Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

You Know You've Made It When You Wake Up to Find They're Writing About You in Polish!

Seriously, it was a kick to find in my RSS reader this morning a post on a Polish PR blog about my CustomScoop white paper on crisis communications.  Needless to say, I can't read Polish, so I had to dig around and fine a Polish translation engine online to figure out what was being said.  Unfortunately, here's what it came up with:

Business depression and monitor

Outlet CustomScoop redacted bezpłatn± publication . escalation effectiveness traffic kryzysowej thank monitoringowi the fourth estate. Is not she destination to specialist ds. publicist relations as well marketing. Its with the purpose of is not u¶wiadomienie weights monitorowania the fourth estate prior, under way as well when status kryzysowej, therefor, by not only bear item markets firms, whereas yet consolidation j± past encountered problem. CustomScoop be concerned about monitoringiem the fourth estate. (kk)

I can't tell if this blogger approved of my paper or not, so in the unlikely event I have a reader who understands Polish, I'd welcome a better translation!

To me, this experience demonstrates several things:

• the potential reach of the blogosphere
• the need for effective monitoring
• the real challenges in tracking coverage in foreign languages

Technorati tags: CustomScoop, translation, Polish, crisis communications, media monitoring, blog monitoring

Companies Combat Online Rumors

Melissa Allison of The Seattle Times has a good story about how companies find an increasing need to monitor and rebut false rumors circulating online.

Rumors fly fast and die hard in the world of e-mails and blogs, creating a dilemma for some corporations that face the never-ending task of setting the record straight.

Many have rumor-response pages on their Web sites and monitor what is said about them on sites like Snopes.com and Wikipedia.com. Despite those efforts, the same myths and untruths can circulate for years.

Technorati tags: Seattle Times, rumors, snopes, wikipedia, corporate reputation, media monitoring, blog monitoring

Scoble Interviews Dow Jones/Factiva's Clare Hart

For those interested in the enterprise search and monitoring market, Robert Scoble's Podtech interview with Clare Hart of Dow Jones is a must watch.  As President of the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group and former CEO of Factiva, she certainly knows this market from the perspective of the large enterprise.  The interview focuses on Factiva and she does an excellent job of explaining what they are doing with regard to blog monitoring, sentiment analysis, and other topics. 

In some segments of the marketplace, CustomScoop does compete with Factiva, though they are fundamentally different products.  In any event, as Clare says in the video, "competition is healthy."  I believe we all can learn a lot from each other if we're willing to listen and engage in conversation. 

Certainly Factiva seems to "get it" more than the other major enterprise research tool, Lexis Nexis.  I have accounts on both systems that I use for research (CustomScoop is designed for monitoring, not historical research) which I believe is the greatest strength of both of those systems.  But Factiva seems to be more actively engaging in the field of monitoring and it will be interesting to see how that evolves over time.

Scoble does a good job of being relatively unobtrusive which is one of the reasons I generally enjoy watching his videos.  He doesn't attempt to become part of the story like some other interviewers do.  He clearly asks questions out of curiosity and not simply in an effort to elicit information he already knows.

Clare has a great presence and it is an interesting interview that I encourage anyone in the field (or who have an interest in it) to watch.

Technorati tags: Factiva, Dow Jones, Clare Hart, Lexis Nexis, CustomScoop, enterprise search, enterprise research, clipping service, media monitoring, sentiment analysis, blog monitoring

KFC/Taco Bell Rat Crisis Shows Online Media Monitoring is YUMmy

Mark Harvey of Hass MS&L does an excellent job of explaining how the KFC/Taco Bell Rat Crisis in New York's Greenwich Village proves the need for effective online media monitoring.  He demonstrates that Yum! Brands, the parent of the two restaurants, could have used monitoring to more effectively respond.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the 2 minute video below tells the story clearly.

Mark incorporates a timeline to show how the story unfolded and grew in an effort to address his central thesis: "When you sell blog and or board/media monitoring, people may ask, 'How bad can it be, I mean how fast can my reputation go south?'"

He wraps up in a way that I couldn't have probably said better myself:

If this company had media monitoring and crisis monitoring someone could have called to move media crews away from the front window or covered the front window where dozens of media outlets had set up shop filming and getting customer reaction shots. They weren't pleasant. Words like "sickened" and "disturbing" and "gross" all played out on national media with the KFC/Taco Bell logo right behind.

