Social media maven jump-starting PR in hard-times Flint

The new PR manager and social media guru for the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau has a tough job.

Already facing the mounting problems with the auto industry, Matt Bach recently fired back at an Ontario radio station that had launched a “This Ain’t Flint” advertising campaign. The video focused on Flint’s problems — in 1989! — in order to highlight the relative success of greater Ottawa today.

The Flint public relations effort has been an uphill climb, Bach says, ever since Michael Moore released the 1989 documentary Roger & Me about General Motors’ Flint-area plant closings in the mid-1980s, which put tens of thousands out of work. 

“Part of my job is to shape public perception,” Bach says. “If you tell anyone you’re from Flint they say, “Oh, Roger & Me, Michael Moore, skinning rabbits.” A portion of the film features a Flint resident who ekes out a living selling rabbits — as pets or as cheap food. 
  
“Unfortunately that’s what we’re known for,” Bach says, “and it’s a 20-year-old movie, but that’s the stigma that’s attached to us. So, my job is to change perceptions one blog, one Web site, one Internet comment at a time.”

Most of us don’t have to combat perceptions that are decades deep, but Bach’s initial efforts in social media, from blogger interaction to Facebook to Twitter, teach some lessons in transparency that can apply to anyone with a brand to maintain.

Social media “is all so new to everybody, and the key is you got to be able to change, you’ve got to be able to roll with the punches,” Bach says. “I’m ready for the next big social thing to go. I’m in the wings, keeping my ears out for whatever it’s going to be.”

Focusing on Facebook

When Bach came across the “This Ain’t Flint” video on his Google Alerts a few weeks ago, one of his first reactions was to jump on Facebook and change his status to “Check this video out, and if it upsets you as much as it does me, here’s the e-mail for the station manager and the advertising company.”

The radio station got so many e-mails from his Facebook friends and from their friends that the station posted an apology on their Web site.

The video stayed up, but Bach says Flint actually gained in the process.

“I think we came out ahead,” Bach says. “We got some tremendous exposure. This same radio station has offered us a free four-week advertising campaign on their radio station in Ottawa. They’ll be airing ads this summer. … We actually think it could result in additional business for our hotels and restaurants.”

This wasn’t the first time changing his Facebook status had gained results for Bach. When he learned in February that his position as community conversation producer at the The Flint Journal’s Web site was being cut, Bach changed his status to “Matt is looking for a job, will work for money.”

Within 24 hours, he had a job. One of his 600-plus friends saw his update, asked around, and found that the nonprofit Visitor’s Bureau had an opening in social media PR.

So far, Bach’s social media effort has focused mainly on Facebook. Growing up in Flint and working for more than a decade at The Flint Journal has made him lots of contacts within his community of 125,000, including family, old friends, and current and former colleagues.

He has about 500 friends on Facebook and, using his status messages and word of mouth, built a network of about 650 members for his Discover Flint and Genesee County Michigan group. His Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau fan page has 60 fans.

Because the Visitors Bureau Web site is run by a third party, Bach can’t post press releases or start a blog. So, he’s moved all updates to Facebook. On his group and fan pages he posts links, press releases, and events going on around town.

“As far as getting the word out, it’s been all word of mouth,” Bach says. “On Facebook, when I launch a new page, I actually go on my personal page and say, ‘Hey, Matt as part of his job just launched new page.’ On all e-mails I send out, I have Facebook and LinkedIn links, so anybody who gets an e-mail from me would have those links to go to.”

In the heat of the battle over the “This Ain’t Flint” video, one of Bach’s Facebook friends, a passionate citizen prompted by his status message, made a group page of her own, aptly named, This Is Flint!!! A handful of the 380 members have posted on the group’s wall about how much they like Flint, such as one simple comment, “It is HOME!!!”

Engaging with bloggers

Bach has helped bring Flint to Facebook, but it’s really the passionate people in and from Flint that make the campaign work. If there’s a lesson to be learned from Bach’s social media beginnings, it’s that it’s not necessarily about promoting your brand, it’s about reaching the people who can help talk about your brand honestly and sincerely.

