Feb 11 2010

Public Relations is Like a Clean Bathroom…

February 11, 2010 – 6:50 am
Photo courtesy of Karen Horton

Photo courtesy of Karen Horton

By Jenn Riggle

Why? Because it’s easy to take a clean bathroom for granted until you really need one.

It’s a well kept secret, but public relations is the driving force behind the majority of news stories. When you think about it, the only stories that aren’t PR generated are crime, traffic accidents and weather/natural disasters — although there’s bound to be a PR person on hand with these events as well, making sure reporters and the community get the information they need.

Yet, for all the work we do behind the scenes, the media often portrays PR people as sleazy PR hacks, like Colin Farrell’s character in the 2002 movie Phone Booth, or glamorous party girls like Samantha Jones of Sex in the City and Amanda Woodward of Melrose Place.

My all-time favorite is Fractured Fairy Tales’ version of Rumpelstiltskin, whose title character is a PR guy who says: “I can make you famous overnight … I am what is known as a PR man,” he squeaked. “You know, public relations. Publicity. Flackery. Glamourize the unglamorous. Turn the pedestrian splendorous.”

But when things go wrong, organizations turn to public relations to clean things up and do damage control. National media outlets like USA Today and NPR’s Talk of the Nation are saying that Toyota should use PR to salvage its reputation after its massive recall. And while it’s nice to see that the media believe that public relations has the power to save the day during a crisis, I realize that most people don’t know what public relations is.

Maybe social media can give public relations the facelift it’s needed. Not only is it a friendlier and more straight-forward medium, but PR people no longer have to be the corporate mouthpieces. Employees and executives can speak for themselves, whether they’re writing blogs or posting information on Twitter and YouTube. It also moves organizations away from simply repeating corporate messages to engaging in conversation with their consumers.

Are PR folks going away? No. They will always be needed to assess a situation and develop the communications strategy whether it’s to build an organization’s reputation or manage a crisis. However, we have a chance to give the industry a makeover. Let’s do it.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in PR, Social Networks, social media | Tagged , , | Comments (8)
Jan 15 2010

10 Years From Now – A Look Back

January 15, 2010 – 12:16 am

Again this year, I got links to dozens of those inevitable posts that come up at the beginning and end of a year. All this got me to thinking about both inevitability about wishes for the future. An email from a friend came also, remindin me of a whole list of things that weren’t around in the olden days (cell phones, polio vaccine, etc.), and it turned out that the “olden” days included the early span of my life – providing even more cause to reflect about just where all of this is going, particularly when it comes to communications.

As colleague Geoff Livingston said in Now is Gone, “Communications have evolved more in the last 10 years than in the previous 100.” And, for those of us toiling in the consulting business at CRT/tanaka who are focused on such things, the next ten years hold some pretty awesome promise for the practice of public relations.

First off, there is no loftier publication on the the planet than The Economist, and it’s covering public relations.  The Economist gives PR a good start on the coming year and decade with its declaration  “Good News: Other firms’ suffering has bolstered the public relations Business.” Aside from being amused by “good news” and “suffering” in such proximity, I was impressed by the number of trends that seem to add up in our favor.

While Richard Edelman’s description of PR as the “organising principle” behind many business decisions is a point of view that might be more an aspirational goal for a PR firm exec, there are a number of opportunities on our next-10-year horizon that do seem attainable and desirable.

First, there’s the thorny issue of reputation. What used to be thought of as “reputation management” must become a more sincere effort to engage with dozens of stakeholders in any enterprise and incorporate lots of their thinking into the direction of the organization. This opportunity is especially applicable for business, and my 10-year crystal ball says it will also affect politics in the period. We simply cannot continue to have Republicans and Democrats treat the running of a great country as just a power tilt between two parties any more than we can have irresponsible lending drive us into another economic ditch. People are rebelling and will continue to do so. Public relations plays an important role in guiding organizations to do the right things.