Seven hours is all it took...

I recommend reading the post to understand not only the importance of media monitoring, but also crisis communications.  As readers of this blog know, the marriage of the two has been a topic of interest to me lately.

Technorati tags: KFC, Taco Bell, rats, Yum, Yum Brands, Mark Harvey, media monitoring, online news clipping, clipping service, crisis communications, Hass MS&L

PR Crises Occur at Broadband Speeds

The timing on this one couldn't be better.  As JetBlue works to dig itself out of Snow Crisis 2007, they might want to join you in checking out "How to Make Crisis Communications More Effective with Media Monitoring" published today by CustomScoop and written by yours truly. The publication is available to download for free as a PDF. 

Here's the premise:

Managing your brand’s reputation in a crisis becomes more challenging every day, given the explosion of information sources accessed by consumers and key constituencies. With reporters, columnists, producers, bloggers, and even average citizens writing or broadcasting about a crisis within minutes of becoming aware of it, the spigot of information you must be aware of can seem never-ending. Worse, these individuals may even be the cause of the crisis in the first place if they jump on incorrect or misleading information and use the media megaphone to trumpet it to the masses.

Effective crisis communications depends on timely and accurate media monitoring efforts to understand the messages being communicated to the public. By arming yourself with the knowledge of how information is being interpreted – and what friends and foe alike are saying – you can be better prepared to respond rapidly and proactively communicate your own messages.

 And here's a thumbnail sketch of the solutions discussed:

Key elements of your pre-crisis media monitoring plan should include:

• Detecting signs of a crisis before it occurs
• Identifying key media outlets likely to write about your company
• Understanding the tone of existing coverage
• Establishing a trusted dialogue with reporters and bloggers

During a crisis, you should seek timely awareness of:

• Stories in key targeted publications
• The evolution of online conversations
• Patterns of message travel
• Tone and content of stories

You can take a deep breath when the crisis concludes. You can even probably go home and get a good night’s sleep for the first time since the crisis began. What you can’t do is stop monitoring.  Instead you should:

• Watch for a rebirth of the last crisis
• Learn from your experience
• Return to your pre-crisis monitoring plan

Go ahead and read this 12 page report for yourself and then feel free to come back here and share your feedback.

Technorati tags: CustomScoop, crisis communications, media monitoring, blogs, crisis, JetBlue, whitepaper, white paper, PR

8 Ways to Maximize Media Monitoring ROI

I recently wrote "8 Ways to Maximize Media Monitoring ROI" that we're distributing for free on behalf of CustomScoop.  The subtitle is "How PR and Marketing Pros Can Go Beyond Tracking Company Mentions and Press Release Coverage to Improve ROI." And that's really what the guide is all about. 

In the 7 years that I have been working with clients at CustomScoop, I have found that many think very narrowly about what a clipping service can do.  But when you actually engage them in conversation and help them explore other ideas for how to get greater benefits -- and thus higher ROI -- on their media monitoring program, their eyes light up with the possibilities.

The complete document is available as a free download without having to register.  We decided that while most companies make whitepapers like these available only in exchange for a sales pitch, we wanted to create a real resource for the PR and marketing community.  You won't find sales-speak in this white paper, and in fact I mention a number of our competitors, because like this blog I want it to be a useful tool.

With the advances in online news clipping services today, clients can really gather a lot of information and process it quickly.  Even better, the tools to do at least basic measurement and analysis are now available from many providers.  And with many services offering unlimited search terms and clips for one flat fee, there's really no excuse not to track all the information you want.

I go into a fair amount of detail in the paper to show how to implement these ideas, but as a quick summary, here are the 8 ways I describe:

1. Discover New, Earned Media Opportunities
2. Detect Early Warning Signs
3. Uncover New Markets and Customers
4. Listen to Conversations
5. Solidify Stakeholder Relationships
6. Track Trends
7. Examine How the Competition Stacks Up
8. Learn More About Your Industry

If you're interested in learning more, download the full paper here.  I look forward to any feedback you may have so that future publications can be even more valuable.

 

Technorati tags: CustomScoop, ROI, media monitoring, clipping service, PR, marketing