Last week, members of the armed forces were in limbo wondering if they’d receive pay while the government was working to meet an agreement on budgets. The news of a potential government shutdown created an uproar amongst Americans across the country, especially among those of the families and actual members of active duty armed forces. In the midst of the chaos and concern, one company stepped up to help and Facebook fans took notice.

Navy Federal Credit Union announced on April 7 that they’d advance direct deposit paychecks for active duty military members. Any military member that had direct deposit set up through Navy Federal Credit Union would receive coverage of the April 15 payroll, in addition to other financial backings including lines of credit, overdraft programs and credit card limits. This hit close to home personally as my boyfriend (in the Navy) informed me he’d only be receiving half pay.

Upon this announcement, fans took to Facebook thanking Navy Federal for their support when the government wasn’t supporting them. For a few days leading up to the announcement by congress, petitions were created and signed, and passed along through Facebook. Complete strangers bound together to create a collective voice, using FB as their bullhorn.

What I found most interesting as a social media specialist is that Navy Federal, even though they only had 2,500 fans on Facebook, garnered hundreds of engagements throughout the week. This is the kind of social interaction that most companies yearn for and it proves why  you need to build your networks before you ever need them. While prior to this, the Navy Federal fans were hardly a captive audience on Facebook, once they were given a reason to interact with the page, they were quickly activated.

In addition to commending Navy Federal on the announcement, fans of the Facebook page have gone so far as to mention how happy they are with customer service in the branches around the US. And though Navy Fed has done a great job responding to these comments, I’d recommend that they take advantage of all the extra eyeballs they have and keep the engagement going. If Navy Fed were my client, I’d insist that they reevaluate their initiatives by looking at the comments they’re receiving and catering a plan to continue growing and capitalizing on the attention they’re getting.

What recommendations do you have for Navy Federal to keep their engagement going? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Mike Hodges and pick his brain on the newspaper and publishing industry.  Mike is the VP of Interactive for the Union Tribune and General Manager of SignonSanDiego.com and has extensive experience in the digital space.

Newspapers around the country have been looking to re-invent themselves and take advantage of their existing offline audiences while building online audiences and implementing new programs within the interactive medium. Lots of changes are taking place in this space as newspapers look to please multiple audiences and continue to provide great content.

Take a break from your emails and watch the interview for an inside perspective on the changes in the newspaper and publishing industry.

Bonus Tip: check out this ComScore report on audience segmentation between online readers and offline readers

We have a secret.

Okay, maybe it’s not a secret but I bet most of you don’t know that Bailey Gardiner has a dedicated digital team.

Our mission? To research and share the latest technology, creative innovations and best practices in the online and mobile world. Each team member is assigned a different discipline that they research. We meet regularly to share our respective findings, listen to inspiring digital speakers and uncover the latest digital innovations that we can put to use for our clients.

It dawned on us that we were all really learning a lot and that it just wasn’t fair to keep all this great info to ourselves. This will serve as the first in a series of periodical blog posts designed to share our learning with a broader audience.

Online Advertising
Google’s is now beginning to test display advertisements highly targeted to the content of our emails and only for those already heavy in image content. Couple this with mandatory video advertising in YouTube and it’s clear that Google is getting more comfortable getting into the faces of its users.

Creative Innovations
Artist Alexandre Oudi has sparked a phenomenon on Facebook. Using the new format he has figured out how to display images in a conceptual way.

The Martin Agency and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts introduce a campaign to promote their new Picasso exhibition which uses QR codes and augmented reality in a unique way.

SEO
Local search is gaining in popularity. Google has listed how to optimize your Google Place Page and there is much content on the Internet about how to maximize review sites.  You can list your business on three major sites that will share your listing with many of the smaller ones.

A presentation from Benu Aggerwal gives great tips for making the most of Google Places and local search. Learn how to get traffic to your site as well as ideas for generating content. And last, get help with SEO competitive analysis.

Privacy
Google Chrome now offers an opt out feature as an app. This will allow users to prevent certain advertisers and data companies from tracking them online.  FTC has extended its deadline for the public to submit comments on its report about online privacy from Jan 31 to Feb 18.

Video
Breaking convention–altering the expected viewing experience–is still a popular technique for videos. Here are two examples for youtube. Sylvester Stallone’s Interview for The Expendables and Google’s Nexus X Unboxed by Ninjas.