The second big dynamic that caught my eye in The Economist was described as “the withering of many traditional media outlets.”  That makes PR “doubly important,” by its ability to bypass such old media and through its capability of engaging new media. There is no set of people on the planet better situated than public relations professionals to take advantage of this evolution in media, but there are some important warning signs to heed.

 Brian Solis provided some insight into just what it’s going to take to play in his post this week: “The Ten Stages of Social Media Business Integration.” I would add that not only do public relations professionals need to rise to such strategic ambitions, but also must continue to learn and knit together the techniques and tools required to operate. Everything from clouds to mobile marketing to bio-interfaces will blur the communications lines and may even challenge our ethics related to privacy, intrusive marketing and human-computer interactions. Take a look at scientist-gone-to-the-policy-dark-side thinker Andrew Maynard to get a glimpse of what the world of science may throw our way in terms of new ideas in the next 10 years.

Finally, a wonderful absurdity was served up in the closing paragraphy of the article in The Economist. Reflecting on the likelihood of more regulation on the heels of recent attempts by the Federal Trade Commission in the United States to shine more light on the endorsers of products and services (The Buzz Bin, December 11, 2009), the reporter noted, “After all, companies that fall foul of the rules will need the help of a PR firm.”

Here’s to a successful and prosperous (for all the right reasons) decade!

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Internet Marketing, PR, mobile, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Jan 5 2010

New Year – Same Old Aught Decade Hang Ups

January 5, 2010 – 2:13 am

 

By Mike Mulvihill

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Photo: Courtesy Optical Illusion 

First the good news – business loves social media.  A January 3 update to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research annual survey on the adoption and practice of social media by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., found that more businesses are experimenting and engaging with social media.  Among the survey respondents, 91 percent of companies report they incorporated at least one social media service or tool in 2009. Literacy and awareness was also on the rise with roughly 75 percent stating that they were now “very familiar” with social networking. Conversely, there was an impressive drop in Inc 500 companies that did not use social media at all, which plunged from 43 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2009.

Among smaller business, the trend lags. A November 2009 survey  produced for area Chambers of Commerce in North Dakota and Minnesota asked about their use of popular social media platforms for maintaining either Personal and Business connections.  For business leaders in four Midwestern markets, Facebook is the social media platform of choice. Facebook is the platform most frequently mentioned as the site used by respondents (70 percent personal use; 43 percent business use). LinkedIn was the platform next most frequently mentioned as the site used by respondents (23 percent personal use; 41 percent business use). Twitter (17 percent personal use; 19 percent business use) was about even with Blogs (15 percent personal use; 20% business use) as the third most frequently mentioned platform used by respondents  Three others in the survey lagged significantly in use by respondents – My Space, MSN Live Space and Wikis.

As Larry Weintraub covers in his Smart Marketing blog, these businesses have likely zeroed in on the four reasons to use Social Media for your business – Marketing, PR, Market Research and Customer Service.

Now, here’s the bad news.  Control is still a major issue, especially at larger companies. According to a nationwide survey conducted by Robert Half Technology, 54 percent of 1,400 companies surveyed completely restrict employees from visiting social networking sites. Another 19 percent restrict use for business purposes only.

Businesses are increasingly using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for marketing purposes, but those same companies don’t want employees logging on during work hours.

The Robert Half spokesperson said employers find social networking a waste of time. “It takes away from primary responsibility. When socializing on sites such as Facebook, we lose track of time.”

A secondary concern companies mentioned is the potential for employees leaking confidential information or sharing thoughts that may reflect badly on the company.  The spokesperson said that many of these companies are still trying to set boundaries.

 So while business increasing embraces the desire to “push out” info using social media, they still have not gotten over the fact that they have engage communities by trusting people to have conversations with customers, suppliers and their many other stakeholders.

