and this program often needs good quality professional clothing. After some work with the Mission’s media staff, we arranged to have clothesline collect men’s clothing for the month of November and we drafted news releases to publicize it. With the cooperation of the Mission, we got some coverage in the Idaho Statesman and KTRV 12 at the kick off and during the clothing drive. We set up an event for Dec. 1 to hand the clothing over to the Mission and requested Mission representatives and a Mission resident attend to answer media questions (so often, news conferences and events have officials and leaders, but no one from the group that’s actually the recipient of the assistance).

With some judicious and persistent follow-up, we were able to persuade KTRV and KTVB – Idaho’s largest news source – to attend the handover, with KTVB devoting more than two and a half minutes to its broadcast. We finally collected about 750 items of clothing, providing a great backdrop at Clothesline’s Boise shop.

We started a parallel social media campaign in November, while Clothesline used its emailing list of several thousand customers to help get the word out. Clothesline also brought in Steve Reeder of the local Tom James haberdashery to publicize the drive to his clients. The Mission distributed to the release and assisted with getting publicity. Each party had some kind of publicity assets and put them to work.

We took our own video and will put that up on Clothesline’s YouTube page. Between the last few days of November and December, our weekly Facebook page visits increased by 10 percent and wall comments increased by one-third, and we believe it is attributable to the social media and news media push.

McCracken reported that about a dozen customers that hadn’t used his services in a while called his store on Dec. 2, saying they saw TV news program that morning, or the night before, and that reminded them they needed to get some stuff cleaned.

Mashable has a very good blog entry about a security problem in Facebook. I had noticed this myself but not thought much of it – a new admin can boot old admins, effectively stealing the page from its creators. Social media and public relations consultants need to be aware of this and be very, very careful in grant admin permissions. Apply this standard: If any one admin booted off all the other admins, would your client still be in good hands?

A Facebook security flaw — or, perhaps, a misunderstanding — lets Page administrators boot original Page creators from admin status, effectively enabling new admins to hijack Pages, the blog Naked Security reports.

One could argue that this is working as intended. If the creator of a Facebook Page lets someone else in as admin, they should have equal administrative rights, correct? Wrong. Facebook’s FAQ clearly states that “the original creator of the Page may never be removed by other Page admins.”

Unfortunately, as evidenced in the video embedded below, a newly appointed Page admin can remove the Page creator’s admin status, which can be very nasty in certain cases. Today, Facebook Pages are more than fun, they’re a serious part of business promotion and losing administrative access to a Page can lead to host of problems.

Is it a security flaw or simply an error in Facebook’s FAQ? According to the Register, it’s the latter. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter, because the discrepancy between the FAQ and reality creates confusion either way.

We’ve reached out to Facebook for further clarification on the matter and will update this post accordingly.

In the meantime, we’d like to hear about your experiences with the flaw. Have you ever had a Facebook Page hijacked by another admin? How was it resolved, if at all?

Men’s Health Magazine has put up a ranking of the 100 top cities for social networking and Boise ranks 20th, beating out San Diego, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Chicago and New York. Also remarkable: Salt Lake City was 10th. Washington, DC was first. Boise is the smallest city in the top 20.

Interesting figures, but what’s behind the ranking?  Here’s my take as someone who has lived in Boise more than 20 years as a newpaper reporter, public relations professional and social media consultant:

1. Ingrained tech savviness. Micron Technology, the second-largest computer chip manufacturer in the world, started here.  In the early 1970s, Hewlett Packard began a major campus in Boise which developed the laser printer.

2. Suburbanization. Boise and the surrounding areas are built to automotive standards, leaving few public gathering areas; those that exist are usually in the traditional downtown areas. Yet people still crave connection, even if their environment promotes separation, and social media provide that connection.

3. Political activism. Yes, there’s a lot of that in Idaho, both from the left and the right. The Idaho Legislature is a non-stop source of, ahem, ideas that are far ahead of the times, or far beyond them, and people are bound to object to them or promote them.

4. Racial diversity. Another suprise.  Idaho is still pretty white, but quickly becoming less so, and minorities tend to use social media at higher rates than whites. According to the Pew Internet & American Life project, “Among internet users, seven in ten blacks and English-speaking Latinos use social networking sites—significantly higher than the six in ten whites who do so.” According to the US Census Bureau, the Hispanic population in Idaho increased by more than 43 percent from 2000 to 2007.