Social
This is big stuff in the world of LBS. I know not all of you are fans of Foursquare, but these latest changes further prove that its developers know what they are doing. The platform is really getting quite sophisticated and has grown so much from its humble beginnings as a game. Just a few days ago it launched a whole slew of changes, but the explore tab and the algorithm for recommendations is particularly intriguing.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when doing PR around an event is to assume the media will want to cover it. Let’s be honest, what really makes our pitch any different than the million other emails and calls your media contacts receive on a daily basis? It’s not easy selling an anniversary, festival and/or celebration to the media – so how do you make sure your event gets attention? Here are a few tips I found helpful over the past few weeks while pitching media for our Culture & Cocktails event at The San Diego Museum of Art:

Relevancy – Is your event timely? Is there anything similar trending in the news right now? At Bailey Gardiner, we often brainstorm how to tie in our event outreach with something newsworthy or current – maybe even offer your story as a follow up to a similar article or segment the media outlet has covered in the past.

Visuals/Angles – What can you offer to make your story THAT much cooler? Try to think like a producer or editor when you write your pitches – what would you like to see if you were producing the content? Besides the standard spokesperson, what else can you bring to the table to present a well-rounded story?

Spokesperson – If you have access to more than one spokesperson, you can match each individual to specific media depending on its type of audience. For example, are you reaching out to a publication who appeals to a younger demographic? Try using someone who can easily (and believably) speak to this group of people.

Story – Why should the producer/reporter/editor care? Does your event support their demographic? Will their audience be interested in what you have to offer? Just because it doesn’t seem to be a fit right off the bat, doesn’t mean you have to rule it out – you may be able to find an angle to reach the audience (but don’t stretch too far).

Variety – Are you pitching different angles to different media contacts in order to produce diverse media placements? For The San Diego Museum of Art, Culture & Cocktails, we recently booked three TV segments the week of the event – one focusing more on the art, another highlighting the event itself, and the last, a mix of the two with different visuals. The media will be happy to know you’ve fine-tuned each segment to their specific audience as well.

It all comes down to shaping the right story for your event, and talking to the right people about why they should care. Going the extra mile to create segment or story ideas, will definitely help in the long run as well. What else do you recommend? Are there any other tips and tricks you can contribute to the list?

Last week I participated in a roundtable discussion with Karen Dillon, editor of the Harvard Business Review (HBR) while attending the annual retreat of Counselors Academy, a section of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) comprised of agency owners and leaders.

Dillon presented some of the top business topics being discussed at Harvard and, in particular, at HBR. She started by commenting on how much change has happened in such a short period of time and that she was a bit challenged in creating a manageable list for our meeting since there are so many hot issues at the moment.

Here was her eclectic list, with some relevant points that came up during our engaging conversation:

1. Analytics: I was delighted this was topic one, since we spend so much time focused on measurement at BG. This has become key at all levels of business and, interestingly, the push in academics is that it’s NOT just about numbers. While analytics is a growing science, there also needs to be judgment as a leading part of decision making. Without good judgment, analytics will not necessarily lead a company in the right direction.
2. Being the Good Guys Again: There is a huge emphasis on turning around the “bad guy” reputation of business. This month’s issue of HBR features a story by Michael Porter & Mark Kramer titled “Creating Shared Value” that focuses on the potential of shared values as a goal rather than just shareholder’s pocketbooks. It’s an interesting read about changing a company’s position from corporate social responsibility (CSR) to creating shared value (CSV). While the long-term gains for society would be quite positive, it will be interesting to see what percentage of business embraces this view.
3. Are Leaders Being Trained for the Global Economy? Many business leaders and academicians are worried about whether or not our future leaders are receiving the right training now. What are the skills sets that will be needed in ten or twenty years? Given how quickly business, economies and governments are changing, this is a moving target. It is being answered differently in different parts of the country and world.
4. Business Model Reinvention: This is another story in this month’s issue of HBR and one that we discussed in relation to the media sector. When, how and why should companies reinvent themselves? The media industry has been forced to reinvent itself and is still going through the process. Dillon believes that eventually we will move to paid models of news content as the free model is not sustainable. HBR and many other media organizations are experimenting with online models and Dillon emphasized the importance of Apps in particular as the public moves to a smartphone/iPad/notebook environment. She called organizations that are making these changes “disruptive innovators.” Isn’t that a wonderful phrase?
5. Connecting Strategy to Execution: This ties back to item 1 doesn’t it? Great ideas need real execution that can ultimately by analyzed for success or failure. Which leads to item 6…
6. The Issue of Failure: A topic that business does not like to talk about, but is critical for learning and growth. Seth Godin wrote about failure for HBR and the publication is always looking for failure vignettes that provide positive learning for readers (hint hint all you PR pros).
7. Collaboration: Over the next 10 to 20 years this will be happening more and more – across countries, governments and businesses. Business needs to collaborate in order to get in front of governments. They need to figure out creative solutions to working in emerging markets before government mandates it for them. Dillon points out we still don’t know how to do this well so there will be failures here.
8. Social Media: We already know all about this one, right readers? Dillon commented that many companies still do not understand how to develop an online relationship with customers. What an opportunity for those of us who understand and embrace social media.

