The Evolve Blog
Social Media Roundtable 2: Still no furniture in sight
Three more luminaries have tossed their opinions into the mix, and those are collected here for your reading pleasure. It’s still not actually a roundtable… more like a trough. A trough of knowledge. So step up to the trough, little piggies (yes, still got swine flu on the brain) and suck up this nutritious opinion.
Again, the question posed was, “In your experience, how has the emergence and growth of social media and social networking affected or changed the way companies interact with their customers?”
Monkeys and PR
Is PR so simple a monkey could do it? Futurama’s Gunther surely could, Clyde (I know he’s an orangutan) could probably get press for anything, beyond that, probably only a handful of other monkeys come to mind. What does that mean for our profession? Well, thanks to...
McDonald’s McLaunches McCafe… can it McSucceed?
So today the mighty M is launching its McCafé brand in the US (I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to savor the flavors up here in Canada), bringing “quality espresso-based coffee” to its restaurants nationwide. They’re trying to take a bite (or gulp, if you will) out of the lucrative coffee market dominated by the likes of Starbucks and whatever other local mega-chain you have around your parts. Will it work, though?
Crisis communications, or: “Holy shit, this sucks.”
You see, the state of the economy is to blame for some layoffs we had to make at CD Projekt RED — we didn’t have to fire hundreds or thousands of people like a lot of other companies did, but nevertheless we were affected. Those layoffs spawned at least one disgruntled employee who felt the need to reach out to media to expose what was/is a very fragile situation in the development of The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf.
What do you want from me?!
I’d like to make sure that this lil ol’ blog is useful not only to us as a vehicle of shameless self-promotion, but to you readers as a source of information. So… what the hell do you want from us? I’d like to get your feedback on the types of content you’d like to see, subjects you’d like covered, etc.
Everyone likes bacon, but nobody likes swine flu? UPDATED
It’s no secret — me likey pork. Whether in chop form, thicker chop form, bacon, ham, you name it — I’ll probably enjoy it. But now this whole swine flu thing is giving pigs a bad rap. Now, nevermind kooky theories that this flu may be some zombie version of the 1918 Spanish flu that nearly toppled Europe, but it’s about time for pigs to hire a PR agency or some marketing consultants to sort this whole thing out. Pigs — with the assistance of communicators — could do a few things in this situation:
The Value of a Good PR Junket
In light of Tom Ohle's fine new blog, I started thinking about the value of the PR junket, of which I have attended several thousand. One must wonder, is there any value in the PR junket? The three-day trip to Europe? The two-day soiree in Mexico? Are video game...
Zeno Clash dev does what the Navy Seals didn’t — negotiate with pirates
Arrr! Piracy is a big issue in the video game and entertainment industries -- we all know that. A lot of companies take the totalitarian approach and oppress users with ridiculous DRM. Others try to add value to legitimate purchases. And others, like Zeno Clash...
Games PR Ain’t All Fun and… well… Games
Before we all get too deep into the details and theories of PR and marketing, I wanted to thank Tom for setting all this up. He's got a nice group of PR, marketing and media people involved here - many of whom I've worked with before in some capacity - so I /clap for...
Twitter retains customers like I retain water… not well.
Of course you can read the rest of the article, but the gist of it is that, according to a Nielsen Online study, only 40% of the people who post on Twitter this month will still be there next month. But… but… Oprah and Ellen and MC Hammer use Twitter. Surely Ashton Kutcher can’t be campaigning for global prominence on a service that can’t even keep an audience. That’s what you’d be saying if you’re one of those people who actually cares about celebrities and their one-way communication on Twitter.
How to Make Headlines
Welcome to the future of public relations: Despite the dizzying array of tools (Facebook, Twitter, a mysteriously-timed sudden resurgence of interest in booth babes, etc.) now at our disposal, the basics still look much the same as they did yesterday. Or rather, they...
DMing on Twitter shouldn’t count as “really” reaching out. Or should it?
I get it, social networks are all the rage (see my roundtable post coming soon.) But as with all formal business, why would you leave something to chance? With the unreliability of the ever-growing Twitter, is it really fair to assume that I'm going to get your DM for...
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