 I’d love to see a survey of how many of the 91 percent of companies using social media are failing miserably because they still just don’t get the fact that every employee is an ambassador, whether at the supermarket, a cocktail party, the kids soccer match or when active on a social media site. They trust their salesmen to represent the company unsupervised, but can’t trust their employees to use social media responsibly. Seems like there’s still a lot of growing up to be done in 2010.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Case Study, Internet Marketing, PR, Social Networks, communications, market research, social media | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)
Dec 11 2009

Trouble Lurks in Social Media Guidelines

December 11, 2009 – 12:58 am
FTC on Social: Balanced?

FTC on Social: Balanced?

In October, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) issued its Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonial in Advertising. The new guidance is game-changing, as many have commented upon. Some have even said that the FTC, particularly in its comments about “typical” results claimed in advertising and other promotion, has changed the rules in the middle of the game. Regardless of your take on the new “guides,” it’s prudent to review your social media guidelines and consider revising them to match up with the new advice, muddy though it may be in some areas. The new effort at the FTC to increase transparency in endorsements could greatly complicate the work public relations  people do every day.

So, here are some ideas for revisions to your social media guidelines:

  1. The claims you make on behalf of (company/client) must be substantiated by information you have reviewed or that has been reviewed by a teammate in the case of reTweets, blog comments, etc., you pass along. (This has always been good policy, but even more important under the guides. A recent Virginia governor’s race covered by VirginiaTomorrow.com pointed this out when one worker tweeted about his candidate’s opponent:  BREAKING NEWS: McDONNELL HAS CONFEDERATE FLAG POSTED IN HIS BOOTH AT GUN SHOW IN RICHMOND. Trouble ensued when the McDonnell campaign replied “not our booth; not our flag.”)
  2. You must note your connection with the product, service or other information presented in any social media or other public comments. Promoting or endorsing the (company’s/client’s) products, services or other activities, are covered under this requirement, whether or not you are on the team responsible for the product, service or other activity. (This is particularly important with companies or their consultants where highlighting the relationship is sometimes treated casually by other offices or teams not specifically focused on promoting the product or service mentioned.)
  3. Your claims on behalf of (company/client) may not be qualified by “results may vary” or other disclaimer, so take special care in presenting information of a scientific nature or other information that is outside your expertise. A safe approach is to never make a claim without presenting the source via a link or other method. (Again, this has always been good practice, but may not be explicit in existing social media guidelines.)
  4. Any “celebrity” or other spokesperson engaged and paid (in any form) to speak on behalf of (company/client) is also required to disclose the paid relationship to the (company/client). It is not sufficient to disclose a relationship to (the public relations, advertising agency or other promotion support firm), for example. A spokesperson who acknowledges a service or product in a forum not organized by the company or its agent and neglects to mention the relationship with the client is in potential violation of this guideline.  It is the responsibility of the team assigned to the product or service to alert management so that corrective actions can be considered for the protection of (company). (The importance of tracking what your spokesperson/celebrity endorser is saying or doing is greater today than ever.)
  5. If you provide any inducement in the form of a product or service to a blogger or others who might endorse the product, you should keep in mind that any “material” connections should be revealed by the recipient. The FTC will consider any direct or in-kind payment or transfer of product or service to classify the recipient as an endorser.  Less clear is the “materiality” test, and the FTC indicates it will review events on a case-by-case basis. It is the responsibility of the assigned team to track any product, service or in-kind payment provided bloggers or others with the intent to generate editorial content and to assure that any resulting endorsement discloses the relationship with our (company/client). If the relationship is not disclosed, it is the responsibility of the team to alert management so that corrective actions can be considered for the protection of the (company/client). (The materiality issue aside, this and other aspects of the guide make it important to monitor social media mentions in order to assure transparency.)
  6. The use of “typical” experiences in promotions or advertising featuring consumers who reveal their use of a product or service must disclose that results were unique to the situation depicted. (Short and sweet, but critical to pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and other similar firms, as well as other organizations that have operated under other rules for reporting results of trials of all types.)
  7. Every mention of research used in promotion of (company/client) should clearly state the sponsor of the research. In cases where this is not done, it is the responsibility of the assigned team to alert management so that corrective actions can be considered for the protection of the (company/client). (In the age of social media, this traditional approach to attribution can sometimes be forgotten or left behind in a character-limiting environment. Just because you only have 140 characters or so doesn’t make the obligation go away, though.)