My next step is to subscribe to HBR and start participating in its online Advisory Council. Oh and one more thing, this sort of falls under Analytics, but in a very meaningful way. Dillon said one of the most popular HBR story of 2010 was “How Will You Measure Your Life?” by Clay Christensen. That’s a subject I believe is worth analysis, right now.

Last week, the anonymous LA Times food critic, S. Irene Virbila, was “outed” by restaurateur Noah Ellis at his new restaurant, Red Medicine in Beverly Hills. Not only did Ellis throw Virbila out of his restaurant and refuse to serve her, he took a picture of her and posted it on his restaurant’s website.

I was fascinated by this story for a few reasons. Not only does such an act take major guts, but it also got me thinking about the role of the critic in the media these days. With the growing influence of Yelp, everyone is a critic. It also had me questioning whether a critic can expect to or needs to remain anonymous anymore. Most importantly, will this be a PR nightmare or a PR home run for the restaurant?

On one hand, Red Medicine is probably getting more PR now for outing Virbila than it would have had they let her eat and review the restaurant as planned. The story has gotten national exposure by Gawker, New York Times, a lengthy response by the LA Times. and countless other newspapers, online sites and blogs. This story has definitely put Red Medicine on the map, and I imagine more than a few curious readers will want to try the restaurant that brazenly kicked out a revered food critic. At the very least, the restaurant has definitely increased its visibility and awareness.

What Ellis may not have anticipated is the enormous backlash his restaurant has suffered. A quick look at the restaurant’s Yelp page shows dozens of angry people who heard the story and then gave the restaurant one-star and an angry review. Many other media and restaurant industry insiders have come out in support of Virbila and have critiqued Red Medicine’s handling of the situation, claiming a good restaurant would not fear a review. I am curious to see what other restaurant reviewers decide to do with this restaurant. Will they all want to review it, or will they ignore it (a fate which is much worse in the restaurant industry)? Will they be harsher on it?

What effect Ellis’ stunt will have on the long-term success of the restaurant remains to be seen. And, I cannot wait to see what kind of review the restaurant gets from the LA Times, who have made it clear they intend to move forward with their review. It will be interesting to see if the old adage is true, that all press is good press, or if the backlash from this stunt will damage the new restaurant for good.

Had the restaurant been my client, I would have never condoned or advised that Ellis publish the blog post or out Virbila to the public. However, now that the damage is done, Ellis is better off owning what he did and standing by his decision. Hopefully he has enough supporters who believe he was in the right – and of course, most importantly, hopefully he has great food to validate the restaurant – to get him through this crisis and make his restaurant a success. Yelp is already seeing some counter reviews supporting Red Medicine and it’s food. Would you dine at Red Medicine after Ellis’ stunt?

A little over two weeks from now, we’ll be moving to our new office space. You might have already seen our preview tour. We snapped a lot of “Before” pics. As remodeling nears completion, we’ll put up the “After” shots.

Life has been interesting in the weeks leading up to the move. A lot of us are excited about it…. some a bit more than others (as evidenced by the videos below).  Don’t forget to swing by our site to see some of the other ways we’re celebrating the move to our new neighborhood.

Last summer, LeBron took a lot of flack for how he chose to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers. In response, his ex-coach wrote a goodbye, good riddance letter. I covered LeBron’s announcement and Dan Gilbert’s response when it happened.

Earlier this week, King James’ new 90-second commercial launched. In it, he reflects on the backlash that ensued after his decision to play for the Miami Heat. He asks a number of rhetorical questions, referencing what has happened and the different ways he could have or should have reacted.

As a piece of creative, it’s fun. From the shout out to an old Nike spot featuring Charles Barkley. All the way to the cameo appearance of Miami’s favorite vice cop, Don Johnson. For those with no vested fandom in LeBron, the spot ends with a feeling of, “He’s right. He should live his own life. And be free to make his own decisions.”

