Social Media Policies

Brian Solis issues his Rules of Social Media Engagement -- including a great 25-point checklist to follow. If your department has not created a policy for staff (not just your student-athletes), Solis gives you a great list to think about.

Among the ones I'd highlight as great strategy points:

5. Respect those whom you’re engaging and also respect the forum in which you participate

12. Know when to walk away. Don’t engage trolls or fall into conversational traps

16. Take accountability for your actions and offer no excuses

21. Empower qualified spokespersons to offer solutions and resolutions

24. What you share can and will be used against you – The internet as a long memory

If you're looking for specific examples, here's links to the one I drafted in 2009 here at Arkansas and a recent blog on creating your strategy within the media relations office.

Bad Idea, but Unethical?

Poynter Institute's Jim Romenesko brings to light a move by the Fort Wayne, Ind., newspaper's sports editor issuing his opinion that a recruit of Indiana should sign with his alma mater, Butler.

Romenesko calls out the move as unethical. In a Cronkite Era reflection, perhaps. But my tweet and post on Romanesko's page is this question:

How is what the sports editor did is different from the same newspaper's editorial board endorsing candidates for an election?

In an era of increasing opinion journalism and branded journalism, at least we can say that the sports editor was transparent?

I'm curious that if the journalist in question had written an opinion piece about where he should sign -- rather than a tweet -- would that have made it different?

Crisis Strategies

CoSIDAnews included this blog post from Mr. Media Training on what to do when the reporter knows too much. The angle was more corporate PR, and as many of us in the sports world know, it's very often a given that the reporters know more than we do -- especially in the high-profile hiring world (don't forget today's teleconference on same from CoSIDA).

An advocate of the "tell our bad news first" for the longest, finding more confirmation that you do yourself a disservice in holding back and hoping is great, but I think that Brad Phillips misses a key point in our world. If you wait until the reporter knows, it really is too late. You will look like you're only trying to spoil the media's story.

To that end, read down in Brad's comments to find this nugget. It's a blow-by-blow of the Vancouver Olympic Committee trying to do just that -- beat a news outlet that via Canadian equivalent of FOI had emails that showed there were pre-accident concerns about the luge track.

As the Canadian journalist points out:

The best media relations tactic probably would have been to disclose the safety concerns a year ago and take the lumps then.


The strategy and the strategist become part of the story. Some might argue that is a valid move -- they aren't talking about the track safety, they are talking about the media person. In a world of increasing transparency, the lasting impression is of a tactic, however, not of getting out the truth -- no matter how hard the PR professional tries to say we were just trying to tell "our side."

FTC Showing Serious Blogger Intent

Many colleagues thought I was overstating back in 2009 when I wrote about the Federal Trade Commission's desire to crack down on "paid blogging".

Guess what? The FTC wasn't kidding. While moving with "all deliberate speed" of the federal bureaucracy, the agency has dropped a quarter of a million dollar ruling against a group that was doing essentially paid advocacy reviews for a product. PRSA's website has the blow-by-blow.

The 140 character takeaway: Be very careful about any endorsements you make, and be ready to disclose any compensations.

That can include review copies, access to events, etc. Above all, it would include paid endorsements -- which a year ago I had heard rumblings of corporate sponsors who were thinking about asking colleges or coaches to say nice things in twitter feeds in return for compensation. That is the very thing that would get the FTC on your case.

To repeat the FTC's ruling:

Bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service.


Again, the actions taken by FTC so far have been related to faking reviews to pump up a product, a sort of astroturfing move. That's not to say if super-visible coach Jones suddenly starting saying on a Twitter feed or Facebook how much they liked pizza from Brand X that wouldn't be the next thing taken on -- especially if no disclosure was made as to why Brand X was his favorite or worse, if Brand X got its logo on the Twitter background.

As an annoyance side note: Is anyone else tired of websites that are coding out the ability to clip short passages? (PRSA, hello; among others). Particularly bothersome when you are say, copying info from a federal agency that by itself isn't going to be copyright subject and you are doing your best to link back and help promote the page you notice. Just saying, not real digi-cool.

Huskies Get It On Voting

Kudos today to Washington as they make their last push for Jake Locker to make the cover of EA college football 2011. Like Vote Mallett in the fall for us in the O'Brien Award voting, if you want a social result -- voting on-line -- you need an effective social campaign. UW went all in today with a move I heartily endorse. To emphasize to the fan base, they changed over all their icons to a "Vote for Jake" graphic on both Twitter and Facebook. No better way to draw attention for your fans -- they get lulled into seeing the same icon week after week. You are not improving your "brand awareness" by not rotating those icons. You are simply becoming background noise.

