Jeremiah Owyang was kind enough to tap SHIFT Communications among a dozen or so other Social Media thought leaders to investigate Best Practices in Facebook Marketing.  The result is a must-read:

(You can count this as more great content from Altimeter Group — yet again offered FREE!  Think they’re giving the gang at Forrester and Gartner Group agita, yet?)

The hilarious Old Spice campaign from 2 weeks ago rightfully caused a viral stir.  The project was funny and well-executed.  Whether or not the brand’s sales rise remains to be seen, but my guess is that, to most marketers, it won’t matter: they’ll press their agencies to “do something as cool as the Old Spice campaign” whether it passes the ROI test or not. 

Two things occured to me during the campaign.

#1 was that consumers LOVED the fact that the brand’s spokesman interacted with them directly.  This “1:1:many” approach has long been touted as one of the key benefits of Social Media Marketing, and it was writ large via Old Spice.  I say “1:1:many” to denote that the interactions with the spokesman were 1:1, but the dialogue was performed in public, thus the “many” (and thus, the outsized credit attributed to the responses). 

This “customization as performance” model is sure to strike many as the Next Big Thing in Marketing, despite the fact that it’s been done in smallball fashion via the public-facing Customer Service efforts of brands like Comcast, Dell, etc.

#2 was a caution: what happens in public can be derailed in public. 

As I tweeted about during the campaign, actress Alyssa Milano’s public challenge to Old Spice to donate $100K to Gulf Cleanup efforts went unanswered.  The challenge was covered in high-profile outlets like the Huffington Post, and still went unanswered… To date, no one seems very interested in helping Ms. Milano’s challenge go viral, but, one can easily imagine how a fun campaign like Old Spice’s could get caught up in an unforseen imbroglio that destroyed all that newfound goodwill! 

Welcome to the future. It won’t always smell as good as Old Spice.

We’ve been on a bit of a hiring binge at SHIFT lately, and as part of that process we’ll routinely tell all our friends on Facebook and Twitter that we’re looking for “rockstars.”

But every professional services firm touts their rockstars, everyone’s looking for rockstars.  Look at any number of PR pros’ LinkedIn profiles and you’ll soon grow nauseous at the number of “rockstar” descriptions.

So what makes a PR rockstar?  Let’s start with what a rockstar is NOT. 

A rockstar is NOT just someone who gets a lot of ink for their clients.  Getting a lot of ink for clients is part of the job; it’s tablestakes, really.  A rockstar is NOT just someone who does a great job in newbiz pitches.  Again, this is part of the job description.

To be sure, you can’t be a PR rockstar WITHOUT getting a lot of ink and impressing newbiz prospects, but these attributes alone are not enough to excel beyond your peers.

The true “rockstar” does their job, and then goes beyond.  The rockstar is:

ANTICIPATORY: the rockstar sees around the bend; they counteract “issues” before they become “gripes.”  They know from experience and/or common sense how to get ahead of challenges, and they do a good job of sharing that knowledge with their co-workers and peers.

THOUGHTFUL: the rockstar gets to know their clients so well that they can spot trends even before the client does, and can recommend strategies that would allow the client to exploit these industry changes ahead of the pack.

PROACTIVE: the rockstar knows that the Agency has needs above and beyond “account services.”  They research and recommend ways for the firm to be more efficient or successful.

CURIOUS: the rockstar asks “why” a lot — not from cluelessness, but from a desire to grasp or grapple with the difficult concepts of-interest to their clients or of importance to the Agency or industry.  A curious PR pro is a creative PR pro.

CARING: the rockstar cares about the Agency’s reputation; about their team mates’ workloads; about typos in a memo or newbiz deck.  The rockstar cares about “Perfection” enough to strive mightily for it … but also cares enough about their colleagues (and their own mental health!) enough to know that “Perfection” is not always possible.