But for many Clevelanders, my wife included, the spot is an egomaniac’s weak attempt to rehabilitate his forever-soiled reputation. His anti-fans have even compiled answers to his rhetorical questions.

You have to wonder though… does LeBron really care what people from Cleveland think? Or is it Nike that cares about the millions of people worldwide who may or may not buy a tarnished superstar’s shoes?

Perhaps Tiger has something to say about advertising in the wake of bad publicity.

So the first lesson of this year’s Blogworld was that Scott Stratten, from Unmarketing, is exceptionally funny. He’s also spot on about a lot of things regarding marketing and social media. In addition to some great one-liners, he had 10 key takeaways that I think serve as great reminders for anyone, or any company, that is using social media marketing.

1. You want blog traffic? Virality? Lots of tweets? Simple. Create awesome content. No one is going to share “meh” content. Anytime you phone-in a blog post, or even a tweet, you lose readers and you hurt your brand. It’s better to just forget your schedule and write when you have something good to say. (Note this doesn’t mean if you can’t think of something to write in 7 seconds, you are off the hook. Just that if you truly have nothing to say, its better to go a day without a post than to have something that will cause you to lose readers’ trust.).

2. So after you create your awesome content – don’t “stop the spread.” Scott outlined a few specific ways that you may be inadvertently hurting yourself by preventing your content from being shared:

• Thinking RSS feeds are the holy grail. Make sure people have options for reading and sharing. It’s not about how you, as the blogger, consume content, but how your readers will.
• Make sure your blog is mobile capable. People want to read your blog wherever, whenever. And even if Google Analytics is telling you that your readers aren’t coming from mobile phones, it’s possible that this is only because they can’t.
• Don’t piss people off. If you have an obscenely large pop-up ad, or if you force people to log-in to comment, you are likely going to annoy them. Annoyed people don’t share your content. Sad but true.

3. The secret to SEO is not keywords, title tags, or searchable URL’s – it’s good content. No influential blogger is going to link to your post because it is keyword rich. Since links from reputable sources are a huge factor in search ranking, your content should come before any SEO tips and tricks.

4. Social media can’t make your brand successful. In Scott’s words, “If your product sucks, social media just makes it suck harder.” This point very much resonated with me. So often we hear about companies who don’t want to fix the gaping holes in their products or services and rather turn to their shiny new tool (social media) to make them a success. I haven’t seen it work yet, and apparently Scott agrees.

5. Stop asking about what’s next in social media and focus on making what we have now work better. We already have amazing tools available to us that can accomplish our business goals. Instead of obsessing about what social network will usurp Facebook, lets spend time finessing the way in which we use Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc, because we have only begun to tap the surface on these tools’ potential.

6. Another awesome Scott quote -  “Every time someone asks about the ROI of Twitter, a kitten dies. And a unicorn.” Twitter (and social media, really) are about talking to people – plain and simple. At the end of the day, people want to  buy from people they know, trust and like, and these tools help you do just that. While I think this so profoundly true, I know all of us in social media marketing won’t be allowed to abandon the quest for social media ROI anytime soon.

7. You can’t rock at every single platform. Choose one to focus on, and nurture it. We all hear people talk about how they don’t have enough time to do social media, so rather than trying to have a superstar presence everywhere, see what works best with your target audience and grow it.

8. You can’t shortcut relationships – social media doesn’t change the fact that relationships take time. Scott shared that 75 percent of his 60,000 tweets are @replies – aka conversation. These conversations, slowly and over time, build relationships, and relationships increase business.

9. You don’t have to believe in social media – it’s not a religion. It’s a real thing and it is happening. If you don’t want to be in social media – don’t be.

10. And finally, don’t ever justify yourself to trolls. The haters will always be there and they are just there to hate. If you engage with them they win, and you’ll never convert them. Just blog with passion and blog with awesome.

And that was really just the tip of the iceberg. As far as keynotes go, Scott’s was quite possibly one of the best I’ve ever heard. If any of my fellow 5,000 #BWE10 attendees captured some of the other amazing Scott tid-bits, feel free to share them in the comments.

I am constantly reading and trying to stay up to date with media and digital trends so that I can better help my clients reach their audiences.  Take a gander at my latest vlog for some info on my favorite publishers and a few trends I have been reading about.

Some favorite sites to constantly check:

http://www.mediapost.com/

http://techcrunch.com/

http://mashable.com/

http://adage.com/

http://www.aaaa.org