The revisions to social media guidelines are just the tip of this iceberg. I like the way John Cass, who wrote “Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging”  posed the question on his post the other day, where is asked “Big Change or Storm in a Teacup?”  Having worked for a long time in the corporate investor relations world, I’d suggest that the changes are just beginning. While we don’t have a Sarbanes-Oxley-like law that codifies much of this for “endorsers,” the FTC has greatly expanded the things over which it will exercise influence. Endorsers (and influencers of endorsements) beware!

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Internet Marketing, PR, communications, social media | Tagged , | Comments (20)
Nov 30 2009

Can Marketers Serve the Female Economy?

November 30, 2009 – 8:02 am

by Geoff Livingston

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Joan of Arc by D.B. King

Since the holiday shopping crush has begun in earnest, perhaps we can acknowledge one of the great undercurrents of our time, the rise of the female economy. To quote Harvard Business Review, “Women now drive the world economy.” This reality will become even more obvious as we pull out of the recession, but can marketers adapt?

Traditionally, when faced with a predominantly female stakeholder, marketers created the same product in pink, purple, and pastels, rather than design their products to actually meet the needs of modern women. Wrong approach. Dell learned this with its pink laptop controversy earlier this year.  The same thing can be said for some well discussed communications programs (hello, Motrin!).

With women driving a vast majority of purchasing decisions – yes, even those big screen TVs – marketers must adapt.  The days of pink TV sets won’t work anymore (though some will try).

Consider how brands like Banana Republic have evolved. From end to end, they have come to understand their female customer. The in-store experience matches their research, but so does their product marketing.

A Banana Republic size 6 is really a size 6, and will always be that.  Different style lines match women’s actual body shapes, from petite to tall, from slender to full figure. The result? Women don’t have to go through agonizing hours to see if the 6 is really a 6. That means online sales, ladies and gentlemen, lots of them.  Why? Because women really don’t want to go shopping, they want more time! They want to live, have a career and a family, and yes, maybe even go to the gym (source: the aforementioned HBR article).

Of course, that brings up another very savvy female marketing organization, Curves. Focusing on efficient 30-minute workouts designed for women, Curves has built phenomenal word of mouth marketing, revolutionizing the fitness industry. BTW, Curves is a male owned company. CEO Gary Heavin understands that marketing to women means understanding their fitness needs, not forcing preconceived gym notions into the market. Heavin has succeeded garnering a significant portion of the female exercise market in spite of his pro-life views.

So communicators face the great challenge of adapting or failing (as if social media wasn’t enough). It comes down to this: Because it has been a male dominated world marketing has catered to the presumed buying power. Now that buying power belongs to women, marketers must change theirfocus to what their “new” customer wants.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Internet Marketing, PR, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (10)
Nov 17 2009

Social Media: How Much Is A Good Thing?

November 17, 2009 – 1:06 pm

by Mike Mulvihill

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Photo: yospyn.com

A survey from the CMO Club bemoans that four out of five CMOs allocate less that 10 percent of their budgets to “experimenting” through social media and non-traditional communications channels.  This is juxtaposed against the rising use of social media – more than 35 percent of adult Internet users have profiles on social media networks up just eight percent in 2005.  Just to add to add more fuel to the fire, Oxford Dictionary just named “unfriend” as the 2009 Word of the Year.

 As a marketer, I just shake my head wondering why we keep measuring social media in old ways – like expenditures.  And using social media like other marketing tools to “push out” our messages. How often do we need to be reminded that social media is about engaging customers and potential customers in a meaning way. Is $5 million of a $100 million budget too much or too little?  Well, social media isn’t all that expensive in the hierarchy of marketing expenditures.  The best money you can spend is on people to staff your social media effort – just look at Southwest Airlines as a great example. (With Southwest, it doesn’t hurt that the social media effort totally supports a brand persona born through years of traditional customer engagement.)