You don’t need to be a rockstar to thrive in a PR agency.  There are myriad ways to show value.  You can get tons of ink and/or know every influencer and/or score big in newbiz, and you’ll have a job for life. But that makes you a terrific PR pro, not a rockstar.

Do you fit the rockstar profile?  Cuz we are still hiring!

What do you do when a client wants “the truth?”

What do you do when the client wants to know what you really think about how their in-house PR manager is doing, or howcum their story isn’t getting more ink, or whether their strategy is off-kilter?

You wouldn’t think “the Truth” could be such a sticky issue, but it certainly can be, due to the lopsided nature of the relationship.  Truth exists only when there is some level of equality. 

If the PR pro’s mortgage payment depends on the client’s happiness, they won’t tell the client a truth that will make them unhappy.  They’ll try to avoid doing so, or will couch the truth in a wrapper so laden in diplomatic ribbons the client will give up on unwrapping it.

Ultimately this means that the client’s program will go off the rails, and the PR pro will get blamed for it.  And while the PR person’s role in the program’s failure may be more implicit than explicit (i.e., the explicit reason is “the product sucks;” the implicit reason is that the PR person refused to make the client face facts), they’ll deserve to be fired.

When the client asks for the Truth, tell the truth.  Be diplomatic without mewling. 

It’s better to say to the client: “I’m sorry to tell you this, but this press release is not going to generate much enthusiasm in the media, for these 3 reasons…” than it is to say, “We thought this release was truly noteworthy but the press is just not picking up on it for some reason” (unsaid: “so we’re going to waste another week making fruitless phone calls, just in case.”)

It’s better to say to the client, “We have had some difficult moments with your PR manager recently.  I’m sure we can work it out, though, especially if you are able to give us some advice” than to say, “Thank goodness we lost that account, the PR manager was awful!”

The clients pay the PR agency not just for “ink” but for the benefit of that agency’s experience — including the foul-ups we’ve witnessed or caused! 

The PR pro is not supposed to be a head-nodding, name-dropping, release-flogging flack.  The PR pro is supposed to be a valued consultant whose focus on results implies a responsibility to tackle hard truths.

So make your mom proud.  Do not tell a lie.

As part of our move back to the Bay Area, I needed to have our HD-TV installed on a wall of our living room. Anything that requires a screwdriver in our household requires a call to a professional. I googled around for “home theater installers” and used ServiceMagic to identify a local contractor.

Although I’ve had spotty luck (at best) with ServiceMagic, this time they came through with a quality dude. Once I take a shine to someone, I can’t help but quiz them about how they market themselves: how’s their website doing for them, do they do any PR, do they worry about their online reviews, etc.?

After chatting with our new a/v installer, Chris Hinton (and no-doubt slowing down my own installation in the process!), I did some quick research in front of him…

“You’re lucky your number was the first one ServiceMagic gave me,” I said. “There’s no other way I could have found you!”

“Look at my local Google Results:

“Now check out Yelp:

“So let’s review. You’ve got poor SEO — you don’t even show up in Google’s Local Search results, even though you live around the corner from me.”

“And look at that huge coverage gap in the East Bay on the Yelp map: you could be the top dog in the East Bay when it comes to A/V installation, if you got just a handful of 5–star reviews.”

“And if you’re still not convinced, check out how many people in the East Bay are on Twitter (via Twellowhood):

“These folks are affluent, they’re hanging out online, and you could be interacting with them.”

“For example, once 3D TVs become a bigger deal, a lot of these local Twitterati will want that equipment — and if they know about Hinton Home Theater Installation already, cuz maybe you’ve been tweeting about 3D tv’s and video games, who do you think they will call? Don’t you want them to call y-o-u?”

We’ll see whether Chris takes my advice. Will you?

P.S. – Hinton Home Theaters did quality work at a good price, and Chris is a good guy. If you live in the Bay Area and need some home theater installation services, give him a call (408-823-9857). Tell him Todd sent ya.