Print: Here Today, Here to Stay

A few articles that I have read lately have prompted a follow-up to my post “Print: Here today, gone tomorrow?” This is that follow-up (cue the Law & Order sound effect). Seriously though, the first was my opinion on its own and the articles I have read lately support that view and are incorporated into this post. Washington Post authors Geoffrey E. Fowler and Marie C. Baca examine the e-reader trend in their article “The ABC’s of E-Reading” http://bit.ly/bpJkcp. Their article positions e-readers as an extension of a reader’s habits and not a replacement for the printed word. Although it shows that more people are reading because of e-readers, it takes great care to point out why the printed word (books, etc.) will always exist alongside any new trends. You can read a book during a plane’s take-off and landing, researcher Jakob Nielsen shows that it takes e-reader users longer to read a book because of the screen technology, there are no page numbers (not as accessible to book clubs and students because of this) and digital locks on e-books prohibit sharing. Overall the authors present a nice unbiased view, supporting both its benefits and its drawbacks. I have to disagree on their argument in support of its portability though. It is an electronic device, and if you drop it in water or get something in it you will lose your data. Books are much more durable.

Another article, “Newspapers gone by 2022, says futurist” by Lara Sinclair http://bit.ly/dCWtPO discusses how news is becoming more and more portable and news via mobile and other technological devices is the news-on-the-go of the future. She has a very one-sided article solely because of the strong viewpoint that traditional newspapers will disappear. This is countered in the next article I read “Seven Reasons Print Will Make a Comeback in 2011″ by Joe Pulizzi http://bit.ly/dnfkD6. He cites a journalist who states that it is harder and harder to get people to commit to interviews for online articles and easier to get them to commit to something that will be printed. Also, the author states that people still find print more credible than anything on the web. The main point of his article is that direct mail, custom print magazines and newsletters will become popular marketing tools again, simply because there are so few of them now that they will stick out and draw attention. His seven reasons for the comeback of print are: less print mail = more attention paid and fewer print mail leaves room for content marketing, focus on customer retention, no audience development costs, what’s old is new again, print is more challenging to readers, it still excites people and more and more people unplug from time to time. All of these are good arguments in support of my view that print is here to stay.

Facebook Places: Consumer Psychology At Work

Ever wish you had ESP ? Facebook has invented something just as good. First there was Gowalla and Foursquare and now Facebook has joined the geolocation trend. Recently Facebook launched Facebook Places, an entity that is simultaneously an example of word-of-mouth and consumer psychology at work. I wrote a post several weeks back about the tie-in between Amazon and Facebook utilizing word of mouth to make shopping more social. Facebook Places takes that to another level by existing as a social networking tool that utilizes the power of word-of-mouth and the influence and weight of a friends’ opinion (which carries tremendous weight as I can tell you from my experience in retail) to drive business.

1) Facebook Places Connects the Virtual and Physical World: There are always those who say that social networking and technology are erasing face-to-face communication. Facebook Places encourages social networkers to get out and explore and bring their friends along. A log is kept in the virtual world of events taking place in the physical world. In fact, it could restore the value of face-to-face communication.

2) Facebook Places Gives Businesses More Visibility: By allowing businesses to connect with current and potential customers, distribute special offers and reward customer loyalty, business increases.

3) Facebook Places Drives Business: Friends see that friends of theirs are nearby at a business, chances are they will be enticed to join in and spend money at the same place their friends are at. At the very least they will see that a lot of their friends like particular places. Everyone wants to belong and the easiest way to belong is to conform to a set of beliefs and ideals that the group you want to be a part of has in common. Friends persuade friends, introduce friends, or recommend that friends try different products or services that they use everyday. Facebook Places makes this more public by displaying and distributing that information on a grand scale through announcing their location. Not so grand that users do not have control over privacy though. 

With so many technological and social networking conveniences, the power and influence of word-of-mouth and face-to-face communication gets taken for granted. Facebook Places poses an interesting opportunity for a ’back-to-basics’ approach. It brings people together in the virtual and physical worlds simultaneously, offers businesses more visibility and  because of that it drives business. In short, Facebook Places is a social networking tool with tremendous potential and benefits.

Yahoo Style Guide: AP Style Guide’s Counterpart

Within this new digital and technological age there is always something new and upcoming that competes with, and some may even argue eclipses and renders obsolete, older models and technology. The Kindle emerged as a new form of the book, the cd emerged as the new form of the tape, etc. However, most of these newer models never completely replace their predecessors. There are always going to be people out there who crave the original. Case in point, a teenager the other day told me that he owns records and that records are making a comeback. In other words, these newer models simply fill niches within the scope of what can be created. They continue to exist alongside their predecessors. Similar to this is the case of ”The Yahoo Style Guide,” as written about in the article prompting this post titled “The Write Stuff” written by Bill Grueskin on the Columbia Journalism Review website http://bit.ly/bVveei.