How do I know that? Well, how do you think I noticed today something was different at Washington? When you scan your social graph or your streams, you don't read the words. What you see are the symbols, the glyphs that represent you.

Zombie Tips for Social Media

Disappointed in myself for not having located Zombie Journalism sooner. This today via the always valuable PRSA daily newsletter -- tips on how to use Twitter and Facebook to put out your news brand info. Aimed more at Twitter than FB, it has the usual new format (X number things you can do!), but there is one thing that caught my eye:

Think curation instead of broadcasting.

As a source of news, I'm not sure this is the top operative thing for Twitter. But on further thought, for a news journalist, it makes sense -- AND in that way for your sub-feeds (teams, coaches or athletes). For example, when we change a game time, that is news that we are generating (or hire a coach). Makes no sense to curate that, you are the source. But for the other coaches in the department -- thinking back to our Mike Anderson weekend as the example.

Here's to hoping the Zombie hasn't had it's head blown off -- I notice in Mandy Jenkins' current post that she's leaving one job now.

Walmart in Crisis Mode

Much was made of Walmart's ability to react during Hurricane Katrina. Here in the States, the global nature of Walmart's operation is sometimes overlooked. Living right in the shadow of the worldwide headquarters in Bentonville (and playing host to the annual Invasion of the Walmartians at our Razorback venues for the annual stockholder meeting), I'm obviously a little more aware, but was quite surprised today with this Wall Street Journal story about WMT in northern Japan. Lessons learned from the Gulf Coast go into quick use -- and notice that WMT had it's emergency operations center up in Bentonville on line even for something happening across the world.

It's often the little things -- look in the timeline of the story and notice how many supply donations were made and when.

Good Enough for D.O.D.

Staying true to the masthead, a thought discovered while on the way to NLR . . .

In today's Washington Times Prince Floyd writes about his experience trying from the public relations office to help pry open the Department of Defense regarding the coming (in 2009) social media revolution. Now that we regularly ascribe legendary impact to Twitter, Prince writes his column today reflecting backwards on his time and the positive shifts from the uber-security minded to the full exploitation of social media. Perhaps I should title this post "The Weaponization of Twitter."

Floyd has several great nuggets in the read:

The success of social-media engagement in defense is not limited to the public sector; similar success stories abound in the private sector as well, especially for companies with dispersed staff and those with highly “stovepiped” internal organizations. Social media, after all, is a tool for communication, development, collaboration and transparency.

He reminds us at the start that Robert Gates arrived from Texas A&M as the secretary of defense with a firm belief in the value of social media (and we remember, a screen name of his own from the Aggie sports blogs - Ranger77). But Floyd saves his best for last:

The key is to understand that most of your people already have joined the social-media revolution. It’s time for you to suit up and join the battle.

Sounds like he wants us singing from the same hymnal as well.

Making Sausage in Public

Pretty much what the hiring process has become these days. All it takes is a well-placed tweet and off we go. For those not close by, I offer a couple of inside looks at the wide world of Razorbacks as we move through our men's basketball coach process. I link to one of the Kansas City Star's bloggers, because he gives the best tweet-by-tweet, blogpost-by-blogpost recount.

None of the media reports have been commented upon, and the frenzy swirls around our AD, Jeff Long, who stands like the eye of the hurricane. At this stage -- noon on Monday, BTW -- the best of all possible strategies.

By no means an indictment of the media involved -- they are doing what they are paid to do which is dig into what's going on and pursue leads. These days, however, it doesn't take a lot to start a lead. What is different is the collective "we" get to watch what once was a behind-the-doors process in the newsroom as sources get vetted and stories get refined.

Social Media Saving Bruce?

The Bruce Pearl saga took another turn this weekend as a group of his dedicated followers decided to take to social media in a campaign to "Save Bruce". Among the targets of the group are the NCAA's main Facebook page. In an interesting piece of transparency, the NCAA appears to not be dumping wholesale the wave of Save Bruce comments that are part of the organized campaign. There seems to be some mild language in some of the comments, but the extremely harsh opinions about the national college sports organization are being allowed to ride. The NCAA did acknowledge the fervor and restate it's position on the matter in what looks like a stickied post at the top of the page.

The Keep Bruce Pearl page on Facebook is up to almost 10,000 likes, no small effort in short time, and the group has YouTube videos and created a mini-pep rally to gather in some traditional media coverage. As one would suspect, they have the participatory blog media already in hand. Twitter is in the mix as the group has reposted Dick Vitale's opinion regarding Pearl's future recently. However, one of Vitale's earlier tweets speaks more to the situation at hand.

