This is the course blog for an upper-level class on Social Media and Public Relations taught at St. Edward's University. In this course, we explore emerging social media technologies and study their application in contemporary PR practice.
Seems like it finally dawned on Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, that he needed to join the Beacon conversation! He posted an official apology on the Facebook blog today, acknowledging that his company was wrong in the way it handled the Beacon problem. Note that he directly addressed one of the hot-button issues in his post - his choice to make Beacon an opt-out instead of an opt-in program - thereby showing that his company is listening to user concerns.
Zuckerberg's blog post is structured like a textbook example of a crisis PR response:
Paragraph 1: Apologize for the specific problem
Paragraph 2 & 3: Explain what happened/what let to the mistake
End of paragraph 3: Condemn the mistake
Paragraph 4: Explain what needs to be done to fix the problem. In my opinion he would have been better off addressing Facebook users directly here instead of referring to them as "people" (not very personal)
Paragraph 5: Explain what has been done to fix the problem and tell users about it
Paragraph 6: Thank users for sharing their concerns, thereby validating them. The only thing he didn't do at the end was discuss how Facebook plans to "make up" for their mistake (such as Apple offering in-store credit to early iPhone adopters, or JetBlue issuing vouchers after the Valentine's Day disaster). But then again, Facebook is a free service which sets it apart from those examples.
Zuckerberg's apology is similar to Steve Jobs' open letter to iPhone users after Apple upset its fan base by dropping the price of the iPhone after only a few months on the market. The apology is not the only similarity though. Facebook and Apple both managed to anger an otherwise ultra-loyal public - the people who love their service/product. Apple's iPhone faux-pas and Facebook's Beacon dilemma also act as a good reminder to companies not to underestimate the power of their key publics to organize online and pressure for change.
Since some of you will be graduating in two weeks, I thought you might be interested in this Facebook group for PR job hunters. It would be a good place to show off your new social media resume.
I caught a story on the news yesterday about NATO realizing that it needed to take the war against the Taliban to YouTube. In a speech delivered last month, NATO's Secretary General explained the problem: "When there is an incident in Afghanistan, the Taliban are quick to say there have been high numbers of civilian casualties. The wires pick it up, then the TV stations, then the Web. Our response comes days later – if we are lucky. By that time, we have totally lost the media battle." According to a NATO spokesperson the Taliban is "doing better than we are on key battleground -- and that's video".
In an effort to counter Taliban propaganda, NATO has declassified some videos showing Taliban fighters disguising as women and using little children as human shields. The Record, a daily local Ontario newspaper, ran an interesting story describing how NATO came to change its position on releasing these videos.
In response (?) to NATO's move, al Qaeda's TV production unit today released a new Bin Laden tape accusing NATO of having disrepsected the rules of war and having attacked and killed women and children on purpose.
That just goes to show that fighting a war is about much more than just the physical combat on the ground. The real war is fought in the court of public opinion with YouTube videos as the new weapon of choice.
When we talked about Facebook Beacon and Facebook Social Ads in class today, we used those two terms interchangeably. They're not quite the same though. Let me try to explain the difference (as I understand it):
Facebook Beacon: - Beacon works by allowing one of Facebook's partner sites to put a cookie on your browser when you interact with their site (i.e. when you buy something on Overstock, rent a movie, etc.) - The cookie then sends the information about your online activity (i.e. what you bought, what movie you rented) to Facebook - Facebook then publishes that information to your friends' news feeds.
Facebook Social Ads: - Company writes the ad copy and decides who they want to see the ad - Facebook displays the ad "in the left hand Ad Space — visible to users as they browse Facebook to connect with their friends — as well as in the context of News Feed — attached to relevant social stories." - So social ads can work independently of Beacon, but they don't have to. Facebook Beacon allows Facebook to feed the social ad to users whose friends have interacted with the company's Facebook Page or their website
Here's an example of a Facebook Social Ad (note that it displays the user's profile picture):
According to Facebook's website, "Facebook Social Ads allow your businesses to become part of people's daily conversation." Judging by the growing popularity of MoveOn.org'sStop Invading My Privacy group, that conversation seems to be turning against them though. Even the mainstream media is starting to weigh in on this issue. Here's a CNN story on Facebook Beacon that should qualify as negative media coverage:
I've also just stumbled across this blog post which outlines a lot of the privacy concerns we discussed.
Considering our latest discussions of viral video, you might be interested in the following article series on YouTube trends from the No Man's Blog.
This series of 5 reports examines the most viewed videos (all time, monthly, & weekly) on YouTube and provides some interesting insights into what goes viral.
We'll be examining the Cluetrain Manifesto next class. Please read the 95 theses of this manifesto so that we'll be able to have a class discussion on it.
As you read them, think about how these theses apply to the practice of PR and how we could change current PR practices to respond to some of the criticisms contained in the Cluetrain theses.
Since search engine rankings are equivalent to influence in this Web 2.0 world, it seems like a good idea to take a closer look at the inner workings of the mother of all search engines - Google. More than half of all online searches are currently run by Google!
This page does a great job visualizing what takes place behind the scenes when an Internet user runs a search on Google. This site doesn't discuss Google's search algorithm, but rather focuses on the logistics of running the search.