Of course, there are cities that are more political active, more racially diverse, more suburbanized and that have a more influential tradition of technology. However, the Boise area ranks relatively high in all of these and taken as a whole, I think that’s what explains Boise’s surprisingly high ranking among socially networked cities.

Thanks to the Idaho Statesman for recently publishing our advice column on Facebook for businesses. This column was in the Feb. 1, 2011 weekly Business Insider. The Insider is a subscription-only publication so this column is only available online to subscribers. To assist, I have republished my column here. I will be submitting these columns

How to avoid common Facebook business mistakes 2-1-11 by Martin Johncox

“I love your salon! Great prices and employees.”

“Thanks for being there when I needed you. I am a huge fan of your auto shop.”

“I feel much better now after my treatment. Thanks for taking care of me!”

These are great comments on the Facebook pages of businesses in Boise and elsewhere. Unfortunately, it is very unlikely anyone will see them.

That’s because the business Facebook page had its default view setting at “only posts by page.” In other words, when visitors come to the page, all the wall has are posts by the business (page admin). In order to see comments from fans, visitors have to click on the small box at the top of the page that says “Business page + others.” Many don’t know to do this, or don’t bother. As a result, the love from fans is hidden and largely unnoticed. As public relations and social media consultants, we administer dozens of Facebook pages and we always set them to display comments by fans and the page.

If you’re concerned about getting too many customer complaints on your wall, get off of Facebook entirely until you fix your customer satisfaction problems. To do well on Facebook, a business needs a fan base of people who love its brand. If people don’t like your business, you’ve got much deeper problems. You shouldn’t mind an occasional customer complaint or concern, and indeed, it will make your business seem authentic and engaged if you handle it correctly. Only delete comments that are obscene or in bad taste.

I think Facebook should make “posts by page + posts by others” as the default. Until then, Facebook page admins will need to make sure the page landing setting is at “Business page + others.” To do this, the page admin needs to go to the top of the page posts (below the comment box) and click “settings” to the right. Under “default view for wall,” make sure the setting is “all posts.”

Many thanks to Simon Shifrin, reporter for the Idaho Business Review, for seeking our firm’s advice in a recent story about Twitter. Simon looked at best practices for handling customer complaints on social media – always a hot topic among clients – and included perspective from Jen Harris (@JenHarris09), project manager for the Boyle Network; Lisa McGrath (@tweetmcg), a new media lawyer in Boise who helps craft social media policies for businesses; and Brad Frazer (@bfrazjd), a partner at Hawley Troxell Ennis & Hawley in Boise.

The online story is available only to subscribers but here is a relevant excerpt:

Martin Johncox (@mjohncox), public relations director at Boise-based Alexander and Associates Inc., said trying to shut down a conversation on Twitter is a bad mistake for a business. It’s like trying to tell people at a cocktail party not to talk about something – it only makes them want to talk about it more.

It’s the culture of Twitter for people “not to be quiet, to probe things and discuss things more at length,” said Johncox, who handles Twitter accounts for a number of businesses. It’s not smart – and bad customer service policy – to try to shut down customers’ conversations on Twitter, he said.

“Any establishment in this position needs to know that no matter how bad they feel, no matter how wrong they think the accusations are, what’s going on here is that your ability to deal with the customer complaint is on display for everyone to see,” he said. “It might be kind of painful and slightly risky, but the restaurant will want to delve into it more.”

“Social Media Minute” gives radio listeners practical tips and advice on communications phenomenon
Idaho public relations company provides affordable pre-recorded segments to stations, which can present them to local advertisers

For more information:
Martin Johncox, Alexander and Associates, 208-658-9100
martin@alexanderandassociates.com
facebook.com/alexandermarketing
twitter.com/alexandermktng
twitter.com/mjohncox

Hundreds of millions of people are using Facebook, Twitter and other social media, yet there are few resources in the traditional media to help them – until now.

Martin Johncox, a public relations and social media consultant, has started the “Social Media Minute,” a tip-of-the-day for radio listeners. The 60-second spots are available for radio stations, which may purchase use of the spots and package them with sponsorship opportunities for local advertisers.

“Social media experts are off in their podcast silos, thinking traditional media are irrelevant – even though traditional media are still command enormous audiences,” Johncox said. “Meanwhile, many traditional media people are not sure how to make social media relevant to their listeners. The Social Media Minute can help bridge this gap.”