This style guide is written for the digital age and is attempting to position itself as a comprehensive style guide, although it is geared more towards online publishing. It incorporates elements of the AP Stylebook (in the sense of capitals, etc.), but is mainly focused on educating those publishing online content about how to win over the online reader. Short, simple and consistent is touted over long, complex and laxity. A chart is included to show how online readers’ eyes track across the page and size up elements that lead them to decide whether to click or leave. Tips for how to identify your audience, develop a consistent voice, and drive traffic to your site are also included in this 500 page guide. While it fills in a gap that the AP Stylebook does not cover, its shortcomings render it a counterpart and not a replacement. For example it barely covers legal and ethical issues, which are the most important things to consider. Another downfall the author points out is that it is geared more toward marketing than journalism. However, in an age where more online publishing is occurring I think this is a moot point. Journalists can benefit from search engine optimization just as much as marketers. Basically, it attempts to be comprehensive but does not quite achieve that status. I expect that many people in the communications industry will adopt it as a counterpart. When it comes to writing though, the AP Style Guide will continue to be more revered. Perhaps someday the AP Stylebook and Yahoo can join together and create something truly comprehensive; now that would be interesting to see. For now, it is a nice addition to the publishing tool box.

Nestlé, iPhone 4 Antennagate: Lessons in Crisis Response

Two recent pr crisis situations that have made the news recently bear striking similarities. The first of which is Nestle and its palm oil crisis. PR Week’s article “Nestlé Faces Facebook Crisis Over Greenpeace Rainforest Allegations” by Gemma O’Reilly and Kate Magee http://bit.ly/aXsux7 discusses the situation and its negative response. Reports that Nestlé has been sourcing palm oil from Sinar Mas, an Indonesian company accused of illegal deforestation of rainforests, has resulted in negative connotations for the company’s image. This has prompted intense criticism on Facebook and Twitter, which has been handled the wrong way. Initially a Nestlé employee was answering critiques on Facebook, but doing so in a way that lashed out at consumers. Now that employee has ceased and no one is attempting to placate. Instead they just ignore comments posted and continue going about business as usual on Facebook by posting positive image news. This does not make the problem go away, as just last week I looked at their Facebook page and discovered the negative comments have continued.

Apple iPhone 4′s ‘Antennagate’ crisis is similar in this respect, as Reuters’ article “Defiant Jobs stands by iPhone 4, dishes out cases” by Gabriel Madway and Poornima Gupta reported back in July http://bit.ly/cM3MSS. Apple first told consumers to just not hold the phone that way, and later Steve Jobs vehemently denied that the iPhone 4 reception was a problem. He remarked “”This is life in the smartphone world. Phones aren’t perfect. Most every smartphone we tested behaved like this.” So instead of dealing with the problem they entered a state of denial, stating its reception was comparable to other smartphones. After this and blaming the user for holding it this way, they shifted the blame to a hardware glitch that overstates signal strength. It was a long process of denial before customer service kicked in with free cases on behalf of Apple to iPhone 4 users. The moral from both of these is that a prompt acknowledgement to customers and a fast and appropriate solution are essential to good crisis communications and a business’ image. Both Nestlé and Apple neglected the core of what makes them successful: their customers. The last thing you want to do is blame, negatively respond to, or alienate your customer base in a crisis situation. These were big mistakes and will surely become two more scenarios for the crisis communications case study book.

ShopLocal: Reinventing the Circular Ad for the Digital Age

Coupons have seen a resurgence in this recession, as more and more consumers scour websites, mailboxes and newspaper ads for the biggest and best deals on a variety of merchandise. At the same time, a key tenet of farmers markets is to get people to buy local because it is fresher, reduces pollution (not contributing to items trucked in from far away) and supports the community (it is also cheaper because it does not travel far). ShopLocal takes advantage of the trend to save and the movement to buy local, by anchoring it in the broader sense of commodities and adding it into social media. Both Joseph Tartakoff’s article “MSN Adds Localized Deals from Gannett’s ShopLocal” and Mark Walsh’s article “ShopLocal Unveils Facebook Marketing Suite” show how this is taking place. Joseph Tartakoff talks about MSN adding ShopLocal’s deals into its “Local Edition” pages, a new feature since its redesign. Set up similar to an online newspaper site, “Local Edition” lets users view local weather, news, traffic, restaurant reviews and now circular ads from the user’s local area. Mark Walsh talks about how Facebook has allowed retailers to add circular ads to their Facebook pages. Their marketing suite also offers a Deals tab, which delivers targeted ads of popular products geared towards that user, as determined by their Facebook profile data.

Both integrations of ShopLocal reinvent the circular ad by targeting consumers and doing so in the digital arena. Subsequently, it encourages them to buy local. While buying local in this sense does not hold all of the same connotations or produce all of the same effects as it does in the farmer’s market sense, it does bolster the local economy and give advertiser’s different venues and platforms for delivering their message. Plus, not only does it deliver their message, but it delivers it to those who are more likely to utilize it, making it more effective than the traditional circular ad. Lots of things are going digital, such as music, shopping, and books, and suggestions for online users are becoming increasingly targeted. Now we have targeted online circular ads, and it could be possible someday for television viewers to receive targeted commercials and outdoor billboards to display targeted ads based on who walks by at certain times of the day. Advertising is the next thing to become targeted and this is only the beginning.