Top Media/PR bloggers from MediaBistro, Joe Ciarallo of PRNewser and Matt Van Hoven of AgencySpy, sat down with Carrot President and Creative Director Mike Germano to chat about the landscape of Social Media.

An excerpt:

“…social media is not meant for everyone (or, more poignantly, every client). Germano says clients come to him, whether of their own volition or via an agency who seeks Carrot’s skills, however Carrot still turns down one in five clients whose business isn’t right for Social Media. Regardless, Germano considers his (and co-founders Robert Gaafar and Chris Petescia) business an agency — not a vendor.”

Videos of each interview are posted on the AgencySpy and PRNewser blogs.

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Photo Credit: Addicted Eyes on Flickr.

Lately we’ve been seeing that social media brings about a lot of questions for those not familiar with the channels.

• Why would we want to create a platform for people to complain?
• What if people attack us publicly on the site?
• If they say something negative, others can see it and escalate it to higher sources. That’s not good for us and why should we promote this?
• How can we control the content?

All very good questions. Many revolving around whether it is worth jumping into this space and all of the “fires” that will start due to beginning engagement. The thing is, whether your create a platform to begin engagement or not—people are still going to talk about your brand. So, do you use social media as a place to start the fire OR as a place to save it before the fire gets bigger?

When we make recommendations, we encourage companies to jump in and set up a space specifically for their brand/company. Then, if people bring up comments, question—they are doing it in a space that we are already monitoring. YES, people may say bad things. But as we’ve learned, bad things are usually not backed up and can be discussed further to clarify. Would you rather know about a problem right away or learn about it from somewhere else where it has already escalated?

So, take our recommendation. Don’t worry about the fires. They’re easy to put out and if you strategically plan for it, you’ll be able to do so with ease.

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Here’s my example. Did everyone see the Joaquin Phoenix meltdown on David Letterman from last week? Basically, he shows up in an “altered state” completely out of his mind and David Letterman, trained with experience teases him, jokes with him in the most awkward late night interview I’ve ever seen. The buzz flew around the interwebs with the YouTube video seeing over 1.3 million views! I can only imagine what his publicist was doing at the time of the show. (Probably frantically running for the Classifieds or a shot of Jack Daniels.) Word around the web was “He was on drugs” “He’s crazy” “Lost his mind”—Did you also know that Joaquin Phoenix was on to promote a movie? Not many people I talked to did unless they watched from the beginning when Letterman introduced him.

So, let’s think about this from a PR stand point. The goal of having him on the show was to promote his new movie Two Brothers which by the way had a HUGE ad push. But, as he slowly turned into joke of the week and the video gained traction on YouTube and blogs, is the movie now getting attention or just Joaquin and his crazy ways?

When thinking about the initial PR plan for the movie, I’m sure the team did NOT take this into account. Social media can make or break a PR plan in my opinion. This in some ways could actually be a “breaker” vs “maker.” What started as a simple plan for marketing a unique movie, getting the star on Letterman to promote the movie has now expanded past that and into a deeper look to the actor and cast through social media playbacks of a crazy video. From the flip side, AdAge goes into it more here and how the movie is actually doing quite well despite the Letterman meltdown.

As many client requests come in to “please make this go viral”—you can’t. You can only hope that a video of your brand gets 1.3 million views. But, would you want it to take away from your initial goal? Would you want the end result to be a mistake video getting a ton of traffic but overshadowing the main message? I don’t think so.

What do you think?

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Photo Courtesy of The Bitten World.

You can thank the fact that today is National Pie Day for the witty subject line. But, it’s true. Pie is more than the filling and I doubt anyone can say that they eat pie for only the dry top layer. So, where am I going with this?

I’m linking social media and pie. Yes. It’s happening. Just like a pie, you need every ingredient to make it the best that it can be. The filling is what makes it, but you can’t leave out the crust or the
topping. In fact, to some people it’s not even a proper pie if you don’t put whip cream
on it. Same with a communications plan, you need all of the ingredients for it to work.

Social media is the filling. The really great stuff that you  remember because it’s not bland, usually has some exciting element or “taste” to it and has a unique flavor. But, without other ingredients like traditional PR outreach, advertising and brand defense—you don’t have the full picture or in this case the full piece of the “pie.”

John Brandon from NetworkWorld  wrote a great article questioning social media’s impact-particularly around the Obama campaign and it’s use of social media. He notes that while popular sites like Facebook, YouTube, etc… all of a lot of power—they’re not the end all of communication. Did it help the Obama campaign? TOTALLY. Was it the only reason? NO.

Social media needs to be part of the equation to help the overall plan. I have yet to see a campaign only done with social media. Those recommending that plan of action are not thinking correctly and it won’t work. Other elements need to be considered to ensure a result that benefits your brand.

John says, “For those trying to use social networks to actually influence thinking,
you have to remember that most people are only paying attention to them
in a sideways glance. None of these systems are game changers. Say you’re a PR firm trying to
get your product noticed. Social media helps. What actually gets the
product noticed, though, is old fashioned advertising, word of mouth,
and favorable reviews. It also has to be a good product.”

Part of this is true as you need to drive word of mouth, reviews, etc. to the actual social media part of the campaign, but in some cases the social media element of the campaign ARE those things. Posting something through Twitter is word of mouth marketing across the campaign to drive back to a Facebook application or a live stream interview with a top executive.

The important thing to take away here is that social media IS part of a bigger equation and an important one. As you do when baking a pie, you only use a certain amount of ingredients to result in a delicious dessert—think of it in the same way you plan your comms plan as well.

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We’re proud to announce that two of >carrot’s founders have been featured in the Fall 2008 issue of Quinnipiac University‘s Business Magazine. Inside you’ll find a great overview of social-media, and how it’s completely changing the advertising landscape of the 21st century.

Quinnipiac was listed as one of the top ten wired schools in the country according to PC Magazine and is continually exploring new ways to adapt marketing to the modern business world. The full article is embedded below.

Get your own – Open publication

Photo Credit Quinnipiac University

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