 If the social media effort is old school, then the $5 million is way too much and it’s probably alienating more people than it is engaging (thereby decreasing the effectiveness of the rest of the marketing mix).  If it is well done, then perhaps one less $1 million TV spot is better spent on more, equally effective social media.

 Lots of people have lots of pet peeves about how social media is used in a disingenuous manner. Many organizations and corporations still don’t really know what to do with social media.  Some I know have taken more than a year struggling to create social media guidelines that “stop the productivity drain” while allowing social media to be used for customer support and marketing .

 On the marketing side, a year is an eternity, especially when it’s about half the average CMO’s shelf life of 23.2 months. Like many of my clients and prospects, CMOs are bombarded with requests from non-marketing types, emboldened by all they see and hear about social media, asking why the organization is not doing this or that social media tactic. The result can be launching any social media effort in support of other marketing efforts (i.e., push out strategies) rather than the right social media engagement strategies. Let’s just hope that the crossroads between the need to keep up appearances (increasing social media expenditures) and the real value of the social media programs funded doesn’t end up being the ruin of a good thing.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Branding, Internet Marketing, PR, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (9)
Nov 10 2009

Hold The Line. Energy Changes Are a Long Time Coming

November 10, 2009 – 1:40 am

 spaceballBy Mike Mulvihill

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 Wind Power. Renewable Energy. Green Economy. There is an awesome amount of momentum in the America right now around all of these topics. We’re on the cusp of real change in how we create the gobs of energy we increasingly consume in a manner that is kinder and gentler to Mother Earth.

One problem – we have a power grid infrastructure (i.e., those big transmission lines that cut across the landscape), once the best in the world, that has gone neglected for many years. The current system was built for few big energy on-ramps (like coal-fired power plants and nukes) not a lot of small, variable energy outputs like the on ramps needed for renewable energy sources like wind, solar, hydro, geothermal and biomass. Expanding and updating the transmission system is perhaps the most contentious project you could ever undertake. They are often ensnarled in protests and lawsuits so it takes decades to build even small additions to the grid. And the current transmission grid is far from smart right now.

We’re making progress. Last week President Obama cut loose $3.4 billion dollars worth of stimulus money to roll out the American smart grid. Realistically, $3.4 billion is just a drop in the bucket, but it’s a move in the right direction.

According to ABB, one of the major players in the power transmission game, North America is “not close” to developing a true smart grid. ABB CEO Enrique Santacan, cut a YouTube video where he says:

  • The process of developing and implementing the smart grid is just starting in North America.
  •  Lots of old equipment will have to be replaced.
  •  And, many new automation technologies will have to be deployed in order to get there.

According to Dean Anderson’s blog  the DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory defines a smart grid as having the following characteristics:

  • Self-healing from power disturbance events
  • Enabling active participation by consumers in demand response • Operating resiliently against physical and cyber-attack
  • Providing power quality for 21st century needs
  •  Accommodating all generation and storage options
  • Enabling new products, services, and markets 
  • Optimizing assets and operating efficiently

If you saw this weekend’s 60 Minutes broadcast. we should all be greatly concerned about creating a smart grid that is resilient to cyber-attack. In typical 60 Minutes style, our electrical grid was “exposed” as a prime target for cyber terrorism potentially dropping our nation into darkness and confusion. More alarming was the interview that pointed out that some of the components damaged in a cyber or physical attack could take four months to replace. (I once spent 11 days without power due to an ice storm. I can’t imagine what four months would be like!) Remember that in 2003, a simple tree limb on a power line in Ohio resulted in a power failure that in mere seconds enveloped the Midwest to Broadway in darkness.

It will take time to develop a smart grid system designed to be more like your office and home wireless LAN but less susceptible to hacking.

Patrick Mazza’s blog on Grist from more than 27 months ago  pointed out that “It’s time to bring the grid into the foreground because it positions at the exact center of the world’s most crucial issue, global climate change.”