Let's be clear: this is a matter for UT's administration to decide, and I'm taking no sides on this matter.

What is important to note is the way the rules are changing. Would an institution's reputation be more damaged in the current social media environment by attempting to tamp down and delete "negative" comments or is the institution better served by letting the event run it's course, like waiting for a fever to break? A year ago, conventional wisdom would support the former. Today, we're watching a real-time example of whether the latter is the valid strategy.

Keep watching.

Libel on Twitter

A NBA ref has joined the parade of persons suing over defamation via Twitter. In this case, an Associated Press reporter sent out a real-time message about a call during a NBA game that resulted in some blowback on the referee. Kim Kardashian is being sued in Florida for a tweet about a particular diet plan.

So, does it have to be true to Tweet?

In England, it will cost you as the first judgment for libel damages was awarded last week. Some more commentary regarding that situation and others. This is interesting as it contrasts the loss in the blogger case against another where pseudonyms were used and the person was able to say whatever. Or, to quote:

if you post something libellous on Twitter about a local rival politician, and have only 30 followers, you can get sued. If you say something potentially libellous, using a pseudonym, on a UK newspaper site, with page views in the millions, you’re fine – that’s just “pub talk”.

We should not be surprised. You become a publisher the moment you begin writing for the world to see. A major difference is what you can seek to achieve. Those with assets are more careful -- ie, brick-and-mortar traditional media have plenty to risk -- and the problem is the random blogger may have nothing more to their name than the cell phone they made the comment with. Certainly those with means have been known to SLAPP opponents to silence them -- if you can't afford to go to court, you better shut up.

Still, the ref brings up an interesting point. Fans yell, coaches complain, but that evaporates into ether, held only in the memories of those who heard it. When a media member reports it, it lasts forever. The NBA appears to be siding with the media in a bit of a "get over it" response, but it begs the question: if it wasn't good enough to put in the story, why tweet it? We give more and more opinion as journalists, and wasn't that the point of some recent commentary that this shouldn't be happening?

PRSA on Churnalism

While I'm driving out to B'Ham for the next blogger gig (SEC gym championship), here's a little light reading for you all until I get to the next WiFi -- or at least my hands off the wheel.

A thoughtful column on the PRSAY website from Steve Iseman about "churnalism." He is reacting to the Columbia Journalism Review calling out the concept as the next great issue to be dealt with in the news world. It's an important read and expands where we started the conversation here when considering the very close relationship between sports information and sports departments.

Woodward Speaks; We Should Listen

Bob Woodward visited the Poynter Institute, which provided excerpts of his talk and an interview on their website. The whole article is required reading, but two tidbids are worth pulling out here:

You get the truth at night, the lies during the day.

While he doesn't dislike social media directly, he worries that:

I think there’s too much emphasis on speed and feeding the impatience people have. … In many ways, journalism is not often enough up to the task of dealing with the dangerous and fragile nature of the world, or the community, or anything you might try to understand.

Defining Spin in Sports

With today's fully immersed media environment, it seems almost quaint to talk about the days in which "spin" had impact. From The Sports Commentary, an excellent essay on the cost of continuing to manage negative events and one of the best definitions of what spin means from the PR professional's aspect I've ever seen.

The authors sets up his spin definition with a great statement regarding the expectations of the public today -- a public that has more tools to gain alternate points of view from the one you are attempting to sell them than ever before in human history.

Turning a potential negative into a positive does not mean you have to lie or “spin” a situation. Turning it around starts with telling the truth, being authentic, being honest, being responsible, and understanding that your consumers, fans, listeners, viewers, readers, shareholders, etc., will stand by and support you if you do not bullsh*t them. They will respect you more if you don’t lie, hide or try to run.

Just like volleyball, after the set comes the kill:

To “spin” is to understand those principles, yet decide you are still going to try to force your position down the throats of a caring and compassionate public and believe that the more you say it, the more they will eventually buy it.

As I've joked, the Adam Savage/Mythbusters School of Spin.

Lesson in The Cost of Twitter

One of my talking points for students about social media is that at least when dealing with the traditional media you could take the approach of being misquoted. On your Facebook or Twitter, you have no one to blame but yourself, and it could cost you dearly.

Just ask Gilbert Gottfried, the current poster boy for inappropriate statements cost you jobs.

The comedian did what acerbic comedians do: make sarcastic light of bad circumstances. Not gonna repeat, but I'll link if you really want to see.

Unfortunately for Gottfried, one of his big gigs is being the voice of the Aflac duck.

