I’m thrilled that Dave Carroll of the band, Sons of Maxwell, interviewed with me. Dave was kind enough to provide us with his perspective on how his recent YouTube video, United Breaks Guitars resulted in passion and enthusiasm from people around the world. The video has over 4.4 million views and over 30,000 ratings!
I think that the Vocus Virtual Conference is an example of social media learning at its best. The conference was about leveraging social media, it was promoted through social media and the attendees were provided with an interactive environment where they could network and collaborate together around a number of interesting topics.
I was just thinking about a conversation that I had on Twitter recently with two of my friends and fellow PR/social media colleagues, @narciso17 and @aerocles. It actually started when @aerocles tweeted, “I’m bored.” I immediately responded with “How could you be bored with so much Social Media?” Somehow the conversation morphed into the abundance of Social Media and just media in general, which leads to social networking fatigue (SNF) and sensory overload.
I came across a viral video called United Breaks Guitars that I thought was really good. Dave Carroll, a musician in the band, Sons of Maxwell, created a viral video with his band after he experience an unfortunate incident with United Airlines. Because his guitar was broken during a flight from Halifax to Chicago, Dave expressed his upset and despair by sending United Airlines a very strong message. The video has over 3.3 million views and more than 24,000 ratings. It was also picked up by Fox News and other news stations.
Creating a social media policy or guidelines for your organization can be a daunting task. I think the number one question is where do we start? Many companies begin communicating in the social media landscape and then have to step back to build their policies. There are many different approaches that I’ve seen, however, here’s an easy way to tackle the development of your social media guidelines:
I’ve written a couple of posts recently that focus on the importance of technology and how it’s critical for PR people to explore and get up to speed with the latest applications and resources not only for their own agencies but also for their clients. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to do an update on the new developments at TEKgroup International.
There’s always a tremendous amount of discussion around the Social Media Release (SMR). I still have executives asking me about its value, whether is it necessary to use, if it the SMR should replace a traditional release and the list goes on. I remember in 2007 when I first interviewed Phil Gomes, SVP of Edelman Digital, in my book PR 2.0, New Media, New Tools, New Audiences, he knew that the SMR was a useful tool for all companies, not just technology firms. I agree with Phil and have been using the SMR with great results.
I received my PR training in the late 1980’s. I was lucky to watch and work closely with a Vice President and a SR. Vice President at Padilla Speer Burdick & Beardsley (now Padilla Speer). At the start of my career, I knew the importance of building a relationship. These same principles are used today. However, back in the 80s, although the principles were the same, the tools and outreach were different.