Each Social Media Minute will focus on a common issue in social media, with an emphasis on personal and small business use and how-to tips. Johncox is considering the potential for a syndicated call-in talk show with guests. Similar talk shows are popular for computers and technical subjects, but Johncox is not aware of any yet that explore social media specifically.

“One national weekend tech show is actually advising people not to use Facebook – good luck with that,” Johncox said. “Social media are fundamentally changing the way people communicate and the public is eager to learn more about them, not ignore them.”

There are about 123 million Facebook users and 17 million Twitter users in the US. About 41 percent of Americans have a Facebook profile and about 7 percent are on Twitter. While Twitter is smaller, it is more influential, as its members are three times more likely to discuss brands (http://www.edisonresearch.com/twitter_usage_2010.php and www.facebakers.com).

Johncox is a former Idaho newspaper journalist and holds a B.A. in Rhetoric from the University of California at Berkeley and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oregon. Since 2001, he has been public relations director for Alexander and Associates Inc. in Boise. His social media work has won industry awards and he regularly makes presentations to chambers of commerce and business groups on getting started and moving forward with social media. Current clients include Ted Mason Signature Homes, Clothesline Cleaners, Alternate Energy Holdings Inc., Metro Express Car Wash, Breeze Thru Car Wash, Rail City Car Wash, Express Car Wash, Harrison Dental, YMC Inc. and many others.

Johncox, who voices sponsor spots for Boise State Public Radio and local advertisers, writes and professionally records the social media tips and emails them to purchasers. Pricing for the segments is $10 for radio stations in small markets (up to 199,000), $20 for stations in mid-sized markets (200,000 to 499,000) and $30 for stations in large markets (500,000 and above); see http://www.visionentertainment.com/html/us_radio_markets.html for market sizes).

Purchasing rights for the segment allows unlimited use for 30 days. Segments are purchased on a one-off basis and no long-term buying agreements are required. To purchase spots, email socialmedia@clear.net. Payment may be made in check or via PayPal to mjohcox@cableone.net.

Social Media Minute #1: What kind of social media should I use?

Social Media Minute #2: How do I set up a business page?

Social Media Minute #3: Business and personal issues.

Does anybody see the irony in groups like “I WILL NEVER PAY ONE RED CENT TO USE FACEBOOK, NO MATTER HOW MUCH A PART OF MY LIFE IT HAS BECOME” and “ONE MILLION CLOSELY NETWORKED AGAINST FACEBOOK SHARING ONE IOTA OF INFORMATION.”

Yeah, it’s free and I accept that advertisers foot the bill by mining every word I write. This amazing infrastructure is expensive and they have to pay the bills somehow. Get a clue, people.

As many of you know, I do a fair amount of consulting for clients using social media especially Facebook and Twitter. I’ve helped dozens of businesses set up and maintain Facebook pages and Twitter feeds.

More and more, I see businesses using personal profiles to promote their businesses. Bad idea! Facebook will eventually shut down your account, without warning, embarrassing you and erasing all your efforts to build your brand with your customers.

A personal profile page must carry the name of a real person and the legit way to promote your business is with a business page. However, many businesses don’t do this out of ignorance, or intention. Local marketing firms that advise clients on social media (and ought to know better) are misusing profile pages, as well as local media.

You see, it’s much harder to collect “fans” for a business page than it is to collect “friends” for a profile page. The only way a business can get fans is for existing fans to recommend the business to their own friends. However, a business using a personal profile page can reach out and solicit “friends.” This makes the tough work of social media marketing much easier, but it’s an abuse of the system and degrades the experience for everyone.

Facebook is about people and relationships between them. Commerce is secondary and to prove your business’ worth, you need to get your fans talking about you. From a practical standpoint, Facebook is concerned about businesses overrunning the network with “friend requests” to push products and services.

There’s nothing wrong with using Facebook to push products and services, of course. But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it.

I’d compare it to being at a cocktail party or backyard barbecue. If someone in a business uniform asks you for a moment of your time and starts saying why you should have lunch at their restaurant, you’d get annoyed of course. However, if you were talking to a friend of yours and they said, “Hey, I found this great place for lunch” or “I’m now doing marketing for this great lunch place,” that’s more in keeping with the purpose of the event. If you bug your friends with this too much, you won’t have them for long. This keeps the element of personal accountability very much in play.