Guess who is big in the Japanese insurance market? To the tune of one in four homes big.

That would be Gottfried's former employer.

Now, he wasn't alone. 50 Cent had his shock joke as well. And the State Department lost it's spokesperson for giving an opinion about the WikiLeak-er.

WaPo On Sports

Washington Post provides a very informative article about the growing ability -- and willingness -- of sports teams to be their own media. Bit of missing in the full disclosure category here as WaPo has famously battled its local pro franchises over access. Nevertheless, along with poking at Iowa for the way it announced a new coach, the Post brings us the far more interesting legal battle in Wisconsin over streaming of high school football. It is an echo of the battle in the SEC over who owns the copyright of sporting events, and includes many of the same arguments: it's on public property, it's a First Amendment right.

The courts thus far have seen otherwise siding that it is a commerce question, not a public right to know issue. A quote from a Northwestern journalism professor:

Journalists want to think of sports as news, but at the end of the day, it’s about entertainment and making money.

Which is exactly what the federal courts said in Wisconsin about the high schools:

Ultimately this is a case about commerce, not the right to a free press.

I get the sense this is just the start of a battle royal.

Breaking Down a PR Breakdown

Thanks to the CoSIDA email today for this nugget from Justin Goldsborough as he breaks down the Detroit Pistons' reaction to players not showing up for practice in late February. Two takeaway highlights:

Changing stories, silence from leadership, anonymous quotes all lead to once conclusion — somebody’s lying and nobody’s on the same page.

And

Silence makes it look like you’re hiding or that you don’t have anything good to say about the situation, so you’re choosing to say nothing at all.

Goldsborough gives a timeline of the event that makes it easy to follow how he reaches these, and some other important conclusions. This was pretty classic crisis management -- or in the case of the self-inflicted wound mismanagement. Goldsborough also finds an interesting snag-of-the-sweater moment within these events: the fact the Pistons had dismissed their veteran PR director. He implies that lack of a steady hand on the rudder may have contributed to the erratic behavior of the organization.

Radiation Flowing LIke a River

Interesting New York Times story regarding the impact of social media -- Twitter in particular -- in the current Japanese nuclear crisis. One of the key points were the fear that "unregulated" media would lead to wide-spread dangerous rumors.

I saw my own example of this from an American source:

"tweet reports massive radiation leaks from nuclear reactor in village guess he saw it spilling out like river flow"

On first read, I missed the "guess". I'm thinking what kind of idiot thinks radiation pours out like water from a nuclear plant and what kind of fear-monger repeats it. Second day reflection, perhaps it was an attempt at a joke -- dangerous in 140 characters when you mash together a run-on sentence.

What's interesting is the tweet is from the very first day of the catastrophe in Japan. At the time, there weren't any significant radiation leaks. At least, that's what we were told.

With the problems of receiving accurate information early from the authorities -- or any information -- traditional media and the public are turning to social media. Nature abhors a vacuum, and saying nothing or understating the problem to avoid panic is going to lead to the public finding the information from whoever they can or assuming for themselves, usually the worst case scenario.

TV Anywhere, Again

The NCAA gets it. Oh, we might quibble about some rules, but when it comes to new distribution - from the deal with Turner and CBS, to Ronnie Ramos' new social media initiatives to this - March Madness On Demand.

The iPad/iPhone app simply works. The video is crisp and it is free. How much will I use it? Don't know if I will - I'm actually using it while watching TruTV tonight, but it invalidates the thoughts of those that "people don't watch long videos" on mobile devices.

They have my name, they have my email address and they know I care about NCAA basketball. That puts them ahead, and the value added to me is well worth it.

Sure, it is not real time - probably a factor of the transcoding to Apple friendly formats. Don't overlook a sop to the old school lock it in the channel mindset of some TV types. It's about a minute behind my TV. But if I was in the airport, in a car, on a bus - I would not care about the lag at all.

Remember, the industry has a name for this: TV Anywhere. Keep the viewer engaged as they transition between screens. Who is one of the leaders in pushing that on the cable/sat providers. Oh, yeah, that would be TURNER.

The IP TV revolution is almost here.

Manning Up

Regardless of what you thought about John Pelphrey or his tenure at Arkansas, I submit to my fellow sports PR types a farewell press conference performance for the ages.

Forgive the extreme camera bump at the start. Our camera got elbowed by accident right at the start -- pretty crowded room as you can imagine.

As surely as getting your picture taken with anyone under 21 becomes part of my media training presentations, this video will as well. This is in perfect contrast to the times when players or coaches ducked out during hard times.

I believe this is what they call manning up.