Two years later, we’re enthralled with harnessing wind and solar, but all that excitement won’t get us far if we don’t address the much more mundane but essential infrastructure needed to turn all that excitement into real progress.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Friends of Live Earth, Internet Marketing, PR, green, social cause, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Nov 3 2009

Out Social Media’ing the Democrats

November 3, 2009 – 2:00 am

by Mike Mulvihill

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Photo: voxefx

 I have lived in several places throughout the east and Midwest, but I spent my formative years (8 to 18) in the garden spot of the Garden State and I have now lived in Richmond, Va., for the past 19 years (my longest stint so far in one city/location). So I have a special interest in the odd fact that New Jersey and Virginia have the only two gubernatorial races in the country this year.

And they are pretty telling races. Historically Democratic “blue” New Jersey has incumbent Jon Corzine running neck-to-neck with Republican Chris Christie, a former U.S. Attorney (who apparently has little respect for copyright law).  The polling difference between the two candidates falls within the statistical margin of error making it’s anyone’s race.

In Virginia, which as a one-term limit state never has an incumbent candidate for governor, Attorney General Bob McDonnell has a commanding double digit lead in the polls over Democrat Creigh Deeds, a long time state politician. A Republican win would end two back-to-back Democratic administrations in a traditionally Republican state.

What national implications should we read into these two races? Has Obama lost sway and, in turn, Democratic candidates? Well, according to the SmartPolitics blog, there’s a far less knee jerk story to all this. To quote the blog “A Smart Politics analysis of historical election returns in the Garden and Old Dominion States finds that the two states have voted in tandem during the last five gubernatorial elections dating back to 1989 - and always electing the party which is not in control of the White House. (If it’s not too late, find a bookie and put all your money on Christie in Jersey!)

From a social media standpoint it is interesting that in Virginia McDonnell has outspent the Democrat Deeds 5-to-1 in social media (a number which far exceeds the Republican spending advantage in traditional media.) As blog site bluevirginia  reports, ”That’s inexcusable…that the McDonnell campaign has blown Creigh’s campaign away in new media.”

But perhaps the most telling statement here is the naïve assumption that social media is the domain of the Democrats. The success of the Obama campaign taught both parties a lesson. If the Democrats want to learn something valuable this November for the 2010 midterm national elections (especially for U.S. House seats), it’s that social media, like liberty, is accessible to all.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Internet Marketing, PR, Social Networks, communications, social cause, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments (7)
Oct 27 2009

Lubricating the Wheels of Social Media

October 27, 2009 – 8:00 am

by Mike Mulvihill

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There is nothing quite like political controversy cooked up in the land of meat pies, pints and the Queen. The latest controversy is full of contradictions. It is a great mile marker for the ever symbiotic connection between traditional media and social media (and vice versa). And, it is significant for reasons more societal than social. The U.K. has faced immigration issues longer than the States, and things have become a bit more politicized than here. (They actually have two elected member of Parliament who got there on the wings of some pretty severe, if not Fascist views on immigration and immigrants).

From a social viewpoint, this latest controversy underscores how, from a PR perspective, traditional and social media constantly feed one another. Media today mean everyone with credentials and anyone with a keyboard and a following. From a societal viewpoint, it’s more than a little bit scary.

Here’s a little background on the controversy in question (with some background on some of the players). First a quick synopsis: The top-ranked U.K. political talk show (the BBC’s “Question Time” – think more like a snarky health care town hall meeting format than “Meet the Press”) last Thursday had on its show Nick Griffin, leader of British National Party (BNP) whose mission statement reads like a page from a Klu Klux Klan playbook. The show’s producers proceeded to set up Griffin in front of 200 audience questioners who pound him for his views while four normal interviewees stood by to provide stark contrast color commentary. Later, it is revealed the BBC violated its audience “random” selection guidelines to stack the studio crowd against Griffin and even urging them to ask “provocative” questions.