Facebook is becoming a backyard barbecue at which businesses are piling out of the van, handing out leaflets and pushing their products. If you are a business, promote yourself the legit way: Set up a fan page. Put your name, or the name of a representative, out there to promote you correctly. Give people a reason to talk about your brand and your product and they will reward you by becoming a fan. And, you will avoid the nasty surprise of finding your Facebook account deactivated – and it will happen when Facebook monitors make it to this corner of the world.

The Idaho Business Review occasionally prints columns I write about public relations. The paper was kind enough to print this on July 20, 2009. Apparently it was only published in the print edition and is not available online.

Do-It-Yourself social media for the small business

These days, it seems like everybody is on Facebook and the more adventurous are on Twitter. But did you know many of the “people” on Facebook aren’t even people, but small local businesses?

I’m a relative newcomer to social media and I don’t hold myself out as an expert. But over the past few months I’ve put food on the table setting up and maintaining Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for clients. With a little dedication, any business owner can benefit from social media.

Even the best Web site is just a brochure with limited abilities to network and engage customers. Social media are word-of-mouth advertising and if your business isn’t at least taking advantage of Facebook, you’re missing out a free way to build and reach your customer base.

When it comes to social media, LinkedIn has been compared to the business meeting, Facebook to the hallway chat, Twitter to the cocktail party and MySpace to the smokers in the alley. It’s a good analogy, because each medium requires you present yourself in certain ways.

Here is how to get your business started in Facebook:

1. Set up a personal Facebook page. Head over to www.facebook.com. More than 200 million people are on Facebook, so it must be easy to use. Anyone with basic computer skills can teach themselves the basics: find and make friends, upload photos and videos, link to Web pages, write on walls, post notes, tag photos, etc. Don’t worry about messing up, as you can delete any mistakes.  Collect as many friends and colleagues as you can, at least a few dozen over a couple of weeks. If you get stuck, ask for help from a friend or a professional consultant.
2. Set up a business Facebook page. Click on the Groups link at the bottom of your Facebook page (silhouette of a couple of people). Click on “Create a new group” in the upper right. Fill in the information, upload photos, link to favorable reviews and your own Web site, add trivia, hours, etc. This is the fun part, so talk about your business and what makes it special. You can always add and change information.
3. Prepare to invite people. Once your business page is presentable, invite your friends to become fans. To prevent spamming, Facebook only allows people to invite their confirmed friends to a business page. If you have a customer email list, you can upload that to Facebook and invite these people to become your friends, then invite them to become fans. To do this, type “search” in the search box, then click “Friend Finder” in the top middle of the page.
4. Use your page. Install the Memorable Web Address application (it is easy to do) to make it easier to send people to your Facebook page.  Put the Facebook logo on your Web site and link it to your Facebook page. Email your customers and tell them. Put Facebook on your sign out front, on your advertising, on your menus, on anything you give customers. Give people a discount for becoming a fan and writing on your wall.
5. Consider advertising on Facebook. Facebook ads are on the right of the page and unobtrusive. Facebook pays attention to the words people write and uses that to targets ads. Talk about your favorite books and music and ads related to them will start to appear as if by magic. Facebook advertising is very inexpensive and can be tightly targeted.

For a good example of a local business page (and my handiwork), see http://companies.to/carwash.

So what’s next? Update your business page regularly with photos, videos, links and notes. What about your business is interesting, fun or fascinating? Do you have history, machinery or processes that people can geek out on?

Get fans to write nice things on your wall because this will show up in their status updates for all their friends to see. Ask your hardcore fans to invite their friends. Think about alliances: If you’re going to donate money or hold a charitable event, find the beneficiaries and related groups on Facebook and get them to talk about it.

Keep in mind not to bug people or message your fans too often. Engage customers and talk to them – it is a precious thing when someone thinks enough about your business to become a fan and write on your wall. If you get a negative comment, do not delete it, or you will lose authenticity. Rather, display your ability to handle customer complaints appropriately and you will come out ahead.

If you are new to social media, this can seem intimidating. However, a few hours of effort will reap big rewards and in 2009 and beyond, social media are an essential part of doing business.

Martin Johncox is public relations director for Alexander and Associates. His company’s Facebook page is at http://groups.to/publicrelations and he can be Tweeted @mjohncox or emailed at martin@alexanderandassociates.com.