To help harness some of his community’s passion, Bach has formed a group of about 25 dedicated residents and PR professionals that help him get the word out online every day. Each morning, he receives Google Alerts for Flint, Michigan, City of Flint, Grand Blanc (a suburb of Flint), and a number of other Flint-related topics. He compiles the links, adds his own commentary, and sends them off to his group. But it doesn’t stop there.

“I ask them to comment on a story in the local newspaper that people are commenting on, and I ask them to talk about Flint and the importance of a particular event — for example, our Buick Open,” Bach says. The Open is an annual PGA golf tournament that attracts thousands of visitors and raises money for local charities.  

“With the fate of GM up in the air,” he says, “there’s concern that it may or may not be here this year. … So I ask people comment on the article to show people that there are supporters out there and they’d like it to stay here.”

Similarly, some of his own social media efforts have been focused on respectfully correcting bloggers who blog erroneous information about Flint — a reactive rather than proactive message.

For example, blogger Jordon Cooper, while writing about the GM job cuts and overall unemployment numbers in February, made the comment, “I wonder how many of those jobs that are lost are going to be able to transition into something else or if we are going to see a whole bunch of Flint, Michigan, type of cities across the Midwest.”

Bach picked this up on a Google search and reminded Cooper in a comment after the post that although “it’s true Flint has gone through a transition due to changes in the auto industry, we are a community on the rebound with many positive attributes, including excellent parks, museums, and cultural activities.”

Bach says he tries to be genuine in his replies to bloggers. For example, he’ll say something like: “ ‘You know what? We have our negatives, but here are positive things we have as well.’ I want to come across as being honest; I try not to sound like a figurehead or a PR person. I want to sound like real person.”

Cooper responded a few days later with a completely new post about Flint for a “more balanced look.” In it, he provided links to Web sites with more facts about Flint.

“My hope is next time he wants to compare something, he’ll have a little different view of Flint and maybe his readers will have a little different view of Flint, too,” Bach says.

Yes, Flint has had a fairly turbulent recent history, and though Bach is active in heading off rumors and highlighting the recent revitalization efforts in Flint, he takes care not to deny the facts while he’s typing.

“It’s important to acknowledge things and not bury our heads in the sand,” Bach says. “Obviously we do have high unemployment rate — we acknowledge that. But we have other people out there bringing those things up, so there’s no need for us to bring those things up. … I only comment on blogs if I see a gross error, a generalization, or a characterization of Flint as a terrible place.”

Seeing the future on Twitter

But from where Bach’s sitting, interest in Facebook and perhaps even blogs may be on a downward swing. Twitter is the new hot social media tool, but one that was harder for him to start using than Facebook.

“It seems like Twitter is the thing right now,” Bach says. “Twitter was tough for me, because initially it was like cough syrup: I didn’t like it, but I knew I had to take it.”

As was his strategy with Facebook, Bach joined Twitter as an individual first. He started tweeting in March, about a month after he started at the Visitors Bureau and now has about 500 followers. He began tweeting from Flint Tourism in mid-April and has about 225 followers.

Right now, Bach uses both his personal account and his business account to interact with people tweeting about Flint and to tweet his own news and events in Flint. He’s planning on stepping up his micro-blogging along with his full-fledged blogging.

“I noticed on Twitter, the more you update and the more people’s follows you accept, the more you get followed — it’s a domino effect, so I’ve been doing a lot of that.”

In the meantime, he’s also trying to find a way to track his success with social media. That may include finding slightly higher sales for Flint-area hotels, but probably won’t include completely changing most people’s perceptions of Flint.

“We’re the birthplace of GM [in 1908], and we’re always going to be the birthplace of GM whether GM is here or not,” Bach says. “It’s important to remember that, but also to explain that we’re trying to grow beyond that.

“We learned some painful lessons like you can’t have all your eggs in one basket, which in our case was the auto industry. … What we understand now is the need to diversify.”