If you watch any of the video clip contained in this post (yes, it is a long one), you can see that Griffin gets lambasted. But the result wasn’t necessarily all bad for the bad guys.  The BBC had 243 complaints that the show was biased against Griffin, compared with 114 complaints about him appearing on it. Coverage was all over the newspapers the following day, some of it fairly positive for Griffin and the BNP, and some of it sounding dire warnings of a growing anti-immigrant base.

The traditional media bottom line: This episode of BBC “Question Time” attracted 8 million viewers, a record viewership for a 30-year-old program. The show was so anticipated that leading U.K. newspapers, The Guardian and The Telegraph, ran live blogs during the show (which complemented the show’s existing method of engaging viewers by crawling their text messages across the screen during the broadcast. The show’s Live Chat had the most participants ever.)  No less than 68,000 blog posts were generated. And Tweets mentioning Nick Griffin’s name skyrocketed.

TwitterScoop graphic:

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Like the traditional media coverage, there were a surprising number of positive social media comments about Griffin and the BNP. In fact, the commentary seems disproportionately more favorable than the 6 percent of the vote the BNP garnered in the last elections. All this causing our cross Atlantic allies to ponder if social media can play an Obama campaign-like role in their political process with national elections coming in 2010.

Politics, especially when combined with controversy, is the oil that lubricates traditional media. It sells newspapers, drives viewership and, thereby, generates revenue. It appears social media shares a kindred spirit on the politics and controversy front. Traffic spikes and users engage when these ingredients are in the mix, especially when the message engages or, in this case, scares us enough to capture our attention.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Internet Marketing, PR, Social Networks, communications, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)
Oct 20 2009

Facebook’s Five Power Plants

October 20, 2009 – 9:01 am

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by Mike Mulvihill

Photo by Laban West.  Lightning over Muskogee Power Plant, Muskogee OK.

Last week the number of the week was 30,000  –  that’s how many servers support Facebook’s operations.  (No wonder, Facebook produces 25TB – yep, tera-bytes – of log data per day).  The numbers comes from Jeff Rothschild,  the vice president of technology at Facebook, who discussed the company’s infrastructure in a presentation last week at UC San Diego.  BTW, this is a pretty rapid ramp up from the 10,000 servers  Facebook has been claiming since April 2008. 

At 30,000 servers, Facebook data operations now consume somewhere in the order of 3,800 MW of electricity,  including cooling and power distribution costs,  just so we can stay connected with our friends.  (Since I don’t know exactly what servers Facebook has in use, this number could be slightly lower or a lot higher.)  To put 3,800 MW in perspective, that’s about five power plants (big electric generation plants of 750 MW a piece).  Not an insignificant footprint. 

Social media is a great tool for spreading information and mobilizing people on lots of topics and issues. Here’s an issue to add to the pot – at what point does the fantastic rise of social networks create enough harm to offset the benefit?    

In a world looking to reduce the impact of energy generation by using less energy, our social media jones is one of the drivers behind the doubling of servers in use in the U.S. (from 5.6 million in 2003 to 11.8 million in 2007).  An individual data center consumes somewhere in the area of 5 MW of energy – the equivalent of 5 million houses of electricity.  Some data centers consume as much as 30 MW.  (I have even seen plans for a 50 MW data center that proudly points out that it would be a very green 50 MW data center.)  In 2005, it is estimated that 1.2 percent of al U.S. electricity was consumed by servers, a 100 percent increase from 2000.  IDC projects another 40 percent to 76 percent increase by next year, which would be about 2 percent of all electricity in 2010.  

I’m not picking on Facebook or even social media, but the point is we all have behaviors that impact our environment, some are just more self evident than others.  Plasma TVs that consume as much as 9 percent of a home’s power consumption mostly in standby mode.  More and more devices consuming more and more energy – if we’re going to try to reduce the number of power plants needed to feed the beast (us), then we have got to change our ways.  Change our behaviors. Do things differently. Energy efficiency – it’s great to talk about.  But are we really having any impact or is all that talking just adding more servers to Facebook?

 

 

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, PR, Social Networks, communications, green, social cause, social media | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (10)