The automaker continues to take a beating in the press over its recall, despite a PR campaign — led by ad agency Saatchi & Saatchi — that includes TV, print, and social media. News broke Wednesday that the Toyota Prius may have a brake pedal problem (which may explain why Toyota's stock price tumbled nearly 5 percent after Japan's Nikkei opened Thursday), while Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said, and later retracted, that people should “stop driving” their Toyotas. Yeah, tough week — and it’s only half over. Amidst the bad news, one PR pro has suggested Toyota consider changing its name. “Is the Toyota name done?” This PR blogger wrote. “After decades of developing a carefully crafted message that Toyota vehicles were safe and superior to American cars, this recall can destroy all that.” Is a name change too extreme? Or should it be an option at this point? Related Consumer Reports Safety recommendations for Toyota drivers.
Most social media professionals have no formal training; they didn’t earn a degree in social media. Instead, they accrued knowledge about blogs, Facebook, Twitter, podcasts, and more, by launching personal Web projects — a personal blog, for example. Here are 10 ways you can use personal Web projects to build your social media expertise. Related Mashable 4 essential traits for social media success in your career.
The women’s retailer held a blogger event, where it gave away special gifts and entered each blogger in a drawing for gift cards of varying amounts — if the bloggers wrote about the company within 24 hours of the event. The promotion resulted in positive coverage. Much of that coverage failed to mention the giveaway. Is that a violation of the Federal Trade Commission’s disclosure guidelines?
For those working in corporate America, this study probably comes as little surprise. The study, from Manpower employer services, found that just 29 percent of companies in the Americas have a “formal policy regarding employee use of social networking sites.” Of the companies that do have a social media policy, 63 percent said it is effective. Related SmartBlog on Social Media Why your boss should let you use Facebook at work.
Ahead of the Friday release of January’s unemployment numbers, The Wall Street Journal reported that few companies are hiring full-time employees. Of course, if you’re out there looking for a job, you probably know that already. “In the last several weeks, a number of big employers have commented on their staffing levels, or their outlook for employment overall, and it's telling that there is little optimism,” Paul Vigna and John Shipman wrote for WSJ. Verizon’s CEO is quoted in the story — the cell phone company just cut 13,000 employees — predicting that any pickup in the economy won’t come until later this year. Related Voice of America Or maybe WSJ is wrong. Voice of America reported Wednesday that private employers cut only 22,000 jobs in January, which is about one-fourth of the total jobs lost in December. Related Adweek Survey: Marketers more optimistic about the economy.
DaVita, a national Fortune 500 company that provides outpatient dialysis services, is seeking an experienced corporate communications professional with PR and media outreach expertise to join its El Segundo, Calif., business office as a communications manager. Read more about this job.
Can you do it? Would you like to see the full list? Barbara Rozgonyi, author of the Wired PR Works blog, published the top 40 PR blogs, according to the AdAge Power 150 list. How many of these blogs do you read? What’s missing?
Have a client who is, or might be, going on “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart? Maybe you’ve always harbored dreams of going on the funnyman’s show? Here’s a unique post from someone who has been on the show, Ethan Watters, a writer. Last week, Stewart interviewed Watters about his new book. These 10 items from Watters are informative and interesting — a good read. Plus, he tells you the contents of “The Daily Show” gift bag (hint: lots of booze). Related Gawker Last night, Jon Stewart visited Fox News' Billy O'Reilly on his show “The O'Reilly Factor.” Gawker has the entire interview.
The author of this post, Bill Rice, the CEO of Kaleidico, said, “Twitter is a public relations professional’s dream or nightmare.” True — so don’t make it a nightmare. Here, Rice provides an outline for how to make Twitter a PR pro’s dream.
Last month, Luca Penati, managing director of Ogilvy’s global tech practice, published what he believes will be the top 10 priorities for PR pros in the tech world. He just added another priority to that list — yep, in the spirit of Nigel Tufnel, he took the list to 11. No. 6 on this list is the additional priority, “Building communities.” According to Penati, “I am sure that in 2010 we will start to see more and more community manager job opportunities in the marketplace.”
Did you hear that last week the progressive PR firm Murray Hill announced its (satirical) plan to run for Congress? It’s calling the run the “first test of ‘corporate personhood’ in politics.” The announcement reflects the Supreme Court’s recent decision to remove limits on corporate campaign spending. “Now that democracy is truly for sale, Murray Hill incorporated is offering top dollar,” a voice says on the video announcing the run. “Vote Murray Hill incorporated for Congress: For the best democracy money can buy.” Here's that video.
This is pretty hilarious. At the Defamer blog, which is part of the Gawker Media empire, there’s a post highlighting two press releases from Tuesday, both contain so-called sightings and quotes from celebrities (Snooki from TV show “Jersey Shore,” and actress Kristen Bell). These are worth a look.
You know the tweet. Someone posts a message that's so self-congratulatory or maybe an obnoxious quote and you've had enough. Sorry, pal, you're unfollowed. What kind of tweets make you unfollow someone?
Graduation season is over, which means college grads are either in the workforce or looking for work (or maybe none of the above). What advice do you have for budding communicators in today's harsh hiring landscape?
RSS
CART
Comments
